Glenn Youngkin: We’re Going to Launch an Aggressive Charter School Program

EXCERPT:

YOUNGKIN: "Well, we’re going to raise expectations in our schools, they’ve been watered down over time. And children should be held to high standards, not low standards. Of course, we have to help those that might need help. We’re going to fund in the largest education budget in the history of Virginia. We need to raise teacher salaries, we’ve got to fund into facilities, we’re going to fund into special education programs. Virginia’s kids with disabilities have really suffered during this pandemic. But we’re going to launch an aggressive charter school program as well. Virginia has had a very, very poor record in charter schools and providing any choice within our public school system, so we’re going to launch right out of the box 20 charter schools that are going to provide parents' choice within the public school system, and then our curriculum is going to be absolutely focused on making sure we get the political rhetoric out of the classroom and really focused on how to prepare our kids how to think, as opposed to what to think. So much of this is engaging with parents. And we’re going to launch a task force in December, I will have named the new secretary of education and new state superintendent of our schools by then, and we’re going to begin to engage with parents. We’re going to engage with educators, administrators and students. And oh, by the way, we’re going to need to engage with some law enforcement officials to make sure that our schools are safe as well. We’ve just seen violence increase in the schools particularly, and so we’ve got a big agenda. We’ve got to get started. And I tell you, Maria, January 15th can’t come fast enough."