Conservative and pro-parent candidates are continuing to dominate school board elections even in overwhelmingly Democratic areas, with the latest victories being in New York City.
As the New York Post reports, a large number of candidates who ran for citywide education positions were parents themselves and endorsed by the group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE).
In the most recent elections for positions on the Citywide Council on High Schools (CCHS), every single elected seat was won by these pro-parent candidates; the entirety of CCHS represents at least 300,000 families throughout the city of New York. These victories included some of the highest-performing districts, including Brooklyn’s District 20, Manhattan’s Districts 2 and 3, and Queens’ Districts 25, 26, and 28.
In total, PLACE-endorsed candidates won 133 seats across CCHS. These candidates overwhelmingly support a greater emphasis on merit and higher academic standards, rather than lower standards or the elimination of merit in the name of “diversity.”
“The results of this election is a clear mandate from New York City Public School parents for expanded accelerated education opportunities and merit-based admissions,” said PLACE in a press release following the election results “It is now incumbent upon [city schools] Chancellor [David] Banks to ensure that his Superintendents and administration listen to these elected parent leaders. NYC families have spoken.”
PLACE’s platform calls for maintaining single-test admission for the specialized high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, as well as using actual grades and other indicators of academic merit in order to enroll at other middle and high schools. The group has also called for more honors programs and more difficult Regents Exams in order to graduate high school.
In addition to advocating for greater academic merit and more emphasis on test results, PLACE has also voiced its support for the expansion of charter schools.
The school board movement began in 2021, while the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic was still ongoing. As a result of the implementation of “remote learning” during the nationwide lockdown of schools, parents were able to witness for themselves as many schools tried to teach their children far-left political ideas, often masquerading these screeds as “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
In response, parents’ rights groups began a grassroots movement to protest school boards across the country, putting greater focus on the issue of education and parental rights over certain curriculum. Despite efforts by the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice to crack down on these groups as “domestic terrorists,” their political power only grew stronger after the Virginia elections in 2021 were swept by Republicans who backed greater transparency and parental authority in education. Since then, conservative and pro-parent candidates have been elected to school boards all over the country on similar platforms.