Northern Virginia Republicans Embrace Youngkin-Inspired Education Strategy for Midterms

As the midterms near in Northern Virginia, Republican congressional candidates are taking a cue from Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 victory and highlighting their Democratic opponents’ commitment to keeping parents in the dark about what’s going on inside classrooms.

Last year, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was lambasted after a debate against Youngkin for insisting that parents should have no role in setting school curricula.

Republican candidates competing this cycle in districts that encompass Fairfax and Loudoun Counties are pointing out that Democratic representatives Jennifer Wexton, Gerry Connolly, and Don Beyer have either voted for legislation that mirrors McAuliffe’s vision or stayed silent about parental rights.

Wexton, who is running in Virginia’s tenth district, has voted against a bill requiring parental notification before explicit material was shown in classrooms, sponsored a bill ending the requirement that school principals report certain misdemeanors to police, opposed a Virginia “bathroom bill,” and said it is “gaslight[ing]” for people, including parents, to discuss transgender “issues of bathrooms, locker rooms, and women sports.”

“Parents want a safer environment for their children,” Hung Cao, the Republican running against Wexton in the midterms, told National Review. “Jennifer Wexton voted down a bathroom bill that would have kept a biological boy from sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in Loudoun County. That same person was transferred to another school where another girl was attacked. Absolute silence from Wexton.”

Cao said he prioritizes education to the same degree that Youngkin does, and insisted that he “will ensure we go full STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) ahead,” and not prioritize “social and political issues” over education.

Wexton’s website mentions her efforts to expand STEM courses in the classrooms, but doesn’t mention her past voting history against parental notification and transgender bathroom policies. She also says she’s opposed to “Republican efforts to take away local control of schools.”

Wexton called the recent Virginia Department of Education guidelines that focus on parents’ rights in regard to their children’s gender “vile and disgusting.”

The 2022 guidelines, released last week, require teachers to obtain written permission from parents before beginning to treat their children as transgender.

“This is a vile and disgusting attack on vulnerable trans kids,” Wexton said in response to the guidelines, Loudoun Now reported. “Bullying children to score cheap political points is despicable. The Governor should be ashamed.”

Wexton did not reply to an inquiry from National Review about her past voting history and her position on parents’ rights.

Running in Virginia’s eleventh district, Republican Jim Myles told National Review his campaign is focused on restoring academic excellence and parents’ rights to influence their children’s education.

“This isn’t really a political issue, it’s a school issue, that we need to turn the focus of our schools to academic excellence and get away from the politics and sexualization of children in Virginia,” Myles said.

“Parents do have a fundamental right with the education and the care of their children,” Myles added, saying that when children are dropped off at school, “parents are still the ones in control,” and that he is hoping to reach out to the “same parents” as Youngkin did.

He said radical-Left Democrats are pushing an agenda in school that keeps students’ gender identity a secret from parents and has biological males compete against girls in sporting events while having access to the same bathrooms.

“Gender identity is a family issue,” Myles said. “These are children and it’s their physical health. If there’s issues there, these schools are not qualified or trained to be dealing with these types of issues. To me it’s just an agenda of the radical Left to try and get at impressionable kids and potentially confuse them.” He added that “everything comes back to parents’ rights.”

Myles’s opponent, Connolly, does not mention parents’ rights or K–12 curricula on his campaign website. Education is second-to-last place on his list of issues on the website, which mentions securing millions of dollars for schools in the district and his commitment to “increasing federal student aid, expanding federal student loan forgiveness, and providing free community college.”

Like Wexton, Connolly made a statement fiercely opposing the Virginia guidelines mandating parents be informed about what pronouns their children choose to use in school, saying the 2022 requirement is a “despicable display of bigotry and ignorance” and a “false promise of protecting Virginia students,” according to Inside NoVa.

Connolly, who has been in office for 14 years, “has the totally wrong approach” and doesn’t seem like someone who respects parents’ rights, Myles added.

Connolly did not respond to an inquiry from National Review about his position on parents’ rights.

Karina Lipsman, who is running in Virginia’s eighth district, said “one of the top things” she hears about leading up to the midterms is “education and how the system is failing our children.”

“A lot of parents are concerned about what is being covered up in the hallways,” Lipsman said, noting that there have been several instances of students getting sexually assaulted in the eighth district. “There’s been a lot of sexual assaults that the schools have covered up, and parents are concerned for their child’s safety.”

Last year, Loudoun County Public Schools, in Virginia’s tenth district, covered up a sexual-assault case in which a boy in a skirt raped a girl in a bathroom. Months later, it was revealed that school-board members withheld information from parents about another sexual-assault case in Virginia’s eighth district, where a 14-year-old suspect was arrested for “aggravated sexua[l] battery, rape, and forcible sodomy.”

“Parents should know everything that’s happening because they should have a right to, when they send their child to school, understand that they’re safe, that they’re being taught what they need to be taught,” Lipsman said, adding that children should not be sexualized in the classroom and also shouldn’t be taught that they’re “not worthy” because of the color of their skin.

Beyer, who is running against Lipsman, does not mention parents’ rights as an issue on his website, which states that he’s opposed to school choice and that he supports measuring education success in “more than just test scores.”

Lipsman said she hasn’t “heard anything out of [Beyer] on anything education-related,” but that he supported shutting down the schools during the pandemic and is strongly tied to teachers’ unions.

Beyer challenged Youngkin in a meeting about the Department of Education guidelines, according to the Washington Post, and has also tweeted about the guidelines apparently violating “state and federal law.”

Beyer did not respond to an inquiry from National Review about his position on parents’ rights.