Democracy and Education

Florida is the birthplace of Moms for Liberty. It is also the state where the governor has spent millions of dollars to elect extremist members of school boards around the state who have banned books, fired superintendents, and in general wreaked havoc on local school systems. In the face of that, communities around the state have come together to elect pro-public education school board members. In this episode, Karin Chenoweth talks with three who won in 2024. · Stephanie Vanos, who defeated

In this episode of Democracy and Education, Bobby Omari, who lost his bid for a school board seat in California’s Chino Valley United School District, shares the lessons he learned and the lessons he thinks others can learned from his campaign. Among other things, he thinks he underestimated the political sway a Christian Nationalist mega-church has in local politics, including in “harvesting” thousands of votes of its parishioners—that is, gathering mail-in votes and delivering them to the ele

When education researcher and parent Jamie Martin first heard NBC’s podcast about the Southlake Families, the group that had taken the majority of the school board in the Carroll School District in Texas proclaiming their allegiance to “parental rights,” she noticed that their web site looked remarkably like that of Francis Howell Families in her Missouri district. It had the same branding and the same language attacking critical race theory, transgender children, and teachers. That started her

Democracy and Education Episode 9 Rejecting Extremism Alarmed by the allegations made by Libs for TikTok and Moms for Liberty, Courtney Gore ran for school board in her home town of Granbury Texas in 2021. Once on the board, she searched for the evidence of indoctrination and the sexualization of children she had been warned of. When she found none, she went back to her community to tell them the good news. But they didn’t want to hear it and cut ties with her. Now she realizes that she had

When Sara Bitter ran for school board in a suburban district in Cincinnati, it was after she had already run twice for the state legislature. She knew how to run a contested campaign. But she thought running for the non-partisan school board seat would be different—less contentious, less political. After all, she says, most people just want school board members who will be a good steward of tax dollars and ensure that the children of the community are educated. Then outside money flooded into

Steve Grappe says Arkansans are trying to take back political power through “direct democracy.” Grappe, who lives in Rosebud Arkansas on Forevermost Farms, is the former head of the Rural Caucus, former head of the Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students (CAPES), and is the new head of Stand Up Arkansas. In a wide-ranging discussion, Grappe describes how he and others throughout the state are working to re-engage Arkansans in civic and political life. Far too many Arkansans, he say