November 7, 2022 education election liberty parents

On The Eve Of Election Day, Education Is A Key Focus

It is, of course, the most important election in the world.  Tomorrow, as of this writing, Americans take to the polls to elect U.S. Representatives, U.S. Senators, governors, state legislators, school boards, and more.  And, yes, it is the most important election in the world, because it’s the one right in front of us.  It sets the trajectory for the next two years, at the minimum.

It is hard to avoid the feeling, though, that the stakes do get higher and higher with each cycle, and that’s what folks mean when they say a certain election is the most pivotal.  And we confront issues now that were unseen just a few years ago.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, decades high inflation, and huge increases in energy costs are on voters’ minds that they prepare to cast their votes.

And education.

The pandemic shutdowns resulted in parents getting an inside look at what their children were learning, and they weren’t impressed.  Those in charge of what has traditionally been called public education–I’m looking at you, Randi Weingarten–pushed back against parents by saying parents have no real role in the education of their own children.  Such arrogance helped push Glenn Youngkin into the Virginia governor’s mansion, but the government education folks haven’t learned their lesson.

Consequently, school boards are a primary focus in this election cycle.  There’s an old saw about three of people representing three nationalities needing to build a schoolhouse.  The English go to their aristocratic and say, “Mi’ Lord, we need you to build us a schoolhouse.”  The French go to their government and say, “We demand you build us a schoolhouse.  It’s our right!”  The Americans get together in the town square and say, “Okay, y’all.  Everybody’s getting together at 6:30am on Saturday to raise the frame for the new schoolhouse.”  There’s nothing more American than solving a problem ourselves–and Americans at the local level who’ve never before stood for election are running for school board to make a difference, to take education back from the apparatchiks, to return power and responsibility to parents.

The issue of education is showing up in polls, too.  Non-traditional GOP voters and suburban moms are moving to the red side of the ledger on education issues.  The apparatchiks are none too happy about it, either.  Which is why we’re seeing more and more hit pieces on education freedom like this one which redefines indoctrination to make it sound more palatable for public school teachers to do it in the classroom or this one which demonizes parents who want to take their children out of public schools.

It’s not going to work.  Parents have long trusted government run schools to educate their children–and said schools abused that trust.  “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse”, to borrow from Edmund Burke, and we’ve seen that unfold in education.  But that’s over now.  No matter how much the institution and its enablers protest, parents are taking back their children.  And we’re going to see a lot of that show up in the election tomorrow night.