On Saturday, conservative contenders won several high-profile school board races in Texas.
Jim Rice, a representative of the Fort Bend Independent School District (ISD) since 2010, lost his job. A board member since 2012, he is also the former direct president of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).
TASB, a regional chapter of the National School Boards Association (NSBA), infamously accused parents who attended school board meetings of terrorist activity.
The NSBA has lost 22 states, but not Texas.
Jim Rice @TASBnews Pres
(TX Assoc of School Boards) that supports #CRT indoctrination, lost to pro-parental rights, Rick Garcia for FBISD Board.Fort Bend has been turning blue, but peddling hate isn’t a R or D issue.
Parents will no longer sit idly by.
They’re awake and ready. pic.twitter.com/Qmqkf7jaNv— Steve Toth (@Toth_4_Texas) May 8, 2022
Rick Garcia, a small-business owner and district seventh-grade Texas history teacher defeated Rice.
David Hamilton, who ran for a vacancy, will join Garcia on the board. The GOP endorsed both victors. Fort Bend ISD is southwest of Houston, with roughly 80,000 students and 10,000 employees.
Texas has the largest public school systems and educational staff in the US, with 1,204 and 5.4 million pupils, respectively.
On May 7, at least 47 large school districts with 1.4 million kids (about 26% of Texas public school pupils) and hundreds of smaller rural districts voted.
More Republicans Win
In the Tarrant District, three conservative PACs endorsed school board candidates, with one committing $500,000 to promote candidates in four Fort Worth suburbs.
Ten of eleven conservative nominees in the four districts won, one going to a runoff on June 18. Only two were returning.
In Dripping Springs ISD, two conservatives, Olivia Barnard and Tricia Quintero, defeated a liberal incumbent and gained an open seat.
As Quintero stated, “Conservative school board candidates won statewide elections, demonstrating voter support for parental rights and family values.”
The results show that Texans oppose CRT in the classroom, cannot afford rising taxes, and will not tolerate classroom politics. “It’s time for us as a state to move forward,” she continued.
National Implications
A “Parents Bill of Rights” would allow parents to see course materials, prevent personal information from being collected until necessary, and penalize educators who allow kids access to explicit content.
These factors fueled Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s November triumph.
In November, Abbott will be on the ballot against Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke lost a tight election to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and then severely lost the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
O’Rourke recently proposed more education funding, including $8,000 per year for teachers. He also proposed scrapping the state’s STAAR testing.
BREAKING: Texas Governor Greg Abbott: "Empowering parents means giving them the choice to send their children to any public school, charter school, or private school with state funding following the student." pic.twitter.com/pUAeLrYOVh
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) May 10, 2022
For future success, Republicans and worried parents must maintain their increased efforts. Texas has no teachers’ unions, since it is a right-to-work state with no public employee collective bargaining.
For $500 a year, teachers’ groups provide legal protection against lawsuits for classroom acts. A percentage of the price goes to politics.
Moreover, national unions will want to stop a conservative surge in the second-most populated state.
School boards are essential for developing the potential for higher political office, but conservatives have been absent for decades.
“These outcomes were not random,” Zook remarked.
In the classrooms across Texas, extremist beliefs have been taught for years. Parents are united in their opposition to radical brainwashing in schools.
