When the LA Times and the Boston Globe finally “gets it” about how the public feels about woke ideology that is invading our schools, you know it isn’t just a conservative concern. Every state department of education and local school district should pay attention. Primaries are right around the corner and a litmus test for school board members everywhere will be their adherence to racist CRT policies and curricula. Expect earthquakes.
Los Angeles Times. February 16, 2022. By Mike Barabak
Earthquakes are sudden and unexpected. The result of Tuesday’s recall was neither.
The removal of board members Gabriela López, Faauuga Moliga and Alison Collins was destined the moment the city’s liberal establishment, led by Mayor London Breed, joined the effort along with several discontented millionaires, who threw in loads of cash.
What happened Tuesday was more a foreshock, a warning — as if Democrats needed any more of those — that November’s midterm elections could be very bad indeed, as parents unsettled by two years of pandemic-related upheaval vent their frustrations at the polls.
In a place that prides itself on social justice and forward-thinking, members of the school board outdid themselves by moving to strip the names of, among others, Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Sen. Dianne Feinstein from 44 public schools.
The intent was remediating the country's history of injustices: George Washington owned slaves, Abraham Lincoln oversaw the slaughter of Native Americans and Feinstein, as mayor in 1984, replaced a Confederate flag that had been vandalized at City Hall. The result was outrage.
In another instance of misplaced priorities, board members spent hours debating whether a father who was white and gay brought sufficient diversity to a parental advisory committee. His appointment was ultimately nixed, but there was no recovering the time board members wasted.
Perhaps most antagonizing, the board moved to end merit-based admissions to Lowell High School, one of the city's most-sacred institutions, where Asian American students are the majority. (The move catalyzed the city's Asian American community, long an important force in San Francisco politics.)
Old comments surfaced from Collins, in which she stated Asian Americans used "white supremacist" thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students. She apologized, then sued the school district and five fellow board members, seeking $87 million in damages, for removing her title as vice president. A judge summarily rejected the case.
All of which was too much for this famously tolerant city, as students struggled with distance learning and public schools remain closed even as others in neighboring communities reopened.
Inclusion, sensitivity and righting history's wrongs are all well and good. But there was a strong sense "we are not getting the basics right," as Siva Raj, a father of two who helped launch the recall effort, put it.
He and others would have removed all seven members of the board, but only the three targeted were eligible for removal.
Boston Globe, February 16, 2022, By Laura Meckler
Voters in San Francisco overwhelmingly ousted three school board members from their positions Tuesday in a move fueled by a failure to reopen schools last year and unpopular moves aimed at advancing racial justice.
The recall election is the latest signal that voters, even in a liberal city like San Francisco, have grown frustrated with public schools during the pandemic. Education, particularly its struggles with coronavirus measures and racial justice, is expected to play a prominent role in elections across the country this year. The results in San Francisco are another warning sign for Democrats.
Preliminary results showed the vote to oust each of the school board members topping 70 percent. Those who lost their seats were school board President Gabriela López and members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.
… the board engaged in moves aimed at advancing racial equity that critics say were divisive and ill-advised, particularly for a period when schools were closed and academic and emotional damage to the city’s children was accruing. For instance, the board spent months deliberating the renaming of 44 schools after a committee found their namesakes had connections to slavery, oppression, and racism, although many of the alleged ties were thin or, in some cases, historically questionable or inaccurate. Those targeted included George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and, citing a single incident from the 1980s, longtime Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.
The board also argued that Lowell High School, an elite program populated overwhelmingly by Asian American and white students, needed an admissions system that would better represent the city’s Black and Hispanic residents. The board’s abrupt decision to alter the admission rules, switching to a lottery, incensed San Francisco’s large Chinese American population as well as others in the Asian community, who read the change as hurtful to students from their community who worked hard and got the top grades and scores.
The leaders of the recall movement said the vote showed a hunger for schools to focus on educating children.
Anger was further driven by anti-Asian tweets from Collins that were posted in 2016, before she was on the board but discovered last year. They accused Asian Americans of benefiting from the “’model minority’ BS” and using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’” She also suggested that they were not standing up to then-President Donald Trump, using a racial slur to describe them.
