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All Kenneth Laferriere wanted to do was adjourn a school committee meeting in a small district in central Massachusetts.

But the Dudley-Charlton committee member found even that impossible after 90 minutes of jeering that was sometimes laced with profanity.

Were trying to have a business meeting, Laferriere pleaded with the audience, banging his microphone on the table.

Yelling at us is not getting us anywhere, added committee vice chair Jamie Terry, raising her own voice, as the board wrapped up debate on COVID protocols.

Finally, committee members asked the Dudley police officer present to clear the room, so they could finish the meeting.

School boards across the country have been facing recalls and angry questions about everything from COVID restrictions to the way schools teach children about racism.

That's true even in Massachusetts, which has a reputation as one of the most liberal states in the nation. But the reality in many communities is considerably more complex.

A WBUR review discovered people have challenged mask mandates in at least one-third of all school districts across the state since last summer. And WBUR found dozens of districts have faced criticism over how teachers discuss race and diversity in the classroom, as well assex education.

Dudley and Charlton are two small towns that share a school district and a high school.

For years, local school committee meetings had little drama focusing on routine items such as staffing and trips by the marching band.

But that all changed last July when dozens of parents and residents packed a committee meeting to protest the school's efforts to combat racism, including the hiringof a new diversity consultant.

Carroll-Sue Rehm, who raised her children in the district but later moved to Florida, was one of the concerned attendees. Hergrandchildren are students in the district now.She raised concerns about the consultant, including his work in Wellesley to create opportunities and meeting spacesfor students with the same identity such as Black studentsor those who are gay so theycan share their experiences; Rehm called that segregation.

This will lead to the destruction of young hearts and minds, and this will be catastrophic in generations to come," she charged. Others in the audience yelled and applauded as she spoke.

School district officials said the consultant was hired to help the Dudley-Charlton system with diversity, equity and inclusion. The district has since ended its work with the consultant. The superintendent declined to be interviewed for this story.

Rehm said she has flown back dozens of times to attend school committee meetings, and she is one of a dozen people whove regularly attended themsince last summer to raise objections about COVID mandates and curriculum.

They also have other concerns, as Rehm explained, after leaving her seat at a recent meeting in the high school library to examine new books on display.

I'm looking for anti-American books," Rehm said."I'm also looking specifically for any books that sexualize children."

Jordan Willow Evans, a school committee member and a social worker whos lived in Charlton her whole life, said recent meetings have been consumed by concerns from the group.

Evans said shes also faced verbal harassment and calls to step down from the committee over her work on LGBTQ rights. She called it disheartening, especially because she considers the community part of her extended family.

"It hurts to see people who you knew for many years, suddenly pivot and go down a road you could not have foreseen," she said.

I'm looking for anti-American books. I'm also looking specifically for any books that sexualize children."

Another longtime Charlton resident, JoEllen Burlingame, blamed some of the conflict on the rise of Donald Trump and partisan politics.

"It has led to a rise in very vocal concepts of nationalism," said Burlingame, who teaches in Worcester and has a son in eighth grade in Dudley-Charlton. "These views were always here, but unfortunately, they're coming out of the shadows."

Massachusetts generally elects Democrats, but Dudley and Charlton both narrowly went for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Rehm, the Charlton grandmother, said she is looking forward to elections this year and in 2024. She helped organize a forum for Republican candidates in the neighboring town of Oxford to talk about education.

The room was festooned with signs condemning masking and critical race theory,a frameworkthat suggests racism is embedded in American laws and other institutions.The approach has generated controversy, particularly among Republicans.

"So critical race theory," said former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, who's now running for governor. "Is anybody a fan of that? No!' "

Critical race theory is also popping up in campaigns across the country.

Academics say its a tool,first developed by legal scholars,for understanding structural racism. But there are wide differences in how people use the term.

Many educators say the framework is generally taught in graduate school not K-12.But some conservatives use the term as shorthand for a much broader range of instruction on diversity and racism they say is increasingly taught in public schools.

WBUR askedDiehl at the candidate forum whetherhe thought critical race theory, sex education and COVID mandates would be driving political issues in elections this year.

That debate is raging right now, and tonight is a perfect example of parents really stepping up," Diehl said. He said hehopes outraged parents will join and help energize his campaign for governor across the state.

"It hurts to see people who you knew for many years, suddenly pivot and go down a road you could not have foreseen."

Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said all the controversy has taken a toll on educators, even as the mask mandates gradually end.

People are feeling very exhausted," Scott said. "They're feeling very beaten down, defeated, and just sort of the climate that we're facing today is challenging to everybody's mindset.

School committee members are also feeling the pressure.

Some voters unsuccessfully tried to recall two school committee members who supported a vaccine mandate for some students in Belchertown, in western Massachusetts.

In Bourne, a recall failed against a board member who vowed to ensure critical race theory was not being taught in her town.

In the Dudley-Charlton school district, some residents unsuccessfully pushed to recall five school committee members over issues including COVID mask requirements and the hiring of the diversity consultant.

One of the committee members targeted for recall decried the controversy.

"Most of the people that I've talked to feel it's kind of gotten out of hand," said Jeanne Costello, of Charlton. "They feel like it's too partisan politics, happening in a local town where we all know each other."

"It shouldn't kind of devolve to an 'us versus them,' " she said.

The gradual lifting of mask mandates will probably notend the political fight anytime soon.

There is a school committee election scheduled for thisspring in Dudley and Charlton. And several committeemembers are up for reelection.

So local voters will likely get the final say.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Jeanne Costello's first name. The post has been updated. We regret the error.

Read the original:
How one Mass. school board got caught in the culture wars - WBUR

In recent years, school boards have become one more battlefield in the culture wars polarizing the country. The reasons include the influence of outside money and interest groups as well as national media coverage that fans the flames, according to three experts recently brought together by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life for a March 16 panel discussion entitled Whats Going on With School Boards? Jen McAndrew, Tisch Colleges director of communications, strategy, and planningand a school committee member in Melrose, Massachusetts, moderated the event, which featured education and political science experts.

Here are a few takeaways:

Local educational issues hitting the national stage is not a new phenomenon and outside money plays a leading role.

Controversy over masking mandates, the teaching of critical race theory, and sexual orientation and gender identity curricula in schools may be the issues of the day, but there is a long history of local educational concerns rising to national prominence. Michigan State political science professor Sarah Reckhow, who co-authored a book entitled Outside Money in School Board Elections, saw the same pattern when she followed races in five school districts across the country a decade ago.

The driving issue in those elections was predominantly charter schools especially in districts associated with large growth and outside money, she said. Donors to candidates involved in the charter school fight included former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, according to Reckhow. Brian Reagan, the superintendent of Waltham, Massachusetts public schools, said that on the ballot of his citys recent school committee election was a formerly unknown conservative candidate later discovered to have been funded by an outside group.

Some of the controversial issues school committees are dealing with, like Michigans curriculum transparency bill, seem to be more about providing state and national politicians with talking points than about the needs of local students.

Reckhow spoke about a bill that would require Michigan educators to post curricula, lesson plans, and other teaching content online. It provided plenty of fodder for political sloganeering. We're coming up on election season with a lot of important state races and these sorts of issues are galvanizing, certainly on the conservative side, she said. Labels like parental rights or transparency get attached to the bills that may not deal with the nuances of the local districts and the issues on the ground.

While conservatives have been blamed for much of the lack of civility at school board meetings, the left can also be divisive and inflammatory in its response.

The media have given a lot of coverage to conservatives disrupting school board meetings and threatening members, but the lack of civility is not limited to one side, said Gerard Robinson, vice president for education at the Advanced Studies in Culture Foundation and formerly Virginia and Floridas top education official. For example, in a recent letter decrying the growing threats of violence at school board meetings across the country, the National School Boards Association used what Robinson considered incendiary language, comparing the behavior to domestic terrorism and asking the White House for federal law enforcement intervention. Robinson conceded that some of the conduct has been reprehensible, but the idea that you can use the term domestic terrorism! Fourteen attorneys general have now submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for more information about the letter and the administrations response, and all of them are Republicans. Are we saying that this is not an important issue to the Democrats? asked Robinson.

When the national media swoops in to cover local school boards, polarization intensifies.

The consolidation of the media industry has resulted in the loss or contraction of many local outlets. Often, when school boards are covered, its by the national press drawn to the most contentious issues at the expense of the more specific substantive local issues that might be unique to the district and really important to the students and families in that community, said Reckhow. Another effect of this nationalization is that local school board candidates feel like they have to pick a side when it comes to controversial issues, at the expense of thoughtful, less black-and-white positions, she added.

School boards might be less vulnerable to outside influences if they had broader representation.

Often the composition of school boards does not reflect the demographics of the students and communities they serve, Reagan said, including his district in eastern Massachusetts, where 44% of the population is Latino. Yet students have shown a willingness to participate. A recent controversy over the presence of two LGBTQ+ -themed books in the high school library resulted in a packed school committee meeting at which students spoke eloquently in favor of keeping the books. We need to find ways to get them to be more of a voice on the school committee as well, he said.

Contributing to the homogeneity, Reckhow said, is that few people vote in school board elections and those who do are often older and not people of color.

There is an interesting interplay between the idealistic things we say about school boards being grassroots and participatory institutions, she said, and the reality.

Read more from the original source:
How School Boards Have Become a Nexus of the Culture Wars - Tufts Now

Idaho may not be the reddest state in the country, but one credible survey places it in the top five. All the statewide elective offices are held by Republicans, and both houses of the Idaho Legislature have lopsided GOP majorities.

Although Idaho has been dominated by the GOP for several decades, the legislature has generally been pragmatic and reasonable. That is, until the party was able to close its primary election to all but registered Republicans 10 years ago. That, plus the election of Donald TrumpDonald TrumpOhio GOP Senate candidates tout MAGA bona fides at debate Ex-Trump personal assistant appears before Jan. 6 panel GOP sounds alarm bells over Greitens allegations MORE, the malign influence of Fox News and the increasing involvement of a plethora of right-wing organizations, has turned the state into a battlefield of the culture wars. Those organizations include the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network (SPN), which has affiliates in every state.

The SPN group in Idaho bears the ill-fitting name Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). The organization has developed significant clout in the Idaho Legislature in recent years with its hard-edged culture war tactics and dark money support. Legislators defy the IFFs wishes at their peril. It is a principal reason for the increasingly extreme legislative body.

A sampling of the culture war issues dealt with by lawmakers in the last two years provides a flavor of the extremist nature of the body. There have been numerous bills to hamstring the states ability to stop the spread of the coronavirus. A law was passed to prevent the teaching of critical race theory, although legislators were unable to say what it is or where it could be found in the state. Weve seen legislation to protect the licenses of doctors who prescribe horse dewormer for COVID-19, to send librarians to jail for giving out materials harmful to minors and to criminalize medical treatment of transgender kids. Oh, and of course, the House passed a massive election reform bill, despite voter fraud being virtually non-existent in the Potato State.

In response to this alarming situation, several Idahoans from across the political spectrum, including me, came together last year to form the Take Back Idaho Committee (TBI) to educate and motivate Idahoans of all stripes to replace divisive culture warriors with responsible representatives in the May 17 GOP primary election. That will include convincing independent voters to register for the Republican Party, since that is where most legislators are selected in Idaho.

There are several issues TBI is using to discredit IFF and its hard-right supporters. Public education is our primary issue, something that is vitally important to most voters.

The education issue is being turned against IFF-supported candidates by using the groups own words. Its agenda is to do away with public education. IFFs president has proclaimed: I dont think government should be in the education business. It is the most virulent form of socialism (and indoctrination thereto) in America today. IFF legislators have fought against adequate education funding in Idaho, then claimed that Idaho schools are failing. It seeks to discredit the school system by making the false claim that kids are being indoctrinated with critical race theory.

In Idaho, as elsewhere across the country, the heart of most rural communities is the local public school. Sports and other school activities bring the community together. If that school fails, the community suffers. When IFF is asked how kids will be educated if it is successful in closing the public schools, and no private school is nearby in this rural state, it points to online schools the very same schooling that IFF railed against as unacceptable during the pandemic.

This is an issue that resonates with a wide cross-section of voters. If Terry McAuliffeTerry McAuliffeCan divisive culture warriors be booted out of an extremely red state? The Memo: Biden, Democrats feel new political pain on inflation The 'other war' happening right under Joe Biden's nose MORE lost the Virginia governorship on the education issue, it was for his incredible mishandling of it. Education in Idaho and elsewhere has largely been a matter of local control by elected school boards. They have been good stewards in this state and elsewhere. It is IFF and its affiliates that want to put control of schools in the hands of extremist legislators who will see that kids are indoctrinated to their extreme way of thinking.

The way to win elections against IFF and its SPN affiliates is to take the contest to them, rather than sitting back and defending against their specious claims. TBI has shown that IFF and its supporters have made no contribution to solving the chronic problems of the state educating our kids for good jobs, fixing its deteriorating infrastructure or working with business and agriculture to meet the challenges of the future. Thats what governing used to be and can return to being if we are able to get rid of these extremists.

Idaho will be a test case this year to see whether extremist organizations and their acolytes can take over and control a sovereign state or whether they and their supporters can be ousted by energized locals who support responsible, pragmatic government. If the extremist culture warriors can be booted out in this extremely red state, it can be done anywhere.

Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho attorney general (1983-1991) and 12 years as a justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He is a regular contributor to The Hill.

Continued here:
Can divisive culture warriors be booted out of an extremely red state? | TheHill - The Hill

STOCKBRIDGE Roughly two months ago, a school board in McMinn County, Tennessee, voted unanimously to remove the two-volume graphic Holocaust novel Maus from its schools curriculum over concerns about rough, objectionable language and a drawing of a nude woman.

Written by cartoonist and editor Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus depicts the author interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor.

In taking the action, the McMinn County school board seemed oblivious to the so-called Streisand Effect, in which the suppression of controversial material backfires and instead spawns an intense interest that would otherwise not have occurred.

A public library was the fitting venue for a discussion of book banning, as two distinguished authorities on publishing led a dialogue Saturday at the Stockbridge Library Museum & Archives.

Andr Bernard, a veteran publisher and vice president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, led the discussion that also featured special guest Martin Marty Baron, the newly retired journalist who, most recently, led the newsrooms of the Boston Globe and the Washington Post. Bernard used the banning of Maus as a jumping off point for a discussion of free speech that veered eventually into journalism.

Baron-led newsrooms have won a total of 17 Pulitzer Prizes, including perhaps most famously one for the Globes investigation into the concealment by the Catholic Church of the priestly sex abuse of young people in the Boston area, later portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight. As executive editor of the Miami Herald, Barons newsroom also won a Pulitzer for coverage of Elin Gonzlez, the Cuban boy who was the focus of a fierce immigration and custody dispute in South Florida.

Bernard asked Baron why he thought the school board had banned Maus, to which Baron replied: The stated reasons were the violence, the nudity, the profanity, suicide all of that. But the question is what was the real reason? Spiegelman, when he was asked about it, said, Well, I guess they would like to have a nicer Holocaust.'

Baron further pointed out that the arguments against Maus nudity, violence, and suicide could apply to so many other things. The nudity alone could prove impractical.

What are we going to do? he asked rhetorically. Not have students go into art museums and see Gauguin, Degas, and Rousseau and all these great artists of history because theres nudity?

And so it went.

As Wendy Pearson, who heads the Stockbridge Library, pointed out in her introduction, book banning is nothing new But as the culture wars grow ever more strident and aggressive, libraries, schools and even bookstores are under increasing pressure to strip their shelves of material tagged as subversive, obscene or otherwise offensive.

Bernard spoke of the utter futility of banning books when so much information about them is available online anyway. Thats especially true for children. After all, the Harry Potter novels and Charlottes Web have been banned in some jurisdictions.

If you pull a book from the school library, a kid is likely to look it up on his phone more than they are going to go to a school library, Bernard added.

Baron said the issue is larger than banning books. He pointed to the recent efforts of newly elected Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia to bar teachers from teaching discriminatory and divisive concepts in the states public education system.

The history of the country is filled with divisive concepts, going back to the founding of the country, the Civil War, slavery, Baron said. The issue is bigger than books.

The discussion then transitioned to a debate on cancel culture, a form of ostracism stemming from ones political views or personal preferences. The term is typically used by those on the right who object, for example, to student uprisings on college campuses when conservatives are invited to speak.

But, as the efforts of conservative politicians to ban books and former President Donald Trumps calls to boycott companies such as AT&T and Amazon clearly demonstrate, cancel culture is hardly a partisan tactic (AT&T owned CNN at the time and Amazon President Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post).

Republicans seem to be the ones doing the most canceling at the moment, Baron surmised.

It was a perfect segue to a discussion of a New York Times editorial from last week, America Has a Free Speech Problem, in which the papers editorial board inveighed against what it called social silencing and the destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture.

The editorial came under intense criticism from those on the left, including journalist and professor Jeff Jarvis, who, in a series of tweets, excoriated the paper for drawing a false equivalency between book burning and criticizing hate.

But those on the right, including the conservative magazine Reason, lauded the piece, largely on the grounds that the editorial reads like it could have been written by someone who works at Reason.

Baron took issue with the lead paragraph, which labeled as fundamental the right of Americans to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned. In fact, no such right exists.

Its true that Americans have a right to their opinions, but they dont necessarily have a right not to be shamed or shunned, Baron said, adding that he was surprised that a paper with the resources of The Times could have published an editorial whose lede was so flawed.

The bigger issue is whether the shaming and the shunning have gotten out of hand and whether its caused people to feel that they cannot really express themselves on controversial issues and I think that is actually the truth, Baron observed, clearly indicating that he agreed with much of the rest of the editorial.

And in a note of supreme irony, Baron added, As best I can tell the people who object to the editorial are the people who like to do the shaming and shunning.

Baron was asked about the future of journalism in the digital age and where he sees it going. He thinks its unlikely there will be many print newspapers or print publications in general, for that matter 10 years from now.

When he first became editor of the Miami Herald in 2000, Baron, now 67, said the internet existed but few people used it, in part because broadband speeds had low penetration rates in those days. Now stories come at breakneck speed, youre learning things on the fly and producing stories minute-by-minute.

One controversy that could be considered a clash of cultures that enveloped Baron at The Post concerned a young reporter who posted a controversial tweet about the death of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant. Baron suspended the reporter, Felicia Sonmez, but after her union criticized the move, she was reinstated.

I wanted us to adhere to our strict standards on social media and news reporters not expressing individual opinions. These days younger journalists seem to feel they have a right to self expression, notwithstanding their jobs as news reporters. I dont agree with that.

If you want to be an advocate, be an advocate, Baron continued. If you want to be an activist, be an activist. If you want to be a politician, then be a politician. But if you chose to be a news reporter, act like one.

The conversation didnt end there. After the talk, Baron, who owns a home in Stockbridge, stayed around to answer questions from individuals, some in the public forum and others privately after the crowd of 100 or so dispersed.

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Newsman Marty Baron on book banning, 'cancel culture,' and the future of journalism - theberkshireedge.com

A defiant young woman imprisoned in a perspex cube no longer wants to be called Antigone. Darren Murphys new adaptation of the Greek tragedy seems similarly ambivalent about its origins, as if unsure whether to shrug off the original entirely. In his reduced version, subtitled after Sophocles, the city of Thebes has been ravaged by a dangerous virus. During this state of emergency, Xntigone (Eloise Stevenson) has joined a resistance movement against her uncle Creons government. About to proclaim Freedom Day, Creon (Michael James Ford) promises to release her if she denounces her dead brother as a traitor.

Emma Jordans sleek production for Belfasts Prime Cut and the Mac has a futuristic edge, with Ciaran Bagnalls design suggesting an art gallery where seductive technology enables new forms of surveillance and control. In an intense confrontation between uncle and niece, each accuses the other of weaponising the virus. Bristling with references to culture wars, including plans to destroy statues of dead statesmen, intergenerational conflict is the central theme here, powerfully portrayed. Xntigones disgust at Creons cynicism is expressed in Stevensons physical revulsion, while Fords tone is smoothly supercilious, mocking her new playground name.

Amid the focus on political spin, the central drama of conscience drifts far out of sight through over complication. Issues are piled on, from biological warfare to corruption, with the Oedipus family backstory adding layers of murkiness. Threatening to release a lethal new strain of the virus, Xntigone says: Sometimes you need to destroy the world because the world is broken. It is a nihilistic credo, bleakly shifting the moral balance of the plays arguments, so that the only choices left are between different degrees of destructiveness.

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Xntigone review culture wars rage before Freedom Day in Thebes - The Guardian