Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe praised his state’s education system on Sunday, saying he raised five children there even though four of them went to private high schools.
Education has been a major focus of the race between McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin as both candidates have been at odds on their stances regarding parental involvement in school curriculums, with McAuliffe espousing the view that the taxpayer-funded school administrators know what’s good for schoolchildren more than their mother or fathers do.
“We have a great school system in Virginia. Dorothy and I have raised our five children,” McAuliffe said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” during an interview where he slammed Youngkin’s positions on education.
While it is likely true that McAuliffe raised his kids in Virginia, he neglected to mention that four out of his five children were sent to private high schools.
According to a Washington Post profile from 2013, one of McAuliffe’s sons attended Gonzaga College High School after a previously won gubernatorial election. The school is a Catholic institution in Washington, D.C., that has a current annual tuition of $24,950, which does not include various other fees that may come up such as food and transportation.
McAuliffe’s other three kids went to an even more expensive high school called The Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. Potomac’s website says that tuition for the 2021-22 school year is $45,650 per year.
One major area of contention between McAuliffe and Youngkin has been whether or not parents should have a right to influence what their own children learn at taxpayer-funded public schools. McAuliffe has been a staunch proponent of the idea that parents should not be able to control the education of their children in a system that is funded by their own taxes, saying it should instead be left to people that education bureaucrat in the government deem as “experts.”
Youngkin, meanwhile, has lambasted the Virginia school system’s teaching of critical race theory to children. On numerous occasions, including on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” McAuliffe has lied by claiming the state’s schools did not teach Critical Race Theory, despite the state board of education’s website actively promoting it – including in a 2015 presentation when McAuliffe was governor.
