ICYMI: Fox News & Las Vegas Review Journal Report on Club for Growth School Freedom Forum

  |  

Las Vegas, NV – In case you missed it, Fox News and Las Vegas Review Journal reported on the Club for Growth School Freedom Forum in Las Vegas. Senator Ted Cruz, former Nevada AG Adam Laxalt, Club for Growth President David McIntosh, and Chris Wilson’s WPA Intelligence discussed school choice, polling on the issue, and what needs to be done to fund students instead of systems.

Click here to watch the event on YouTube.

Click here to read the Fox News story.

Click here to read the Las Vegas Review Journal story.

Fox News Excerpts 

Ted Cruz blasts Randi Weingarten for claiming conservatives are trying to ‘undermine’ teachers: ‘Toxic’

Cortney O’Brien, Fox News

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, blasted Randi Weingarten and teachers unions at large for their role in school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic and their attitude toward parents who have become more vocal in their children’s educations.

In the same weekend Weingarten was re-elected to her eighth term as American Federation of Teachers president, she accused conservatives of working to “undermine” educators across the country.

“Randi Weingarten has been one of the most toxic voices fighting against kids, fighting against school choice everywhere she can,” Cruz told Fox News Digital at the Club for Growth School Freedom Forum Wednesday.

“I’d say Randi Weingarten is now one of the most infamous characters of the entire last few years,” former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, R., told Fox News Digital, agreeing with Cruz. “She was busted with her emails, going to the White House and the CDC to try to change the science and keep our kids locked down. It’s unforgivable. They get to decide who’s going to be in charge of their union, but she’s been a terrible face for teachers, teachers that wanted to get back in schools, that wanted to teach kids. But their unions kept our schools locked down.”

Parents and other attendees at the school choice conference concurred with the politicians’ assessment of the teachers union boss.

“They have an agenda,” Stephanie, from Las Vegas, said of teachers unions. “And that’s just clearly not the case. You can see, all the Republicans and conservatives, you can see how they’re fighting for the kids. And they want to be able to defend that and have that opportunity.”

 

Las Vegas Review Journal Excerpts 

Cruz, Laxalt back school choice at Las Vegas event

Las Vegas Review Journal

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is reportedly eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, was in Las Vegas Wednesday to headline an event promoting school choice along with Republican Senate hopeful Adam Laxalt.

Cruz spoke to a crowd of roughly 180 people to talk up school choice at a forum put on by Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group that focuses on reducing taxes and other economic issues. The organization has been hosting events to promote school choice as part of a campaign against school closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think it is the single most important domestic issue in this country. School rights is the civil rights issue of the 21st century,” Cruz told the crowd.

Republicans in Nevada have tried for years to get a voucher-style school choice program off the ground with little success.

In 2015, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill to create an education savings account which would have allowed parents to use public school funds for education expenses, including private school tuition. A lawsuit later invalidated its funding mechanism, and a Democratic Legislature in 2019 repealed the program outright.

“There’s no question that we’ve battled for school choice in our state,” said Laxalt, who defended the education savings account law when he was Nevada’s attorney general. “This is something we simply have to get done to move our state forward.”

Recent attempts to revive the program via ballot initiatives have also come up short, with a judge ruling that the attempts were unconstitutional because they would create an unfunded mandate.