Jump into summer fun with this week’s amazing Insider DealsFILE - Students and parents rally at the Ohio Statehouse in support of possible changes that would increase eligibility for taxpayer-funded school vouchers to K-12 students statewide, May 17, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. National Republicans are poised to support universal school choice as part of the policy platform they adopt at the 2024 Republican National Convention, which starts next week on Monday, July 15, 2024.
Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the platform. “I think empowering families with high quality options is the right approach, but the details on how much funding is available, whether there are income constraints, those are the types of questions that would have to be answered,” he said.
Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, said Republicans’ plan would “throw chaos into the lives of American families” without addressing what parents tell her members are their two highest priorities: the availability of mental health services and school safety.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, decried the entire GOP education platform, saying it sets up “a defunding mechanism and a mechanism to give a tax break to the wealthy.”