The federal government has no authority to govern America’s classrooms. The U.S. Constitution enumerates the role of the federal government and leaves education up to the states. In fact, the tenth amendment of the Constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have no authority to supersede state laws that allow parents to decide health decisions for their children. In letters from Secretary Cardona to eight states on August 18, 2021, and in Biden’s address to the nation September 9, 2021, duly elected state officials that enacted laws that prohibit mask and vaccine mandates were warned that local education agencies (LEAs) have the support of the Biden administration to violate these state laws. Moreover, they say that if any LEA loses funding due to noncompliance with state law, the federal government will cover those loses.
The Biden administration has already dumped $130 billion dollars into LEAs across the country to incentivize following CDC guidelines and to advance the equity agenda (a.k.a. Critical Race Theory). Biden added in his remarks, that if the $130 billion wasn’t enough to cover loses to LEAs who don’t comply with state law, he would infuse more money into those states.
Federal interference in education has existed since the U.S. Department of Education was first founded under the Carter administration in 1979. Federal overreach isn’t just a Democrat idea; it blossomed and grew under Bush Senior and George W. Bush; however, the blatant disregard for duly elected state officials and their authority to govern according to the U.S. Constitution has never been so bold.
Parents and taxpayers must push back against Biden’s tyrannical abuse of power in state education. U.S. Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) stands with the states that have passed laws that protect a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their children.
Once the national political climate turns back to more conservative leadership, it should be an urgent priority to close the US Department of Education and end all federal education mandates. USPIE has written a Blueprint that does this in 5 easy steps. In the meantime, USPIE will provide resources to parents across the country to enable them to protect their God-given rights over health decisions for their children.
United States Parents Involved in Education 