WASHINGTON, D.C. – Friday, House Republicans rolled out their "Commitment to America" plan, part of the basis for voters giving the GOP control of Congress after this year's midterm elections.
One of the components of the plan was a call for advancing a "Parents' Bill of Rights," which, according to the House GOP, would "recover lost learning from school closures, and expand parental choice so over a million more students can receive the education their parents know is best."
U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Hoover), who also serves as the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, told Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show" that Congress could use the power of the purse strings to protect parents' role in their children's public education.
"I think that one of the things we can do at the federal level is, in regard to the federal funding that the schools get, and that's respecting parental rights," Palmer said. "That's really what drove a big part of the election in Virginia last fall where you had a Republican win the governorship, a Republican win the lieutenant governorship, and a Republican win the attorney general's race and they got control of the Senate in Virginia.
"What we're going to do is really push for more parental rights. We don't agree with the Department of Justice that when a parent shows up for the school board meeting upset about critical race theory or some of the other nonsense they're pushing on their kids, that they're domestic terrorists. We view them as parents."
Palmer pointed to last year's gubernatorial election victory by Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, in which his Democrat opponents were dismissive of parents' role in public education.
"You had the [then] governor of Virginia and other leading Democrats saying that parents should have no say in their kids' education – 'leave it to the experts,'" Palmer explained. "And then, on top of that, they shut down the schools. The psychological damage is enormous. The loss of learning is enormous.
"For the first time in decades, we had declines in reading and math. What we want to do is, first of all, make sure parents can get their kids in a school that's not failing, and when we get them in school, the school stays open, and the teachers actually show up and teach instead of propagandize."
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email jeff.poor@1819News.com.
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