THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE SOCIABLE?

If there's broad consensus on what the common schools ought be teaching, the school board election is probably no big deal, and it doesn't much matter who runs, or who turns out to vote.

That, however, is not reality for school boards.

“We’re certainly seeing the nationalization of school board races here in Wisconsin and across the country,” UW-Oshkosh associate professor of public administration Michael Ford said. “You’re seeing a heck of a lot of talk about things like vaccine mandates, critical race theory, things that are actually pretty disconnected from the reality of being a school board member.”

Yes and no.  Are school boards approving curricula that don't sit well with parents?  Have they been captured by public employee unions?  Have the public health measures been debated in Congress, in legislatures, in the city council?

While more civic engagement is always welcome, politicizing such historically nonpartisan races threatens to make governing more difficult, Ford said.

“The worry is obstructionism,” he said. “You have a one-issue candidate or, more importantly, if you have a few candidates who are just hellbent on conflict, you really start to mess with the group dynamic of a governing board and grind the process to a halt. That’s the real fear.”

Recent efforts that have gummed up the workings of government, Ford said, include more than a dozen school board recall elections, launched in response to COVID mitigation policies, that took place across the state since the pandemic began. A parent group in Oshkosh that was vocal about the school district’s mask policies had a few candidates throw their name into the hat to seek seats on the School Board.

“Just about every major school district in the state has at least one candidate who is running on an issue like critical race theory, and if you had gone pre-COVID-19 that was not a thing. That was never an issue anybody had talked about,” he said.

“It’s more of a frustration that some folks have with state and federal government and their inability to gain traction at the state and federal level has brought some of these more social issues to the surface at the local level.”

Put another way, had Congress or the state legislatures or the city councils been involved in approving the public health measures, the school boards might not have become contested territory.  Whether parents were quicker to find out about critical studies or other intrusions into the curriculum because they could see the indoctrination on their kids' computers is an area for further study.  But it is not a defense of the status quo to complain about "gumming up the works" of making policy.  That's a valid outcome where there is consensus, but where has there been consensus on anything, lately?  Well, maybe in ultra-woke Madison.  Not so much elsewhere in the state, or nationwide.

[Madison political scientist Barry Burden] said some of the people seeking public office in Wisconsin are dissatisfied with President Joe Biden and Gov. Tony Evers and motivated to enter the race by issues such as COVID mitigation policies and equity initiatives in K-12 curriculum.

“It’s anger more than enthusiasm, and the people who they’re angry at are the incumbents,” he said.

In solidly Democratic Madison there’s markedly less enthusiasm for running for School Board than in other parts of the state. Of the three seats up for election this year, only one is contested after two incumbents opted not to run again.

Yes, if the public employee union endorses a slate, and the city is full of ... public employees, that's not a surprise.  They deserve the indisciplined schools and the children rendered illiterate by woke education that they'll get.  Voters elsewhere in the country can also see that outcome, and they get to say no.  If that means a loss of consensus and comity for the time being, so be it.