To the Democrat brain trust in Virginia who thought attacking concerned parents was a winning election strategy: Thank you.
Are you a Youngkin fan or just like to “own the libs”?
A parent.
And Youngkin will be a better governor for parents? How will he govern that will be to the benefit of parents?
The other guy said that parents should have no say in their children's education. Fuck that guy.
Could you share some evidence that McAuliffe said "parents should have no say in their children's education"?
I sincerely doubt that it's true.
Tom
This is the exact moment the election turned in Youngkin's favor.
OK. The answer to my question is "No". McAuliffe didn't say "parents should have no say". The problem is your lack of nuance.
Add "individual or small groups of" before "parents" in his statement and I'm totally with him. That's not the same as "parents".
Tom
Before this gaffe, McAuliffe had been leading with parents; who can be defined as individuals or small groups.
Do you think that YEC parents should be in charge of the science curriculum? Or white racist parents choosing the history taught?
What makes you think that the category "parents" is individuals or small groups? There's a ton of parents out there. That's a big category. Parents aren't defined as individuals or small groups by any stretch of the imagination.
Tom
A bunch of years ago, my community got upset because the counseling office dared to put up posters in the senior high school that suggested that should your friend come out to you as gay, maybe you should be supportive and not beat him up (heavily paraphrased by me). HUGE outcry. HUGE. School board meetings were very sparsely attended, often just me and the press and two or three other community members in the audience. This one, though, had to be moved to the auditorium at the high school, and even then, it was overflow capacity. For comparison: they didn't get that many people at the annual high school musical--and this town loves its high school musicals. I was listening to the 'parents' surrounding me and it became very apparent that most of them could not identify a single school board member, despite their photos having recently made the front page of the local newspapers and despite frequently being quoted and photographed for local media. Nope. They just were there to make sure that they didn't allow 'the gays' to take over. Because lord knows, if you fail to beat them all into shutting up and going back into their closets, that's exactly what will happen. Quite a number were parents of kids attending the local parochial schools which would never allow such things although it was very obvious to anyone who set foot on the catholic university campus that there were a lot of gay faculty, administrators and other personnel among the priests who ran the place, not to mention the student body. Never mind: I digress.
In the end, the school board voted to remove the posters because they were printed by a Lutheran group. Not that there was anything against Lutherans: pretty much anybody who isn't Catholic in this town is Lutheran. Nope: it was because a religious denomination was responsible for publishing the posters and there must be separation between church and state.
This did not happen until one or two of the most outspokenly conservative board members, took full advantage of the overflowing audience to grandstand about the evils of a government run school, including one who was essentially a libertarian but who was too darn cheap to actually pay dues. Particularly hypocritical as that particular board member was a faculty member (and still is) at the local public university---and had spent his entire career sucking at the teat of the government.
So, to re-cap: parents are not always well informed. Hell, school board members aren't always well informed and are not always on the school board because they are truly interested in helping ensure the community's children have the best possible access to the best possible education in the best, most conducive and most supportive environment possible. Nope. A whole bunch of school board members simply have an axe to grind and are thrilled with the chance at a public platform.
That said, I do think it is very important that parents are informed about what is happening in schools, about curriculum, about health and safety measures. There was also a huge outcry when the district wanted to dispense with AP courses at the high school 'to save money' which was a lie as those classes were always filled and those kids needed to be in some class. They weren't going to dispense with those teachers because otherwise the other classes would be even more overflowing than they were. Even though there were not as many parents filling the chambers of those meetings, and none of the board members saw enough of an opportunity to grandstand, there was enough pressure from parents to keep those classes in place.