Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance sits at town hall with Pastor Joshua Robertson in Harrisburg on October 26, 2024 (Photo: Ben Wasserstein for the Capital-Star)

At a town hall on education in Harrisburg on Saturday, U.S. Senator. GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said his politics are based on his Christian faith.

“Whether you are a Bible-believing Christian or not, Christian politics should be for the common good,” he said. “You should pursue a society where people can live a good life, raise their children with good values, and earn enough to support a family if they work hard.”

Vance said he was first baptized in 2019.

The town hall was hosted by Black Pastors United for Education, an organization. Jeffrey Mourning.

Yass is a major Republican donor and donates virtually. $85 million This cycle is mostly caused by Republicans, according to Open Secrets. He also worked for the championship school choice and coupons.

Despite this, Vance took time to criticize politicians who took money from big donors.

“You know how interest group politics happens in Pennsylvania or in each of our states, where you have 10 people who don’t have a strong political voice and are pushing for one thing, but then you have one guy who has a really strong political voice and is strong for something else.” “Unfortunately, politicians are often the only ones people listen to,” he said.

Vance said education bureaucracy gets in the way of students’ access to new learning materials, and that’s one of the reasons he likes school choice.

“We have a lot of schools that are really underfunded and don’t have the resources that they need or are not giving kids a good education for some complicated reason,” he said. “I believe one of the ways to solve this is to provide scholarships. “It’s about giving vouchers to every parent, every grandparent who cares for a child, so they can choose the education option that makes the most sense for their family.”

School vouchers are a controversial issue in Pennsylvania; Republicans praise it, saying it gives parents more freedom, while most Democrats argue it takes money away from public schools.

Because public schools in Pennsylvania are predominantly funded by state agencies, they can vary widely in quality. local taxes.

Pastor Joshua Robertson of the Rock Church in Harrisburg asked Vance if school choice would coincide with improving public schools.

“The evidence I have seen shows that school choice actually improves the quality of both private and public schools,” he said.

But feeding kids is one of the most beneficial things for schools, Vance said.

““I think one of the most important things if you want to have successful public schools and successful private schools is that children cannot learn on an empty stomach,” he said.

He then claimed that the Biden administration threatened schools that did not allow trans people to participate in sports by allocating funds for transgender people’s participation in sports. National School Lunch ProgramIt is housed within the Food and Nutrition Service.

“I think it’s crazy to allow biological males to compete with biological females in sports,” he said. “But even if you don’t agree with me, I think it’s a terrible thing to take food out of the mouths of poor children because they haven’t done what the Biden-Harris administration has asked them to do.”

Management tried expand Title IX prohibition on “sex” discrimination “gender stereotypes, gender-related characteristics (including intersex characteristics), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not say that funding for the school lunch program would be cut, but instead said: “Program operators and sponsors that receive funding from the FNS (Food and Nutrition Service) should investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. ”

This expansion is pending after multiple implementations federal cases A lawsuit was filed against the US Department of Education.

in it announcementBlack Pastors United for Education claimed that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and a former public school teacher, and Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Buck Ware were invited to the town hall, but only Vance and Libertarian candidate Mike ter Maat showed up.

In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson Onotse Omoyeni criticized Trump and Vance for their calls to eliminate the Department of Education in Project 2025.

Although both Republican candidates have tried to distance themselves from Project 2025, Vance wrote forward for a book written by his overseer.

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