Recent school board races in the Midwest are being touted by teachers’ unions and Democrats as turning the tide against the parents’ rights movement that swept much of the country in 2021.
The victories were especially noticeable in races where conservatives ran on an anti-critical race theory and anti-gender theory platform. But the suburban races were in sky-blue Chicago and Milwaukee suburbs — hardly indicative of anything other than the strength of the teachers’ unions.
There’s no official count of how many races were won or lost by both sides, but both sides agree that the parents’ rights coalition needs to do a better job of organizing.
“Where culture war issues were being waged by some school board candidates, those issues fell flat with voters,” said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association labor union. “The takeaway for us is that parents and community members and voters want candidates who are focused on strengthening our public schools, not abandoning them.”
Asking teachers not to invent history or science is not asking them to “abandon” public schools. Nor is pushing for school choice. This is one area where the parents’ rights coalition has to work on — combatting the falsehoods of the left.
Labor groups and Democratic operatives are nevertheless flexing over the defeat of candidates they opposed during races that took place near Chicago, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from state Democrats and the attention of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, and in Wisconsin. Conservative board hopefuls also saw mixed results in Missouri and Oklahoma.
Democrats hope the spring school election season validates their playbook: Coordinate with local party officials, educator unions and allied community members to identify and support candidates who wield an affirming pro-public education message — and depict competitors as hard-right extremists.
“We lost more than we won” earlier this month, said Ryan Girdusky, founder of the conservative 1776 Project political action committee, which has ties to GOP megadonor and billionaire Richard Uihlein.
“But we didn’t lose everything. We didn’t get obliterated,” Girdusky told Politico of his group’s performance. “We still pulled our weight through, and we just have to keep on pushing forward on this.”
The real test for both groups will be this spring — the traditional season for electing school boards nationwide. The 2022 midterm elections turned out to be pretty much of a wash as far as pro- and anti-parents’-rights candidates go.
But these recent elections show that parents’ rights groups have to tailor their message to attract a more moderate electorate in states like Illinois and Wisconsin.
The results offer lessons to both parties as they eye even more board elections this year.
Education was central to Youngkin’s win, though his political advisers have stressed the campaign’s success was based on building custom messaging models targeted at different groups of voters instead of relying on a single message.
Conservative school campaigns should heed similar advice, Girdusky argued.
“Don’t assume that a blanket message on critical race theory or transgender issues is going to claim every district — it’s very personalized,” he said. “If it’s happening in that district, speak to it in volumes. But don’t tell parents something is happening if it’s not happening, because then it doesn’t look like you’re running a serious operation.”
America is not a “one size fits all” country, and running elections shouldn’t be that way either.
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