I think is important to make sure that children from all types of families feel welcome and accepted in our schools, have their needs met, and have what they need to succeed. I believe in building consensus and finding a common place of understanding where we can solve problems. In that, it is important to educate all stakeholders on the facts and make sure the basic rights established by our Constitution are upheld for all. Public education is a pillar of our democracy; it is the great equalizer. Education should be the ticket to the middle class or above for everyone, not a pipeline to jail for the marginalized and extremely poor, a place to be bullied or ostracized, or a place where children cannot find library books with representations of themselves or their families that they can read, enjoy, and identify with.
Of course we don’t want books in our schools that have pornography or explicit sexual content that is age inappropriate, but some of the recent attacks on public education and teachers come from groups that want to remove books that do not contain any sexual content, yet they call them pornography because they have gay or lesbian characters, such as Heather Has Two Mommies or And Tango Makes Three. Heather Has Two Mommies is about a kindergartner who is going to school for the first time and is afraid her classmates will tease her because she doesn’t have a daddy. Her teacher has everyone in her class draw pictures of their families, and as they share their pictures Heather begins to feel better as she realizes there are all kinds of families. (Some children draw a picture with a mom and dad, some with just a single dad or mom, some draw their aunt or uncle, some a grandparent with whom they live, etc.) And Tango Makes Three is a true story of two penguins in Central Park that bond and make a nest together, trying to hatch a pebble until the aquarium keeper switches out the pebble for a real penguin egg. The two penguins faithfully sit on the egg, keeping it warm until it hatches, and they become a “family.” Other type books these groups try to remove from public schools and public libraries are books about black history (Ruby Bridges Goes to School), books about living through WWII (The Diary of Anne Frank), books such as Harry Potter or Strega Nona (because they supposedly teach children witchcraft, and more. The main group that is active in SC and the Southeast is Mom’s for Liberty, which has been labeled an anti-government extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
When asked about the groups wanting to remove books from public school libraries at the Chamber of Commerce Forum, one of my opponents stated that there shouldn’t be books in our schools that are illegal to hand a child on the street corner. We have no books in our schools that would be illegal to hand a child on the street corner. This opponent has bought into this extremists ideology, which hurts children and families.
This opponent states on their campaign website that they have The Heritage Foundation School Board Training and are a member of the Carolinas Academic Leadership Network. Both of these organizations train people to infiltrate school boards to fulfill their agendas. The Heritage Foundation wants to privatize education, taking public school money away from public schools to send to private schools; abolish the Federal Department of Education, which sends states the money to pay for their special education programs for students with disabilities and also sends money to pay for Title I school programs, which is extra funding for schools with the majority of their students from low socio-economic status families (half of the schools in our District 6 are Title I schools); and fights to sow distrust in public schools such as the anti “CRT” movement and school library book fears.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a theoretical approach that is taught in law school and advanced college classes as a lense to understand racial relations and public policy. To study CRT, students must have an extensive understanding of history, economics, class relations, and public policy. It requires far too much background knowledge for a K-12 student to understand. When the anti-CRT movement began in South Carolina, and the SC Legislature was trying to make it illegal for SC public school teachers to teach it (a confused understanding of it), the SC Superintendent of Education, Molly Spearman, testified before the Education Sub-committee of the SC House of Representatives that CRT was not a part of the SC curriculum and was not taught in SC. But frightened parents spoke of things like social-emotional learning, black history, LGBTQ teachers, etc. None of these things have anything to do with CRT.
The reason these parents were so confused was because people who have an end goal of privatizing education so large companies can make a profit from educating subsections of our children, such as a man named Christopher Rufo who had been connected with The Heritage Foundation and other extremist organizations, had purposely confused the topic in order to sow distrust in public education. Rufo said, “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from the premise of universal public school distrust.” He described his strategy to oppose CRT as using the term to “put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category” and “to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘Critical Race Theory.’” The overarching goal was to make people so distrust public education that they would want private school and would not fight bills to send public school money to private schools by way of vouchers. And that is exactly what started happening in many states, including SC, until the SC Supreme Court recently said it is against the SC Constitution to send public school money to private schools. Our current SC School Superintendent (Ellen Weaver), Governor McMaster, and state legislators have said they are not giving up on the fight for private school vouchers.
What will happen if these organizations like The Heritage Foundation get their way? Education in SC is already underfunded. If public school money is sent to private schools in vouchers in unlimited amounts, as was the goal of the creators of the law that was struck down (first year was only for restricted numbers of low-income families, but each year the income level rose and the number that could get vouchers increased until the goal of finally no restrictions), putting a huge financial burden on public school funding. Plus, The Heritage Foundation wants to abolish the Federal Department of Education, ending funding for special education for students with disabilities and funding for Title I schools. With SC public education already underfunded, and then these funds removed, there would be little left to run public schools. But we would still need public schools, because private schools do not have to accept students who have academic performance problems, behavior issues, disabilities, emotional or mental health problems, students with parents who are unable to volunteer a required number of hours, students whose parents are unable to provide transportation to the school, or students whose parents cannot afford the tuition that exceeds the amount of the voucher. These students would remain in public schools, but these are the most expensive students to serve. Research indicates that it costs more to help students achieve academically who come from those type student/family profiles because they need earlier interventions, specialized interventions, more time with an interventionist in one-to-one or small group settings, additional types of interventions, and additional instructional time (after school or during the summer). Unfortunately, public schools would have little funding left to meet these students’ needs with private school voucher money, special education funding, and Title I funding gone.
The Heritage Foundation also wants to end 4-year-old kindergarten. Early childhood education is extremely important to meet the needs of children from low-socioeconomic homes. In a study of 4-year-olds’ vocabulary and word-contact, those from more affluent homes had contact with an average of 38 million words in the home by age four, while those from under-resourced homes had contact with only an average of 8 million words – a 30 million words gap, which resulted in the children from the under-resourced homes having only half the vocabulary of their more affluent peers. This is why early intervention is so important.
Let me be clear, I am not against public-voucher funding for private schools under certain conditions. First, public schools must be fully funded. Second, a separate account for the funding of private school vouchers must be set up that does not affect the full funding of public schools. Third, if private schools are to receive public funds, they must follow all the same regulations, laws, and provisos that public schools must follow. If these conditions can be met, I have no issue with private-school vouchers funded by taxpayers.
I also want to be clear that I do not think the opponent I mentioned earlier is a bad person. I have talked with this person several times, and they have always been courteous and kind. I think that because they have no experience in public schools, as I do, they have been easily misled. They are a Christian, as am I, and the powers that be in the organizations I mentioned are good at using one’s Christian beliefs to indoctrinate them into the beliefs of the organization. Because of this, and because of their “Heritage Foundation School Board Training," (as stated on their campaign website), I am gravely concerned about what may happen if this person is elected to the school board. The Heritage Foundation is also the organization behind Project 2025, which wants to completely uproot our democracy and turn it into a Fascist state. Donald Trump is against Project 2025.
I am the most dedicated, best qualified, and most experienced candidate for this position on the school board. If you are kind enough to vote for me, I promise to serve you and your family faithfully.
Comments