5 Questions Jake Tapper Should Ask Glenn Youngkin at CNN’s Townhall

In anticipation of CNN’s Education Townhall with Governor Glenn Younkin, Freedom Virginia today released the following 5 questions Jake Tapper should be sure to ask the governor tonight:

1. You say children and their education are important priorities for you. Democrats have proposed $1.02 billion in their budget for K-12 education, which is more than three times what you have proposed ($321.1m). Meanwhile, your budget includes a significant decrease of the corporate income tax rate from 6% to 5%.  Do you place a higher priority on tax cuts for wealthy corporations or fully funding our K-12 schools?
2. Your administration made a mistake that cost Virginia’s public schools $201 million in funding, leading schools to scramble to fill the gap. You claim your budget focuses on parents and families, so will you adopt the Democratic Senate’s budget proposal that would fully compensate for this error? 
3. At a moment when Virginia continues to struggle with a teacher shortage, you banned so-called divisive concepts from schools and set up a tip line to report teachers, which some teachers have said put them in “an enemy position.” Following the launch, you refused public records requests and eventually shut down the line rather than being transparent about its purpose. Do you still stand behind this decision? And would you advocate for the federal government to set up a national tipline for people to report teachers? 
4. You’ve said you want to reorient Virginia’s K-12 schools more towards collaboration and skills development. Why then is your administration focused on inserting culture wars into the classroom like encouraging teachers to out LGBT students to their parents, even in potentially violent situations? 
5. You say you want to take politics out of the classroom, a goal you’ve connected to Virginia’s economic development strategy.  Yet many would say the changes your administration has made, or hopes to make, have only further politicized our public education system. For example, you chose conservative think-tanks and a Christian college to write your learning standards for public schools instead of the Virginia educators and researchers who had been working on the initial draft. How do you reconcile that?

“Glenn Youngkin repeatedly avoids tough questions in Richmond and has even even blocked public records requests related to his teacher tipline,” said Rhena Hicks, executive director of Freedom Virginia. “Now, during the governor’s showcase on the national stage, he should answer questions about why he has refused to fully fund public education and ignited cultural battles in our school system instead of providing the resources our teachers and kids need.”