Today, my beloved hometown Long Island school district is holding elections for the board of education. At this time last year, the community was roiled by political animosity over board elections. Despite my and my fellow community members’ best efforts, the candidate running against an establishment incumbent lost after being labeled a disruptive right-wing extremist by a small but mighty faction. In reality, he wanted only for his children to go to school to learn without his having to worry that adults would force them to pledge against their supposedly deep-seated racism and white privilege. (Mind you, we’re talking about second-generation Persian-Jewish, Asian, and Hispanic Americans.)
I’m not surprised about last year’s loss. Community members had little information about what was happening in our schools, limited to a couple of student and parent testimonies that were quickly deemed falsehoods (even though they were not). My father submitted a Freedom of Information Request to the district to learn more about curricula, but the district did not respond until the day before the election. It was too late. Claims of a looming threat that our town would “turn into Florida” obscured the fact that the largely immigrant community was being taught a revisionist history about a nation that had welcomed them with open arms, and about their role in it.
Similar currents appear to be running through this year’s election: Niloufar Tabari, an opposition candidate running against the school-board incumbent, is expressly opposed to the politicization of public schools and has criticized teaching students that “all white people are racist.” Some have said that Tabari’s criticisms of the district’s racialized curriculum are unfounded. But even a cursory glance at the district’s curriculum and assigned reading would suggest otherwise; take a look, for example, at this plot summary of If You Come Softly, one of the books in question. Tabari has had to clarify publicly that she does not support “book banning” and does in fact support human rights (with the unique perspective of a Jewish escapee from Revolutionary Iran).
Supposedly, the rest of Long Island’s school-board races, among 124 districts voting today, are less defined by political divisions this year than last. Newsday reports that observers are seeing “a concerted strategy on the part of some to tone down the culture war issues, at least during these board elections. They note that candidates who emphasized those issues last year saw heavy losses.” Candidates, even those against identity politics in schools, have largely avoided the issue.
This avoidance is disappointing, reflective of a successful campaign to shut down conversations about parental rights and the infusion of critical race theory into curricula. These are not fabricated issues, however, and the strategy on the part of many school-board candidates not to address them allows schools to continue teaching children division and self-loathing.
What we need is information campaigns. Parents should know what their children are being taught in school, particularly if it runs against the values of their upbringing. We can be hugely grateful for our public schools and teachers while still questioning certain curricula. As a matter of fact, that is what good parents do. They are active in their children’s educational lives and care deeply about student outcomes.
If we give up on revealing the truth, schools will continue to politicize the classroom. Champions of identity politics will keep trying to make race essentialism more palatable to parents, just as DEI consultants are now doing in the business world. Children will continue to be taught that they are defined by their immutable characteristics and that they live in a country with a systemically racist structure that perpetuates victimhood and oppression.
It’s our duty to be in the know. Parents should be aware of what their board of education candidates really stand for, as controversial curricula and racialized teaching philosophies circulate through the nation.