Before thousands of school children poured out of schools across the country last week to demand “gun control,” the resolution introduced by Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates Dave LaRock might not have gained a lot of attention.
The National School Walkout on Wednesday was organized by left-wing groups, including the Women’s March and Planned Parenthood, and was meant to “honor” the 17 people who died last month after a former student with mental health issues went on a shooting spree at a Florida high school.
In many places, including Washington, DC, the walkout turned into protests where young students threatened lawmakers and demanded the gun control agenda of those left-wing groups who organized them.
But now the resolution LaRock introduced in January seems like an idea that is desperately needed to protect American school children from being indoctrinated instead of educated.
LaRock explained in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday with Washington Deputy Political Editor Amanda House on SiriusXM Patriot 125 that his resolution asks the Board of Education to come up with a code of ethics for teachers in grades K-12.
Like the federal Hatch Act, LaRock’s resolution — inspired by conservative pundit David Horowitz — would prevent individuals from using their position to promote their political views or support a specific candidate.
“That’s exactly what is happening in schools,” LaRock said. “I think many teachers are using their position as a role model and an educator.”
Teachers are “imposing their own personal views — very often their pretty extremely liberal views — on kids through lessons and comments and sometimes even bullying kids that don’t agree with their liberal viewpoint,” LaRock said.
“It’s just very, very inappropriate and wrong,” LaRock said, citing an example of a local school teacher who signed up to be a coordinator for the walkout on a website using her school e-mail address.
And while the desire to keep kids safe in school is not a partisan issue, using children as “political tools” is not the way to achieve that goal, LaRock said.
“We all share the goal of making schools safer,” LaRock said.
“But to have these kids — put them out in the spotlight — I think in many cases ill-informed — and using them as political tools is right out of the Alinsky school of political activism,” LaRock said, referring to Saul Alinsky, the so-called founder of “community organizing.”
“So this K-12 Code of Ethics for teachers simply proposes setting some boundaries — reasonable boundaries — that respects teachers’ right to free speech maybe in their off time, but also recognizes that when they have kids there in the classroom that’s not a time for the teacher to be promoting their own personal viewpoints or policies or candidates,” La Rock said.
LaRock said parents were caught off guard by the walkout, but now many are angry about it.
“There are a lot of people that are pretty furious about this,” LaRock said. “I think it took a while to sink in because we do think of schools as places where kids go to be taught in reading, writing, and arithmetic and a bunch of other good things but not to be trained into being little activists,” LaRock said.
LaRock said students should be taught to be critical thinker, not recipients of political rhetoric.
He said parents need to get involved in their children’s education.
“Parents need to be driving the discussion, whether it’s with the schools themselves or with their own kids so that we’re not just this angry mob reacting on emotion,” LaRock said.
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