WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks on Wednesday on the Senate floor regarding parents’ rights:
“Last week, President Biden offered a particularly candid look at his view of education in America. Speaking at an award ceremony for public school teachers, he remarked that, ‘they’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.’
“Unfortunately, this wasn’t a mistake. It was actually a rather accurate summary of the increasingly radical way he and his party think of children in America. When it comes to the respective roles of parents and teachers, Democrats have used the past two years of pandemic disruptions to show their true colors.
“They’ve shoveled money into woke training, like the North Carolina program to help preschool teachers ‘deconstruct whiteness’. They’ve torn up time-tested procedures, as in one California district’s move to institute an equity lottery for admissions.
“And last fall, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee ran a gubernatorial campaign saying, ‘I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.’ Suffice it to say: parents in Virginia saw things differently.
“Across America, parents have rejected the radical liberal campaign to make education a one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best proposition. From coast to coast – even in deep-blue bastions like San Francisco – they’ve sent rogue local administrators packing and asserted their rights and responsibilities as the first and most important teachers of their children.
“Yesterday, Senate Republicans made clear once again that we stand with the parents of America. A bipartisan majority adopted Senator Thune’s resolution of disapproval on one of the Biden Administration’s most egregious violations of parents’ rights and kids’ well-being.
“Masking children as young as two in Head Start programs across the country – including outside on the playground – flies in the face of what even the World Health Organization considers settled science. And it’s seriously damaged parents’ confidence in the systems to which they entrust their children for hours every day.
“I was very proud to join a majority of my colleagues last night to express the Senate’s opposition to this unconscionable policy. But make no mistake: this is not the last we’ll hear about the far left’s efforts to grab more control over how America raises its kids.
“As we speak, Senate Democrats are trying to resurrect portions of the failed reckless taxing and spending spree they spent most of the last year trying to ram through on party lines. That includes the Toddler Takeover that would stick American families with dramatically higher costs and dramatically less choice in the market for childcare.
“More red tape for independent providers. Special subsidies for bureaucrats’ preferred one-size-fits-all systems.
“Outright hostility toward the faith-based options that are preferred by a majority of families who use outside-the-home childcare. And nothing at all for families who choose to have a full-time parent or another family member look after their kids.
“Just the latest example of a massive overreach the American people never asked for.
“The Biden Administration is having a hard enough time with basic governing responsibilities like national security, energy independence, and controlling inflation.
“American families, especially children, will be a whole lot better off the sooner Democrats stop looking for even more ways to fail them.”