Stephen Dyer: Ohio Shifts District Funds to Charters

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2021 //
18

Stephen Dyer is a former state legislator who keeps close watch on school finance in Ohio. I missed this post when it was posted a few months ago, but it retains its ability to shock. Open the link to see his graphs and documentation.

Dyer wrote:

Despite House Bill 2, which was supposed to slim down our notoriously poor-performing charter school sector and the closure of the nation’s largest online school — ECOT — which closed because the school literally stole hundreds of millions of tax dollars to educate kids they never educated, we are currently spending more on charter schools than any other year on record.

By a mile.

According to the latest Charter School funding report from the Ohio Department of Education, we are set to spend $999.7 million. The previous record was $955 million from the 2015-2016 school year — the high-point of the ECOT years.

Despite this massive recent increase (an extraordinary $111 million jump … over two years), it’s not because we’ve had more students attending charters than ever.

No. That record remains the 2013-2014 school year when 122,130 students attended charters.

As I’ve recounted for more than a decade, because of the way we fund charters, that means that local property taxes have to subsidize charter school kids.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Rocket Science to understand that if you’re removing $8,500 in state aid from a district for a kid the district was only getting about half of that from the state to educate that the difference has to come from somewhere.

This year, that subsidy is slated to be $148 million. And in some districts, it’s really high. Like in Columbus where $62 million in local revenue has to subsidize the state funding deduction for charters…

Anyway, the data demonstrates pretty clearly that charter schools have plenty of money right now to educate their kids. Why? Because they don’t have to adhere to 150 plus state regulations, pay for buses and pay their teachers 40% less, on average, than districts with leaner benefits.

So you don’t have to spend nearly as much in a charter as you do a district…

Dyer then reviews the abysmal performance of charter schools compared to district schools and concludes:

I give you this overall horrible performance for you to mull over as the state considers investing more than $1 billion in this education sector that’s produced more state report card grades of F than all others combined since we’ve had the A-F system.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Funding, Ohio

Jennifer Berkshire: The Real Reason McAuliffe Lost in Virginia

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2021 //
90

Jennifer Berkshire, education journalist and co-author of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door (with Jack Schneider) explains in The Nation the real reason why Terry McAuliffe lost the governorship in Virginia.

McAuliffe, she says, could have turned the education issue in his favor, but he doesn’t have a clue what public schools are for. He is a corporate reformer. He couldn’t defend the public schools because he sees them as job training sites that feed workers into big corporations. To those parents who care about their public schools, he was as unable to articulate a vision for them as his opponent, Glenn Youngkin.

She wrote:

Four years ago, McAuliffe was en route to southwest Virginia in a state helicopter when he heard about Amazon’s HQ 2 competition—the search by the corporate behemoth for a second headquarters outside of Seattle. The contest would come to be derided as at best a sham, at worst a bait and switch, but for McAuliffe it represented an opportunity to cement his legacy. “We’ve got to win this!” McAuliffe recalled in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Literally, it would finish what we started in diversifying and building a new economy.”

While other states shoveled taxpayer cash and gimmicky incentives in an effort to lure Amazon, Virginia promised something more meaningful to the company: its schools. At the center of Virginia’s sales pitch was a pledge to invest more than $1 billion into tech education, beginning in kindergarten, through high school and into college. Come to northern Virginia, beckoned McAuliffe and his economic development team, and a K-12 tech talent pipeline awaits. “In Virginia, we put corporate partners first,” wrote McAuliffe in a letter to Amazon.

Virginia won the competition, and so did McAuliffe.

He’d taken office in 2013 with a pledge to make the state “the best place to do business,” and followed a blueprint, furnished by the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, to get there. Realigning Virginia’s public schools to better fit the needs of employers—or in Chamber speak, “strengthen[ing] the linkages between the classroom and the workplace at all levels”—was central to realizing his goal….

As a Times-Dispatch reporter noted, Youngkin and McAuliffe were virtually indistinguishable on the goal of tethering education ever more tightly to the needs of Virginia’s industries. In an election in which education was a central and divisive issue, the candidates were in lockstep on the belief that the function of schools is to train Amazon workers.

He was unable to articulate the role of the public schools as the foundation of a democratic society. He doesn’t get it.

Berkshire concludes:

When McAuliffe ran for governor in 2013, the political arm of the Chamber of Commerce representing the northern part of the state, the aptly named NOVABizPAC, backed the Democrat over his GOP challenger, right-wing firebrand Ken Cuccinelli. McAuliffe was their kind of guy, explained the group’s chief. His policies and priorities—especially his vow to keep Virginia a right-to-work state—neatly aligned with those of the business community. This year the group declined to back McAuliffe or Youngkin. Choosing between two such worthy candidates had proven impossible, said the group in a statement. Either would do.

Categories Corporate Reform, Democrats, Virginia

New Hampshire: Critics Worry that New Voucher Program Lacks Accountability, Especially for Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2021 //
10

With the encouragement of Governor Sununu, the Republican-dominated legislature of New Hampshire authorized a voucher program. Critics are fearful that there is little accountability for how the money is spent. The organization that will administer the program is very pleased.

A report by InDepthNJ.org reported on a meeting of the state education board. The state commissioner Frank Edelblut is a home-schooling parent who has been advocating for vouchers since he was appointed by Sununu.

Vouchers 

The board… heard from people about the rules proposed for “education freedom accounts,” or vouchers.

Several people testifying said the rules needed to be tightened up to better address the potential for abuse, that there is little in the way of accountability for how state taxpayer money is spent.

“I hope you ensure the program is going to the purpose which you have stated,” said Manchester Board of School Committee member Jim O’Connell. “I worry about people abusing the system and use state funds for improper purposes.”

Hawkins noted there are areas where “more guardrails are needed,” adding an awful lot of authority is given to a third-party organization. The Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire is administering the program.

Hawkins also raised the issue of income limits and under the current proposal, once a family qualifies, their income can increase beyond the limit and their student would still receive state aid money.

And he said the board needs to clarify what happens if someone fails a background check under the program, and he urged the board to support changes in the law to deal with its shortcomings.

Attorney Gerald Zelin, representing the New Hampshire Association of Special Education Administrators, said the rules need to clarify what rights a special education student would lose under a “parental placement” to participate in the program.

He said he knows the board is waiting for a ruling by the federal government, but its opinion has not been followed by the courts. Under the provision, special education students participating in the program would have to give up their rights to special services.

He was also concerned the rules allow families to bypass the state special education qualifying protocols, instead allowing a physician in any state to diagnose a student with a disability and be able to receive a higher amount of state aid.

The new program did have support from Kate Baker Demers, the executive director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire.

She praised the board and the department for getting the program up and running in such a short time so it could aid students and parents this school year.

“The rules provide rigorous guidance for operating the program,” she told the board.

While Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut predicted less than 100 children would take advantage of the program the first year, 1,635 students were approved at a cost of about $8 million. The money comes from the Education Trust Fund which is used to provide state aid to public education.

Program supporters say it will allow parents to find the most appropriate education for their child, and will, over time, save taxpayers money.

But opponents believe it will harm public schools, allow state money to be used for religious schools with little to no oversight and will allow private and religious schools to discriminate against students with greater educational needs.

Under the new law, a parent seeking to establish an account, would receive between $4,500 to $8,500 per pupil to spend on tuition to any private, religious or alternative school and on other related educational costs including home schooling, computers, books etc.

The student’s parents would receive the basic state adequacy grant of about $3,700 as well as additional money if the student qualified for free or reduced lunches, special education services, English as a Second Language instruction, or failed to reach English proficiency.

The average grant is estimated to be $4,600.

The program is open to the parents of a student in public —traditional and charter —  private or religious school, home schooling or other alternative educational programs.

Parents’ income would have to be below about $80,000 a year for a family of four to participate.

Edelblut has been a vocal supporter of the program, which also has the backing of Gov. Chris Sununu.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, New Hampshire, Vouchers

Fort Worth: Voters Narrowly Pass Largest School Bond Issue in the Nation

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2021 //
6

Fort Worth Independent School District mounted a campaign to pass a $1.2 billion bond issue, the largest in the nation, and it passed by 57 votes, out of nearly 25,000 cast.

The successful campaign reflected the needs of the public schools and the hard work of parents and the chair of the campaign, Dr. Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children.

a The new money will be used to renovate the district’s middle schools, some built 70 years ago, to build a new elementary school, and to renovate others.

Dr. Johnson and his fellow clergy worked closely with parents to win support for the bond issue, as this article by Dr. Johnson shows.

Dr. Johnson wrote:

As the pandemic worsened, teachers went the extra mile, checking on the health and safety of children and often providing for students’ needs out of their own pockets. Fort Worth professional educators served as angels of mercy, especially for our poorest, most vulnerable children. Eighty-six percent of students in the district are economically disadvantaged. For many, their lifeline is their neighborhood public school.…

The package is the result of years of detailed planning and careful community input. An advisory committee of educators, parents and business leaders spent more than five years assessing our facility needs. Our elected school board held thoughtful, thorough deliberations.

This thorough due diligence is one reason why the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce all endorse this bond.

Why now? With bond rates at historic lows, Fort Worth can save millions of dollars by improving our children’s neighborhood schools now instead of waiting. Furthermore, this bond will not result in a property tax rate increase for homeowners and businesses. It is imperative that we provide our educators with the tools and facilities they need to best prepare the next generation of community leaders. The bond package will help our hard-working teachers across the district continue to provide quality programs at every grade level. This includes improving every part of the district with additional classroom space, renovations to aging middle schools, and a new elementary school.

The improvements funded by the bond issue will help the public schools fend off the aggressive invasion of new charter schools, which are favored by Governor Gregg Abbott.

Read more at: https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/other-voices/article255103397.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Funding, Support for public schools, Texas

North Carolina: “Proud Boys” Show Up at Wilmington School Board Meeting

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2021 //
26

Five members of the white-nationalist “Proud Boys” showed up at the New Hanover County School Board meeting, dressed up in their organization’s colors.

They did not speak, but they gave a standing ovation to anyone who spoke against the mask mandate.

Ironically, the meeting occurred on November 10, the same date as the infamous “Wilmington Massacre” of 1898.

NPR wrote about this sordid episode in North Carolina’s history.

On Nov. 10, 1898, a mob descended on the offices of The Daily Record, a Black-owned newspaper in Wilmington, N.C. The armed men then moved into the streets and opened fire as Black men fled for their lives.

Finally, the rabble seized control of the racially mixed city government. It expelled Black aldermen, installed unelected whites belonging to the then-segregationist Democratic Party and published a “White Declaration of Independence.” Historians have called it a coup d’etat. The number of people who died ranges from about 60 to as many as 250, according to some estimates.

Will teachers in North Carolina be allowed to teach about the Wilmington Massacre, or will they be punished for teaching “critical race theory”?

Categories Fascism, North Carolina

Texas: Federal Judge Throws Out Governor Abbott’s Ban on Mask Mandates

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2021 //
18

Governor Gregg Abbott, like some other Republican governors, banned mask mandates, preventing school districts from exercising local control about how best to protect their students. A federal judge ruled that Abbott’s ban violates the rights of students with disabilities and cannot be imposed on any district. This is good news for parents who want to protect their children against a deadly virus.

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates in Texas schools violates the rights of students with disabilities, clearing the path for districts in the state to issue their own rules for face coverings, a decision that could affect more than 5 million students.

The ruling comes after months of politicized disputes over measures at the state level opposing mask-wearing policies that had been intended to prevent the spread of Covid.

The lawsuit, which sought to overturn the mandate, was filed on behalf of several families of students with disabilities and the organization Disability Rights Texas.

They stated that the defendants — the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton; the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath; and the Texas Education Agency — had put students with disabilities at risk through their complete erasure of mask mandates.

The governor and some other state officials have maintained that protecting against the virus is a matter of personal responsibility.

Judge Lee Yeakel, who made the ruling in the suit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, determined that the order from the governor violated the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act because it put children with disabilities at risk.

The ruling also prohibits Mr. Paxton from enforcing the order by Mr. Abbott, who has repeatedly opposed Covid-related mandates.

There are eight other states that have banned mask mandates—Florida, Arizona, Montana, Iowa, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Dakota.

Categories Health, Texas

Texas: IDEA Public Schools Have Run Amuck, and No Excuses Exist for the State’s Unyielding Support

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2021 //
15

You may remember IDEA as a free-spending charter chain in Texas. A few years ago, IDEA got negative publicity when its board of directors decided to lease a private jet at a cost of $x million per year. Then we learned that the schools had paid for box seats for the San Antonio Spurs basketball games. When the CEO departed, he received a $1 million golden parachute. These are not customary expenditures for a “public” school. These are the actions of a private corporation. Betsy DeVos dropped more than $200 million in federal funds on the IDEA chain, to enable it to expand.

William Gumbert, an independent researcher in Texas, took a deep dive into the metrics of the IDEA chain. After you read his report, you will wonder why the state of Texas and the federal government encouraged the chain to expand.

Gumbert writes:

Introduction: Federal and state elected officials, privately funded public policy organizations, and private foundations are financially supporting education reforms to undermine locally governed, community-based school districts. With promises of a “college preparatory” or “classical” education, the expansion of taxpayer-funded charter schools in local communities is the primary reform vehicle. IDEA Public Schools (“IDEA”) is the fastest growing and most prominent charter school network in Texas. National and regional promotions claim IDEA’s “Tuition-Free,” “No Excuses,” college-preparatory education model is revolutionizing education for low-income students and eliminating the opportunity gap. IDEA’s co- founder agrees by saying: “But no matter your zip code, you have access to a tuition-free public school, and I believe that will be the solution to every problem in America.”

With promotions of expert teachers and more of them, IDEA promises to prepare low-income students for success to and through college. As evidence, IDEA promotes that “100% of Graduates Have Been Accepted to their College of Choice for 15 Consecutive Years.” For education reformers, IDEA is validation that “when the adults in the system get it right, students can do remarkable things.”

Unfortunately, recent findings reveal a story that is not representative of serving low-income families. IDEA’s story consists of private jets, chauffeured cars, a luxury Bed & Breakfast resort, misuse of public funds, high-priced advertising, misrepresentations, low instructional expenditures, low teacher experience, high “Student to Teacher Ratios,” and without offering career or technical training, IDEA graduates underperform in college. IDEA’s story is validation that locally governed school districts continue to provide higher quality educational attributes and better prepare students for success. IDEA’s story is also validation that TEA lacks the institutional controls to oversee charters and serves as another example of what happens when the state and private interests dictate the public education system in local communities.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Elected officials, education reformers, and families trusted IDEA Public Schools. Regrettably, IDEA has run amuck and “No Excuses” exist for the unyielding support of the state and private interests. It’s your schools, children, families, tax dollars, and communities!

The Promotion and Growth of IDEA – Private Foundations: After three years of classroom experience with Teach for America and at the age of 24, Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama founded the IDEA Public Schools charter network to revolutionize the education for low-income families. Since its founding, IDEA’s education model was propelled by private interests, including the Walton Family Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ewing Halsell Foundation, KLE Foundation, and the George Brackenridge Foundation. Collectively, these organizations give contingent donations to open campuses in targeted communities, implement specific curriculum, and expand enrollment. Although IDEA no longer specifies the details of its donors, prior communications reveal that IDEA was the beneficiary of over $150 million of private donations to expand in various regions of Texas.
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Private Financial Support to Expand IDEA “Public” Schools

In 2008, IDEA had produced 56 high school graduates and no graduate had earned a college degree. But that did not prevent private foundations from strategically publicizing IDEA’s education model to further the charter movement. In 2009, Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America (“TFA”), named Torkelson as “100 of the most influential global citizens” in TIME magazine. Coincidentally, TFA receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation, which has donated over $160 million, and other private foundations supporting charter expansion. Torkelson also received the Peter Jennings Award for Civic Leadership in 2009, another award annually provided by TFA. In 2016, IDEA was named the top charter school system in the country by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, also funded by the Walton Family Foundation and other private foundations. In 2018, IDEA’s Torkelson and Gama were inducted into the National Charter School Hall of Fame.

State: At the state level, the appointed Commissioner of Education supports IDEA’s education reform model by unilaterally approving the opening of over 90 new campuses in the last decade to increase IDEA’s enrollment by 889%. To support the construction of new campuses, the state is guaranteeing the repayment of IDEA’s $988 million long-term, non-voter approved bonds through the Texas Permanent School Fund Bond Guarantee Program. The Texas legislature contributions include providing IDEA with $693 million of taxpayer funding in the current year and total taxpayer funding of $3.5 billion since 2010/11. With funding for public education limited, IDEA’s taxpayer funding is at the expense of locally governed school districts.

IDEA Public Schools: It should not be a surprise that IDEA is also its biggest advocate, thanks to an annual $7.3 million Advertising Budget. To build a perception as an education pioneer, IDEA’s full-time promotional staff is directed to: “work with public relation partners to produce positive news stories, promote school leaders as subject matter experts, and build relationships with elected officials.” IDEA also runs prime-time commercials during the Super Bowl and World Series to promote its image and maximize its exposure.


IDEA Public Schools – Historical Enrollment

IDEA Public Schools Has Run Amuck and No Excuses Exist for the State’s Unyielding Support (November 3, 2021) (3)Download

Download the pdf here.

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Funding, Texas

Ohio: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools Again

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2021 //
9

Bill Phillis, retired deputy commissioner of education in Ohio, is a staunch advocate for the state system of common schools, which is guaranteed in the state constitution. He founded the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy. The question in Ohio, as in many other states, is why Ohio legislators continue to fund failure.

He writes:

STATE REPORT CARD: CHARTER SCHOOLS NOT EVEN A CLOSE SECOND TO REAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The original promise of charter and voucher advocates: Charters will out-place school districts.

The data show a different outcome.

There is no data available from private schools to make a comparison.


Scott DiMauro, President of the Ohio Education Association, in a November 3 commentary in the Ohio Capital Journal shared a comparison of charter school report card results with real public schools. The results show that charter school kids are the real losers.


Do state officials care? Apparently not.

State Report Cards Should Be A Wakeup Call For Ohio’s Charter, Voucher Hawks

Scott DiMauro

I remember taking home my report cards when I was in school. I was a pretty good student; my grades always reflected my passion for subjects I loved, and more importantly, provided some real-time feedback on areas where improvement was needed — Time management, for example, was a skill I had to learn over time. During my years as a high school social studies teacher, I strived to give that same kind of useful assessment to my students when I was putting report cards together for them.

The state puts report cards together for school buildings and districts, too. In spirit, at least, they have the same mission, quantitatively assessing where our publicly funded institutions across the state are succeeding and where there is room for growth. And not surprisingly, after a year and a half of serious challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest round of state report cards shows there’s some extra room for improvement, with about a 10% drop in Performance Index (PI) scores for Ohio’s traditional public schools from the 2018-2019 school year to the 2020-2021 one. Chronic absenteeism also climbed to 17%, up from 7.5%, during that time.

But, over that same period, charter schools in the state saw a 25% drop in PI scores – a 2.5 times greater loss than traditional public schools. And chronic absenteeism in those institutions soared from 22% up to 45%, meaning nearly half of all charter school students in Ohio missed a big chunk of the last school year.

While the Ohio Education Association applauds the change in state law that removed letter grades from the state report card system, it is clear Ohio’s charter schools are not making the grade. As a teacher, I’d give them a D-minus at best.
This should be seriously alarming to Ohio’s taxpayers, who see their money taken from their local public schools to fund these poorer performing alternatives. The PI drop for KIPP, a charter school in Columbus, was 66% — more than double the decline seen in Columbus City Schools.

The seven biggest PI drops in Ohio charter schools were Breakthrough Schools in the Cleveland area, which are often touted by charter advocates as shining examples of success, with PI scores plummeting 77% to 84%. Charter advocates often complain about comparing all school districts’ performance with charters, but last year, 606 out of 612 public school districts in the state lost scarce resources to charter schools.

Recent test score data on Ohio’s private, mostly religious schools — which receive millions in taxpayer funded vouchers — is not available to make a comparison, since those schools are not subject to any of the same accountability standards as public districts.

Now, if some lawmakers get their way, the situation will get exponentially worse for the 90% of Ohio’s kids who rely on public education. House Bill 290 — known as the “Backpack Bill” — would create so-called “Education Savings Accounts” that are just universal vouchers with even less accountability. Even with these vouchers, most families still couldn’t afford tuition at the private schools in their communities, and for those that do go to the private schools, Ohio taxpayers who foot the bill don’t get much bang for their buck. The Cincinnati Enquirer revealed last year that nearly 90% of all voucher students do worse on state tests than students in traditional public schools in the same zip codes.

The data paint a troubling picture. Vouchers and charters take critical resources and weaken the public schools that serve the vast majority of Ohio’s children while delivering worse educational outcomes for our kids. What’s worse is that now we have a school funding system worth investing in — the Fair School Funding Plan. Failing to fully fund that system while pouring more resources into the worse-performing charter and voucher system is wasting an extraordinary opportunity to once and for all fix the way Ohio funds education for the 90% of students and families who attend Ohio’s public schools.

Ohioans need to tell their lawmakers to oppose House Bill 290 and focus on their constitutional responsibility to fund Ohio’s public schools to ensure a high-quality education for all of Ohio’s kids.

State report cards should be a wakeup call for Ohio’s charter, voucher hawks – Ohio Capital Journal

Follow the link to read the 8 Lies About Private School Vouchers https://vouchershurtohio.com/8-lies-about-private-school-vouchers/Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OhioEandA

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Failure, Hoax, Ohio, School Choice

Massachusetts: Parent Coalition Protests New Charter in New Bedford

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2021 //
14

Two leaders of the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools—Cynthia Roy and Roberto Rosa—are outraged that the state is about to plunk a new charter school into their district.

They expect the state will approve the “Innovators Charter School,” and they know that parents will condemn the decision.

They wrote in a local newspaper:

One of the most morally disturbing aspects of the Innovators Charter School proposal for New Bedford and Fall River is the joining of considerable political and economic power to withdraw resources from public education systems that have been historically underfunded. What is appalling is the deliberate indifference to the impact on our public school systems in New Bedford and Fall River which, together, serve 22,563 students. As students and families are seduced to exit their public schools, the operating costs in these schools remain the same. This proposal is just more of the same looting of the public school system that we have seen with charter schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Massachusetts, Parents, Resistance

Dan Greenberg: How Teachers in My Ohio Community Beat Back the Attack on Our School Board

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2021 //
91

Dan Greenberg is a teacher in Ohio and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. He teaches high school English in Sylvania, in the northwest of the state.

Here he writes about the power of teachers, who are trusted by parents and the community to refute slanders about their schools.

He writes:

About a week before the November 2nd election, a colleague of mine sent me a picture of a campaign literature piece supporting candidates for school board in my community.

“Kids and Taxpayers FIRST! Keep ‘Woke’ politics out of our classrooms.”

The postcard was paid for by the NW Ohio Coalition for Public School Excellence, a group that was not only supporting conservative candidates in my community, but a neighboring community, with the exact same yard signs just different names.

Not to be outdone, the Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition blanketed voters in my school district with robo-call messages telling voters to support the conservative candidates and “…keep woke politics out of the classroom.” The calls seem to go out indiscriminately; even the President of Democratic Club in my community received one.

These campaign tactics, filled with lies about schools teaching Critical Race Theory, had an interesting impact. I don’t know how much they motivated conservatives to head to the polls, but the group I saw them motivate most was the teachers. At a time when teachers are emotionally and physically exhausted, when they seem to be focused on making it through one day at a time, these campaign lies seemed to tap some reserve of strength and energy teachers did not know they had. Teachers started posting to social media, pushing back on the CRT lies. They started posting images of the four teacher union-endorsed candidates on their Facebook pages. They sent text messages to friends and family with the names of the teacher-endorsed candidates. One teacher even wrote a message across the entire back window of her van (in excellent teacher handwriting) telling community members to support teachers by voting for our endorsed candidates.

On November 2nd, as results came in the teacher-supported candidates were leading, and in the end, the four candidates in the two districts who were coming to the school boards with a priority of taking on “Woke politics” and Critical Race Theory lost.

The campaign money, the campaign literature, the yard signs, the robo calls… they could not beat the voice of teachers and the voice of truth.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Fraud, Hoax, Ohio, Teachers
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