Terry McAuliffe surely blundered when he declared—out of context though it was taken—that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” thereby handing Glenn Youngkin a perfectly-timed campaign issue. Millions of parents in Virginia and across the land were already aggrieved by their schools’ mishandling of education during the Covid-19 pandemic, conscious that many school systems paid greater heed to the demands of their adult employees than the needs of their pupils. This caused huge learning losses for most kids and enormous challenges for parents. Lots of parents were also alarmed by reports that their schools were going to extremes in teaching about race, gender, sexuality, and other touchy or politically charged issues.
