Republicans Promise National Education Fight in Midterms

Seizing on the fervor surrounding Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s unlikely victory in a blue state, Republicans across the country gearing up for the midterms are promising a major education reform push focused on parental rights and educational standards.

Youngkin traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday to speak at the Republican Governors Association (RGA) about the impact education had on his campaign — one that many believe can serve as a blueprint for taking back control of the House in 2022.

“The polls kept telling us that education was the seventh or eighth or ninth most important issue,” he said. “Let me tell you, it is the top issue right now, and Republicans across the country can own this topic.”

Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, left, speaks to reporters while Gov.-elect Glen Youngkin, of Virginia, Govs. Greg Abbott, of Texas, and Kim Reynolds and Pete Ricketts, of Nebraska, listen at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Phoenix on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021 (AP Photo/Jonathan J. Cooper).

A Republican path to victory, Youngkin said, would involve advocating for “strong schools that teach our children how to excel, not watering down the curriculum, a school where parents have a say in what their children are being taught.”

Breitbart News reported, “Public education bec[ame] a dark horse issue for Democrats” across the country in 2021, as parents have become increasingly aware of Critical Race Theory as an indoctrination scheme permeating every aspect of public education, as well as promotion of gender theory that has resulted, in some instances, in schools “transitioning” children to a different gender without parental consent, even despite their expressed objections, and in Loudoun County, Virginia, an alleged rape coverup by their school board to justify their passage of a far-left transgender policy.

“All the momentum is on our side, and Glenn’s race was the canary in the coal mine,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who endorsed Youngkin’s candidacy for governor, said at the RGA.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) went even further, saying, “The Glenn Youngkin race provides a roadmap for Republicans in blue states and swing states. His win will define a new generation of Republican leadership and is a huge boost nationally going into 2022. This will be the most important election cycle in more than a decade for our party.”

“The teachers unions and these systems are prioritizing the system over the child, and every parent is standing up and saying, ‘Wait! Wait! Wait! I have a say. My kid is an individual and should be treated as such,’” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said of education’s new electoral prominence for Republicans.

Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) spoke at a press conference held by conservative-libertarian advocacy group FreedomWorks, deriding the “absolute hostility of the Biden Administration toward concerned parents,” referencing Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to sic the FBI on parents the National School Boards Association labeled “domestic terrorists”:

This morning, I was honored to join FreedomWorks’ Director of Education Reform, and concerned parents across the nation to speak against the absolute hostility of the Biden Administration toward concerned parents, culminating with labeling them “domestic terrorists”. pic.twitter.com/cuZd0ojBjL

— Congressman Bob Good (@RepBobGood) November 15, 2021

“Whether it’s radical transgender policies in our schools, whether it’s putting masks on our children, which is paramount to child abuse,” Good began, “whether it’s forcing vaccines on our children, or whether it’s teaching radical critical race theory in our school systems, educating our teachers to teach that, the lens through which everything is taught, we reject that.”

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File

Good then said the fight for schools was not over, encouraging parents to not “be quieted” by “standing in the gap” between their children and government entities such as schools.

One of Good’s recommended solutions is putting cameras in classrooms to afford parents “greater transparency”:

Parents ought to be able to look at the classroom at any time and see what’s happening in their school systems. Congress has given over $200 billion in funding to the school systems because of the virus and the pandemic, when they only asked for $25 billion from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to safely reopen. Let’s use some of that money to have greater transparency in the classrooms.

As the 2022 midterms begin heating up at the turn of the new year, Republicans appear adamant that education will be a prominent, winning message as they seek to take back control of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

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