Chavez-DeRemer: Parents Bill of Rights floor speech

Chavez-DeRemer Discusses Support for Parents Bill of Rights during Floor Speech
By Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer,
Press Release

(March 24/2023) Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Parents Bill of Rights, which seeks to promote children’s well-being and success by empowering parents and ensuring they have a seat at the table in their child’s education. As a cosponsor of the proposal and as a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) delivered a speech on the House floor in support of the bill. Click HERE

to watch Chavez-DeRemer’s remarks.

During the committee’s recent markup of the Parents Bill of Rights, Chavez-DeRemer led two proposals that were successfully adopted in the final bill. Her efforts strengthen two of the five core principles of the Parents Bill of Rights: Parents have the right to know what their children are being taught, and parents have the right to see the school’s budget and spending.

Specifically, one of her proposals seeks to save parents time by requiring schools to release simplified fact sheets that break down their budgets in easy-to-understand terms. The other proposal seeks to lower the burden on teachers and set them up for success by establishing a specific and consistent timeframe for curriculum review – bringing much-needed order and stability to the process. Learn more HERE.

Below is a full transcription of Chavez-DeRemer’s floor speech:

I rise today as a proud mother of twin daughters. 

As a parent, I know moms and dads agree that we all want what’s best for our children.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult for us to let our sons and daughters go on their first day of kindergarten – we have to start placing an enormous amount of trust in our teachers and administrators to do what’s best for our children.

But at the end of the day, nobody will understand a child’s interests and needs more than the people who love them most: their parents.

So, it’s easy to understand why parents want to have – and deserve to have – the right to know what’s going on inside the classroom. It is their responsibility.

That’s why we need the Parents Bill of Rights: to help students succeed by ensuring every parent can have a voice in their child’s education.

During the committee markup on this bill, I was honored to lead two proposals that are now included.

One will help parents better understand the priorities of their children’s school by bringing much-needed clarity to school budgets.

The other sets both parents and teachers up for success by simplifying the curriculum-feedback process.

My proposals build on two of the five core principles in the Parents Bill of Rights: Parents have the right to know what their children are being taught, and parents have the right to see the school’s budget and spending.

I will always fight to protect parental involvement and to put parents first.

I’m proud to support the Parents Bill of Rights.