College football is back (Roll Tide), which means that it’s officially back to school season. To start off the school year, the President and First Lady have planned a barnstorming tour to visit classrooms across the country to welcome kids back to school. It’s a feeble attempt to distract from the fact that children are worse off under Biden.
American parents won’t be fooled.
Under Democrat leadership, children are falling behind and even missing from the classroom, schools are adopting woke curriculum, and teachers’ unions are empowered while parents are boxed out. We all knew what the long-lasting negative impacts of keeping students out of the classroom would be, yet Democrats pushed forward with their draconian lockdowns anyway.
In just over 2 years, under Biden’s leadership, test scores have completely plummeted in reading and math. We’re seeing the lowest levels of national test scores that we’ve seen in decades since Biden has taken office. Looking at fourth graders alone – only 33 percent and 36 percent of students are proficient in reading and math.
Worse yet, last school year, more than a quarter of students, 6.5 million children, were classified as chronically absent. And hundreds of thousands of children are still missing from the classroom nationwide.
Not only are kids falling behind and missing from classrooms, but also students who are in the classrooms are being indoctrinated with far-left curriculum. This week, the state of California is suing the Chino Valley school district for requiring schools to notify parents if their child changes their pronouns.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis held a press conference earlier this year to show what explicit materials were in school libraries. Just how bad was that content? Local TV stations in Florida had to cut away from the live feed because it was too sexually explicit to be aired. And just this week in Colorado, a twelve year old boy was forced out of the classroom for wearing a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack.
As a result, parents and kids are outraged, and rightfully so. What is the Biden administration’s response? Weaponizing the FBI to investigate concerned parents for possible “domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” Democrats have a war against parents – and Biden said the quiet part out loud earlier this summer when he said “they’re not somebody else’s kids, they’re all our kids.”
Whether its test scores, inappropriate classroom agendas, or waging a war on parents, Democrats are failing our kids day in and day out. Wondering why? Why Democrats, who pride themselves on being the education party, are actively making our students worse off? Well to understand why, you have to follow the money.
Who received more money from teachers’ unions than any other presidential candidate in 2020? Joe Biden. The same teachers’ union bosses who bankrolled his campaign were also working hand in hand with the Biden administration on school reopening guidance. Biden’s former CDC Director even admitted that the administration updated guidance to prioritize the need of teachers’ unions and special interest groups over students.
If Democrats were to remain in power, we know that these jarring statistics will only get worse, and our children will fall further and further behind. That’s why this election is so important for protecting the futures of our American kids.
With Republicans at the helm, families will have a choice in their kids’ education, parents’ priorities will be put above teachers’ unions, and students will thrive in classrooms learning the curriculum they ought to be learning, not whatever far-left special interest groups suggest.
Katie Walsh Shields is a political and public affairs consultant in Washington, DC, with more than 15 years of experience working at the highest levels of national politics and government, including serving as White House Deputy Chief of Staff and as Chief of Staff to the Republican National Committee.