Texas is for Parents

June 9, 2025

Brian Phillips

For over a decade, Brian Phillips has helped policymakers and political candidates develop effective messages and communication strategies. Phillips is a veteran of presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial campaigns, and has extensive experience working in the United States Congress and public policy think tanks. Previously, he served in a senior communications role as the Director of Rapid Response for Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Prior to joining Cruz, Phillips worked as Communications Director for U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who has played a role in nearly every major policy debate since joining the Senate in 2011, including Obamacare repeal, fighting Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders, protecting Americans’ Second Amendment rights, as well as promoting numerous innovative policy reforms. Before going on to hold several senior positions in House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, Phillips worked for the highly-respected conservative Heritage Foundation as a Media Adviser promoting conservative policy reforms.

Is Texas the best state in the country for parents? If it isn’t yet, it is moving that way.

Senate Bill 12, aka the “Parents Bill of Rights” by authors Sen. Brandon Creighton and Rep. Jeff Leach, is a monumental step toward solidifying parental rights and ensuring they have the tools to protect their kids.

If you’ve heard of it at all, it’s probably because the media has lobbed criticism for banning DEI curriculum in schools. But it goes much further than that in preserving parents’ role as the most important influence in a child’s life.

If that sounds like stating the obvious, well, it’s a sad commentary on where we are and how the left has used institutions like schools to push parents out.

The bill opens unequivocally: “The fundamental rights granted to parents by their Creator and upheld by the United States Constitution, the Texas Constitution, and the laws of this state, including the right to direct the moral and religious training of the parent ’s child, make decisions concerning the child ’s education, and consent to medical, psychiatric, and psychological treatment of the parent ’s child…may not be infringed on by any public elementary or secondary school or state governmental entity, including the state or a political subdivision of the state.”

After banning DEI, radical gender ideology, and social transitioning in schools, it lays out in detail several major changes that will empower parents:

Parents are to be made aware of any change in student ’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being, and it prohibits employees from discouraging students from talking to their parents about it.
Parents must first consent before students can fill out health-related questionnaires.
Schools must post on their websites the instructional plan for each class and provide an online portal for parents to submit comments to administrators and the board.
Parents must be given access to all written records concerning their child, which now includes books their child may have checked out in the library.
Schools must notify parents within 24 hours if a school employee believes a crime has been committed against their child.

SB12 will be on the governor’s desk soon and will be law shortly after that. It compliments other recent legislative efforts to help Texas parents, like creating educational savings accounts, banning cell phones in classrooms, and the App Store Accountability Act.

If Texas isn’t already the best state for parents, it soon will be.

This commentary is published on Thursdays as part of TPPF’s subscriber-only newsletter The Post. If you would like to subscribe to The Post, click here

Brian Phillips

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