RUTHFULLY YOURS

Democrats are fighting on behalf of their teacher union paymasters to prevent parents from choosing the right education for their children. The party of the Left, of course, seeks to limit freedom across a wide policy spectrum, but the salience of education as a political issue is being sharply underscored with midterm congressional elections drawing near. Fortunately, it is a debate the Left is losing.

An overwhelming majority of parents , 82%, say they’ll consider switching allegiance on Election Day to vote for candidates of a party that shares their views on education. This includes 79% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats, and 88% of independents. Whatever lessons they think should be taught, parents agree that the decision is theirs to make. They don’t want to be dictated to or have their children taken as ideological hostages.

This shows once again that people who are willing to brush aside many issues as “just politics” that they can safely ignore do not take the same laissez-fair attitude on the question of their children’s learning. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) demonstrated the political potency of this distinction when he knocked off Terry McAuliffe to win last year’s election in Virginia.

But President Joe Biden refuses to learn the lesson. Just three months ago, long after the implications of the Virginia parental rebellion should have sunk in, his administration issued a new rule that could force some public charter schools to close by denying them federal funds if they contract operations to for-profit educators.

The practice is widespread, and Robert Eitel, president of the Defense of Freedom Institute, said at the time, “This is confirmation that the Democratic Party has shifted hard to the Left on education … it would have a chilling effect on new charter schools and make it difficult for existing ones to continue.”

The comment is broadly true, but it’s emerging that public opposition to the rule is both broad and bipartisan, and some Democratic politicians know the issue could blow up in their faces. This is surely not least because Biden told 2020 voters that he was a moderate alternative to an impending socialist takeover of the party. Instead, he has sided against parents’ right to choose what their children learn and from whom.

But a Supreme Court decision this week shows the tide is flowing strongly for parents. The justices ruled 6-3 that Maine may not ban parents from spending education vouchers at schools merely because these schools are run by religious organizations. The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reiterated First Amendment protections for religious liberty, saying that once a state decides to subsidize private education, “it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” Left-wing politicians and administrators will not be able to target Christian schools for starvation in the future.

Which is a good thing in principle — but also timely in practice, because more parents, having realized (especially during pandemic remote learning) what an ideological mess public education has become, are sending their children to private schools, which are often Catholic.

Many do so less for the religious teaching than because such schools are more likely to resist left-wing demands for woke indoctrination and instead try to offer a classical education. (By the way, shouldn’t wokeism be regarded as a religion, given that its tenets inspire crusading faith despite their lack of supporting data?)

If you need any more evidence that parental rights in education continues to be a winning political issue and was not an aberration in Virginia last year, look no further than the fact that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — apparently hands-down the most talented politician of the day and a lock for a presidential run in 2024 — is putting it at the center of his gubernatorial reelection campaign.

The first sentence of his education agenda commits him to “student success, parental rights, and curriculum transparency,” three elements essential to wresting America’s failing public schools from ideologues and putting child learning back in the right hands.

Florida first lady Casey DeSantis backed her husband’s emphasis on parental rights in education with the launch this week of “Mamas for DeSantis,” aiming to get a million signatures from family-oriented voters in support of the governor’s reelection. “I’m excited to see so much energy around the @RonDeSantisFL education agenda,” the first lady tweeted. “I look forward to these leaders adding their voices to our students-first agenda.”

The words are scripted bromides, but they are pointed nevertheless. And they are aimed accurately at the corrupt heart of the left-wing educational establishment.