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January 26, 20006

House Majority Leader Voter Guide
Parental Rights & Educational Freedom

Use this Guide

INTRODUCTION:
The race for the US House of Representatives Majority Leaders post between John Boehner (R-OH), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and John Shadegg (R-AZ) has major ramifications for the philosophy and direction of the Congress on many topics, including whether or not the unconstitutional federal expansion into education, mental health, and family life will continue unchecked.

EdAction has composed this voters guide of the legislative record of the three candidates in the areas of K-12 education and mental health screening and drugging to give our readers a picture of the three candidates on these very important issues. Please use this guide to examine the stances of the three candidates and urge your Republican Member of Congress to support the candidate that aligns most closely with your views. The issues raised in this guide may also be considered for use with candidates in the 2006 Congressional elections.

1.) K-12 EDUCATION NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:
Despite a few freedom-affirming amendments, the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), called No Child Left Behind (NCLB) authored by John Boehners Education and Workforce Committee has been a disaster for academic education, for preparing American children to live as free citizens in a constitutional republic, for parental rights, and for national sovereignty. NCLB has also expanded early childhood programs and the psychologizing of education via many dangerous and ineffective mental health programs. It has put into hyperdrive the unconstitutional federal interference in education that began in earnest in 1965 with the ESEAs passage. Detailed background on NCLB, as well as the federal laws and international agreements that under gird it, is available at www.edwatch.org and in two books by Allen Quist FedEd : The New Federal Curriculum and How Its Enforced and Americas Schools: The Battleground for Freedom. A condensed discussion of the highlights (really lowlights) and some of the details of this over 1000 page law is available here

A NO vote on NCLB is a vote for freedom:
Blunt: Yes Boehner: Yes Shadegg: No

2) UNIVERSAL MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING: A serious side effect of growing federal control in education and the accountability movement is that every aspect of students and their families lives is thought to affect a students performance and by extension, the schools performance and funding. Schools then try to evaluate, account for, control, and treat all of these different areas that are the responsibility of families and should be completely outside the purview of government entities. One of the most dangerous and insidious areas in which education and government have become involved is the social and emotional or mental health of children. Education, mental health, and government experts have been trying to promote mental health screening of very young children in order to prevent mental illness and improve academic performance. Among the many problems with this approach is that mental health diagnoses are vague, subjective, often politically motivated, and are especially difficult to accurately apply to children.

Since the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health final report in 2004 which recommended the mental health screening of all American citizens starting in preschool and the use of powerful, ineffective, and dangerous psychiatric drugs EdAction and a whole coalition of national groups, professionals, parents, and concerned citizens have been fighting to reign in federal mental health programs and protect families from coerced mental health screening. Background is available here and here.

The Parental Consent Act (HR 181) This bill authored by Congressman and physician Ron Paul requires written, informed voluntary, parental consent for any federally funded mental health screening program. It also prohibits federal funding for any program that would promote the charging a parent with child abuse or neglect for refusing to submit their child for a mental health screening program. This bill was introduced in 2005 and has 44 cosponsors, but has not yet received a hearing.

YES on co-sponsorship of HR 181 supports freedom and parental rights:

Blunt: No Boehner: No Shadegg: Yes

Amendments to prohibit funding for universal mental health screening programs Congressman Paul has sponsored amendments to the Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill for the last two years to prohibit federal funds for universal mental health screening programs.

A "YES" vote on these amendments supports freedom and parental rights:

FY 2005

Blunt: No Boehner: No Shadegg: Yes

FY 2006

Blunt: No Boehner: No Shadegg: Yes

3) COERCED PSYCHIATRIC DRUGGING:
Another outgrowth of the expansion of mental health in the schools is the coerced drugging of children with powerful psychotropic drugs. There has been a spate of incidents around the country in which schools have threatened or instigated charges of child abuse, child neglect, or educational neglect when parents have refused or discontinued these medications. The drugs like Ritalin and Prozac have serious, sometimes lethal side effects such as hallucinations, suicide, and violence and have proven in study after study to be ineffective in children for the treatment of depression and attention deficit disorder. (See a summary of some of this research) John Boehner did work to pass a bill that became part of the special education reauthorization (IDEA) last year that prohibited federal funding for special education programs that allowed this type of coercion with certain psychiatric drugs, but not all of them. A stand-alone version of that bill that would have applied to all students authored passed the House 425-1 in 2003, but was blocked in the Senate. An expanded version of the Child Medication Safety Act (HR 1790) authored by Rep. John Kline (R-MN) and co-sponsored by Mr. Boehner that would protect ALL students from coercion with ANY psychiatric drug passed the House on November 16, 2005 by a vote of 407-12. (See our report.)

A YES vote on the Child Medication Safety Act is a vote for freedom and parental rights:
Blunt: Yes Boehner: Yes Shadegg: Yes

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