LAS VEGAS, NV. - Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, touted school choice as the "gateway" to kids' futures at last week's Club for Growth School Freedom Forum, and took a swipe at teachers unions he said were blocking the door.
"If you look at kids across the country today, if kids want to have a future, the gateway to having a future, the gateway to an American Dream, is getting an education," Cruz told Fox News Digital.
"If you look at millions of kids who are trapped in failing schools right now, who are trapped in schools where they don't have hope, where they don't have a future," he said.
"Look, everything starts with education," Republican Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt told Fox News Digital. "The American Dream, opportunity."
Laxalt noted that school freedom was especially important in Las Vegas, "where education ranks at the bottom" and where "kids need this opportunity."
The speakers often adopted the term "school freedom" because, as noted by pollster Chris Wilson during his presentation, recent research concluded the phrase has typically been more positively received than "school choice."
Both Cruz and Laxalt blasted teachers unions for the past two years of school closings.
"It was, No. 1, teachers union bosses who demanded that schools be closed, and they stay closed, and then it was a lot of blue-state Democrat politicians who were more than happy to comply to shut down schools – not just for a few weeks but then for months and even more than a year," Cruz said. "And across this country, we saw tens of millions of kids who have been held back."
The average learning loss, he noted, was about 22 weeks.
"I think we're going to look back in hindsight a few years from now and wonder, ‘What was the collective lunacy that caused anyone to think it’s a good idea to shut down schools,'" he added.
Cruz recounted how he and his wife Heidi took turns homeschooling their 11- and 14-year-old daughters. He said he got the "easier draw" with their 11-year-old. While the pair had ample resources to make virtual learning work, he "can't imagine" how those with less managed their kids' educations during the pandemic.
"It was hard for the two of us, with two full-time parents, with the ability to devote real time sitting there with our girls doing distance learning in schools," Cruz said. "I can't imagine what it would be like for a single mom. A single mom with three, four, five kids. A single mom trying to work a couple of jobs."
He continued to criticize teachers unions and Democrats he said were beholden to them.
"You saw these Democrats who were so captive to the dollars from the teachers union bosses that they were willing to tell kids – many of whom are African American and Hispanic – ‘tough luck, you don’t get to go to school. We're going to shut it down because we know who we work for, and it's the people who write checks.'"
"I got to say it was immoral what we've done to our kids," he said.
"We know for a fact that schools did not need to be shut down," Laxalt agreed, pointing to states like Florida that largely kept schools open. "Kids were always able to go to school. Schools like in Florida and other states were in school the entire time. So for our Democratic governor [Steve Sisolak] to lock these kids down these last few years was unforgivable. This is lost education for a generation. They’re not going to be able to just magically make that time up."
School closures, Laxalt noted, resulted not only in academic slumps, but spikes in teen suicide and mental health issues.
"We’ve warned about all this stuff in 2020, but it was turned to a deaf ear by the teachers unions who were more interested in keeping us locked down than getting kids back in schools," he said.
Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway said in March that it "breaks" her heart to think of what two years of developmental delays and social disruptions did to young students, when asked if those challenges can be overcome.
"You hope that, even with the delays we're seeing, the older children, some of the extreme emotional problems, that there will be a way through that," Hemingway said. "But, that's why it's really just horrific what we've put young people through, and all these… I think a lot of the people that are making the decisions are protected from it. They were wealthy enough, or cloistered enough that they didn't feel the ramifications. And particularly when we're talking about poor children who don't have resources at home, it just breaks my heart to think about what we put them through."
The "upside," to school closings, Cruz offered, was that millions of parents got to see what was being taught to their kids.
"I think this is a powerful moment for school choice nationwide," he said.
