I should preface today’s My Two Cents by pointing out that the results of a primary election are not indicative of the expected result in a following general election. However, nearly all of the challengers that got into local school board races to “send a message” to those that kept their kids at home and behind masks for the last two years had a message sent right back to them last night: “Not as many people as you think care about that”.
Of the four school board races with large fields of challengers in our area on Tuesday, just one non-incumbent finished ahead of those already on the boards–Pheng Thao in Appleton. And he was followed by all three incumbents–each of whom enjoyed a comfortable margin ahead of the next group of challengers. But in Neenah, Kaukauna, and Oshkosh, incumbents were easily the top vote-getters in the primary.
As I mentioned, those challengers are not guaranteed to lose in April–but they will have a lot of work to do in the next month and a half. The main thing many will have to work on is broadening their message and the issues that they care about. By April, mandatory masking will almost certainly be done in all school districts in our area. You can question the timing of that decision on a district by district basis–especially since COVID activity in our area remains higher than it was when mask mandates were first put into place. That kind of inconsistent logic can be made an issue–but “I will unmask our kids” is all but dead in the water.
Another suggestion: learn how your district actually spends its money. School budgets are incredibly intimidating for those not in the system–and it is done that way intentionally. Most are divided into numbered funds–each of which comes with specific state and federal regulations on how they can be spent. Learn those fund numbers, ask school officials to help you understand their uses and limitations, and really take a look at those line items–because that is where the pork and the fat are hidden. Use informed language and arguments to target specific areas of waste that can be used instead to focus on getting the kids that have fallen almost two years behind on their learning back to where they need to be.
Here’s a big one: Give up on trying to control the curriculum. Unless you have a plan to write your own resource materials for all subjects between now and the start of the next school year, you are basically offering no solution. One thing that most parents and taxpayers don’t understand is that the materials used in the vast majority of classrooms across Wisconsin are decided in places like Texas, California and Florida. These states, with their much larger student populations, are the main customers for publishers and what those states decide they want in their classes all but pre-determines what other states will get. And no, replaying Tucker Carlson’s show from Fox News Channel last night does not count as “curriculum”.
And here is the final thing to work on: Understand your opponents. Having seen their political influence curtailed in state politics due to Act 10, local teachers unions have refocused their efforts on those that directly control their workplace: local school boards. Endorsements for candidates are a big deal, as in the small-turnout spring elections getting every school district employee and their spouses to vote for someone makes a big difference. Take the Oshkosh School Board for example. The Board President is the husband of a teacher in the district. The Vice President of the board is a former teacher and administrator in the district. And one of the incumbents running for re-election this year is a former teacher in the district as well. That is three automatic votes for union issues on a seven-member board.
Outrage and frustration seem like highly-motivating factors for voters, and one would think “tapping into” those emotions would be an easy way to win elections. But while nearly all residents pay taxes to support schools, fewer than 20% in most municipalities actually have kids that attend those schools. And they aren’t driven by “revenge” on people that did absolutely nothing to them. So what do you say we make the April general election about how we spend money in schools and the lack of focus on the pillars of education: reading, writing and arithmetic–instead of refighting battles that have already been lost.
