It’s not just that Democrats lack respect for parents or their rights as the primary caretakers and educators of their children. The problem is that, in many cases, leftists and their allies in the public education system have outright disdain for parents.

Consider this response from New Hampshire state Rep. Tommy Hoyt to an email from a constituent asking him to support a parental rights bill in the state legislature.

The constituent, a parent of four children, wrote to Hoyt, “Good afternoon … I am writing to ask that you pass SB 272 without any amendments.” The parent went on to argue that parents are just as capable of educating their children, if not more so, as teachers and should thus be guaranteed a say in the education process. This is a basic position held by just about everyone except for Hoyt and the leftist activists who see parents as an obstacle to be bulldozed rather than as the employers who pay their bills.

Hoyt replied: “Do you know why children’s results tanked during COVID? Their parents were incompetent teachers. Do your children a favor, let the teachers teach, and shut up. You’re clearly no professional.”

I suppose we ought to thank Hoyt for his honesty, though he’s hardly the only Democrat who feels this way. Remember Terry parents-don’t-get-to-tell-teachers-what-to-teach McAuliffe? Or how about the president of the United States, who thinks children are a collective unit over which the state has equal ownership?

Unfortunately, this is how much of the education establishment thinks as well. Just this week, a Florida teacher under investigation for exposing her students to inappropriate LGBT content insisted that parents don’t have the right to object to her curriculum.

“These conversations, these doors, they’re open. These students have one-to-one devices,” Jenna Barbee, a fifth-grade teacher in Hernando County, Florida, told CNN.

Parents who are “telling you I’m stripping [their] rights as a parent, those rights are gone when your child is in the public school system,” Barbee added.

Again, the honesty is at least refreshing. Perhaps now parents will think twice before giving these activists, and the ideology they represent, the time of day.

Kaylee McGhee White is the editor of Restoring America for the Washington Examiner and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.