In a political race that today the New York Times called a “bellwether” for the nation, U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski is in a tight contest with Republican Tom Kean, Jr. in New Jersey’s 7th District. Last week Malinowski,, a second-term congressman, was the guest on “The People’s Guide to Power,” WNYC’s midterm election series, and spoke with host and senior politics reporter Brigid Bergin. Here are answers to questions about public education in New Jersey and America.

Bergin: Let’s start with this issue of sexual education in the classroom. New Jersey adopted new standards that are being implemented for the first time this year. What kind of input do you think parents should have on this issue?

Malinowski: I think parents should have input on every aspect of their kids’ education. Ever since I’ve been in this office since 2018, I’ve been talking to parents, to teachers, to students. I do assemblies and meetings at high schools all the time, and I get a range of concerns from folks about our schools. The No. 1 concern, probably going back to when I first started running for office, was safety.

I meet a lot more parents who want to protect their kids from guns than parents who want to protect their kids from books. And [guns are] still an important issue — this year we actually passed the first gun violence prevention bill Congress has adopted in over three decades.

Since COVID, I hear a lot, very understandably, about the time that our students lost when education was hybrid or at home. That’s a very serious problem. Our kids are dealing with a lot of mental health issues. The lack of mental health resources for kids comes up a lot. And then there’s this newer issue that has kind of come to our state from other states where parent groups and political movements have tried to rile up a lot of fear about what our kids are allegedly being taught in class.

So we’re seeing that play out in school board elections in New Jersey and in our campaign.

Bergin: It was also a topic of a recent Rutgers-Eagleton poll that found most New Jerseyans do favor sexual education in high school and middle school, but just about 46% approve of it in elementary school. This is really a state issue. We’re talking about state standards, and you are running for federal office. Can you talk more about why this has become an issue in your race?

Malinowki: My opponent, who you mentioned, Tom Kean Jr., has jumped on this bandwagon of bringing the culture wars to New Jersey. He went on Fox News a few months ago and accused elementary school teachers in his hometown of Westfield, New Jersey of teaching pornography to second graders. [Note: In his appearance on Fox News, Kean Jr. did not explicitly mention the town of Westfield but the district has become the posterchild for lessons on gender fluidity that some consider overly-woke.]

It’s obviously not true. It has nothing to do with the state education, sex education guidelines. Just think about what a horrible thing that is to falsely accuse an elementary school teacher of doing. But I think the political purpose of this is just to stoke fear and anger and then to try to use it to win elections.

 I mean, if I’m a parent and I hear a politician tell me that teachers are sexually grooming my second grade student, I’m going to be pretty upset about that and pretty concerned. It just happens to be not true and that’s what has really upset me. We need to be recruiting more teachers to teach our kids.

That’s a big problem right now. We have a teacher shortage in New Jersey and all across the country. Recruiting teachers into a situation where politicians are going to accuse them of horrific things like that is even harder.