Democrats’ Attack on Charter Schools is an Attack on Parents’ Rights
‘This is a plan to take options away from parents, to take opportunities away from kids, to take choice away from families… and transfer that power directly to Big Labor bosses and Big Government bureaucrats. Yet another example of Democrats trying every trick to make end-runs around parents’ rights in education. Stripping power away from parents and handing it to bureaucrats.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding school choice:
“Against the backdrop of punishing 13.8% cumulative inflation since January 2021, an open borders crisis, spiking deaths from drug overdoses, and surging violent crime from coast to coast, President Biden has decided his A-1 priority needs to be… cracking down on charter schools.
“And harming the educational opportunities available to millions of low-income students in the process.
“Charter schools have long injected a huge dose of choice and competition into the schooling options available to low-income Americans and communities of color. This became especially true and especially important during the pandemic.
“Big Labor teachers’ unions spent the pandemic forcing government-run public schools to keep their doors shut long after private schools, parochial schools, and schools across Europe were all back operating safely in person.
“During this time, charter schools became a haven. They offered an escape rope out of learning loss for kids who would otherwise have been left behind. No wonder that, according to one analysis, charter school enrollment has surged since the pandemic started, even as public school enrollments have fallen off.
“But sadly, whenever kids’ best interests and Big Labor’s pocketbooks come into conflict, we know where most of today’s Democratic Party will come down.
“The Biden Administration has dutifully written a harsh new regulation that would intentionally chip away at the federal charter schools program and strip funding from many public charter schools.
“President Biden and his team are trying to force charter schools to conform to a whole new set of top-down, one-size-fits-all rules that the teachers’ unions want forced onto their competitors.
“The Democrats’ rule is designed to hamstring charter schools and leave them more reliant on government bureaucracies in everything from what they teach to how kids get to school in the morning.
“Perhaps worst of all, they want charter schools’ federal funding to be heavily contingent on whether the Democrats’ federal bureaucracy agrees there is a ‘need’ for their existence.
“This is a plan to take options away from parents, to take opportunities away from kids, to take choice away from families… and transfer that power directly to Big Labor bosses and Big Government bureaucrats.
“Yet another example of Democrats trying every trick to make end-runs around parents’ rights in education. Stripping power away from parents and handing it to bureaucrats.
“I commend the junior Senator for South Carolina, Senator Scott, for bringing forward a Congressional Review Act resolution to right this wrong.
“I urge every member of this body to put families first and vote for the Senator’s commonsense resolution.”
###
Related Issues: Senate Democrats, Education, House Democrats
Next Previous
