Politics & Power Quote by Joe Baca

“Paramount” does a lot of political work here. Joe Baca isn’t merely praising Catholic schools; he’s staking out a parental-rights argument in a culture-war era where “values” is code for the contested stuff schools are accused of mishandling: sex ed, religion in public life, patriotism, discipline, even whose history gets taught. By framing Catholic schools as central to “our Nation’s education,” he quietly upgrades them from a private alternative to a quasi-civic pillar. That’s a strategic elevation: it argues for legitimacy, public support, and influence without explicitly saying “fund them.”

The sentence is built like a coalition pitch. “We as parents” is an invitation to cross partisan and religious lines by centering a shared identity that polls well: mom-and-dad authority over institutions. It also sidesteps thornier questions about pluralism. Values aren’t named because naming would narrow the audience and trigger opposition; vagueness is the point. You can hear different voters filling in the blank with their own anxieties or hopes.

Contextually, Baca’s career overlaps with the long U.S. fight over vouchers, charter expansion, and how far public dollars can follow students to religious schools. In that landscape, praising Catholic schools isn’t neutral nostalgia; it’s an implicit argument that they deliver moral formation the public system supposedly can’t. The subtext flatters parents who feel alienated from bureaucracies and reassures Catholics that their institutions deserve not just tolerance, but public esteem.