Rep. Jim Banks: ‘Republicans Can and Must Become the Party of Parents’

The chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) released a memo on Election Day evening that asserts the results clearly show Republicans “must become the party of parents.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) provided his colleagues on the Study Committee with “four lessons learned from Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia,” the first of which was:

Youngkin’s success reveals that Republicans can and must become the party of parents. There is real energy from parents that we need to understand. The good news is RSC has been working for months to build out an agenda in education that will fight for and empower parents. This will include needed oversight of the Biden administration.

This message was not lost on former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who, as Grabien founder Tom Elliott tweeted, said Wednesday on MSNBC, “The one thing that we need to make sure of is that Republicans in 2022 don’t become is the party of parents.”

“We’re the ones that care about school funding,” she argued, though parents in this election appeared concerned about being declared “domestic terrorists” by leftist educrats as they loudly voiced their concerns about what their children are being taught and about mandates that override what parents believe is best for their children’s health.

Banks offered his Republican colleagues a sample of some ideas of how to advocate for parents:

• Rescind President Biden’s harmful Title IX guidance that hurts girls dreams to achieve excellence in sports;
• Ensure schools are funding Gifted & Talented and AP programs instead of exploding Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion administrators;
• Expanding 529 plans to include homeschooling expenses and alternative career pathways;
• Giving low-income families school freedom from low performing schools;
• Allow the Department of Justice to ensure federal funds are not being used to fund racist CRT curricula in violation of the Civil Rights Act;
• Passing Rep. Owens’ H.R. 4698 to ensure federal funds are not being used to separate students based on their skin color or assigning assumptions or characteristics of students based on their skin color;
• Promoting a fair and accurate historical curriculum based on the success and faults of our country’s founding;
• Passing Rep. Hartzler’s H.R. 4821, NO CRT for our Military Kids Act to ensure military schools are not using CRT;
• Maintain the Trump Administrations school safety guidelines to ensure schools won’t face retribution for suspending or expelling dangerous and violent students;
• Ensuring the hundreds of billions of dollars sent to States and local school districts through the CARES Act and other pandemic related legislation are being used to help students succeed after many spent a year in Zoom school;
• Investigate the origins of the infamous letter from NBSA calling concerned parents “domestic terrorists,” and the role the Biden White House played in its crafting;
• Passing Rep. Fitzgerald’s H.R. 5162, the CRT Transparency Act to ensure parents have access to the curriculum their children are being taught.

“Democrats are attacking our schools in new ways, and conservatives must adjust,” Banks wrote. “Glenn Youngkin understood this. He knew parents weren’t just concerned about traditional education issues, but rather viewed education as an extension of the culture war.”