How do you replace anti-child school board members with persons of common sense? That is, with those who favor educating children rather than indoctrinating them with socialism and racism?
This is not a battle that all parents need to fight directly on behalf of their own children. Those who can enroll them in a sane private or charter school, or homeschool them, may do that instead.
But parents who are taking on corrupt school boards have found a couple of very effective approaches.
One, recall campaigns.
Some board members are so horrible that parents will catapult themselves to polling stations for the chance to oust them. Unfortunately, not all voters everywhere have the right to recall crummy officials.
Two, regular board elections.
But to succeed in replacing the zanies entrenched in many school boards with better persons, one must field appropriate candidates.
Among those who have been doing the necessary preparatory work in Minnesota, where “the teachers’ union, Education Minnesota, has largely run our state for decades,” are John Hinderaker of Powerline fame and the members of his organization Minnesota Parents Alliance.
The Alliance reports that in the recent election, its candidates won 49 seats statewide, “with victories in 15 of 19 targeted districts.”
It’s just a beginning. But, wow, a substantial beginning. And fast. The Alliance was created only a year ago. This achievement is also a ray of hope and proof of concept that we parents (and grandparents; and uncles and aunts) in the other 49 states really need.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Weak Link in Chain of Corruption”
Board elections are not fights over whether children will be politically indoctrinated. They’re battles over the content of the political indoctrination.
In practice, that proposition has always been true, and indeed a major reason for the development in state-run schools was to indoctrinate the children of immigrants.
Still, we may hope to push state-run schools not merely away from their general project of illiberalism, but towards ideologic neutrality.