Moms for Liberty faced big setbacks in school board races in Pennsylvania, reports Peter Greene in Forbes.

He writes:

When he talked to the Moms for Liberty convention back in July, Jordan Adams explained how new conservative board members could use their first 100 days to hit hard, flooding the zone with a kind of shock and awe. The conservatives of Pennridge School District board, Adams’ single client for his fledgling consulting business, may be rethinking his advice this morning as they contemplate their defeat in Tuesday’s elections.

Pennridge is in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, a county that has been ground zero for the Moms for Liberty style installation of far right policies in school boards. Since acquiring a majority, Pennridge has pursued a host of right wing policies. They had trouble telling creationism from science. They banned Banned Books Week. They tried to clamp down on student expression. And they removed DEI policies).

Pennridge’s conservative board also hired Adams, with close ties to conservative Christian Hillsdale College, to scour through their curriculum and remove all things woke. This was a new business model, a proof of concept for retooling a school’s curriculum along more conservative lines. He was, he told the Moms for Liberty crowd, the “fox in the henhouse.”

Now the henhouse is under new management. As of this morning, it appears that all five open seats on the board were won by candidates who ran on opposition to culture wars, secret agreements, poor policies, and the adoption of the curriculum recommended by Adams.

The backlash was also felt in Central Bucks district school board race.

Central Bucks has drawn national attention for implementing a wave of conservative policies. They instituted a book banning policy, aided by the Independence Law Firm, the legal arm of the Pennsylvania Family Institute (“Our goal is for Pennsylvania to be a place where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished.”) They banned pride flags. They suspended a teacher who defended LGBTQ students. They implemented a policy that required the school to out LGBTQ students with a “gender identification procedure”. No student name changes allowed without a note from home.

The conservative shift drew enough attention that Penncrest school board on the other side of the statetreated Central Bucks as a model.

The race drew spectacular amounts of money, particularly from Paul Martino, a venture capitalist who had put half a million in 2021 Pennsylvania board races. This year he chipped in $279,000 (out of a total $600,000 for bother sides) in support of his wife’s campaign for a board seat.

The campaign was brutal and, if one followed it on social media, mean. But the Philadelphia Inquirer reported this morning that the Democratic candidates swept the election, including the defeat of Martino’s wife and Dana Hunter, incumbent board president.

Open the link to finish the article.