USPIE leadership recently learned that there is a new national organization, National Parents Union (NPU), with a similar focus as USPIE. At first blush, the two organizations appear to have many positions in common. Both seek to empower parents in the education of their children. Both believe families should have a powerful voice that should influence educational policies and practices in the local, state and national level. Both also seek to inform parents and provide them with resources and access to best practices in education.
However, there are important differences; both subtle and substantive. For example, USPIE is open to all parents and grandparents as well as community members, but USPIE recruits members based on their similar concern for excellence in education rather than their differences in income, marital status, incarceration history, substance abuse issues or other personal characteristics.
USPIE believes children are very important, but the core of the agenda is the family where parents are the first and most important educators of their children. Parents are not a resource to be used or corralled into a union, but individuals free to act as they determine appropriate. USPIE would never “reach around” parents to access children or make them the target of advocacy. And USPIE firmly believes in the sanctity of the family and would never advocate for our coalition to disrupt the traditional role of families as NPU does.
Fundamentally, USPIE does not believe the United States’ education system is inherently an institution of generational oppression. On the contrary, when it was at its best, the American education system provided an equitable opportunity for all children to learn to read, write and do math while developing their understanding of customary practices for success in American society. USPIE seeks a return to this model of education.
The current government education system has become one that crushes a child’s individuality and commitment to learn; that sexualizes children at an early age; that undermines the family structure and traditional values, and that shames children for their faith and family traditions. An emphasis on equity of outcome over equality of opportunity teaches our children that their own personal strengths, weaknesses and efforts are irrelevant, impediments to “justice and liberation” and must be controlled rather than nurtured.
USPIE is a nonprofit, nationwide coalition, open to parents of all backgrounds, that seeks to return education to its proper local roots and restore parental authority over their children’s education by helping parents and local communities to escape federal and other national influences.
Grassroots leaders from around the country are working to 1) expose the lies being taught in government schools that harm children and threaten freedom, 2) encourage parents to take back responsibility to educate their children, 3) initiate and support efforts to return complete local control of government schools, and 4) encourage states to wean themselves off the federal education dole.
It is the vision of USPIE to create a culture where parents, empowered with the authority to choose what and how their children learn, are the undisputed primary educators of their children; where local schools operate in support of families, and where education is unencumbered by federal mandates.
Respect for others, the truth, fiscal accountability and excellence undergird all USPIE’s efforts.
Please join and support USPIE.org, not the divisive new organization, National Parents Union.
United States Parents Involved in Education 