Who are Parents to Decide About Their Child?

Last month, William C. Mims was appointed to Virginia’s Supreme Court after a public career that included service in the House of Delegates, the state Senate, and as the state’s Attorney General. I remember when he was first running for Delegate and knocked upon my door to ask for my vote.

He asked whether I had any concerns that he could act upon as a legislator, and I did. Under the law, my daughter was born a month and a half too young to start public kindergarten, when we as parents thought was appropriate and would have been consistent with the law when I was young. He expressed his sympathy, because his own daughter had suffered under the same legal limitation. However, he said that as a legislator that he would be in no position to change that law.

As a parent, he knew that the law was inconsistent with the educational requirements of specific children. Despite his concern for his own daughter, he did nothing to advance her educational interests. Given his influence, an opportunity, and the power to right a wrong for future individuals, he refused to act. He suspended his own independent judgment and deferred to the opinions of others.

In contrast, I paid for private kindergarten so that my daughter would advance her education. However, the next year, the public school refused to recognize her achievement and wanted her to repeat kindergarten; despite her ability to read, write, and compute. As parents, we pushed to get her tested and put into 1st grade over the objections of her teacher and the school’s principal.

As a result of our continuing to exercise our independent judgment, our daughter started taking AP courses in her sophomore year and graduated high school with nearly enough credits to start college as a sophomore. She graduated summa cum laude with two degrees from a great college, where she engaged in numerous leadership opportunities. Now, she is about to start on a five year master’s-doctoral program.

While my daughter did all the work to achieve her own goals, as parents, we acted to make those opportunities available to her; however, the experts administering the public schools, attempted to obstruct her advancement by failing to treat her as an individual.

Parents have a choice to make; either defer to the opinions of the public educrats who fail to account for individual variances, or use independent judgment to focus decisions upon the requirements of your own child.