New Hampshire Democratic State Representative Tommy Hoyt lashed out at a parent who urged him to support a proposed parental rights bill in Granite State this week, telling the person to “shut up.”
A “father of four” sent Hoyt an email begging him to pass SB 272, a bill seeking to establish a bill of rights for parents that would prevent public schools from withholding information about their children, as reported by the NH newspaper. Hoyt angrily responded to the message, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that parents are “incompetent teachers” and shouldn’t be involved in their children’s education.
“Do you know why children’s achievements have declined during COVID? His parents were incompetent teachers. Do your kids a favor, let the teachers teach, and shut up. You are clearly not a professional,” Hoyt wrote to his father.
The New Hampshire lawmaker confirmed the message’s authenticity to the NH Journal, saying he “probably could have used better words.”
“My feeling is that children’s educational achievement test scores dropped dramatically because they had no teachers. And parents who were like, ‘We can replace them and we can tell them what to do,’ that wasn’t effective,” she explained.
The measure, which was opposed by teachers’ unions and LGBTQ activists who argued it would force students to be “waived,” was rejected Thursday 195-190. Corey DeAngelis, a senior member of the Federation for Children of America, noted in a tweet that Hoyt is endorsed by the National Education Association, the largest union in the United States, and won his state House seat by just 18 votes a year. Last year.
Hoyt’s response to the concerned parent recalls the blunder made in the 2022 campaign by former Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, when he said in the final debate, “I don’t think parents should tell schools what to teach.”.
Republican Glenn Youngkin, whose campaign has focused on education and parental rights, would defeat McAuliffe in a state where President Biden won by 10 points.
