{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=3E31D08D-C829-4EDD-89D4-23204DE2AA01", "Democrats\u2019 Attack on Charter Schools is an Attack on Parents\u2019 Rights", "2022-12-14", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding school choice:\n\n\u201cAgainst the backdrop of punishing 13.8% cumulative inflation since January 2021, an open borders crisis, spiking deaths from drug overdoses, and surging violent crime from coast to coast, President Biden has decided his A-1 priority needs to be\u2026 cracking down on charter schools.\n\n\u201cAnd harming the educational opportunities available to millions of low-income students in the process.\n\n\u201cCharter schools have long injected a huge dose of choice and competition into the schooling options available to low-income Americans and communities of color. This became especially true and especially important during the pandemic.\n\n\u201cBig Labor teachers\u2019 unions spent the pandemic forcing government-run public schools to keep their doors shut long after private schools, parochial schools, and schools across Europe were all back operating safely in person.\n\n\u201cDuring this time, charter schools became a haven. They offered an escape rope out of learning loss for kids who would otherwise have been left behind. No wonder that, according to one analysis, charter school enrollment has surged since the pandemic started, even as public school enrollments have fallen off.\n\n\u201cBut sadly, whenever kids\u2019 best interests and Big Labor\u2019s pocketbooks come into conflict, we know where most of today\u2019s Democratic Party will come down.\n\n\u201cThe Biden Administration has dutifully written a harsh new regulation that would intentionally chip away at the federal charter schools program and strip funding from many public charter schools.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden and his team are trying to force charter schools to conform to a whole new set of top-down, one-size-fits-all rules that the teachers\u2019 unions want forced onto their competitors.\n\n\u201cThe Democrats\u2019 rule is designed to hamstring charter schools and leave them more reliant on government bureaucracies in everything from what they teach to how kids get to school in the morning.\n\n\u201cPerhaps worst of all, they want charter schools\u2019 federal funding to be heavily contingent on whether the Democrats\u2019 federal bureaucracy agrees there is a \u2018need\u2019 for their existence.\n\n\u201cThis is a plan to take options away from parents, to take opportunities away from kids, to take choice away from families\u2026 and transfer that power directly to Big Labor bosses and Big Government bureaucrats.\n\n\u201cYet another example of Democrats trying every trick to make end-runs around parents\u2019 rights in education. Stripping power away from parents and handing it to bureaucrats.\n\n\u201cI commend the junior Senator for South Carolina, Senator Scott, for bringing forward a Congressional Review Act resolution to right this wrong.\n\n\u201cI urge every member of this body to put families first and vote for the Senator\u2019s commonsense resolution.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=3E31D08D-C829-4EDD-89D4-23204DE2AA01"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8180770091712475, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}