Missouri School Boards' Association Bows to Political Pressure

 

by Pa Rock

Retired Missouri Educator

In a stunning display of political cowardice, the Missouri School Boards' Association this week forfeited its membership in the group's parent organization, the National School Boards' Association, for the stated reason that the Missouri chapter did not like the content of a letter that the national group sent to the Biden administration - a letter which encouraged the administration to take actions to protect local school board members from the dangerous effects of public hostility currently being expressed in some communities across the nation.  

The Missouri group chose to portray federal intervention to protect board members from violence and threats of violence as an affront to "local control."

The state school boards' association was undoubtedly influenced in its decision to cut ties with the national group by the political antics of at least two prominent Missouri GOP politicians.  Missouri's attorney general, Eric Schmitt, had joined with a few other state attorneys general in urging the US Justice Department to withdraw a memo advising the FBI to coordinate strategies regarding threats against educators, and Schmitt, using inflammatory language, also sent a personal letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Biden administration to "prioritize parents over school bureaucrats."

Right now there is a lot of political fire being directed toward school boards and their members over school policies related to COVID and a fear that the history of racial conflict in America will be taught in schools.  Much of that anger seems to be generated by GOP operatives, conservative news sources, and politically active right-wing religious groups.  Schmitt, who is running for the GOP nomination for the US Senate from Missouri, appears to be trying to profit politically off of the tense situation between some schools and some members of the public.

Missouri's junior US senator, Josh Hawley, also a Republican, has been riding astride that same political horse as Eric Schmitt.  Hawley has called on Merrick Garland to resign as US Attorney General, and he has praised the Missouri School Boards' Association for cutting ties with the national group.

The state school boards' associations of Pennsylvania and Ohio have also left the national group, and Florida says that it will no longer pay dues to the national group.

Some might reasonably argue that all of the brouhaha over the school board groups is just one more conservative ploy to destabilize and ultimately put an end to public education.

School board members are, at least in Missouri, unpaid local citizens who run in non-partisan elections to represent the community in the management of schools.   If groups are being organized as some adjunct operation of a national political movement to come into local communities and disrupt the work of local boards, then yes, law enforcement - at whatever level - needs to become involved and protect these good citizens who sit on local boards, and insure that they can do the work that they were elected to do in safety and free from fear and intimidation.

And while that may give rise to some political grandstanding, it will also ensure that the schools of the various states can function in an orderly manner without being stampeded into bad decisions through mob intimidation.  The way to  become a part of the process of guiding local schools is to run for school board positions, not to disrupt meetings and yell at unpaid public servants with threats like "We know where you live!"

By and large the members of America's school boards are selfless individuals who make great personal sacrifices to keep our schools open and functioning - and our kids learning.  School board members deserve far more respect than they are currently receiving - and that needs to change!    School board members are the local control, and when they are pushed aside by anarchy, local control will be lost.