PA: One Moms For Liberty Alternative--Grandmas for Love

Shirley Hershey Showalter's has certainly had a journey, and right now that journey has led her to help lead a group set up to counteract the influence of Moms for Liberty in one Pennsylvania county.

Showalter grew up Mennonite in Lititz, PA, (Lancaster County) coming up through the Warwick School District before shipping off to Eastern Mennonite University, where she met and married her husband. She taught English, did graduate school at the University of Austin, college professor, college president, Kalamazoo to become a VP at the Fetzer Institute (mission: to help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world). Then Virginia, then Brooklyn. She's published two books-- Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets the Glittering World, her memoir, and The Mindful Grandparent: The Art of Loving Our Children’s Children. By the time the latter had come out in 2022, Showalter was back in Lititz, and concerned about what she was seeing there.

Lancaster county has a busy chapter of Moms For Liberty. LancasterOnline ticked off some of their work:

In the Elizabethtown Area School District, where arguments over library books have raged since at least 2021, school board President Terry Seiders has received death threats and warnings that his house would be burned down. Unsurprisingly, but sadly, the longtime school director decided not to seek reelection.

The Hempfield school board has adopted a policy that will make it easier for district residents to have books that they deem inappropriate removed from the district’s libraries. It also worked with a Harrisburg-based religious rights law firm, the Independence Law Center, to craft its 2022 policy banning transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

As Sholtis reported, Rachel Wilson-Snyder, a Warwick School District resident and the chair of Lancaster County’s Moms for Liberty chapter, was at a Hempfield school board meeting in early May, passing out flyers with information about which high school library books to oppose.

Hempfield’s library book policy was on the agenda that night. That meeting was fertile ground for Moms for Liberty’s toxic brand of book-banning activism.

Lititz is a small town, about 9,000 people, and the kind of place that still puts a nativity scene in the town square, the kind of place where, when you move back, you run into people you know from way back. In a blog post, Showalter describes a conversation with an old classmate in 2021.

Margaret told me she had spoken at the local school board meeting. A former teacher and world traveler, she appreciates the complex histories of the many cultures that constitute America. She believes all students benefit from learning about cultures other than their own and about their nation’s history, both the good and the bad of it. She shared her experience as a parent, grandparent, and former teacher.

Why did she feel it necessary to defend such a basic 21st-century educational principle? Wouldn’t everyone favor such essential tools for living in peace and seeking mutual understanding? Apparently not.

Margaret spoke because she had been listening first. She described board meetings full of acrimony and tension, with parents demanding more influence on books in the curriculum and in the library. The diversity, equity, and inclusion policy was another area parents questioned. The board members were accused of supporting pornography and lack of transparency by some parents. The school administration and board spent precious time and much taxpayer money responding to Right to Know requests for their emails.

Showalter started studying up on M4L, the national movement, and the ugly consequences that occur when the take over a board. 

When extremists win a majority, they frequently fire the superintendent regardless of whether the contract is up. They ban things — books, rainbow flags, Black Lives Matter flags. They frighten teachers and staff, whose difficult jobs become even harder. A single parent who complains can take away books from many students, as happened in Florida recently when Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb was moved from a shelf for all students to one reserved for the upper grades only.

Showalter got together with Jeanette Bontrager, a Hempfield schools grad who had also attended EMU years ago, and Lynette Meck, a retired consultant who worked on the Mennonite Central Committee. The three grandmas live in the Lititz-based senior living facility, Moravian Manor. And as they watched the M4L crowd start pushing into the area, they had feelings:

“I’m just incensed at this whole Moms for Liberty endeavor,” Bontrager said. “It just makes my blood boil. I want to do what I can to keep it out.”

So they formed Grandmas for Love. Set up a website. And in about a year, they acquired 100 or so supporters. 

Last summer Showalter attended the M4L summit and wrote about it for Billy Penn. Her take is pretty clearheaded:

Like the speakers at the national summit declare, I love my country. I love my small town of Lititz and the good-hearted folks who live here. Historically, most of them vote Republican. I love our nation’s founding documents, especially the Constitution.

I now also love my local public school, its teachers, and its leadership with a passion I would never have imagined — until Moms for Liberty came along. The group is eroding one of the most important principles of American democracy:

The separation of church and state.

Come to think of it, I only heard the idea of separation of church and state mentioned one time at the conference. And that once, it was dismissed as a “bogus argument.”

What I heard loudly and clearly at the summit was a call to theocracy in the guise of democracy — asserting conservative Christian values as normative for all. God’s name came up often, his blessing invoked, and his guidance proclaimed. For people who decry ideology and accuse teachers of indoctrination, the speakers seemed blind to their own.

The group is largely bipartisan, but they did so some work for Democratic candidates for the Warwick school board. They are part of a landscape of groups in the area that have sprung up in response to the Moms For Liberty agitation. 

The website includes an introductory video, notable for how not-at-all-radical it sounds:

We uphold the values of diversity and inclusion. We believe parents of all religious faiths and no religious faith all have the right to guide their children including the right to ‘opt out’ of certain books or activities. This system of respect for religious differences, based on the important American principle of separation of church and state, has worked in public schools for decades.

And this:

We want school board members who believe in public education, who focus on learning, and who bring creative problem-solving ideas to the table. We want enthusiasm, energy, and empathy for ALL the students of "dear old Warwick." (Some of us can still sing the alma mater!) We value school board  candidates who are parents of WSD students, who have experience as educators. Candidates who are mental and physical health professionals, and who are community members accustomed to working within budgets. 

We take our role as elders seriously. We feel called to stand up for students who may not always be able to stand up for themselves. We feel called to stand up for teachers and administrators whose work of preparing the next generation is both essential and challenging.

This is where we are--that these most simple and unexceptional ideas now show just how far away from the middle some folks have strayed, that these kinds of reasonable and bland expressions qualify as a challenge to one of the major players in education.

Grandmas for Love don't appear to have any aspirations for spreading beyond their own community, and they haven't magically pulled in millions of dollars by selling t-shirts. But they are one example of how local folks can mobilize and make sure that folks aren't sleeping when school board elections roll around. If a bunch of Mennonite grandmas can do it, so can you. In a month or so we'll see how they did. 

(To read more, check out this post by Ashley Stalnecker at WITF)

ICYMI: Mighty Pups Edition (9/30)

There was nothing at the institute more important the weekend premiere of the newest Paw Patrol movie, and we were there yesterday afternoon to watch every blessed minute of it. We are still processing the experience, though the CMO and I agree that there is never enough Chickaletta, and Maynard is criminally under- and un-used. The popcorn was good, though. If you have a small child who is requiring you to sit through this, God bless you.

But it's time for the Sunday recap of notable reads from the week, so let's move on to that. Remember, sharing is caring.

Email exchanges show attorneys’ confusion and frustration over Florida’s new education laws

The Miami Herald looks at more of the fallout from Florida's vague and half-baked reading repression laws. Also, probably the only place you'll find this sentence

“A question has arisen among our terrified media specialists about masturbation,” said Ellen Odom, general counsel for the School Board of Escambia County.

Florida school district orders librarians to purge all books with LGBTQ characters

Exhibit B. Judd Legum has the receipts from a district in which the superintendent said, "No, just don't allow any books with any sort of LGBTQ characters ever."

Teachers struggle to teach the Holocaust without running afoul of new ‘divisive concepts’ rules

It's not just Florida. Linda Wertheimer for Hechinger Report looks at New Hampshire, where teachers are having trouble navigating the Holocaust. Also in this piece, meet an inspiration Holocaust survivor.

Believe, but then verify, charter school’s promises

From Bakersfield, California, yet another demonstration of the problems that arise from charters' non-public non-transparent governance.

Money, not standards, determines education quality

James Rosen for the Tribune Content Agency with some hard talk about how money does matter and standards aren't all that much help.

Right-Wing Activist Christopher Rufo Became the One Thing He Claims to Hate

If you can tolerate one more article about Chris Rufo's baloney, you might tackle this one in which Rufo is called out by right-tilted conservative Nico Perrino

Aspira to repay Philadelphia district roughly $3.5 million to settle charter enrollment dispute

There are still many unanswered questions about the Aspira mess in Philly, but this addresses one of the more glaring, i.e. Aspira's fundraising technique of just ignoring their enrollment caps and billing the state for students they weren't allowed to enroll in the first place.

Seven Members of the Ohio State Board of Education File a Lawsuit to Protect Democratic Control of Public Schooling

Ohio is one of those states with a gerrymandered GOP supermajority, but members of the state board of education are fighting back. Jan Resseger has the story.

Why Some Schools Are a Step Ahead in Addressing Student Mental Health Needs

Jeff Bryant has another story about districts that make good use of the community school model to help students.

The Moms for Liberty – Michael Flynn Connection Strengthens

Christian nationalist loon Michale Flynn has taken a seat at the table in Sarasota, Ground Zero for right wing loon activity. This will probably not end well.

The MAGAmerican dream lives in Sarasota

This deep dive piece in the Washington Post is a lot to take in. But if you want to get a feel for how far down the MAGA hole Sarasota is, this does it. And yes, M4L appear.

The big problems with college and K-12 school rankings

You may be aware that US News college rankings are baloney, but K-12 rankings are even worse. Guesting in Valerie Strauss's Answer Sheet at the Washington Post, Harry Feder explains just why you should ignore these.

Will KIPP NYC Be Disqualified (Again) From U.S. News & World Report Best High School Rankings?

A few years back, Gary Rubinstein caught KIPP gaming the Us News rankings. Now he's caught them again.

Plans move forward for Tennessee to potentially reject more than a billion dollars in education funding

If you want to toss out federal rules and start writing your own, step one is to reject federal money. Tennessee is thinking real hard about it. You can also read more about this here from Andy Spears, and somewhat different angle from TC Weber. 

School-Voucher Scam

If you want to stay up to date on North Carolina education shenanigans, you need to read Justin Permenter. Gary Pearce introduces the blogger here, along with some of his findings about vouchers schools in NC.

An elected school board is nothing to fear

Some folks in Virginia really hate the idea of some districts going back to elected boards. The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Democracy has always been a touchy subject in Virginia, where districts have been allowed elected school boards since--1992! And 13 districts still aren't there yet. The Richmond Times-Dispatch points out the opponents are full of it.

How PICTURE Books Help TEACH Comprehension and Phonics!

It's almost as if some of the people hollering about reading instruction these days are not actually teachers or trained reading specialists. Nancy Bailey would like to set some folks straight on one particular type of children's book.

State Department of Education was notified Tulsa ended Confucius Classroom before superintendent testified otherwise to Congress

Turns out that Oklahoma's Right wing Dudebro of Education knew that his complaints about the Chinese infiltration of Tulsa's schools--well, he knew that was already a dead issue. But when you really want to use your great new talking point, why let reality get in the way.

Music in the Classroom

Steve Nuzum talks about how the pandemic ended up bringing music into his classroom, and the positives that came from that.

OSIRIS-REx Has Not Brought “Asteroid Germs” Back To Earth

Not education related, but I do love space stuff, and bringing back asteroid bits is cool space stuff.

I was busy at Forbes.com this week. Read about my former colleague starting a big STEM foundation, the problem of averages when discussing education, and how Florida's latest flap demonstrates one more pitfall of voucher programs. 

If you want all of my latest stuff in a easy-to-access form, consider signing up for my substack which will get all of my blather in your in box for free. 

Reducing Test Anxiety 101

From The Journal Of Blindingly Obvious Stuff, once again the news that quizzes help with testing and reduce testing anxiety. Here's a chunk from Hechinger's piece:

Several meta-analyses, which summarize the evidence from many studies, have found higher achievement when students take quizzes instead of, say, reviewing notes or rereading a book chapter. “There’s decades and decades of research showing that taking practice tests will actually improve your learning,” said David Shanks, a professor of psychology and deputy dean of the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London.

Still, many students get overwhelmed during tests. Shanks and a team of four researchers wanted to find out whether quizzes exacerbate test anxiety. The team collected 24 studies that measured students’ test anxiety and found that, on average, practice tests and quizzes not only improved academic achievement, but also ended up reducing test anxiety. Their meta-analysis was published in Educational Psychology Review in August 2023.

Shanks says quizzes can be a “gentle” way to help students face challenges.

“It’s not like being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool,” said Shanks. “It’s like being put very gently into the shallow end. And then the next time a little bit deeper, and then a little bit deeper. And so the possibility of becoming properly afraid just never arises.”

Why test anxiety diminishes is unclear. It could be because students are learning to tolerate testing conditions through repeated exposure, as Shanks described. Or it could be because quizzes are helping students master the material and perform better on the final exam. We tend to be less anxious about things we’re good at. Unfortunately, the underlying studies didn’t collect the data that could resolve this academic debate.

All that to say "practice makes perfect." Let me try it another way, because there's no mystery here.

An assessment is a performance, and you prepare for performance with rehearsal.

There are two pieces to getting ready. One is to know your stuff. The other is to have practice presenting the stuff you know in the way that's required. Sometimes teachers focus on the first and ignore the second.

An actor needs to know his lines. A musician needs to know her notes. A dancer needs to know the steps. Part of rehearsal is breaking down those things into pieces and parts so that you can get them stuck inside you. But as performance nears, you need to actually do the thing in ways that more and more resemble the actual performance. This will culminate, usually, in a dress rehearsal--in other words, performing the piece exactly as you will under final circumstances, just without an audience.

Messing with this can be terrifying for performers. Most performers have had the experience of being under-rehearsed. I once played for a director who would break a work down into pieces, and we would rehearse the pieces, but never play through the whole thing, performance style, until the very last minute, if at all. The result was a shaky performance, anxious performers lacking confidence, and the occasional debacle.

It's exactly the same in a classroom. To teach the material without ever practicing it is like having a cast memorize their lines and blocking but never setting foot on stage until opening night. Quizes and tests both reinforce the content and give students valuable practice in doing the content on a test format. And of course the more your quizzes and pre-tests match the final assessment, the more prepared, confident, and capable they will be on that test. 

I'm familiar with the theory that says "If these students really know the content, then they'll be able to perform it in a completely unfamiliar format." Sure. And if the cast of The Music Man really knows their lines and music, they won't be thrown if you put them in inflatable Sumo costumes and ask them to perform the show on a stage made of dead flounders while accompanied by bagpipes. There are some gifted performers who could pull it off, but for most, the unfamiliar format will kick their confidence in the gut. And once confidence goes...

This is why a basic piece of test advice is "Do what you're sure of first." Because once you struggle with an answer that raises doubts and uncertainty, once you start to doubt yourself, then you'll find yourself thinking things like "I'm pretty sure cat starts with a c, but maybe..."

You reduce test anxiety by helping students learn the content and by having them rehearse the kind of performance of that content that they'll be asked to do at test time. It's that simple.

All of this, incidentally, is why all standardized test results can be affected by test prep, which is why the Big Standardized Test has a steady toxic effect on instruction. The performance will require students to read a short, context-free excerpt and answer--RIGHT NOW-- some multiple choice questions. So if we care about BS Test results, it makes sense to rehearse exactly that and not, say, reading entire works of literature and delve into them over time with reflection and discussion. 

I can't believe it takes an academic meta-analysis to tell us all of this, or that an academic finds an explanation unclear. Maybe he didn't play in band or take part in a school play. I'm surprised that anyone needs to spell this stuff out, but apparently we do. 

Let's Just Test All The Damned Year

One of the repeated techniques of reformsters is this: when a proposed policy fails, insist that we need to do it more harder.

Using the Big Standardized Test as the foundation of all school evaluation is a failure. It hasn't provided teachers with actionable data. It hasn't improved student learning. It doesn't tell us much that we couldn't learn from looking at a school's demographics. And you'd be hard pressed to find a word of approval from anyone who 1) has first hand experience with it and 2) doesn't make money from it. It doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, doesn't provide the benefits it's supposed to provide, and fails to make anyone happy.

So what could possibly be the solution? Might Bill Gates pop up to say, "Hey, this didn't work out so well, so let's drop the whole idea."

Of course not. Instead, this is what happened:

In the fall of 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative funded Education First to work with assessment developers and state education agencies on researching and developing a new generation of through-year solutions connecting what is taught with what is tested by aligning assessments with scope-and-sequences or curriculum. If the grant program is successful, by June 2023, the project will have seeded multiple new assessment designs and test prototypes available for development into full-scale operational systems.

Education First is "a mission-driven strategy and policy organization dedicated to helping our clients navigate through complexity to create more people-focused, equitable and inclusive initiatives, strategies and organizations." 

It was founded by Jennifer Vranek used to make grants for The Gates Foundation. One senior management member is Anand Vaishnav, who somehow went from Boston Globe reporter to Boston Public Schools Chief of Staff in 2005. This group of "educators and strategists" includes on its executive team folks from a host of familiar reformster groups-- Gates Foundation, Teach for America, TNTP, Joyce Foundation, Broad and Harvard Graduate School of Education products. I found one person with an actual background on the ground in a public school. So it's that kind of crew.

So Education First cranked out a report about what we're now calling "through-year assessments." 

The TYA are supposed to address what the report calls "long-standing, legitimate concerns expressed by students, families and educators about traditional end-of-year summative assessments’ inability to support teaching and learning" and let me acknowledge the large clueless cajones required to call the Big Standardized Test "traditional," as if the BS Test was not foisted on schools twenty-some years ago with the enthusiastic backing of Gates et al. Tradition, my butt. 

The report even identifies three issues with the BS Tests:

Disconnected from curriculum and instruction, 

Provide results that do not inform instruction, and 

Require undue time and resources

All accurate because

1) They are disconnected from the work of the school because they were imposed from outside the school in an attempt to take control of curriculum and instruction

2) They provide results that cannot inform instruction because they arrive far too late, provide little-to-know granular insight, and (because protecting test manufacturers' proprietary right is more important that providing useful results) teachers are flying blind about what exactly the students had trouble with.

3) Oh, you have got to be kidding me. 

Because if there's any solution to the time-suck problem of BS Testing, it would be more testing. But wait-- maybe if they clarify what their thinking is, it might not seem so--

Education First believes these through-year assessment systems have the potential to be more equitable, focused and relevant for students, families and educators. In particular, we are interested in exploring the ways through-year models can strengthen the connection between assessment and instruction by timing assessments of learning immediately following relevant instruction or even aligning directly with curriculum. We refer to this as “testing what is taught, when it’s taught.”

You or I or anyone who has actually worked in a classroom might refer to this as "what teacher already do on a regular basis." Seriously. Are we imagining teachers somewhere saying, "Yeah, I teach a unit, and then at the end of the unit, I give a test on a unit from a few months ago, or maybe just read toad warts soaked in tea leaves. But you know-- teach a unit and then give a test on what I just taught??!! That's crazy talk! "

There's plenty of details and examples in this paper, because thirteen states are busy implementing some version of this foolishness. I could walk you through some of the details-- we should stop long enough to admire the heading, "How are states designing through-year assessments to change perceptions about the time and resources devoted to testing?" because, I guess, changing the perceptions is a better goal than changing the reality? But this is one of those times when it's pointless to get wrapped up in examining the trees because the whole forest is perched on a mountain of lime jello and fairy dust.

What exactly is going on here? A couple of possibilities come to mind:

1) Once again, some teaching amateurs are proud of themselves for inventing the wheel.

2) Certain people are looking for ways to expand the market and increase revenue for test manufacturers (partners who get thanks for "reviewing and improving" the paper include reps of the Walton Foundation, NWEA, Center for Assessment, and Learning Policy Institute). 

3) Certain people see a new path for trying to micromanage curriculum and instruction, since the BS Test didn't quite get as far down that road as they had hoped. Because standards are magical and if we can just force everyone to get in line, things would be awesome.

4) More testing means more data to mine! Ka-ching!

The three foundations have created a whole grant for this kind of year round test-a-palooza, so if it hasn't hit your state yet, keep an eye peeled. 

OK: Notre Dame Law School Aids Push For Catholic Charter

Earlier this year, Oklahoma State Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued an opinion about the prospect of the state approving a church-run charter school. He was reversing the opinion of his predecessor, saying that previous opinion “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion. If allowed to remain in force, I fear the opinion will be used as a basis for taxpayer-funded religious schools.”

In June, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board ignored him and approved the St. Isidore of Seville virtual charter, a cyber school that was proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in collaboration with the Diocese of Tulsa. It was in anticipation of this application that the virtual charter board asked the previous AG for an opinion in the first place.

As an AP report noted, “Archdiocese officials have been unequivocal that the school will promote the Catholic faith and operate according to church doctrine, including its views on sexual orientation and gender identity.” 

And just in case you wonder if the state knew what it was doing, or was trying to preserve any plausible deniability, State Superintendent Ryan Walters supported the decision:

This decision reflects months of hard work, and more importantly, the will of the people of Oklahoma. I encouraged the board to approve this monumental decision, and now the U.S.’s first religious charter school will be welcomed by my administration.

And Governor Stitt hailed it as “a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state.”

Meanwhile, AG Drummond called the decision “contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interests of taxpayers.” Furthermore, "It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.”

To the surprise of nobody, that lawsuit was filed before summer's end with Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee and individual parents as plaintiffs in a case that has already been busy and twisty. 

The case has drawn a number of national groups to the case, including for the plaintiffs the ACLU, Americans for Separation of Church and State, and the Education Law Center. 

The defendant side is a more interesting array. Drummond, having made it clear that he believes the charter proponents are dead wrong, is not using the attorney general's office to defend them. So the school board, the state department of education, and Ryan Walters are being defended by private attorneys in Oklahoma and some other hired guns. 

Two are part of the usual array of legal shops that work to defund and dismantle public education. There's the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group that was incorporated in 1993 by six right-wing luminaries, including Larry Burkett, Bill Bright, and James Dobson. They are supported by a host of right-wing foundations, including the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. And they oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, most all LGBTQ+ rights. Their track record is sadly successful; these are the Hobby Lobby lawsuit folks. They have a summer legal training program to get Christian law students whipped up for legal careers; Justice Amy Coney Barrett taught at it. They successfully litigated against Vermont, establishing that the state must include Catholic students in its voucher program, a sort of throat-clearing for Carson v. Makin.

There's First Liberty Institute a Christian conservative firm based in Texas, which co-took Carson v. Makin all the way to SCOTUS, as well as the case of the praying coach. 

These are to be expected; getting money away from public education and into church coffers is their thing. But you get a fuller idea of who has a lot riding on this case from the third set of lawyers-- the Notre Dame Religious Liberty  Clinic. 

Says John Meiser, director of the Religious Liberty Clinic. “By welcoming faith-based charter schools, Oklahomans uphold the freedom for all people — religious or not — to serve our communities and extend educational opportunities to all children.” The quote does not go on to explain how, exactly, how a Catholic charter school would uphold freedom for non-religious people. But that continues to be a central argument--freedom, and how churches can't be free unless they are allowed to hoover up taxpayer dollars. 

"Access to private education can be limited by affordability and proximity. The pandemic prompted us to see technology as a bridge to provide education to all,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma. "That is why we have used the vast financial power of the church to lower tuition prices," he absolutely did not say. 

The Catholic Church has always been a fan of school choice. They got excited after the Espinoza decision, the Montana decision that was first to require direct transfer of taxpayer dollars to a church, and they were perfectly comfortable cozying up with then-secretary of education Betsy DeVos. In fact, while the conventional wisdom associates Trump with evangelicals, the Catholic Church was also a big Trump booster, especially if the conversation was about school vouchers. 

A Catholic charter in Oklahoma would pretty much erase the difference between charters and vouchers, and the Catholic charter in Oklahoma serves as a proof of legal concept, so this case is a good fit for the church. It is winding through various legal twists and turns (the defendants just moved to have it dismissed), but if it ends up before SCOTUS, it could represent one more reduction of the pile of rubble that now stands where the wall between church and state used to. 

ID: West Bonner's Fake Superintendent Quits. Probably.

One more chapter in the ongoing saga of Branden Durst and the West Bonner School District. If you've missed the story so far, you can find the first three chapters here, here, and here. 

The very short synopsis is this: West Bonner voters snoozed through another school board election, and so a far right majority installed itself and proceeded to hire Branden Durst, possibly the most unqualified person to ever be offered a superintendent's position with an especially wacky contract. But it was contingent on Durst receiving an emergency credential from the state, and the state said "You have got to be kidding." Meanwhile, two of the three conservatives on the five-person board were ousted in a special recall election. It looked briefly as if the remaining third could keep the board from doing anything (like firing their uncredentialed superintendent) by just refusing to show up. 

Then yesterday Durst offered his resignation, saying he would seek an exit that was "amicable and fair," two qualities that were absent from all other stages of his employment.

Durst modeled the amicable part in his resignation letter by grousing about the community members who found his hiring wildly inappropriate. Probably thinking of people like the mother who called his hiring "asinine" and said “Why on earth would you hire a mechanic to bake your wedding cake? It’s terrifying.” But Durst claimed in his Twitter-posted retirement letter:

Throughout my short tenure, I remained cognizant of the fact that not everyone in the community welcomed my hiring, and there were those who hoped to see me fail and did everything in their power to try to make that so, even if meant hurting very students they claimed to support. I was undeterred by the naysayers and their negativity only strengthened my resolve to do what needed to be done to put this district on a path toward success.

To the end, Durst remains defiantly blind to any notion that his problem might be that he has absolutely no qualifications for running a school district other than his far right ideological bent. This is MAGA brand ego material here, the idea that opposition was personal, that Only He Could Do It, and that to interfere with his rule would somehow hurt the students. 

The whole world was arrayed against him! The community and state officials threw "relentless obstacles" in his path. Sure. Every teacher has had that student who didn't do the reading, slept through class, didn't do any of the practice or homework, and then complains that they failed the test because "the teacher doesn't like me." 

But Durst is going to 'promote healing and unity within the community" by stepping aside. "It may not be entirely fair, but life rarely is." It's not clear what exactly is unfair here. It's just not fair that a man can't have a major leadership position just because he wants it, even if he has none of the qualifications for that job? 

It's worth noting that Durst didn't actually give a final date. His last day of employment "will be up to the board." That's the same board that only has three filled seats and one of them belongs to a Durst supporter. So we may not be at the final chapter of this tale yet.

The moral here is that elections have consequences, that people should not snooze through their local school board elections. Thankfully, the moral is also that when people finally wake up, they are not particularly excited about far right MAGA approaches to running their schools. That story has definitely not reached its final chapter.

ID: West Bonner Tries To Fight Back, But Fake Superintendent Still In Place

The saga of the West Bonner School District and its completely unqualified and unlicensed superintendent continues, with more twists and turns and fairly spectacular dysfunction.

The board had hired Branden Durst, a noisy political wanna-be with a checkered past and zero qualifications, to be superintendent. But his highly unusual contract depended on his procurement of an emergency superintendent certification, and the state board decided that A) he met zero of the qualifications and B) they didn't have the power to do that anyway.

Some of the story echoes other districts where a conservative group managed to commandeer the school board. People simply became complacent about board elections, not paying attention to what the board was up to, or not bothering to vote because they assumed the reasonable candidates were shoo-ins. 

In the case of West Bonner, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, yet another of those far right groups that wants to do away with public schools entirely, pounced. Dropped textbooks and a curriculum replaced with the far right Hillsdale curriculum and a defeated levy to fund things like books and salaries--those were the prelude to installing Durst as superintendent.

Now, you might think that would be the end of the story, but you'd be wrong.

About the time Durst was hired, a recall effort was under way to remove two of the most right wing board members. Despite any number of nasty tricks, the recall succeeded at the beginning of September. Those seats will be filled in November, but in the meantime, Durst and the board have tried some last minute antics, like moving to dissolve the school board at a board meeting scheduled at the last minute for a Friday evening of a three day weekend. It took a court ordered injunction to stop that nonsense.

The recall has created another problem. It leaves three board members, which means all three must be present to conduct business, and one member, the other third of the conservative coalition, decided not to attend last week's board meeting, which would have been the first since the state board said that there is "no path" for Durst to become credentialled to fill a superintendent spot. But with only two members present, the meeting was canceled for lack of a quorum.

That means, among other things, that Durst is still in the superintendent's post and that the district, not the state, will have to pay his salary. One would think he can't be superintendent on account of, you know, being unqualified and uncredentialed, but Durst has other thoughts.

But, Durst told KREM 2 he still is the superintendent.

"They don’t make the law," Durst said. "They aren’t the law. How many people could say that? That they don’t have to follow the laws of Idaho.”

The state board's action, says Durst, was "pretty discriminatory." Durst says a lot of things, although nothing about what, other than his ideological bent, qualifies him to be a school superintendent.

There's a lot riding on the next election for West Bonner, but folks are awake and paying attention now. We'll see what the next chapter holds.