Mary Gay Scanlon: “I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may…”

“I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that public education plays a central role in our democracy, helping to ensure the Jeffersonian ideal of having an informed electorate to participate in the governance of our country. I think we can also agree that it is vitally important that parents, as their children's primary caregivers, play an active role in their kids' education in our public schools. That is why governance of our public schools is entrusted to local boards of education, where most school board members are, in fact, parents and are directly responsible to the communities they serve. In our fast-paced and online world, the glue that so often holds our communities together is our neighborhood schools, the parent-teacher and home and school organizations that support them, and the extracurricular athletics and activities that we all gather at. That is why it is so disappointing that the Republican majority has chosen to bring to the floor a bill that undermines those community values and does nothing to address the real issues facing America's schools today. Contrary to its title, this bill does not give parents any more rights than they already have. Even the conservative Cato Institute has criticized this bill for doing nothing to actually empower parents.…”