Parents’ election plea: Could schools get back to teaching?

The showdown over book bans and how students are exposed to information about racism and gender identity moved from school board meetings to the ballot box, where voters on Tuesday delivered a sizable blow to far-right agendas.

From Iowa to Pennsylvania, many conservative school board candidates – some of whom were linked to the controversial Moms for Liberty group – lost to their more moderate or liberal competitors. Their defeats, experts say, signal a growing disenchantment with how much time so-called culture war topics have dominated school board discussions.

“In many cases, parents are saying that they’re tired of talking about book bans and bathrooms and flags and pronouns, and that they want their district leaders to be focusing on the core work of teaching and learning,” says Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California.

One of the more prominent examples occurred in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, where a blue wave swept the Pennridge School Board races. Five Democratic candidates, who ran as an alliance, captured more votes than their five Republican competitors, one of whom was an incumbent.

The existing Pennridge School Board had come under mounting public scrutiny, especially after approving a new curriculum recommended by a consultant who previously worked at Hillsdale College. The private Christian school in Michigan has been at the forefront of K-12 instructional debates while promoting its conservative 1776 curriculum, which emphasizes a patriotic view of U.S. history.

Leah Foster Rash, one of the candidates who won in Pennridge this week, grew up in the community and has two children who attend school in the district. Though she never considered Pennridge a progressive area, Ms. Foster Rash thought it generally embodied a neighborly spirit. She worried that recent school board decisions, however, were unraveling the sense of community and causing hurt for people of color and LGBTQ+ residents.

“I felt like this is not Pennridge,” she says.

Ms. Foster Rash says she knows that healing divisions with the four remaining board members won’t be an easy task. But the soon-to-be board member is leaning into what she consistently heard while door-knocking on the campaign trail: People want less fighting and better treatment of teachers.

“I think everyone’s tired of like, ‘The [Democrats] are all this and the Republicans are all that,’ and recognizing that all of us are some of both,” she says.

Conservatives’ school board losses did not surprise Dr. Marsh, who pointed to far-right losses in both the spring elections this year and last fall’s midterms. And even if the political winds are shifting, she expects school boards to remain a place where rigorous debate occurs.

“We might shift to focusing on teaching and learning, and there, too, might be some interesting debates and controversies and tensions,” she says. “But in my mind, at least that would be focused on the right issues.”

The more telling sign of where the American populace stands on public education may come a year from now when a presidential election increases voter turnout, says Jonathan Collins, assistant professor of political science and education at Brown University.

But for now, this week’s election outcomes suggest that “we should pump the brakes on accepting the premise that the culture wars have completely taken over the politics of education,” Dr. Collins says.