Using public tax dollars for private education weakens our already struggling education system. In truth, people who would already send their children to a school that uses a curriculum the parents prefer – or simply for status – want the stipend. 

Politicians like Rich McCormick who want to whitewash humanity do not trust educators whose profession it is to teach these concepts in age-appropriate ways. They have weaponized teaching. Parents always have choices: homeschool, partner with your student’s school, or private school. The pandemic showed us that they don’t want to homeschool. Every school or teacher I have met has an open book curriculum — all you need to do is ask to see it, if you can’t make it to an explicit curriculum night. Our (very) underpaid and (very) overworked teachers are always happy to talk to parents and, better, have them help with what happens in their classroom. Instead, Rich and the people he represents have vilified teachers, administrators, and schools making the education of a reality they do not want to face up to a cause of failure. They are not willing to help. Instead, they fire up other families using out-of-context content, stand in front of Boards of Education weeping about decency, demand schools teach their preferred reality, and push their legislators to get their child’s private education funded.

Schools do need reform. They have for a long, long time. The answer is not to remove the centerpiece of educating our future with quality and truth, but to have educators, industry, and other stakeholders work together to move us towards a better system that incorporates our modern advances with our historical wisdom in the classrooms of caring and highly educated teachers. It is a monumental undertaking that will lead to the successful futures of generations of Americans. We need the right people doing it.

I am proud to have signed Defense of Democracy’s pledge ” to defend the civil rights of all members of their community regardless of factors like race, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation”.