Friday, November 10, 2023

Even more coverage of the culture warriors losing on Tuesday

 ...because, really, this is something to celebrate!

USA Today headline: "In school board elections across America, voters offer stunning rebuke of culture war politics" and here's the conclusion:

“It’s going to cause school board candidates down the road to seriously question whether affiliating themselves with some of these far-right groups is good for their chances of getting elected,” said Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“I think a lot of them are going to come to the conclusion that it is not and that there’s too much risk that comes with associating with these groups,” Valant said.

Christian Science Monitor headline: "Parents’ election plea: Could schools get back to teaching?" and notes "a growing disenchantment with the way so-called culture wars have dominated school board discussions"

And Amanda Marcotte in Salon, who had done a report Moms for Liberty in Pennridge last month, followed up yesterday:

The suspicious aura of money around the group was interesting to journalists, but what really damaged Moms for Liberty was that they underestimated the intelligence of the people in the communities they were targeting. The parents of Pennridge were not fooled by attempts to characterize literary fiction as "pornography." Local residents also feared that rewriting history classes to adhere to right-wing mythologies would ultimately harm the school's reputation, which could hurt both their property values and the ability of their kids to get into good colleges. Above all, multiple parents expressed a belief that schools should be preparing kids for the real world. They worried that right-wing whitewashing of history, social studies and other courses would leave kids without the basic skills necessary to thrive in a diverse, dynamic society. 

Don't rest on your laurels, but it's worth celebrating. 

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