MANC HESTER, Conn.

Call it an opportunistic feint in the "culture war" if you want, but the "Parental Bill of Rights" proposed the other week by the Republican nominees for Connecticut governor and lieutenant governor, Bob Stefanowski and state Rep. Laura Devlin, raises important issues that Connecticut should stop evading.

Several of the Republican proposals are vague. The Republicans say that they oppose presenting sexual topics to the youngest students but don't specify an age or grade at which sex education in school becomes appropriate. Of course, this vagueness is not likely to protect the Republicans from the Democratic demagoguery that in Florida misrepresents the state's fourth-grade threshold as a "Don't Say Gay" law.

The Republicans oppose student masking and vaccination requirements that deny parents "any recourse to object," but that recourse isn't defined either. Should Connecticut reinstate a religious exemption from vaccination of students for the basic childhood diseases? The Republicans don't say.

The Republicans call for expanding school choice for students in underperforming schools and endorse vouchers in principle. Would church schools qualify for these initiatives with government money?

While the long decline in public education's performance argues strongly for making church schools eligible, especially in the cities, again the Republican candidates aren't clear. Gov. Ned Lamont contends that state government's system of magnet schools provides sufficient choice, but in a recent court settlement his administration admitted that the system is not sufficient, that it is unable to meet demand for escape from many failing schools and should expand. Meanwhile, Catholic schools have been closing even as the need for their old competence and economy has exploded.

The Republicans propose spending a lot more money on tutoring students whose education was set back the most by the closing of in-person schooling during the virus epidemic. The Republicans also propose spending more to secure schools against attack. The Republicans don't say exactly where the money should come from, but then as state government rolls in billions of dollars of free federal money, the Democrats don't care much about where money is to come from either.

At least the Republicans are specific in calling to prohibit biological males from competing in girls sports in public schools. But the Republicans frame this as a matter of safety when it is really a matter of fairness, of preserving equal opportunity for girls under Title IX of federal civil rights law.

No matter, since Democratic demagoguery here will accuse the Republicans of "transphobia" and worse, even as Governor Lamont is trying to dodge the issue by contending that policy on transgender athletes should be left to local option -- that is, that the rights of female students should vary among school systems, even as many high school sports events involve two or more towns that could have contradictory policies.

The Republicans dodge a little here too, saying that some mechanism should be developed so that boys wanting to be girls can keep competing. But of course they already can compete in events for their biological sex.

Unfortunately omitted from the Republican proposals is any reference to the policies of deception already adopted by school systems in Hartford, New Haven and some other places in regard to students with gender dysphoria. Such policies forbid schools from notifying parents if their children are getting their school's help in changing their gender identity and names, unless the children approve of informing their parents.

Such policies usurp parental custody, may prevent parents from controlling the medical treatment of their children, and may cause critical delays in treatment before irreversible harm is done.

While such policies have been adopted nominally in the open, at public meetings, they have not been widely publicized and, at least in Hartford and New Haven, not directly publicized to parents at all. That's because any school that made sure that parents fully understood that they will be kept ignorant about the health of their children might face much angry objection.

Of all the rights parents have or should have, none is greater than the right to know exactly what schools are doing with the health and very identities of their children.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Connecticut. He can be reached at CPowell@JournalInquirer.com.

Chris Powell: Conn. GOP’s ‘Parental Bill of Rights’ should be just the start

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