“Parents should absolutely be the primary stakeholders in their kids' education, and anyone who disagrees should stay the hell away from our kids,” Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's pick for vice-president, once tweeted.
Now a cultural warrior, Vance used to be much more nuanced, writes Dale Chu. In his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, he critiqued the drug-abusing, self-sabotaging, child-neglecting culture in which he was raised.
Hillbilly Elegy puts much of the blame for educational failure on parents, notes Robert Pondiscio in a review. Vance quotes a teacher at his old high school: "They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that so many of them are raised by wolves."
"We don't study as children, and we don't make our kids study when we're parents," Vance writes. "Our kids perform poorly in school. We might get angry with them, but we never give them the tools — like peace and quiet at home — to succeed."
Vance is likely to follow the Republican push for education savings accounts, which let parents afford their own education choices, writes Chu. The new GOP sees "charter schools as a pallid alternative to unfettered school choice."
As a senator, "Vance has used his platform to target affirmative action in college admissions; diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in both K-12 schools and higher education; what he’s characterized as “left-wing domination” of universities; and China’s influence in colleges," reports Libby Stanford in Education Week. In a June 2024 tweet, Vance wrote that “DEI is racism, plain and simple.”
I don't think the Republicans started the culture war.
Parents have no right to know if their child has changed names, pronouns or gender identity at school, states a new California law which bans school districts from requiring that parents be informed. It's a violation of the child's right to privacy, say advocates. (If everyone at school knows "Jill" is now "Jack," and "she" is now "they," where does privacy come in?)
The Democrats can win in the California Legislature, but this issue is going to be a loser for them, I predict.
I was raised by rabid wolverines. Children of negligent or abusive parents have the most to gain from the improvements that a competitive market in education services would generate.
One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters.
George Herbert, 1640