The pandemic exposed teachers unions for the damage they do to education.
Florida is trying to break their stranglehold over government schools.
And teachers unions are scared for their lives over one big fight with Florida voters.
Florida voters to decide on partisan school board races
The pandemic revealed to many parents for the first time the serious problems with government schools.
Left-wing indoctrination had replaced education.
And decisions like keeping schools closed were made for the benefit of teachers unions over students.
That sparked a parental rights movement where concerned parents battled against school boards over issues like critical race theory and forced masking.
And put a spotlight on the vast power that school boards have over schools.
They decided what curriculum could be used and made the call on whether schools should be shut down during the pandemic.
But these down-ballot school board elections often get overlooked by voters.
These low-turnout elections are often held at unusual times like the spring or on the day of the Primary Election.
Teachers unions can muscle their preferred candidate through.
In Florida, these races are nonpartisan so it is hard for voters to tell who is running to do the bidding of the teachers unions.
Florida voters have a chance to change that on their November ballot.
Amendment 1 to Florida’s Constitution would change the state’s school board elections to races between Republicans and Democrats.
Left-wing candidates would not be able to hide behind the nonpartisan label.
Ron DeSantis remolds Florida’s education
School board races are often sleepy contests that do not attract any attention.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis began targeting in the 2022 Midterm Election as part of his effort to reshape the state’s educational system.
He was endorsed in 30 school board races that year and won almost every one of them.
DeSantis supports Amendment 1 this year along with the states Republican Party.
He noted in January last year that left-wing school board candidates were getting elected in conservative areas because of the lack of party labels.
“What we’ve seen over the years is you have counties in Southwest Florida that voted for me by like 40 points,” DeSantis said at the time. “And yet they’re electing people, the school board, who are totally the opposite philosophy.”
DeSantis noted that school board candidates say one thing when they are running and do something different once they are elected.
“But those people are running saying that they’re sharing the philosophy, then they get on and they do something different,” DeSantis added.
Former Hillsborough County school board candidate Layla Collins, who was endorsed by DeSantis, noticed in her race that candidates would change their message depending on the political leanings of an area.
“I’ve seen the scenario where someone will go to an area they know is leaning one direction and present themselves in that way,” Collins said. “The next day, what they say in another area has someone convinced the opposite is true.”
A lack of partisan labels allows school board candidates to hide their views from voters.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
