They launched with an attempt to seem non-partisan, and their website still trumpets neutral-sounding language. Empowering school boards! A vision that is "focused squarely on academic excellence and student achievement, ensuring that every child, regardless of circumstance, is equipped to reach their highest potential." They believe that "the education of AmericaŹ¼s children is not a partisan issue" because Americans "across the ideological spectrum" all want an education system "focused on academic excellence and student achievement." They value "collaboration"! All swell stuff, and totally not one more load of culture panic.
And yet, their first big press was an op-ed on the Fox News website headlined, "New school boards challenge woke bureaucracy that leaves kids behind" by their executive director David Hoyt, who jumped on the claim that the National School Board Association had revealed itself to be all woke just because it asked the Department of Justice for some help with the extreme attacks coming at school board members over the evils of masking.
The team at SBAE is a batch of right-tilted culture panic veterans.
Board member Lance Christensen is the VP of Education Policy for the California Policy Center, an affiliate of the State Policy Network, the web of right-wing advocacy and pressure thinky tanks. They put big pressure on the state to open school buildings and managed to create some NAACP infighting over charters. They brought a case to get a union thrown out as the bargaining unit in a district, and they run a "parents union" in four California regions. Christensen has also worked with the Reason Foundation and, according to the SBAE site, "was also one of the principal architects of the recent school choice initiative proposal in California."
Board member Ward Cassidy is on staff at the Kansas Policy Institute as the Executive Director for Kansas School Board Resource Center. KPI was founded by long-time Koch operative George Pearson; it hangs with the usual thinky tank advocacy groups like State Policy Network and ALEC. Cassidy served in the Kansas House of Representatives. Way back in the day, he was an actual teacher.
The board chair is Amy O. Cooke, Cooke was CEO of the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina, a post she took in 2020 after years as the executive vp of the Independence Institute of Colorado. She was also a senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum. In other words, an entire career spent in right-tilted advocacy groups. The John Locke Foundation is tied to the Bradley Foundation, ALEC, State Policy Network, Franklin Foundation, Art Pope-- you get the idea. Her LinkedIn profile summarizes her years in Colorado fighting energy policies as "having more fun than the left allows." Her twitter handle is @TheRightAOC.
They've added a Director of Network Engagement since February. That's Jon Russell, who used to be Chief of Staff for Spotsylvania County Public Schools, one of those districts that spent time in the news because of a far right board takeover, complete with a chair calling for book burning and an unqualified superintendent. He also worked for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, another one of those right wing advocacy thinky tanks that belongs to the SPN and advocates to end the ACA and wants Medicare Advantage for All rather than Medicare for All. Russell has also worked for ALEC.
The executive director is David Hoyt. Hoyt has worked for the Heartland Institute, Young Americans for Liberty, America's Future Foundation, The Leadership Institute, and as volunteer manager for Ron Paul's 2008 campaign. He founded Liberty Development (a fundraising service for "liberty-minded" organizations) and the Cornerstone Classical Academy, a classical charter school, in Jacksonville, Florida.
The executive director is David Hoyt. Hoyt has worked for the Heartland Institute, Young Americans for Liberty, America's Future Foundation, The Leadership Institute, and as volunteer manager for Ron Paul's 2008 campaign. He founded Liberty Development (a fundraising service for "liberty-minded" organizations) and the Cornerstone Classical Academy, a classical charter school, in Jacksonville, Florida.
SBAE runs the ideological gamut from A to B. It's as diverse as block of uncooked tofu.
They are aimed at building a network (many states now have these faux school board groups for disaffected right-wingers who want to disrupt stuff, and they are hosting a three-day Education Policy and Training Summit this coming January in Orlando, FL.
You'll want to get there early, because speaking at the opening reception is Oklahoma's Bible-shoving education dudebro-in-chief, Ryan Walters. The Opening dinner features Manny Diaz, Florida's qualified-by-ideology-only education chief.
Speakers include Bill Gillmeister, who started out his career in the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, but in 2012 moved on to the Coalition for Family and Marriage, Renew Massachusetts Coalition, and the Massachusetts Family Institute--all right wing culture panic groups. There's Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. Plus Sara Clements, a consultant who used to work for both Step Up for Students (the voucher management company) and Foundation for Excellence in Education, Jeb Bush's choicey advocacy group.
The sessions focus on lobbying, managing board meets, and the art of persuasion. Not much of anything about the actual nuts and bolts of running a school district.
If you can't make it to Florida in January, SBAE has some aids on the site. There's a piece about curriculum guidelines that includes a very specific checklist to use in making sure that the district is in line with the Science of Reading. If someone is coming after your district about SOR, I recomme3nd checking out this list which will show you what they're about.
As another bonus, it appears that SBAE has partnered up with Jordan Adams. Adams, you may recall, is the guy who started out working for Hillsdale College, helped Florida check textbooks for wokitude, then branched out to a one-man curriculum consulting firm (Vermilion Education). Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler tried to get him a gig with Sarasota schools in early 2023. Later that 2023 summer, Adams took a swing at Pennridge schools in Pennsylvania (part of the constellation of Bucks County schools taken over by MAGA culture panickers). Neither of those worked out, though he at least got started in Pennridge. Adams did get a chance to strut his stuff at the 2023 Moms for Liberty gathering, where he laid out a program for using shock and awe to impose your right-wing agenda once you've been elected to the board.
His consultant website for Vermillion appears to have gone dark, but now SBAE is offering his curriculum consulting services to its members.
Jordan Adams brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the table. With a background in curriculum development and educational consulting, Jordan has worked with school districts across the country to improve their curricula and enhance student learning outcomes. His approach is data-driven, evidence-based, and focused on achieving.
Well, no. As far as I know, Adams was only hired at one district, started overhauling the curriculum, probably helped cost some right wingers their board election, and then had all his work rolled back.
SBAE talks about its Network Partners a lot, but is very cagey about who and how many they are. Make of that what you will. But if any of your local board members are cozying up to these guys, prepare yourselves, because this is just more right wing culture panic Moms-for-Liberty-style ideological takeover trying to pass itself off as bi-partisan interest in student achievement.
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