The Center for Conservative Women and The Heritage Foundation host luncheon featuring Lindsey Burke and Amy Buchmeyer
On Friday, October 14th, the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women and the Heritage Foundation came together to host the Conservative Women’s Network Luncheon (CWN) at the Luce Center Headquarters. CWN is a monthly luncheon co-sponsored by the Center for Conservative Women and the Heritage Foundation that invites women to hear from and engage in conversation with women experts on a wide variety of policy related topics.
Each month’s CWN luncheon features a different conservative topic with speakers that talk and answer questions about the topic. This month’s topic was educational freedom. There were two speakers, Lindsey Burke and Amy Buchmeyer.
Lindsey Burke is the Director of the Center of Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. She oversees Heritage’s research and policy on issues pertaining to preschool, K-12, and higher education. Her research has been presented at academic conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals. She also was appointed to work on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s education landing team and to serve on the Board of Visitors for George Mason University.
Burke spoke about the importance of school choice. She focused heavily on Arizona and how they are leading the movement of school choice across the country with Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) She also talked about how effective it is to have parents be involved with their local school boards. She said, “We can’t sit on the sidelines and let the left dominate the content and the conversations happening within the walls of our district schools.”
The second speaker was Amy Buchmeyer. She is a staff attorney at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association where she serves as the contact lawyer for 11 states. Buchmeyer double majored in Politics & Government and Criminal Justice at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. She then went to University of Wisconsin Law School where she received her JD. During law school she served as President of the Federalist Society and Articles Editor for the Wisconsin Law Review.
Buchmeyer talked about the laws and regulations that still exist on homeschoolers and how parental involvement in education is crucial for a student’s success. She said, “The most accurate predicters of student achievement in school are not family income or social status, but the extent to which the family creates a home environment that encourages learning.”
The event ended with Chick-Fil-A for lunch. The attendees thought the topics the speakers spoke on were interesting and during lunch they were eager to talk to the speakers about questions they had regarding educational freedom and school choice. After a long lunch of connecting with other guests and speakers, everyone left the event feeling better informed on the education in our country.
Article by Meghan Dougherty
Meghan is a senior at Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School. In her free time, she does competitive gymnastics and CrossFit. She wrote this piece during her fall 2022 internship at the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.