ROUND ROCK, Texas — Paper planes whizzed and dipped and careened into the audience while parents gleefully ducked for cover. At the front of the drab hotel conference room, a man deadpanned, “You all signed a waiver before you came in here?” The speaker, Chris Cardiff, was urging the room of parents to take control over their children’s understanding of American history. His presentation raced through the “competing narratives” that young children faced: “Celebrate ‘diversity,’” it went, versus “e pluribus unum.”
“Why would you have targeting of young children?” Cardiff said. “Because, first of all, people on the left side of the political spectrum are targeting preschoolers with their version of history.”
It was the start of a gathering, one of several run across the country by a group called the Great Homeschool Conventions, which brings together families who are part of America’s fast ballooning and politically forceful homeschooling movement…