No, Republicans aren’t winning because of anti-CRT racism. It’s the school closings, stupid
While other Democratic governors across the country were willing to use their political power to bring kids back into the classroom, Gavin Newsom has refused. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Pat Reilly.
Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle on November 15, 2021
In the wake of Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory in Virginia, pundits were quick to claim that the Republican governor-elect’s rabid anti-critical race theory strategy won him the election. But while schools were a deciding factor in the election, it wasn’t anti-CRT racism that drove most unhappy parents to the polls.
In fact, it was the prolonged school closures.
“If they opened up the schools in the fall of 2020, McAuliffe wins,” Republican strategist Rory Cooper told Politico.
As a liberal California parent of two public school kids, the Virginia results were no surprise to me. I’ve watched as GOP talking points on schools that have nothing to do with critical race theory resonate with Democrats across California. And I understand that keeping schools open is what is motivating most parents’ political decision-making.
Too few California Democrats have gotten the message.
Most California parents are not the anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-critical race theory fanatics portrayed on Saturday Night Live, but instead are families still suffering from the financial, academic and social-emotional costs of having schools closed to in-person learning for almost a year and a half.
A whopping 73% of parents believe the quality of public education in the Bay Area is a very or extremely serious problem (compared to 59% of nonparents), according to an Oct. 29 survey by Embold Research.
While California voters rejected the “Republican recall” of Gov. Gavin Newsom, polls showed a gap of up to 15 points between parents and nonparents, with 52% of parents calling the recall appropriate. The same poll showed that just 34% of parents approve of Sacramento lawmakers.
If only parents voted in the recall, Democratic Newsom would have barely won in a state where registered Democrats vastly outnumber registered Republicans. Most parents voted against Larry Elder, not for Newsom.
While other Democratic governors across the country were willing to use their political power to bring kids back into the classroom, Newsom has refused. This doomed California’s 6 million public school students to fewer hours of live, in-person instruction than any other state. For far too many parents, this meant watching their children fall behind academically, slip into depression or drop out of school.
More recently, parents have begun to call out Newsom’s continued hypocrisy of pushing vaccine mandates for students but not teachers and taking a similar anti-science stance with respect to politically powerful prison guards.
California is forcing children to bear the burden of protecting unvaccinated adults, with no clear metrics for ending indoor masking in schools and no intervention to stop school districts from enforcing useless outdoor mask mandates and quarantines that exceed public health guidance.
Some Democrats get it. San Francisco Mayor London Breed became a folk hero to many parents with her decision to sue the city school district in February to get kids back into classrooms.
Ironically, it was the uprising of Bay Area progressive parents that set up Youngkin’s claim to “represent a national parent movement.”
The right-wing media gleefully and relentlessly nationalized the Bay Area’s public education dysfunction all year, with House Republicans reaching out to California parents offering support.
“Our kids must come first,” Mayor Breed said in endorsing the recall of three members of the San Francisco Board of Education this week, which has also has the support of the city’s state senator, Scott Wiener. The mayor’s words prompted my phone to erupt with “Breed for Governor” texts.
COVID-19 has changed the politics of public schools across the United States, including California. Democrats need to follow Mayor Breed’s lead: Listen to parents.
Pat Reilly is an impact entrepreneur and communications adviser who most recently co-founded California Parent Power and Change Research.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this piece stated former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe closed the state’s schools in response to the pandemic. It was Ralph Northam.
