Parents Move Right, Pundits Panic, While Trump Delivers on Education
While progressive voters, Kamala Harris’s campaign team, and the Pod Save America guys wax poetic and point fingers about November’s election results, President Trump is delivering on his campaign promises to parents—firehose style. My sense is that most in the pundit class still don’t grasp how much parents with school-aged children influenced the election–shifting 7 points to the right between 2020 and 2024. Based on the first few weeks of President Trump’s second term, he did not take those votes for granted. His actions have shown parents across the political spectrum that he is delivering on promises made. Their frustrations with DEI and gender obsession in schools had reached a boiling point—so much so that many, for the first time, voted for him with hopes of restoring sanity in their children’s classrooms.
Anyone who had an actual ear to the ground in K-12 education over the past few years saw the Trump train coming from a mile away. It was obvious that parents of every political stripe had reached their limit regarding the complete ideological capture and non-academic focus of their kids’ schools. Republicans and Independents were certainly more publicly outspoken about their concerns, but anyone who failed to see Democrats losing patience as well was simply ignoring the bright red warning signs.
There was no hard data to support my sense that a sizable number of voters with children were going to vote for Trump for the first time. It was just a sense that the Democratic Party, the teachers’ unions, and countless school boards had pushed people too far and the backlash would reveal itself in the voting booth.
Polling data now confirms what so many of us have been seeing, feeling, and hearing on the ground: the Biden administration’s education priorities, which were largely based in ideology instead of academics, have proven deeply unpopular with parents.
According to a poll of parents commissioned by Parents Defending Education (where I work), a whopping 90 percent of parents agree that focusing on core subject areas—such as math, reading, writing, science, and social studies—would improve the quality of public education. In other words, as cliche as it may sound, parents want schools to get back to the basics. Parents are not on board with gender policies that allow students (and staff) to self-identify as the opposite sex, yet these policies are now the norm in most schools. 77 percent of parents, regardless of party affiliation, oppose allowing males, who identify as females, to use female bathrooms and locker rooms and vice versa. Notably, the party breakdown of that number is 92 percent of Republican parents, 75 percent of Independent parents, and 58 percent of Democratic parents.
The concept of “equity” seemed reasonable to most parents—until they saw how their school district applied it. Instead of fairness, it meant eliminating honors classes, doling out different disciplinary consequences based on race, and giving credit for school work that was never even turned in. 82 percent of parents, including 75 percent of Democrats, believe disciplinary consequences should be the same for all students, regardless of race. Additionally, 72 percent of parents, including 58 percent of Democrats, oppose 'grading for equity.’
Needless to say, Trump’s day-one executive order on gender ideology and biological truth is music to the ears of parents who are fed up with schools teaching kids that gender is a choice and that they might have been born in the wrong body.
Three days later, there was reason for more celebration when Trump’s Department of Education announced the elimination of DEI initiatives in K-12:
From the press release:
The U.S. Department of Education has taken action to eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including references to them in public-facing communication channels and its associated workforce. These actions are in line with President Trump’s ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination and wasteful spending across the federal government. They are the first step in reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools.
Parents are hardly a monolith, but it is undeniable that voters with children shifted significantly in the presidential race–enough to make a real impact. It is also undeniable that, baked into that vote, was a rejection of the race, gender, and equity-obsessed madness in their children’s schools. During the campaign, Trump recognized parental dissatisfaction with the DEI takeover of K-12 schools as an opportunity, which he capitalized on, and it is already bearing fruit for parents who voted for him.
