Brooks: Teachers Have Gone ‘Further Left’ While Parents Haven’t, Parental Involvement ‘a Very Bad Issue’ for Dems

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated parental involvement in education is “a very bad issue for the Democrats.” Brooks also said that the main cause for the issue is that people in education have gone “further left in the last few years. The median parent has not gone significantly further left. So, there’s a culture gap in the values in the way we talk about history, the way we talk about sexual education and gender issues.”

Brooks stated, “Terry McAuliffe made a very foolish statement in his debate, where he said parents should not be in charge of their kids’ educations, which is going to set every parent’s teeth on edge. I think there’s a huge issue. I think this is a very bad issue for the Democrats. A lot of things, people don’t vote on. But if people feel their kids are being indoctrinated with this or that, then they’re going to get really angry, and they’re getting really angry. And there’s the angry people who are going to the school board meetings, but then there’s normal anger of more stable people, and they will rebel. And what’s — the underlying cause of what’s happening here is that people in the median education school, they’ve gone…further left in the last few years. The median parent has not gone significantly further left. So, there’s a culture gap in the values in the way we talk about history, the way we talk about sexual education and gender issues. A gap has opened up between the people who tend to be teachers and the people who tend to be parents. And that gap is now creating this conflict over whose values are going to be in the classroom.”

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