The national school board news from Tuesday

While I am not quite in a space to yet post on our local results from Tuesday, I want to be sure that you've caught the big national news on school board elections on Tuesday, which is that the Moms for Liberty, culture war candidates largely lost, and even lost in some pretty amazing places.

Front counter at the
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Malden, MA

The Association Press has an overview here focusing on Pennsylvania: 

In recent years, down-ballot elections have become proxy votes for polarizing national issues. Liberal and moderate candidates took control in high-profile races Tuesday in conservative Iowa, as well as swing states Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The New York Times (that's a gift link) frames it as "conservative activists for parental rights" which is doing that thing the Times does of buying someone else's framing, but closes with AFT President Randi Weingarten observing that this isn't what voters want their school boards focused on: 

But the conservative push to restrict books and to ideologically shape the history curriculum is a “strategy to create fear and division,” Ms. Weingarten said. The winning message, she added, was one of “freedom of speech and freedom to learn,” as well as returning local schools to their core business of fostering “consistency and stability” for children.

(As a side note, catch how on brand charter and choice supporter Jeanne Allen is in that piece. She presumably hasn't caught that those issues don't win, either.)

PBS News Hour, which interviewed Julie Marsh, Professor of Education Policy, University of Southern California caught this quite well in this exchange: 

Geoff Bennett:

Well, what effect has all of that had on significant issues that public school boards face, like teacher shortages, pandemic-related learning loss, school safety?

Julie Marsh:

This has been a distraction.

I'll say that I think most of the elections appear to be disagreeing with her conclusion, that it is driving people away from public schools. Instead, they appear to be moving away from those who have put school boards in this position.

HuffPost names Moms for Liberty specifically--Sarah Dohl put together a spreadsheet of how those they endorsed did!--and concludes: 

After a lackluster showing from culture war candidates in 2022 and again last night, it’s becoming clear that casting public school teachers as the bad guys and Moms for Liberty as students’ only hope just isn’t the winning strategy that MFL and other conservatives want it to be.

 And WHYY went to Central Bucks County, where the Democrats completed a clean sweep.

Amanda Marcotte in Salon notes this, on reporting from the Pennridge race: 

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. 

Erin Reed summarized well on Twitter:

Political pundits: If your analysis of today's race results start and end with abortion, you are missing another huge part of the picture.

Book bans, anti-trans bans, and anti-LGBTQ+ policies are getting resoundingly rejected in school board races across the country.

— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) November 8, 2023