Talking Politics with Dan McHugh: Issue # 2: The State of Education & Parent’s Voices Matter! With Special Contributor Julie Giordano: Parent, School Educator for 17 years, & Wicomico County Executive

  

 

 

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Talking Politics with Dan McHugh 

Former President of Montgomery County, MD Young Republicans, Former Maryland Legislative Aide, 2020 Field Organizer for Trump Victory in Pennsylvania, 2022 Campaign Manager for Julie Giordano Wicomico County, MD Executive   

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 Issue # 2: The State of Education & Parent’s Voices Matter! 

With Special Contributor Julie Giordano: Parent, School Educator for 17 years, & Wicomico County Executive 

     

   

Since the 2020 Covid lockdown, we have seen many changes, especially in the issue of education. While kids were being taught by Zoom struggling parents saw their children get depressed being stuck at home suffering mental health issues, they saw their kids fall behind in their studies suffering from learning loss, they saw the curriculum their kids were learning, and started to question why their kids were being taught certain things. 

In 2021 parents started to make their voices heard about these concerns at school board meetings, we saw the Department of Justice and the FBI work together with the teacher's unions to start investigating parents even labeling some parents ‘Domestic Terrorists”. We saw that in addition e-mails have surfaced that the Biden administration was colluding with the teacher's union leaders to keep schools closed, playing politics with children's education and well-being. In addition to educational transparency, it's being reported this week that “some states used COVID-19 relief funds to reopen schools for "unrelated purposes," including the furtherance of "radical, left-wing agendas.”Fox News.  Also, we saw in Virginia earlier this year that schools in Fairfax County schools failed to inform students that they had won national merit recognition before important college scholarship and admission deadlines, this is now being investigated by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares on whether students' rights were violated. 

 

All of this came to the forefront in the state of Virginia in the fall of 2021, where Terry McAuliffe debated Glen Younkin for Governor, and Terry McAuliffe said the following “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” 

With Governor Youngkin’s victory in November of 2021, a movement started across the country where outraged parents started standing up for their kids' education and taking on the educational elite in this country, and what their children were being taught in schools. Parents started running for school board races and challenging entrenched incumbents. Governors like Youngkin in Virginia, and Ron Desantis in Florida started reviewing education policy to root out things like “Critical Race Theory” from the classroom. In addition, Florida passed and signed a parental rights bill, and two weeks ago in Washington Speaker McCarthy & the house republicans in Congress passed “the Parents Bill of Rights” legislation. 

We recently saw the horrors of school shootings in Uvalde, Texas last year, and just 2 weeks ago in Nashville, Tennesse. We have seen solutions being proposed by Senators like Ted Cruz of Texas & Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee to make schools hard targets instead of soft targets, by increasing School Resource Officers at schools across the country, to ensure children are kept safe while they are in school. Yet, the Democrats in the Senate have objected to these proposals. 

During the 2023 Maryland legislative session we saw good education policy bills: On Parental Rights, School Safety to Increase Funding for School Resource Officers, Protecting Teachers in the Workplace, and Standing Up for School Choice.  Senator Justin Ready, Delegate April Miller, Delegate Mike Griffith, Delegate Robin Grammar, and Delegate Jeff Ghrist are who sponsored these bills. Democrats fought these bills and refused to move any of this proposed legislation.  

While Democrats in Annapolis were refusing to move on these proposed education policies it came to light that in Baltimore City there are 23 schools in the city that do not have a student that can do math at grade level, The Democrat's response was to cut the "BOOST Scholarship Program", a program that helps kids in the underprivileged area’s to go to a better school to help them get a better quality education. Democrats in Annapolis two years ago passed the Kirwan Blueprint reforms to education in the state, which they are saying and claiming will improve the quality of education. Opponents of the proposed plan have said it will be a costly cash grab for the teacher's union that will lead to big tax increases in the state to fund it, well it was reported earlier this year that the implementation of the blueprint will cost an extra $1.6 billion dollars more than expected, and that is problematic now that the state is now projecting a budget shortfall over the next several years due to declining revenue in the state. 

Julie Giordano is a parent and was an educator in the Wicomico County public schools for 17 years. Giordano was very concerned during covid about what happened with schools staying closed, seeing students struggling with mental health and learning loss. From that, she decided she could no longer just sit on the sidelines and decided to run for Wicomico County Executive. Giordano was elected last November she has the following to say about the state of education “Being on the tail end of the pandemic we are still seeing the effects of covid, and this is not a problem that is going take care of itself overnight, I am not sure we have even seen the full effects of learning loss and mental health issues with students. The state of Maryland, they are banking on the Kirwan Blueprint to better improve the quality of education with things like vocational education and additional resources. However, I have concerns with the implementation, the actual impact it will have on education, and the cost. In my county we are increasing the maintenance of effort by a million dollars for the potential cost increase it will have on the county over the next several years.” 

Since 2020 with covid lockdowns we have seen major changes in our way of life, what we have seen with education is the status quo being challenged like we have never seen before where parents who are concerned about their children's education are more empowered and fighting back and taking on these powerful political teachers unions. Good education policy is being pushed by so many more, hopefully, this trend will continue, because there is not a more important issue than the education of our children that will shape the future of the country, and if the status quo does not change what does that future look like?