Kansas State Board of Education Races
There are clear choices between those who will support, and those who will undermine, public education.
November 2024 Elections - Who to Vote For
The State Board of Education (SBOE) races in Kansas this year are particularly important. Before I delve into several of the reasons why, here are the recommendations of who to vote for in case this is all you really want to know (each name is linked to the candidates campaign page):
District 2: Melanie Haas (D), incumbent
District 4: Kris Meyer (D)
District 6: Beryl New (D)
District 8: Betty Arnold (D), incumbent
District 10: Jeffrey Jarman (D)
And here are a few endorsements of the candidates:
Kansans for Excellence in Education (KEE). Here’s a pdf with the details.
Game on for Kansas Schools. Here’s their general election rosters and the associated Facebook post.
Note the following quote from KEE’s pdf.
These candidates have solid backgrounds in advocating for Kansas students, parents and public schools. They support adequate funding for K-12 education, understand the role of the State Board of Education under the Kansas Constitution and have vowed as public servants to work with all stakeholders to try to make our schools the best. They also oppose voucher plans that have proven time and again to be harmful to students. These candidates, if elected, will help the State Board of Education help our Kansas children succeed and have bright futures.
I can attest to Melanie Haas's capabilities as the District 2 incumbent. I’ve gotten to know her a bit through her role as the SBOE’s ex-officio liaison to the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE), where I serve as a board member. She’s shown a keen understanding of public education issues and a passion for improving the educational experience for all Kansas students. She’s always been genuine in her interactions with KACEE, and has demonstrated through her work and words that Kansans will benefit through her continued service on the board.
Alright, on to the details.
Where Things Currently Stand
After the 2022 elections we were left with seven Republicans and three Democrats on the board, with several of the Republican members embracing various characteristics of far right, MAGA-ish, and frankly anti-public education activists. These included Danny Zeck - District 1, Michelle Dombrosky - District 4, Cathy Hopkins, District 5, and Dennis Hershberger, District 7, the latter two defeating more centrist opponents in the primaries.
During their candidacies they all leaned into local control (code for local conservative, Christian nationalistic, anti-public education control), parental authority over school curricula, and “opting-in” for social-emotional learning (as some conservatives have started tying this to Republican criticisms of critical race theory). Note that the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) currently lists social-emotional growth as one of its five priorities, which teaches students “self-awareness, social awareness, problem solving, and decision making.”
During their campaigns, Zeck railed against “Washington Liberal Standards” while Hershberger utilized the slogan, “faith, freedom, and families.” In an iVoterGuide online survey filled out at the time for the primaries, these conservative candidates all stated that teachers who are licensed should be allowed to carry guns at school.
I should also point out, as KCUR noted, that this “… site is a division of the American Family Association Action, whose parent group is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center” (SLPC). Other survey responses indicated very conservative / far right views on many issues, including the definition of marriage, women’s health care and access to abortion, religion in schools, the funding of public schools / education, comprehensive sex education, and vaccinations. It’s worth reading their responses.
Since the 2022 elections, these individuals have negatively impacted the functioning of the board. During one meeting, Danny Zeck railed against books with “smut” in school libraries, cursing, and raising concerns about “Marxist Lesbianism.” During this same meeting Dennis Hershberger lamented about the “pornography” he claimed some students are exposed to. Anti-LGBTQ sentiments, destructive accusations that districts actively hide aspects of curriculum from parents, and the need to mandate book bans from the state level, underlie both of their inflammatory statements.
Below is the portion of the 2023 board meeting capturing this discussion, starting at the 05:47:38 time stamp (Zeck’s use of the term “smut” begins shortly after this). Hershberger’s references to pornography starts about 06:01:20 and Zeck’s reference to Marxist Lesbianism occurs around 06:12:00. Dombrosky also makes some points about parental rights and authority during the discussion (05:57:00) seeming to imply that districts were discouraging parents from exercising these rights.
These are all attacks on Kansas public education as an institution, framing districts as actively avoiding transparency and educators as incapable or unwilling to do their jobs. Jim Porter (R), representing District 9, recognized this and pointed out (starting 06:04:00) that the discussion could be interpreted as indicting library media specialists, teachers, and others for deliberately providing inappropriate material to students. He called this an unfair characterization of individuals he believes are conscientious, want what’s best for all Kansas students, and are working hard to ensure that’s the case.
And we know these attacks add stress to teachers, library media specialists, administrators and other staff. It contributes to their leaving specific districts, states, and education as a career overall, while also making it more difficult to recruit into the profession. Such language and out-of-context condemning of books is also part of the growing book banning efforts we’re seeing in Kansas as well as nationally. A lot of these efforts target aspects of teaching the U.S.’s history of racism and genocide, inclusiveness (or wokeness), sexuality in general, transgenderism, and other LGBTQIA+ issues.
Book banning, limiting the sharing of ideas and our ability to understand the world around us in all of its wonderous diversity, is aberrant to education, especially public education. It limits the possibilities for any individual student, and as a nation it makes us weaker on the international stage. It’s also a favorite tactic of white Christian nationalist movements, authoritarians, or any group wanting to limit the sharing of ideas and information to help maintain power. Banning books and reshaping American libraries (including school libraries) is also a key component of Project 2025.
Just as insidious are the growing list of abstentions being made by these board members on key votes. Among them include votes on a) the allocation of federal COVID-19 relief funds to local school districts, b) amendments to teacher licensure requirements, c) high school graduation standards, and d) a program allowing high school students to earn college credit. The current rules require at least six votes among the 10 members to take formal action on a motion or resolution. Therefore, such seemingly weaponized abstentions risk preventing the board from doing its work if any other member ends up needing to abstain due to a conflict of interest or if one of the more centrist Republican members happens to be aligned with these four on a given issue.
By abstaining, these members are also on the record as neither opposing nor supporting specific policies through their votes, limiting the use of their record against them in future elections. It decreases the transparency of their actions, and more importantly their underlying motives and goals. And while four abstentions aren’t enough to derail action item votes during a meeting, it can be enough to prevent a) voting on items on the meeting’s agenda not initially listed as action items or b) suspending a vote to adopt a new, or amend or suspend an existing, State Board policy or guideline. Both require the affirmative vote of seven members.
This is not serving their constituents or the students of the state. It’s refusing to do what they’ve been elected to do and actively undermining the SBOE to harm the state’s public education system and achieve their far right ideological goals. As Mark Ferguson, legal counsel to the State Board of Education put it,
My conclusion is an abstention is not really the appropriate vote for a board member who is simply in opposition to a position or a board action. I would go out a little further and say that an abstention — a nonvote — is an abdication of the responsibility to vote or to take a position on a particular issue.
Ferguson at the time also recommended the board clarify its policy to record abstentions as a “no” vote. I’m unsure if the board has done so since then, but if not, this problem will worsen even if only one more conservative, MAGA-ish Republican is elected in November.
It will mean that the percentage of the SBOE’s (and KSDE’s) time and resources spent on culture war issues will continue to increase. More of these MAGA-ish Republicans will add to their ability to undermine the functioning of the board and KSDE via abstentions, distracting the board from any given meeting’s agenda, and other means. And so we must make sure this doesn’t happen through the ballot box.
November 2024 Elections - Who to Vote Against
Here are the candidates we need to make sure AREN’T elected:
District 2: Fred Postlewait (R)
District 4: Connie O'Brien (R)
District 6: Bruce Schultz (R)
District 8: Jason Carmichael (R)
District 10: Debby Potter (R)
O’Brien and Carmichael provided responses to the iVoterGuide online survey (though Carmichael’s was for a previous Wichita BOE candidacy). Their responses fall right in line with those of the four existing problematic board members discussed above (noting that the surveys varied between the state and local board of education races). O’Brien supports eliminating the U.S. Department of Education as well as displaying the Ten Commandments within schools, and thinks sex education must be “biological based” (coded anti-trans language). She also references the tired conservative, anti-public education expression of making sure dollars go to the classroom.
Carmichael thinks children have no business being exposed to sex education and that too much is being spent on pre-K education. Both agree that teachers who are licensed to carry should be allowed to carry guns in school. And both think public middle and high school students should not be allowed to participate in athletic competition based on the gender with which they identify instead of biological sex. It is highly likely that all of these Republican candidates generally align with these responses.
There isn’t much available on Fred Postlewait. At one point he told the KC Voter Guide that he was “too busy” to talk. But the following two statements are from his campaign website:
Over the past decade social engineering has replaced education. The train is off the tracks. We need to return to teaching science, mathematics and English Language Arts. Let's not forget about educating students to US History and US Government - Civics.
Mission Statement: Education First (Math, Science, ELA), Parental Involvement, Programs for students falling behind, Better ACT Scores, Reduce Classroom Distraction, Safety, Spend Money Wisely, Hold the line on Taxes
These are typical conservative, anti-public education talking points that include bashing the current state of public education, though watered-down somewhat to make them seem a bit less controversial on the surface.
There’s not a lot out there for Bruce Schultz either (at least that I could find), but he’s being endorsed by Kansans for Life (along with Connie O’Brien and Debby Potter). Per their website, Kansans for Life is a … “Political Action Committee dedicated to protecting and defending the right to life of all innocent humans from the moment of conception to natural death. We recruit, evaluate, endorse, and elect pro-life [anti-abortion, anti-women’s comprehensive healthcare] candidates and hold elected and appointed officials accountable.” As an organization, it likely has some issues with comprehensive sex education in schools.
Schultz’s campaign website is pretty limited (a potential political strategy) and uses a lot of neutral language to limit the raising of red flags. It does indicate he has ties to home schooling. And his budget management priority - “Critically assess how educational needs are identified and how funds are distributed, with a focus on academic priorities and student safety to enhance the efficiency of the state's educational budget” - may align with dollars going to the classroom and a focus on security measures (including teachers carrying guns) instead of responsible gun control legislation to address the threat of school shootings.
Debby Potter brings a heavy focus on home schooling, having previously founded the Wichita Falls Home School Co-op. According to her website, she’s “a proven advocate for parental empowerment [code for taking away the control of curriculum from teachers and districts] and school choice [code for using public funds for private schools without the same level of oversight].”
Among what she shares on her Q&A page includes her beliefs that a) federal dollars shouldn’t come with strings attached, b) “… local schools have had to water down their standards that reflected the values of their community to accommodate an ever growing vocal minority [perhaps various DEI voices?],” c) public education doesn’t need any more funding, and d) special education in particular has been fully funded, referencing the Kansas Policy Institute (KPI) for her information. She also references KPI’s Kansas School Board Resource center as a great resources for better understanding the role of local school boards in Kansas education.
You couldn’t see my exaggerated eye roll as I typed the last two sentences of the paragraph above, so here’s a close approximation.
Claiming the Kansas Policy Institute is a great resource for public education information, analysis, and policy recommendations is like saying industrial fertilizer producers are a great resource for clean water information, analysis, and policy recommendations. In case you weren’t aware, the fertilizers and pesticides used in industrial agriculture are one of the biggest sources of water pollution.
It doesn’t appear that the two Kansas Chapters of the far right group Mom’s for Liberty - Johnson County and Ford County - have made any SBOE endorsements at this point. But there’s certainly alignment between these candidates and what Mom’s for Liberty endorsed candidates agree to support. Scrolling through both chapters’ Facebook pages finds a plethora of posts aligned with everything above that I covered about these candidates. And Carmichael’s ballotpedia page indicates he’s signed their pledge (though he isn’t currently listed). And just to be clear, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC) classifies Moms for Liberty as an extremist antigovernment group. They state:
Moms for Liberty and its nationwide chapters combat what they consider the “woke indoctrination” of children by advocating for book bans in school libraries and endorsing candidates for public office that align with the group's views. They also use their multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.
In short, none of these Republican candidates should be serving on the State Board of Education. This is the body that sets curriculum standards and graduation requirements for schools and exercise the SBOE’s constitutional powers to guide public education and local districts statewide. The following is its mission statement:
The mission of the State Board of Education is to prepare Kansas students for lifelong success through rigorous, quality academic instruction, career training and character development according to each student's gifts and talents.
Rigorous, quality academic instruction, career training and character development is not provided to Kansas students as a board member by disrupting SBOE meetings, derailing SBOE and KSDE operations, focusing on culture war issues, disparaging and undermining district teachers, staff, and administrators as a whole, or aligning oneself with anti-public education organizations and legislators who want to defund public education. These Republican candidates don’t even agree we should be using one of the state’s five key outcomes of measuring success: “Social/emotional growth measured locally.”
They want to “serve” on the SBOE not to support public education, but to harm it, to undermine it. We owe it to the state and our students to elect their Democrat opponents, listed again below. Follow the links to their campaign webpages to donate and/or find other ways to support them. It’s in all of our best interests to see these Democrats elected. We ALL benefit from a strong public education system.
November 2024 Elections - Who to Vote For
District 2: Melanie Haas (D), incumbent
District 4: Kris Meyer (D)
District 6: Beryl New (D)
District 8: Betty Arnold (D), incumbent
District 10: Jeffrey Jarman (D)