“People can choose whether they and their families want to be vaccinated,” Kiley said.
Kiley said his path into politics was marked by a stint at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, where he taught English in 10th grade and formed a debate team during the Teach for America program.
“I had a really amazing experience, but I also saw how bad our public education system fails to many of our children,” he said. “The tenth graders I taught were on average at a fifth grade reading level when they entered my class.”
At the congregation, Kiley is the top Republican on the education committee. He was a vocal opponent of Newsom’s educational policies, including a 2019 law that revised state rules for charter schools. The changes, which Kiley voted against, allowed school officials to consider a district’s finances when deciding whether to approve a new charter school and imposed a moratorium on non-classroom-based charter schools.
Over the past year, Kiley has directed his anger at the governor’s handling of schools reopening, pointing to California’s slow return to personal education as a “egregious example” of Newsom’s failure as governor.
“This governor did immeasurable harm to a generation of young people when his own children were in private school,” Kiley said.
While Republicans traditionally preferred that school decisions be left to local officials, Kiley said state leaders should have stepped in when some counties were slow to get kids back into face-to-face learning.
In March, Newsom and legislative leaders reached an agreement to incentivize return to the classroom and sent billions of dollars to local counties. Most Republicans in the Legislature supported the move, but Kiley voted against the law, arguing it didn’t go far enough to call for an end to distance learning.
“A responsible leadership of our state government would have said that you have to open up,” he said. “Local control does not include whether you have any school at all.”
While a statewide poll found positive marks for Newsom’s handling of schools reopening, Kiley believes the underlying anger of some parents will open the door to sweeping changes in California’s education policy.
To this end, Kiley is sponsoring an election initiative for 2022 to create a school voucher system that will allow public school students to spend their state education funds on the school of their choice.
