Democrats take back school boards after conservative gains, with support from teachers unions and progressives.
By Eileen Griffin
Democrats struck back against the conservative movement, regaining some school board seats.
Conservative gains made in school board elections slowed with losses in several races this month, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The recent elections saw a push by Democrats to take back school board seats and gains made by conservatives. The past two years conservatives have made significant progress winning seats and taking control of school boards all over the country.
Conservative majorities on some school boards allowed parents to reject radical sexualized curricula, restrict the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT), institute parental notification rules, and refuse to allow radical or pornographic books in elementary school libraries.
Moms for Liberty, a parental rights group, had success recruiting and supporting conservative candidates for school board the past two years. This year their success rate was down 45 percent from previous years. Only a third of their endorsed candidates won.
Prior to the November election, Central Bucks School District, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had an elected board with a majority of conservatives. After the election, that majority disappeared with all five contested seats going to Democrats.
“In a number of the most contentious races, progressives were running against policies that conservatives enacted within the past two years,” Doug Kronaizl, who tracks school board races for Ballotpedia, told the WSJ.
In the suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa conservative candidates lost to candidates supported by progressives, NBC News reports. A town outside of Kansas City, Kansas supported candidates who defined themselves as, “pro-public education” as opposed to conservatives.
A small town in rural Colorado lost a conservative majority when unions backed a slate of three candidates, The Federalist reports. Through some unusual tactics, the leftists took back control of the small district.
“A local faction backing a slate of three candidates opposing conservative incumbents Cassie Kimbrell, Illingworth, and Mick Bates in the Nov. 7 election has secured boosts from teachers unions, massive hostile state and national media coverage, and five lawsuits against the small, rural district,” writes Joy Pullman for The Federalist. “On top of that, two weeks ago local officials announced issuing 15,000 replacement ballots due to a printing error, doubling the ballots in circulation locally in this 100 percent mail-in voting state.”
“The progressive wins—particularly in the elections in Bucks County, Pennsylvania—are a sign that right-wing activists aren’t necessarily as formidable as they once seemed,” writes Zeeshan Aleem, an opinion writer for MSNBC. “And more broadly, they’re a reminder that the war on so-called wokeness isn’t an issue that Republicans can assume will propel them to victory in 2024.”
Joy Pullman, Executive Editor for The Federalist told Heartland Daily News that union tactics were at work in the effort to put school boards back in Democrat hands.
“I think the most ‘traditional’ of the union tactics in Woodland Park was filling the school board meetings with people shouting, all wearing the same color, and accusing the conservative board members falsely,” Pullman says. “Secondly, the union-allied folks there totally dominated on social media and in generating constant unfavorable news coverage by essentially accusing the board of underhanded behavior constantly.”
“It is very difficult for any person to respond single-handed to a never-ending barrage of false accusations (such as, for example, that more patriotic curriculum would endanger NCAA status), Pullman said.
“Polarizing the target is a long-time Marxist tactic so it’s old-hat for unions, which for 100 years have been Communist fronts and fellow travelers in the United States. Most normal people have no idea what’s behind manufactured chaos like this, so it has a serious effect on local cohesion and votes. That’s why unions do it: it works,” said Pullman.
In the Richland School District in eastern Washington a recall in August removed three conservative school board members. After the November elections those three seats are now filled by union-backed liberals.
Semi Bird, one of the recalled conservative school board members, now running for governor in Washington Governor State told Heartland Daily News that the teachers union drove the effort.
“The progressive teachers unions have contributed financial support to endorse the recall initiative,” Bird said. “Their consistent objective is to install school board members aligned with an ideology-centric agenda rather than prioritizing academic achievement, all the while opposing transparency and parental rights.”
“Regrettably, this implies that the Richland School District’s children and parents no longer have advocates ready to confront progressive indoctrination and defend parental rights,” Bird said. “My concern is that policy reversals may reintroduce the teaching of victimhood based on race, prioritizing political decisions over the well-being of children.”
Bird says that the lack of momentum is not tied to the education issue, but to politics in general.
“The decline in conservative momentum reflects a fracture within the traditional Republican party structure. Their repeated nomination of establishment candidates fails to connect with the Grassroots and the average voter.”
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