An education advocacy group is launching a campaign ad in support of federal school choice legislation ahead of the Republican National Committee's first presidential debate in Milwaukee.
The Invest in Education Coalition is pushing for 2024 Republican candidates to make "education reform" in K-12 families a priority if they are elected president. The coalition is specifically pushing for the passage of the Educational Choice for Children Act, which funds a federal tax credit scholarship for students to cover expenses related to K-12 public and private education.
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“Now more than ever, empowering parents to ensure their children are getting the best education possible should be a top priority,” said Anthony de Nicola, chairman of the Invest in Education Coalition. “This scholarship tax credit will expand education freedom and opportunity for up to two million low- and middle-income students throughout the nation.”
The 30-second ad will run in Wisconsin leading up to the debate, where candidates will be grilled on a wide range of issues. "Education freedom is vital to children. The past few years prove it," the narrator of the ad says. "Union bosses and bureaucrats are leaving too many kids behind."
The parental rights movement has grown in popularity in the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to move to online learning and as debates over what schools teach students regarding race, gender, and sexuality roiled the nation.
Most of the GOP candidates running for president and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have emphasized parental rights and school choice. The ECCA currently has more than 100 House co-sponsors and more than two dozen Senate co-sponsors.
"The Educational Choice for Children Act creates school choice scholarships without using tax dollars to directly empower parents of 2 million children to get the education they deserve," the narrator continues in the ad. "Here's a message every Republican presidential candidate should embrace: Parents deserve a choice in education."
Hera Varmah, a first-generation American daughter of a Jamaican mother and Liberian father, points to a tax credit scholarship that helped her attend the Academy Prep Center of Tampa as important to her educational success.
Varmah, who at one time struggled in school, would go on to receive a bachelor’s degree in food science and technology from Florida A&M University. Without her mother deciding that she and her 11 siblings needed access to better education beyond public schools and the Florida tax credit scholarship, Varmah said she may not have had the opportunities she received. Neither would her siblings, she said, four of whom are college graduates. Six are in university as of this year, and two are in high school.
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"This is just the right thing to do. It's not just good politics, this is good policy," Varmah told the Washington Examiner about her support for the school choice legislation.
"The most important thing is that parents know their child best. Parents know how their children learn, and they're the ones that have been with them," Varmah added. "And so, they should decide what school that their kids go to."