Nikki Haley aims to empower parents in escalating fight over school choice

2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley outlined part of her education agenda Thursday during an interview with "Just The News No Noise," highlighting the need for policies that empower parents through expanded school choice and vital changes to the rapidly declining standards used to measure a child's academic achievement. 

"We should do everything we can to give parents the right to choose what's the best education for their children," Haley told hosts John Solomon and Amanda Head. "What you see the Democrats doing, they talk down to people. I don't care what the educational level is of a parent. They know what their children need, and they should be able to make that decision. Both of my children are totally different. They need different things. Parents should be able to decide that. And so, I think we need school choice across this country. When we do that, not only are you giving parents choices and kids choices, you're giving teachers choices.

"And the teachers don't like having to go through all this," she continued. "The critical race theory that if a five year old girl goes into school, she's white, you're telling her she's bad. And if she's brown or black, you're telling her she's never going to be good enough, and she's always gonna be a victim? What about the gender issues we saw in Florida the don't say gay bill -- people were up in arms." 

Haley claimed the Florida legislation -- later tagged as the "Don't say gay bill" --  didn't go far enough and promised to push even harder for changes to the system, that would mandate parental involvement when it came to controversial topics taught in classrooms across the nation. 

"All [the Florida law] said is you can't talk to anyone under third grade about gender," the former South Carolina governor explained. "I don't think that went far enough. When I was in seventh grade, that's when we had sex ed. And even then you had to have a parent sign a permission slip, and my dad wouldn't sign it. So I was the uncool kid next door. That is what parents should be doing. They should be teaching about all those things. Schools should be teaching math, science, history, and making sure they're developing responsible citizens. That's what we have to do to get back on track."  

Haley also targeted the Republican Party as a whole, claiming the GOP has more often than not lost the popular vote, because they aren't offering enough tangible fixes to the myriad of problems pushing the country closer to the fiscal and social cliff -- instead, choosing to focus on power and party in-fighting and turning off voters in the process. 

"It goes to the heart of the Republican Party, We've lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president," she added. "Republicans should not be okay with that. We should want to get a majority of America with us because our solutions are the right ones. They lift up everyone, not just a select few. And what you're seeing with the younger generation, my kids can tell you, they're tired of seeing all the back and forth. If you look in the midterms, the independents, the younger voter, the suburban women, what did they see? They saw Republicans fighting each other and the Democrats. It looked like chaos. They don't want that. Let's give them something they can feel good about." 

"Let's show them that we need patriotism again. Let's do the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools again," Haley concluded. "Let's make sure our veterans feel appreciated. Let's make sure we have the backs of law enforcement. And let's go back to like when we were kids, where life was simple, but you loved your country, you loved your family, and you loved your church. That's what we need to get back to. And I think when we do that, we leave the drama and the status quo behind." 

You can follow Nick on Twitter @NGivasDC