On the recordMarch 23, 2023
In response, again, I reiterate that every single Democrat on our side of the aisle absolutely supports parental involvement and parental engagement. We talked about that in the debate on the bill. About costs, it is my understanding that the so-called Parents Bill of Rights Act doesn't have any additional funding with all the extra obligations that are put on our schools, districts, and teachers. There is no effort to silence parents. We want parents to be involved, peacefully, and peacefully state their concerns. I know that Ranking Member Scott talked about how Democrats tried to put an amendment in to put some reasonableness in there. If you have 200 parents show up at a school board meeting, and each one of them wants to speak for 2 hours, that is not reasonable. We absolutely support parental involvement. We want to do that. We want to provide that evidence-based engagement and, again, make the relationship collaborative, not adversarial. That is why I encourage colleagues to support this collaborative, evidence-based approach to involve all parents in education. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
