Former Virginia Governor. While Terry McAuliffe was defeated by Glenn Youngkin in Election Night’s final round, it was the actual date that McAuliffe was eliminated from the race for the governorship. McAuliffie said that parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach, after Youngkin had rebutted.
This was his answer to questions regarding school curriculum. It also reflected the anger that had developed at local school boards meetings where angry parents blasted education officials for supporting “critical race theory”, as right-wing activists oppose it. CRT, which is divided because conservatives and progressives differ sharply on its definition, is divisive. Liberal media members don’t believe CRT exists and accuse the GOP of creating it. Youngkin’s win was obvious, and MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace, MSNBC’s host, lamented that the critical race theory had won the suburbs by 15 points for Republicans.
MSNBC is in complete meltdown mode pic.twitter.com/MtBKJjYxC0
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) November 3, 2021
Christopher Rufo is a conservative activist who was also the architect for the CRT framing. claimed a well-deserved victory: There’s no question that his efforts to supply a memorable name—critical race theory—for the series of semi-related, clumsy diversity initiatives and questionable curriculum choices in some public schools helped raise the salience of the issue.
Undoubtedly, however, public schools’ failure during the pandemic was the missing piece. The schools were shut down for several months and teachers had to be transferred to parents across the nation. Education forced parents to be more responsible for their kids’ education. The education system was able to cater to teachers union president Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, regardless of how outrageous, while children and their parents had to make decisions for them. This put taxpayers and citizens ahead of public employees. It subordinated families’ needs for over a year. Even at present—long after it has become perfectly clear that COVID-19 is not a significant threat to children—many public schools in blue municipalities continue to force kids to wear masks. Some youngsters are forced to wear masks while they play sports outside.
The result of the Virginia gubernatorial elections was that there was finally a reckoning. The idea that parents should take on more school system responsibilities, but not have any authority was resisted by the parents. The parents clearly took the blame for Democrats taking sides with teachers unions. Youngkin’s K-12 parents voted for Youngkin.
Due to the Virginia night event, every Republican is likely to be running for president on education issues in 2022. Even if education is only one aspect of the story, “education” can be used to refer to a multitude sub-issues. pic.twitter.com/S11lYm0AXW
— Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) November 3, 2021
Joy Reid has become the face of critical race theory in this culture war. now thinks“Education can be described as code for “white parents do not like the idea that teaching about race is being taught.” That attitude is a recipe for continued failure—for alienating Democratic votersIt is. Democrats will suffer if the media continues to call parents racist because they want some control over the education of their children.
Republicans should make it clear that parents, of every political stripe, want school choice if they are to really capitalize on their positive showing. Legislation that allows families the freedom to select the best education option for their children should be passed. Parents should not be able to argue about the policies that schools are allowed to adopt. They should just have the option to choose to pay for a school that matches their COVID-19 curriculum, protocols and other values.