School Board Bigotry May Be Backfiring

Appealing explicitly to paranoid freaks has its downsides

Welcome to the big Sunday edition of Progress Report!

I just got into Washington, DC after spending about 24 hours in Richmond, where I covered a big rally put on by unionizing Starbucks workers. After attending a rally with unionizing Amazon workers in Staten Island on Sunday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders flew down to Richmond and gave the closing speech to the fired-up baristas and their supporters at a daylong concert that they dubbed Unity Fest.

I spent time behind the scenes with Sen. Sanders and maybe 20 workers, watching as he asked them all sorts of questions — he was very inquisitive about the conditions they face, the low pay and deceptively poor benefits they receive, and how Howard Schultz has stepped up the union-busting since returning at the beginning of the month. Having covered the union campaign for More Perfect Union since baristas in Buffalo began organizing under the radar in August, I’d heard some of the anecdotes, but there were new horrors to discover as well.

Having the senator take a keen interest in their fight and struggles was clearly validating and galvanizing for what was a predominantly very young crowd; while some lawmakers have gone out of their way to support workers, others have just dropped into their local Starbucks for a perfunctory photo op for their own social media feeds. I’ve heard more than a few complaints about such incidents, though even those drive-by events represent big progress for some segments of the Democratic Party.

Now I’m in DC for a few days to help find more ways to spotlight the battles being fought by working people (and how to get Democrats to join in the fights).

Tonight, we’ve got Natalie Meltzer taking a deep dive into the battle over school boards that have become the latest front in American electoral politics and — oh yeah — rapidly reshaping the nation’s educational system.

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by Natalie Meltzer

Once sleepy affairs, school board elections have become a central component of right-wing efforts to energize their base and draw voters to the polls. These local races have received an unusual level of funding and attention, becoming bellwethers for state and national elections. 

As we’ve covered, the battles over race in the classroom, public health measures adopted during the pandemic, and sex and gender in schools have been escalating for some time. More than 180 groups focused on “parental rights” have emerged in at least 34 states, most of which were formed over the last two years. Despite grassroots branding, these groups are propped up by national conservative organizations with deep pockets and connections. 

Political scientist Maurice Cunningham has been monitoring the emergence of these groups and debunking their claims of grassroots leadership:

From Parents Defending Education, No Left Turn in Education, Moms for Liberty and on to groups like National Parents Union, the creation stories are similar. A handful of disgruntled moms talk over their frustrations, determine to start their moms or parents group to seek change, and then in pour the millions of dollars; contracts are quickly signed with nationally recognized public relations firms and pollsters (one newly birthed charter school-tied group in Rhode Island immediately hired a Biden pollster); the head mom is booked on Fox or featured in national media outlets. Conservative outlets like The Federalist, Washington Times, Campus Fix, and most importantly Fox News amplify the misleading message.

Parents Defending Education is emblematic of this strategy. The group, which maintains an “IndoctriNation Map” that flags schools for activities like investigating racial discrimination and creating affinity groups for staff of color, bills itself as a “national grassroots organization” of parents. But when Cunningham looked at Facebook pages for local affiliates, the largest one had just 17 members.

Parents Defending Education’s leadership has close ties with the Koch-led conservative donor network, and its activities suggest the operation is far more professional than they let on. Months after incorporating, Parents Defending Education hired a lawyer who represented Donald Trump during his presidential term to file a slew of legal complaints against public schools. 

This playbook was bolstered by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in the November election. Many credit Youngkin’s success to his decision to make “critical race theory” the centerpiece of his platform.  

Don’t follow this man on Twitter, he’s a bigot.

[Jordan: By the way, the bigot whose tweet is pictured above just got a big, glossy, grossly “even-handed” profile in the New York Times, complete with a photoshoot on the beach. He’s spent the past six months injecting homophobia into the education conversation, which apparently makes him worthy of amplification in the nation’s most prestigious newspaper. Homophobes on beaches are the new racists in diners.]

The 1776 Project, which was created last April to “raise funds to support school board candidates who oppose public schools teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project,” raised over $1.4 million during the first quarter of this year. 

Republicans around the country are banning diversity education, banning library books by minorities, and throwing out textbooks for political show, flexing their muscles and riling up their base. But whether the strategy will connect with the broader electorate or backfire remains to be seen.

With local elections in full swing, we can begin to assess whether conservatives’ big bet on school boards is paying off. Here are a few of the recent and upcoming elections that we’re watching:

Missouri 

An influx of outside money and politics influenced last month’s municipal elections in St. Louis, where candidates were divided on issues including health policies and how schools discuss race, history, sex, and gender.

But the right’s strategy failed to yield decisive results:

In the Kirkwood, Lindbergh and Parkway school districts, candidates rated “pro-equity” by the Missouri Equity Education Partnership won both available seats. In the St. Louis area, half of the candidates endorsed by the progressive group won their races.

That was also true for conservative-backed candidates; nearly half endorsed in the No Left Turn in Education guide won their seats. In Pattonville, Rockwood, Valley Park and Francis Howell, both elected candidates had been endorsed by the conservative organization.

The Rockwood School District has seen contentious debates over masking and how issues of race and diversity are taught. Candidates Izzy Imig and Jessica Clark won the two seats there and were both endorsed by No Left Turn in Education. Two candidates who were rated “pro-equity” by the Equity Education Partnership came in third and fourth in the district.

Many more school districts elected a mix of candidates who were endorsed by the groups or didn’t appear on either of the candidate guides.

It took a lot of public attention and right-wing money for conservatives to flip the seats they did win. Missouri’s conservative attorney general (and Senate candidate) Eric Schmitt relentlessly attacked and sued districts that did not comply with his absurd “transparency” orders, which followed his earlier holy war on Covid precautions in schools.

In January, we wrote about the battle happening in Springfield, the state’s capital and third-largest school system, and unfortunately, the sheer attention and money that poured into those races helped paranoid conservatives flip two seats.

Still, the overall stalemate offers a silver lining. Missouri has been moving to the right in recent years, but more so in partisan elections than when specific issues are on the ballot. The mixed results here are in line with the successful ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and expand Medicaid (which Republicans continue to slice and dice and gut).

Wisconsin

The vitriol directed at school boards throughout Wisconsin drove many members to quit before their terms ended or decline to run for reelection. The state’s April 5 election had 56 school board races that involved conflicts over race in eduction, coronavirus response, or sex and gender in schools. 

These local elections drew unprecedented amounts of money and attention. Even though the state’s school board elections are technically nonpartisan, the Republican Party of Waukesha County funneled at least $10,000 into elections in nine school districts in that county alone. In a highly unusual move, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch got involved in school board elections, endorsing 48 conservative candidates and donating to 9 of them. 

The results of the election were mixed here, too:

Republican-endorsed candidates picked up seats in districts including Waukesha and Kenosha. But in other areas, including Beloit, La Crosse and Eau Claire, despite unprecedented involvement by outside groups, major political parties on both sides and even rightwing billionaire and GOP megadonor Diane Hendricks, conservative candidates lost, as voters rejected hyperpartisan, negative school board politics.

In Eau Claire, all three school board candidates who ran on anti-LGBT platforms lost to the incumbents and their allies.

The three conservative candidates stoked controversy about a teacher training program they claimed excludes parents from conversations about their children’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The issue became a topic of national news stories and outraged commentary on Fox News.

The school board president received a death threat in the form of an anonymous email from an account named “Kill All Marxist Teachers” that stated, “I am going to kill you and shoot up your next school-board meeting for promoting the horrific, radical transgender agenda.”

School board president Tim Nordin, who urged his community not to “cede to fear,” won with the largest share of the vote — 19% — on Tuesday night, followed by his allies, incumbent Marquell Johnson and Stephanie Farrar, with 18% each, beating three conservative challengers who each received 15%.

The US Supreme Court just issued an unprecedented and frankly nonsensical decision that forces another decade of grossly gerrymandered legislative maps on Wisconsin, so this November’s gubernatorial election couldn’t be more important. If Kleefisch wins, she’ll have full power to turn Wisconsin, a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, into a bastion for right-wing extremism, with a special focus on workers’ rights, abortion, and education.

New Hampshire

Results from New Hampshire, on the other hand, indicate that there are limits to the electoral effectiveness of frothy bigotry in places where racism has been more subtle than overtly state-sanctioned. 

Despite a growing right-wing movement in the state, an influx of conservative money and organizing around school boards elections did not translate into results. Progressive school board candidates prevailed across the state, including in some of the most contentious races. 

In Bedford, teacher Andrea Campbell unseated a conservative school board member, as town officials recorded a 36 percent increase in turnout. 

In Exeter, five left-leaning candidates held off challenges from opponents on the right, many by slim margins.

And in Londonderry, voters opted against a warrant article that would have stripped away the authority of school officials to impose future mask mandates and made the wearing of masks optional for children and families.

In total, 29 candidates designated by progressive organizers as “pro-public education” won Tuesday night, many in traditionally conservative towns like Brookline and Londonderry.

In some instances, the Republican campaigning may have backfired by bringing out voters who were opposed to the denial of history and human rights. 

“It was really exciting,” said Sherry Farrell, town clerk in Londonderry, where public school advocates prevailed over “parental rights” candidates and unofficial results showed a record turnout. “We had a lot of young people registering to vote for the first time, and some older people registering too.”

North Carolina

Now we’re looking forward to upcoming elections in states where the political stakes are just as high.

Like Wisconsin, school board elections in North Carolina are technically nonpartisan. But conservative donors and strategists are trying to get a "stealth slate" of Republican candidates elected in next month's school board election in Durham, a progressive stronghold in an increasingly purple state. 

Calling themselves the “Better Board, Better Schools, Better Futures” slate, none of the candidates’ campaign materials mention party affiliation and they downplay the relevance of party when asked by voters and the media. 

But look a little closer and it becomes clear they are the same hyper-partisan Republicans running on the same platform as their counterparts across the country.

Perhaps the most egregious member of the stealth slate is Joetta MacMiller, who is running for Consolidated District B. 

MacMiller is a member of the New Group of Patriots, which describes its mission as "to destroy the socialist takeover of our lives and the American dream," and she attended the January 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally where she and her group were tear-gassed in the mob.  

Fortunately, there is a strong candidate running against MacMiller: Millicent Rogers. Rogers is a Black Durham native, a single mom, former PTA president, and a co-president of the Durham People's Alliance, a grassroots progressive organization in the city. 

Rogers is running on an equity platform, with a particular focus on engaging families with limited English proficiency, families of children with disabilities, and nontraditional families in education. She is also prioritizing increased pay for school staff and additional nurses, social workers, and psychologists in schools.

Despite candidates like Rogers, William Busa, the director of EQV Analytics, thinks it is possible that the stealth slate can win. 

“Even here in deep blue Durham, it is not impossible that these five radical Republicans might just succeed in wrestling control of the school board away from Democrats, thanks to meticulous planning, sophisticated organization, a stacked deck of election law, and — most importantly — a flurry of industrial-strength deception,” Busa wrote. 

Tennessee

Early voting in Tennessee’s school board primary election began last week, with 14 candidates running for 4 open seats. 

It is the city’s first-ever partisan school board election after the state’s Republican lawmakers passed a bill last year allowing county parties to endorse candidates—a move critics believe will push regular parents out of the running, cause polarization, and decrease diplomacy. Nashville’s current school board publicly opposed the change, but the local parties opted to hold primaries anyway. 

The city’s Republican school board candidates received training from the Leadership Institute, an incubator for conservative activists, politicians, and organizers. The 11-hour online program includes a session on “Critical Race Theory” with Sen. Ted Cruz and a discussion with Ron Nering, former chair of the Republican Party of California and National Spokesman for Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign.

Georgia

Voters will elect school board members in six of Georgia’s ten school districts on May 24, with the remaining districts holding primaries in advance of a general election in August. 

In February, the Republican-controlled House voted to make school board elections nonpartisan in Gwinnett County, where friend of the newsletter Nabilah Islam is running for State Senate. This means the general election will take place on May 24 and that candidates will not have party affiliation listed next to their names on the ballot. 

The district is one of the fastest-growing and most diverse in the country, and the five-member school board flipped blue last year. Sen. Clint Dixon said the school district was “falling off a cliff” under Democrats’ leadership when he introduced the bill to create nonpartisan elections. Islam told us that parents are coming out in droves to complain about CRT and other made-up problems, but feels confident that sane people will prevail.

Ironically, it is one of the two Republicans on the board who may be ousted next month. First-term Republican school board member Steve Knudsen is facing a challenge from Michael Rudnick, who is running against face masks and “racially divisive teachings” in the classroom. 

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