During his acceptance speech Thursday evening at the Republican National Convention, President Donald Trump warned against the devastating impact of Joe Biden’s opposition to school choice, particularly on children of minority families.
Trump described the stark difference between his education policy and that of what is planned by Biden and the Democrat Party, who are supported by teachers’ unions.
“Biden … vowed to oppose school choice and close down charter schools, ripping away the ladder of opportunity for black and Hispanic children,” the president said, adding:
In a second term, I will expand charter schools and provide school choice to every family in America, and we will always treat our teachers with the tremendous respect they deserve.
Trump also observed that “Joe Biden is weak”:
He takes his marching orders from liberal hypocrites who drive their cities into the ground while fleeing far from the scene of the wreckage. These same liberals want to eliminate school choice while they enroll their children in the finest private schools in the land.
The president has consistently supported education opportunity for every child.
In his State of the Union address in February, he said an “inclusive society” is one that ensures “every young American gets a great education.”
“[F]or too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools,” he said. “To rescue these students, 18 states have created school choice in the form of Opportunity Scholarships. The programs are so popular, that tens of thousands of students remain on waiting lists.”
The president has urged Congress to pass legislation that would ensure education opportunities for students by providing a federal tax credit to individuals and businesses that donate to nonprofit scholarship funds.
In November 2019, Florida Angel Mom Kiyan Michael, a member of the Black Voices for Trump advisory board, drew attention to the divide between the Democrat Party and black voters on the issue of school choice.
In a column at the Sun-Sentinel, Michael wrote that school choice programs, such as those Republicans in her state have been putting into effect since the early 2000s, have been a successful way to pull low-income children out of failing public schools.
Moreover, black Democrats have been overwhelmingly supportive of school choice, though most party leaders and 2020 Democrat presidential candidates are not, favoring their relationships with teachers’ unions instead.
Michael observed one national poll, commissioned by the American Federation for Children, which advocates for school choice, that found 67 percent of voters support school choice, including 73 percent of Latinos, 67 percent of blacks, and 68 percent of whites.
Another poll released in August 2019 by Education Next found black Democrats approve of targeted vouchers, universal vouchers, and charter schools at 70 percent, 64 percent, and 55 percent, respectively, and Hispanic Democrats approve at 67 percent, 60 percent, and 47 percent.
Yet a third poll commissioned by school choice proponents Democrats for Education Reform, found 81 percent of Democrat primary voters, including 89 percent of black Democrat primary voters, support a proposal to “expand access to more choices and options within the public-school system,” including charter schools, which are funded with taxpayer dollars but operated by private boards.
Despite these overwhelming numbers in support of school choice in its many forms, Michael observed, “Do-nothing Democrats still call the policy racist because they’d rather that public school teachers win with lifetime employment while black children lose with a lifetime of underperformance and missed dreams.”
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