Behar Claims Republicans Don't 'Care About Children' and Are 'Defunding Education' - Facts Say Something Different
If you’re going to slander an entire political party, it’s important to make sure you’ve got your facts right.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar couldn’t be bothered to do that.
On Monday’s episode of the ABC daytime talk show, Behar claimed that Republicans are “defunding education” and that they don’t “care about children.”
“You know what really is amusing me today is this idea that the Republican Party cares about education. They’ve been spending the last few decades defunding education,” Behar said.
“And they think that we’re going to believe this baloney that they’re throwing at us now that they care about our children? Give me a break.”
The only conservative on the panel, Meghan McCain, pushed back against Behar’s accusations.
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair to say Republicans don’t care about children. I mean, I think that’s very aggressive and incendiary,” McCain replied.
She wasn’t the only one to disagree with Behar. Corey A. DeAngelis, the director of school choice at the Reason Foundation, pointed out that Behar’s claim that education has been defunded is patently absurd.
“Joy Behar just said [Republicans] have been spending the last few decades defunding education,” DeAngelis wrote on Twitter.
“That’s verifiably false. The U.S. has increased real education spending per student by 280% since 1960.”
Joy Behar just said “[Republicans] have been spending the last few decades defunding education.”
That’s verifiably false.
The U.S. has increased real education spending per student by 280% since 1960. pic.twitter.com/UEujVIYFYN
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) July 13, 2020
According to The Daily Signal, real spending per student has increased from $2,763 in 1960 to over $13,000 today.
Despite those vast increases in spending, student outcomes have remained flat. The extra money isn’t helping.
“This productivity decline is remarkable, particularly when compared with dynamic improvements in productivity elsewhere in the U.S. economy. Schooling outcomes are the same in 2015 as they were four decades before, even though school funding is now several times as high,” Stanford economist Eric Hanushek explained according to The Daily Signal.
It wasn’t just Behar’s claim about Republicans “defunding education” that was found lacking. Her insistence that Republicans “don’t care” about children’s education is also found to be wanting.
In fact, evidence suggests that the reverse is true.
A series of Education Next polls show that a majority of parents are in favor of school choice, which would allow public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs.
School choice is largely a Republican proposition, with most of the Democratic Party — tied, as it is, to teachers unions — opposed to letting the parents decide what education is right for their children.
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