The Texas Tribune reports that conservative school board candidates in some suburban districts failed with culture war issues.
School board elections: Even though school board races are nonpartisan, the Nov. 8 elections for Round Rock and Wylie independent school sistrict trustees drew high-profile endorsements from the Republican Party of Texas.
But in both districts, every candidate endorsed by the Republican Party of Texas, a total of nine, lost. In Round Rock, the races weren’t even close, with one candidate, Tiffanie Harrison, beating her opponent by 25 percentage points.
While Texas Republicans largely swept Tuesday’s elections and GOP-backed school board trustees made gains elsewhere in the state, the results in Round Rock and Wylie raise questions about the current conservative strategy in suburban school districts and the appeal of an agenda built on culture war issues.
One of the primary targets for conservatives running for school board seats has been critical race theory, a college-level discipline that examines racism within social and legal structures within the United States. It is not taught in elementary or secondary public schools in Texas, but Republicans have used the term to target how students are taught about race in schools.
Republicans leaned on a strategy modeled after one used in Tarrant County, where in May, a slate of 11 conservative, anti-CRT candidates won races in school boards. But the GOP was unable to mimic the occurrence in the midterm elections cycle.
Jill Farris, a Round Rock school board candidate endorsed by the Texas GOP who lost her race, attributed the results to a changing electorate that is more liberal than in previous years.
“Maybe we were all kind of relying a little bit on this red wave and thought that parents were just as angry as we were,” Farris said. “At least now, we know where the community stands and we can move forward.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The culture wars may have unleashed some screaming banshees at school board meetings, but it has not caught fire as an issue with parents in general in blue or red states. The so-called W.O.K.E. agenda in public schools is a political ploy with little genuine substance. With the exception of a few right wing extremists, parents would like to see politicians keep politics out of the public schools. They are tired of their schools and children being used in a political tug of war game.
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Bill Maher has very good points but I often, now-and-then, tire quickly and easily of his uppity air of sneering smug-perched scorn as if his latte wasn’t made the right way or his joint wasn’t rolled as tightly as he’d like. In short, his style of delivery is too soft for me (I miss the late great Bill Hicks and George Carlin who both used sledgehammers) but good points he has. Below is a link from his ending piece New Rules. WARNING there is use of heavy language that may be offensive to some.
Thoughts anyone?
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I won’t subject myself to him anymore or ever again. Taken as a whole, his knowledge has no depth or scope.
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….another reason why I sometimes look cockeyed or askance at his editorials is because when his monologue takes a turn for what should be the sharp, witty punctuation of a good point (which doesn’t happen often in his editorials) it turns into a shallow punchline for its own sake, which is like, “dude…you missed the mark for a cheap laugh or a clever smirk.” But this one I particularly liked because of its rebuke of all the crazies.
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I’ve not been to Wylie, but have a little knowledge about Round Rock. The latter is basically a bedroom community for the University of Texas at Austin, the regionally dominant tech industry, and a growing upper middle class Black community. Just by looking at the map, I would guess Wylie is a bedroom community in Dallas the attracts more left-leaning residents. Both are outliers in Texas. There are communities that are very progressive in parts of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso, and Austin. But they in no way come close the number of opposite-minded people in the state. Check the recent governor’s elections results for obvious proof.
This is fast becoming a country of enclaves. And within those enclaves are what I hope an academic will one day study: The Duke Effect. There are small but intense numbers of people living in those area who will say certain things in public and then vote exactly the opposite way. I don’t know what the number is, but it exists. It is at least the margin of error in national political polls.
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