Education owes a lot to parents. But where do their rights begin and end? – By Stephanie Hanes & Sarah Matusek (CS Monitor) / July 1, 2022
In the early afternoon at a one-room schoolhouse northeast of Hampton, Nebraska, a bespectacled teacher named Robert T. Meyer opened a Bible and began to read – in German. This was a daily event for him and his elementary aged students at the Zion Evangelical Lutheran parochial school; the best way, he and the children’s immigrant parents agreed, for his pupils to learn religion.
It was also, Mr. Meyer knew, illegal.
The prior year, 1919, in the shadow of World War I and in the midst of growing tension among ethnic groups in the Midwest, the Nebraska state legislature had passed a bill outlawing elementary educational instruction in any language other than English. It was a part of a flurry of laws intended to ensure that young students grew up American in “language, thought and ideals,” according to politicians. And it was part of a debate that would continue to swirl around the intersection of schools, parents, and democracy for a century – the precursor to the fights sweeping school board meetings the last few years, or the new “parental rights” bills introduced in statehouses across the country.
