In Case You Missed It, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) joined the Independent Women’s Forum’s Students Over Systems podcast to discuss the Committee’s efforts to advance K-12 education in America.
Excerpts from the interview are below:
Facilitating state and local education:
“[Education is a state and local issue… So, my responsibility as I see it is to make sure that the money, the taxpayer dollars that we are spending … go in the direction that the American people want it to go in, not where the leftists in Washington want the money to go, or the teachers unions want the money to go.”
Committee activity to prepare students for the workforce:
“We're laying the groundwork now for at least two bills, probably three, that will be coming out. One is a bill for ‘workforce pell,’ where we want to…have people be able to take short-term courses that will provide the opportunity for them to gain skills to get into a job. We'll be doing a reauthorization of WIOA, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and then also the Higher Ed Act.”
Empowering parents:
“Parents have the right to direct their children’s education. … What we're proud of, in addition to the fact that we passed [the Parents Bill of Rights] out of the House, is that many states are passing similar bills. … We believe that this underlies the abilities of parents to go to, again, to the school boards and to the principals, to the superintendents and state what they would like to know and what they want to see in the school system.”
Education freedom and school choice:
“We know, again, when the students have a choice—when they have the freedom to go to a good school—they will succeed. … I’m very much a fan of charter school programs. Anything that we can do to promote education freedom, I am in favor of. Unfortunately, the teachers unions control the Democrats when it comes to school freedom.”
