Donald Trump backtracked on ballot harvesting but also put forward another bad idea regarding education policy: direct election of school principals. I can get behind Donald Trump on most things—I voted for him twice. His economic agenda is popular. The tragedy is that he’s personally unpopular, which clouted the selling points. No doubt that education policy must be retooled and stripped of the woke elements that have entrenched themselves in our school’s curriculum, which is partially our fault; we allowed the Left to take over the school boards. Education is already a nasty political battlefield. Why make that worse by wanting to elect every principal in America? Trump made the pitch at the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention last month (via RealClearPolitics):
[Relevant portion beings at 15:10 mark]:
FMR. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Another top priority will be to expel the communists and these terrible people that have taken over our education system where you look. I will immediately signed a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.
I always say this. Can you believe this? Can you imagine saying this 10 or 15 years ago? I will fight for parents' rights. Of course you fight. Today I have to say, I have to make it -- I will fight for parents' rights. of course you fight for parents' rights. Who would ever think you have to say that as a politician or as a person at a microphone?
Including the right to send your child to the public, private charter, or religious school of your choice. At the same time, I refuse to abandon our public school system to these lunatics because what's happening there is terrible. That's why I will fight for the direct election of school principals by the parents, the parents of the school. If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to fire them immediately and select someone who will.
I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or masked mandate from kindergarten to college.
And something else I find hard to believe that I have to even say. It's so ridiculous. It's so horrible and so ridiculous. I will keep men out of women's sports. And I will sign a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. Prohibited. And on day one I will reinstate the Trump ban on transgenders in the military. Because a warrior should be focused on crushing American enemies, on being strong, on having the image of being strong. They have to be powerful. They have to be strong, especially when you see what's happening in the world today, not catering to radical gender ideology.
No, this is insane. Maybe as an academic exercise, sure, fire woke principals and allow parents to elect a new one. But when it comes to practicality, this is a non-starter. It’s unworkable, and the already messy education system could become even more of a trainwreck. The problem with education right now is that it is overly political. We already know how to fix the situation, which is to win more school board elections. Nothing is political about returning the core curriculum to basic lessons regarding the five subjects and removing pornography from the school library. The last thing we need is for this to become another event where woke billionaires can inject their cash into another election duel and muck up this fight even more. Trump mentioned this plan earlier this year but sorry, sir, hard pass on this initiative.