GOP’s ’24 Contenders Lean In on Education Policy

As potential presidential candidates go off to the races, they’re trying to position themselves as mavericks on an issue long dominated by Democrats that’s been proven to be a game changer for the GOP in recent elections: education.A new poll from the American Principles Project found that more than 90 percent of GOP voters want a candidate who prioritizes curriculum transparency and parental involvement in schools.Governors DeSantis and Youngkin have shown the issue to be a winning one for the Republican Party, racking up election victories on the backs of education policies that focused on “parents rights.”In addition to pushing a traditional Republican education reform agenda — reducing the power of teachers unions and expanding school choice programs — the two governors have brought education to the fore through their efforts to combat so-called woke ideology in classrooms and to increase parental involvement in curricula.It’s not just the red-meat Republican electorate that’s leaning into the parents rights position. A poll from July found that voters in swing districts narrowly favored the GOP on education issues.“This poll shows that Democrats’ historic advantage on education has been erased,” a partner at the polling firm, Impact Research, said in its report. “For a long time, discussions about education have been about funding,” a former Republican National Committee spokesman, Robert Lockwood, told the Sun. Now, Republican culture warriors “have been able to flip the framework” to questions of content.“Republicans are seeing an uptick because they’ve done a very good job of messaging on that front and getting people to care about what’s being taught, as opposed to how much you’re paying teachers,” Mr. Lockwood said.For 2024, the name of the game seems to be competing with Mr. DeSantis of Florida.Last week, Nikki Haley said at her first campaign event in New Hampshire that Mr. DeSantis’s signature policy, the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill, does not go “far enough.” The law, which has drawn the ire of Democrats across the country, prohibits instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through second grade.“I think Ron’s been a good governor,” Ms. Haley told the crowd. “I just think that third grade’s too young. We should not be talking to kids in elementary school about gender, period.”Prior to announcing her run, Ms. Haley applauded school choice efforts such as those of Governor Reynolds in Iowa to create universal education savings accounts to disburse funds to families for education-related expenses such as tuition.“Parents need to have the choice to put their children in the education and the school that they know is best for them,” Ms. Haley said in a Fox News appearance last year.Ms. Haley’s own state of South Carolina is currently considering a school choice policy that would allow for education savings accounts for lower- and middle-income families.Last month, Ms. Haley’s only official competitor thus far, President Trump, also announced an education platform heavily focused on the culture wars that have embroiled schools across the country.He vowed to take on what he sees as “an established new religion” of wokeness by investigating “potential violations” of the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses. The 45th president also promised to hinder the “sinister effort to weaponize civics education” and cut federal funding to schools teaching “Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”Mr. Trump called for states to pass “Parental Bills of Rights” that guarantee universal school choice and curriculum transparency measures — as well as direct election of school principals by parents.Parental involvement in principal selection is polling well in New Hampshire, where more than half of voters across party lines say they support parents’ rights to remove principals, according to a recent poll from the New Hampshire Journal. Nearly 60 percent of Granite State voters think parents should have the “final say” in what is taught in K-12 classrooms, the poll found.Among the other potential candidates, Vice President Pence has taken a strong stance in support of parental rights against “radical gender ideology,” as the Des Moines Register quoted him saying last week.Mr. Pence’s group, Americans Advancing Freedom, has stepped up in an ongoing federal lawsuit involving the Linn-Mar School District near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A new policy from the school district allows students to use their preferred pronouns at school and begin social transition — using the bathrooms, playing on sports teams, and rooming on school trips with the gender of their preference — without parental consent or information.“Every day we are told not only that we have to tolerate the left’s increasingly bizarre obsessions with race and sex and gender, but that we have to enthusiastically participate or face severe consequences,” Mr. Pence said during an appearance at Cedar Rapids.Meanwhile, Secretary Pompeo has made a splash by attacking the leader of one of the country’s biggest teachers unions, Randi Weingarten, calling her the “most dangerous person in the world.” Mr. Pompeo has also expressed support for school choice policies, saying he believes “parents should get to decide what their children are taught in schools, not the government or teachers unions.”The American Principles Project, the group that polled Republicans voters on priorities in the upcoming primary, is not affiliated with Vice President Pence. Americans Advancing Freedom is the name of the group affiliated with Mr. Pence. This was misstated in an earlier edition.

GOP’s ’24 Contenders Lean In on Education Policy

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