Texas Board of Education Races Draw Unusual Interest Over Opposition to Critical Race Theory
“after a seismic conservative shift erupted in local school board races in suburbs across the state, more eyes are on who will be elected to the board that dictates what should be in teachers’ lesson plans in Texas’ 1,200 public school districts”
The increased interest in school board races is hitting hard in Texas this year, as fifteen seats are up for grabs on the State Board of Education.
As in many other places, Critical Race Theory is the driving force.
Brian Lopez reports at the Texas Tribune:
Why all eyes are now on the often ignored Texas Board of Education races
As political races go, candidates for the Texas State Board of Education are often overlooked, making their races a perennial wallflower in Texas politics.
But this year, after a seismic conservative shift erupted in local school board races in suburbs across the state, more eyes are on who will be elected to the board that dictates what should be in teachers’ lesson plans in Texas’ 1,200 public school districts. Parents in some of these districts have become a vocal force coming out of the pandemic, questioning everything from why and when schools should close to what books are appropriate to be in school libraries to how thorough history lessons should be.
“One thing that strikes me is that it mirrors what we’re seeing in local school board elections,” said Rebecca Deen, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington…
And if there’s anything to help challengers stand out, it’s a new Texas that went into effect last year and bars teachers from subjecting students to anything that makes them “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” based on their race or sex. The measure was designed to counter what conservatives term “critical race theory” — a broad term used to describe what they see as indoctrination: attempts by a school to offer a more comprehensive look at American history.
That’s a broad and a rather generous description of CRT.
This is also happening on a local level in Texas. Reuters reports on the Austin suburb of Round Rock, where there is increased attention being paid to school board races:
ABCs not LGBTs: Battles over race, gender inflame Texas school board vote
At traffic-choked intersections in this Texas town, a blunt campaign slogan stands out from clusters of candidate signs: “Teach ABCs + 123s, Not CRTs & LGBTs.”
Blood-sport politics have come to school board elections in Round Rock, a rapidly growing and diversifying suburb of Austin. Parents are forming political action committees, canvassing door-to-door and sparring on social media. National interest groups, political parties and unions are weighing in on what have historically been nonpartisan contests.
The slogan belongs to Don Zimmerman, one of five conservative school board candidates who bill themselves as the “One Family” slate. The group rails against what it calls “political correctness” in schools, “leftist” teachers’ unions, “pornography” in school libraries and LGBTQ-friendly policies.
Among their top targets is critical race theory (CRT), which argues that racism and prejudice are embedded within U.S. laws and institutions.
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Education is the #1 issue
“Parents are taking back their schools, and they should.”
The government monopoly bureaucratic “public” school system is, by design and nature, America’s best example of totalitarian socialism. “Taking it back” is something which only a totalitarian socialist would do.
The current system should be replaced with one in which education funds “follow the students” – otherwise known as “school choice”.
I keep pointing this out in the comments here. Nobody cheers. Nobody boos.
If you disagree, go ahead and prove me wrong.
Yes, ideally the “public” schools should be privatized and allowed to go to heaven or hell in their own way. But since there’s no prospect of that happening any time soon, “taking them back” is far preferable to the alternative.
My daughter taught school in New Orleans where they no longer have public schools. After Katrina, the schools shut down. Now, all they have are Charter Schools and Private Schools.
I hope your daughter landed in a good place.
Arizona has implemented what I think is complete school choice. The main problem I see is that some leftist-captured Government may try to impose leftist curricula in ALL schools. If they start pulling home-schooled children out of their parents’ houses (like Germany does), there might be some serious resistance. That’s one reason why parents should make it more difficult by pulling their children out of the government schools now.
“Nobody cheers. Nobody boos.”
Some of us assume it’s just obvious. Like Liberty.
This is how AZ does it. We made it a priority starting 20 years ago, and we got it done. I realize most states haven’t gotten there.
That seems way overbroad. There’s no way a teacher can predict what will make a student feel discomfort, guilty, anguish, or distress based on their race or sex. A teacher can avoid telling them to feel that way, but not whether what he is teaching will make them feel that way. E.g. teaching about the Holocaust could easily make a student of German extraction feel any or all of those things; they shouldn’t feel that way, but the fact is that many do. So it would seem based on this description that teaching the facts that trigger such a reaction is illegal. And that’s wrong.
“So it would seem based on this description that teaching the facts that trigger such a reaction is illegal. And that’s wrong.”
And that’s why school choice is a better solution. Although it’s admittedly more difficult to achieve in very rural areas.
No, it’s a completely false description. Also, it’s not conservatives who term it that way; the term was invented by its own proponents, and that is what they call it except when they’re trying to hide what they’re doing.
Here’s how I’d rewrite that sentence: The group rails against what it calls “political correctness” in schools, leftist teachers’ unions, pornography in school libraries and “LGBTQ-friendly” policies. The scare quotes around “political correctness” are correct; it is not an objective term, but merely what this group calls it. But the teachers’ unions are leftist, and at least some of the material they want removed from school libraries is pornographic, though I suspect I would disagree with them in a lot of specific instances. Meanwhile the policies they oppose are only called “LGBTQ-friendly”; I would not use that term for many of them.
At least that’s a fair description of CRT, if a bit narrow, unlike the one cited earlier.
“at least some of the material they want removed from school libraries is pornographic, though I suspect I would disagree with them in a lot of specific instances.”
When you reproduce precisely what the book contains, transfer it to a poster, and the local TV stations refuse to point their cameras at it because it is “offensive,” the prosecution rests, Your Honor.
When Don Chipp was Australia’s Minister of Customs and Excise in the early 1970s, and thus in charge of the classification system for foreign films, he greatly liberalized the system, but there were some films he drew the line at, and was greatly criticized in the press for this supposedly draconian censorship. At a press conference about one film in particular that he’d banned (I thought it was Oh! Calcutta! but apparently not), he told reporters “This film contains a scene depicting cunnilingus. If you are willing to print that in your newspapers, then I’ll allow the film to be shown”. None of them took him up on it.
I am electioneering for two friends who are running for local school board. Many people tell me they have NEVER voted for a school board candidate. After I tell them that 51% of their local tax dollars are going directly to the Schools, they often reconsider.
People who are running for the boards of government schools will, if they win, find out how little control the boards have over budgets and hiring. Most of the budget goes toward salaries, and are determined by contracts with the teachers unions. Hiring is not done by the board, but by the superintendent. I believe the superintendent is the only employee hired by the board.
I have great sympathy for the people who are trying to take back the government schools. But I think I have good reasons why it’s a bad idea.
My daughter was a principal in a middle school in Texas, the school board had a lot of power. They hire and can fire a superintendent. They also decide to go forth on school bonds or not
It’s like the Second Amendment, in that the threat is often enough to quell the bad behavior. Out where I live, we don’t have anything in the way of CRT shenanigans going on, and it’s quite possibly because the school system knows that the second they piss off the parents, the state allows them to move to another school of their choice and take all their school funds with them.
That is not the law. Those are policies. They can be changed if that is what is being done.
Critical Racists’ Theory (CRT) presumes diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry). Lose your Pro-Choice ethical religion.
#BabyLivesMatter (BLM)
I live in Round Rock and it’s crazy. Neighbor against neighbor with 5-8 signs in their yards!
This use to be a solid red community, no more amd it makes me sick. You would never had worried about the teachers or CRT in a million years.
The Superintendent was put on leave last year while he was investigated for domestic abuse. He kept his job, he’s very liberal, as are the present members minus 2.
My hope is we get Mr Zimmerman and the group on the board. People use to move here for the schools, very high grades for a moderately large community. Use to be 80% White, now, probably 60.
How is the superintendent hired? If it’s by the school board then the stakes are high as he can have his contract not renewed and a new one hired who actually puts an end to the nonsense invading the schools.
No interest here. Our rep is an unopposed Republican.
That’s ridiculous, mine was solid red till it wasn’t.
We’ve got more than a dozen races that never showed up on the ballot for voting (they’re actually listed on the ballot as unopposed) all Republican, naturally. We may be too close to SA for comfort and we definitely have a bad California infestation, but we likely won’t go purple until after I’m dead.
“questioning everything from why and when schools should close to what books are appropriate to be in school libraries”
Another facet of this which may prove to be interesting…
I remember from other discussions in previous decades how the Texas school system reputedly had the same hegemony over schoolbooks as California legendarily has over politics and culture… in that whatever new or stupid stuff California was doing at any given moment would inevitably infect the other 49 states over the next decade. In the case of the Texas school system, the sheer mass of their textbook market dragged the publishers along in its wake, such that whatever Texas did or didn’t want taught in any cycle was all other states could find to pick from on the bookstore shelves. If that dynamic is still the case, this will be an interesting next few years.
You will find that textbook use is now extremely rare. Pretty much every state decided textbooks are not a “tier 1” material right after the big textbook fight in Texas.
Just cause it’s interesting
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historically school boards were much more interested in school finances and education than indoctrination. The left slipped in un-noticed and subverted the administration of our schools.