Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Sunday that Virginians are ready for a new direction and he will get the “politics out” of school instruction while pushing for lower taxes and investments in law enforcement to reduce crime.
Mr. Youngkin, a Republican whose win over Democrat Terry McAuliffe enthused his party last year, signed an executive order on his first day in office Saturday that ends the use of “divisive concepts” in school — an allusion to critical race theory — after he ran on giving parents more control over their kids’ education.
“We are not going to teach our children to view everything through the lens of race,” Mr. Youngkin told “Fox News Sunday” in a wide-ranging interview the day after his inauguration. “We will teach all history, the good and the bad, because we can’t know where we are going unless we know where we have come from.”
The governor said there might not actually be a course in Virginia schools called “critical race theory” — Mr. Youngkin’s critics say he trumped up or inflated the issue for campaign purposes— but he wants to eliminate anything that separates or judges people based on the color of their skin.
Mr. Youngkin also said he will demand accountability after Loudoun County teenager was charged with sexual assault at two separate high schools last year. He said school officials failed to take an earlier incident seriously and some of them should have resigned by now.
“I do believe that there have been derelictions of duty so all actions to hold this school board accountable should be taken,” he said.
On COVID-19, Mr. Youngkin said he is a strong advocate for the vaccine but he was disappointed the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a mandate on health care workers, saying it could result in staffing shortages in hospitals amid the surge of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
He said he’s gotten the vaccine and booster but he thinks vaccination should be an individual decision.
The governor said he is also trying to expand testing in schools so they remain open for in-classroom learning.
Mr. Youngkin won last year by keeping former President Donald Trump at arm’s length while accepting his support and making in-roads with minorities and suburban White women who were disaffected by Democratic leadership.
The governor said he gave all Virginians a “great big bear hug” and Republicans can win by following his roadmap.
“I’ve said before that I deeply appreciated Trump’s support,” Mr. Youngkin said. “We brought together a coalition of folks that had never been in the room together — Forever Trumpers and Never Trumpers, moderates and Democrats.”
Source:Washington Times
