If there is one thing I learned while serving as president of the Virginia Board of Education for Gov. George Allen, it was this: No one cares more about a student’s academic and personal flourishing than parents. Sadly, however, this commonsense approach to education is increasingly uncommon in the commonwealth. Concerned parents in Virginia and across America are in an uproar over out-of-control school boards and administrators like those in Loudoun County — and they should be.

Something is deeply broken in our education system when a boy in a skirt can rape a girl, as happened this year in Loudoun County, Virginia, while school leaders covered it up, refusing to disclose the incident even when asked about it. For ideological extremists to smear parents who dared to speak out as “domestic terrorists” is abhorrent and yet another sign of the cultural decay that pervades the way children are educated.