Founded in March 2021, America First Legal (AFL) serves as a sentinel for conservative parents and citizens. Headed by senior members of the first Trump Administration, including former senior advisor to the president, Stephen Miller, and former counselor to the U.S. Attorney General, Gene Hamilton, the group explains on X that its purpose is “to fight for the American people and advance the rule of law....”

Last month, AFL released its “Parents’ Rights Toolkit” for use as a bulwark against woke educators from kindergarten through the university level. A November 21 press release stated that, in addition to helping families protect their children, the kit is intended to “provide the incoming Trump Administration with a roadmap for action against woke leftist teachers and education industry bureaucrats.”

The toolkit includes templates for filing complaints with the U.S. Department of Education for violations of various federal statutes, such as discrimination on the basis of skin color, race, or ethnicity (Title VI), sex discrimination (Title IX), and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which AFL contends is “one important but little used tool for holding administrators and teachers accountable.”

The group described the scope of Title VI, Title IX and the PPRA in a press release, noting that the latter also requires schools to have “prior parental consent to ask children questions” about a variety of matters, including:

• Political beliefs or affiliations
• Mental problems or challenges
• Sexual behavior or attitudes
• Illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior
• Critical appraisals of people with close family relationships
• Relationships with lawyers, physicians, and ministers
• Religious beliefs or practices
• Income level (unless it’s asked simply regarding eligibility to participate in a program)

AFL further relates that if any surveys are administered to students “by an outside entity” (i.e., other than the school), parents have the right to review the survey first, along with any accompanying supplemental materials such as teachers’ manuals. The press release cautions, however, that schools are not required to provide copies of surveys or materials related to gender and race, although parents are entitled to review all such materials. Rather, the parents must first request to do so.

The press release concludes with a statement from AFL’s senior advisor, Ian Prior, which reads in part:

• For the past four years, public schools have been indoctrinating children with radical racist, anti-Semitic, and transgender ideologies. As these schools have blatantly violated civil rights law, the Biden Administration worked hand in glove to federalize these illegal practices. That ends in 2025.... The America First Legal Parental Rights Toolkit empowers parents to assist the federal government in identifying where the law is being broken so that we can turn our failing education system around.

What others are saying

After giving an accurate report on the toolkit, which included quotes from AFL leaders, Fox News opined that its release “comes amid a conservative wave of pushback against DEI policies.” Fox then quoted Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who asserted that “diversity works,” during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the “Dismantle DEI Act” currently before Congress. She added: “We need to go back to being a country that listens to experts and gets out of our feelings and recognizes again that racism is real in this country, and until we stop pretending that it’s not, we will not solve the problems that we are consistently facing.” It’s unclear from the report who exactly these “experts” are to whom Crockett was referring.

Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) stated online: “AFL intends for the toolkit to be used by parents as the Trump administration prepares to take office and likely implement federal reforms within the Department of Education.”

Conservative online news platform, The Daily Beat, also weighed in on AFL’s enterprise, stating:

• The activism around the “Parents’ Rights Toolkit” aligns with broader conservative educational goals, such as enhancing school choice and maintaining academic excellence. Conservatives argue that empowering parents and increasing transparency in school performance are integral to achieving these goals. The promotion of educational choice, through school choice and education savings accounts, remains pivotal.

The Beat added that “key objectives” of the AFL initiative also include promoting “programs like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, while advocating for teacher compensation based on performance.” These measures, they conclude, “are part of a concerted effort to confront self-serving systems and promote excellence.”

Part of the ‘Great Unbundling’?

The Daily Beat contends that “the AFL toolkit is synchronized with the ‘Great Unbundling,’” a relatively new term used to describe the growing trend in which parents “actively customize their children’s education by choosing individual components.”

A report on abc 15 News Arizona put it this way:

• As parents demand more flexibility in post-pandemic K-12 education, there is a proliferation of options like online schools, microschools, homeschool pods with tutors, outdoor schools, or other parent-directed, á la carte education programs.... Some researchers call it the “great unbundling” of education as parents opt out of traditional school models so they can individualize learning opportunities specifically for their children.

An article on this topic by Education Next cited reasons for the trend as including “widespread parent anxiety, frustration, or desperation over their child’s schooling,” more parents working from home and therefore present during the school day, a more willing acceptance of online schooling since the pandemic, more households locating in rural areas, etc.

The bottom line: As more educational options become available, and more influential parents’ rights organizations, including AFL, Moms for Liberty, Moms for America, and many others, actively engage, parents may actually begin to turn the tide against the teachers’ unions, public bureaucracies, and the establishment status quo. Add to this mix a more parent- and liberty- friendly new Trump Administration, and there may at last be light at the end of an otherwise increasingly dark education tunnel.

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