Senator Blackburn Advocates for Parents’ Rights During National School Choice Week
Senator Blackburn Visits University of Tennessee, Knoxville Campus
Senator Blackburn Speaks to Harding Academy 8th Grade Class in Washington, D.C.
Senator Blackburn Celebrates Achievements of Students, Parents, and Educators in Carroll County
Senator Blackburn supports the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education and return power back to states, communities, and families. In the United States Senate, Senator Blackburn has worked to expand school choice so that parents can choose the education that best prepares their child for success. Senator Blackburn has supported initiatives that champion constitutional principles, hard work, and the American dream while rejecting radical-left indoctrination.
As a mother and grandmother, Senator Blackburn knows that parents play a vital role in shaping and supporting their child’s educational journey. Regardless of zip code or socioeconomic status, parents — not government — should always have the final say in what kind of schooling their child receives. Senator Blackburn has been an ardent supporter of school choice and introduced the Educational Choice for Children Act to expand education freedom and fund scholarship awards for students to cover expenses related to K-12 public and private education.
In recent years, open debate on college campuses has been stifled by the radical left and institutions that seek to suppress conservative thought in higher education. To combat this, Senator Blackburn introduced the Campus Free Speech Resolution to encourage institutions and students to pursue truth through the free exchange of ideas. Additionally, as the Chinese Communist Party seeks to infiltrate our K-12 classrooms and university campuses with communist propaganda, Senator Blackburn led the CONFUCIUS Act to reduce Communist China’s influence on U.S. schools and prohibit federal funding to colleges and universities that host Confucius Institutes.
In 2021, after the Biden Department of Education proposed federal funding to support radical and divisive curriculum like critical race theory (CRT), Senator Blackburn joined more than 30 of her Senate colleagues in introducing a resolution to condemn the use of CRT in K-12 schools and teacher training programs. During his first month back in office, President Trump took action to end radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling. Senator Blackburn has sounded the alarm on Tennessee universities concealing DEI programs to skirt President Trump’s executive actions to end divisive and woke programs in education.
Senator Blackburn introduced the Terminating Education Association Congressional Handouts (TEACH) Act to ban the nation’s largest teachers’ union from influencing the decisions of the federal government and pushing a far-left political agenda.
Following Hamas terrorists’ vicious attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Senator Blackburn introduced the Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act, which would rescind federal education funding for colleges and universities that peddle antisemitism or authorize, fund, or facilitate events that promote violent antisemitism.
Following the heartbreaking shooting that occurred at the Covenant School in Nashville in 2023, Senator Blackburn immediately took action, building upon her previous efforts to keep children safe at school, and introduced the Securing Aid for Every (SAFE) School Act. This legislation would establish a $900 million grant program to allow both public and private schools to train and hire veterans and former law enforcement officers to serve as school safety officers, hire off-duty law enforcement officers, and provide funding to harden schools and increase physical security.
