Here & Now

Wisconsin School Boards and Partisan Politics

Frederica Freyberg:

In the name of parental rights, Republicans pushed way down the ballot in the spring election working to elect conservatives who disfavor things like masking for COVID and discussion of such things as race or gender identification in the classroom. GOP candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch even endorsed 48 school board candidates, 34 of whom won across the state. School board elections are officially nonpartisan and our next guest who researches school boards thinks they should stay that way. UW-Oshkosh Professor Michael Ford joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Michael Ford:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is the biggest argument for why school board elections should be nonpartisan?

Michael Ford:

Yeah. By far, it’s about effectiveness. If you look at our state and federal government, it’s based on the structure of partisanship. That’s how we determine committee assignments. That’s how we determine who is the speaker. One of the big strengths of local nonpartisan races is we’re not dependent on having that partisan conflict. When you do introduce that partisan conflict, it creates structural coalitions that automatically derail the governance process before it even can begin.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your reaction to what you call our culture wars bleeding into local government?

Michael Ford:

Yeah. It’s really unfortunate because it’s totally divorced from what’s really going on in the classroom. I think we really saw this with the debate over Critical Race Theory. Certainly the GOP picked up on this as a way to score some political points and reengage some suburban voters that might have been turned off by Trumpism. But at the end of the day, it’s pretty divorced from the reality of what goes on in school districts.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you spoke to it a little bit, but how does partisan conflict as you call it kind of hurt the work of school boards and most importantly, the children in classrooms?

Michael Ford:

Yeah. Well, democratic governance is built on this idea of conflict. So conflict is good. Even politics is okay at the local level. But it becomes a problem when it’s divorced from actual policy or tasks and it becomes strictly about what side are you on. And where that’s really damaging is it prevents school boards from being responsive to the public that they serve and ultimately those policies they create and the way they manage the superintendent, that impacts what happens in the classroom. When we’re stuck in these patterns of nonproductive conflict, we’re not addressing real issues.

Frederica Freyberg:

True enough. As to the election results in school board races across the state, the effort worked to install the Rebecca Kleefisch-endorsed candidates in the Milwaukee suburbs, but results were mixed in other parts of the state. What does that say about the effectiveness of such a push?

Michael Ford:

I don’t think it’s very effective. I think part of it is local elections have a law of diminishing returns with spending. There’s only so much you can do. So many mailings you can do and if you look at the balance of those results, conservatives tended to do well in conservative areas and liberals tended to do well in more liberal areas. Really the only take-away I saw there was suburban Milwaukee showing there is some angle there for trying to reattract those voters who may have been more conservative but turned off by Donald Trump back to the GOP fold.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you say the effort was to reinforce their base ahead of the midterm elections. Did that work?

Michael Ford:

I think it did. I think you’re going to see, in the midterm elections, some of these broad appeals to parental freedom. I think those specific messages about masking, about Critical Race Theory didn’t really resonate, because they were too specific but this broad appeal to parental freedoms certainly plays to a GOP base that’s all in on school choice.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is this the first time we have seen this kind of thing, going down-ballot as we described it?

Michael Ford:

This is certainly uniquely intense. There were other times in Wisconsin, certainly after Act 10, there was a lot of democratic involvement in local races and when Common Core was a debate 10, 15 years ago we saw a little bit of this. But certainly the intensity right now is unique.

Frederica Freyberg:

Was it just Republicans this time who took this tack or did Democrats and the teachers union also politicize these school board races?

Michael Ford:

Democrats absolutely did. If you look at the overall numbers, the numbers were not as large for the Democrats, but certainly they did push their agenda. And I think part of this is frustration with their inability to make gains at the state level.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what should parents with children in schools know about these kinds of political efforts around school boards?

Michael Ford:

Well, I think it’s so important for parents to educate themselves in what’s actually going on in their kids’ schools, what’s actually going on in the classroom.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Professor Michael Ford from Oshkosh, thanks very much.

Michael Ford:

Thank you so much for having me.