Tea Partiers Playing a Role in Some School Board Races

The winds that swept conservatives into federal and state office are figuring in 'downticket' contests

By Christina A. Samuels

Ed Week

Beth Roberts, a co-founder of the tea party group York 912 Patriots in York, Pa., said her organization’s guiding principles are to educate, organize, and campaign and that means keeping an eye not just on national elections, but on so-called “downticket” races, including for the local school boards.

“I can’t control what’s going on in Egypt and Libya,” said Ms. Roberts, a former elementary teacher who is now certified as a substitute. “But I can control what’s going on in Dover Township,” her home town.

Though difficult to quantify, the same forces that swept conservative candidates into office on the congressional and state levels appear to be working their way down to some local races.

The best-known example in education circles is Wake County, N.C., which elected four conservative-leaning school board members in 2009 to the nine-member board. Though chosen in a nonpartisan race, the new school board members garnered much of their support from voters displeased with a school assignment policy based on socioeconomic diversity, including some conservative community organizations that viewed the policy as social engineering.

The four new members, along with a Republican member already on the board, voted to do away with the old school assignment policy in March 2010. That decision drew criticism from the district’s accrediting agency for high schools, the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights, and federal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who said “America’s strength has always been a function of its diversity.”

District staff members are currently working on a proposal that would assign students to schools based on parent choice and student test scores. ("Cooling Signs in Wake Debate," Feb. 23, 2011.)

A split Wake County board also voted along party lines in December 2010 to hire as superintendent Anthony J. Tata, a former Army general and graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy. Mr. Tata, who served as chief operations officer for the District of Columbia public schools, blogged for conservative websites and appeared as a commentator on military affairs for Fox News.

But Wake County is only one example.

Keeping Focus Local

In Gaston County, N.C., about 20 miles west of Charlotte, newly elected school board member Mark A. Stephens believes that tea party activism helped spur turnout in his election last November. Mr. Stephens, a Republican and certified public accountant, was running for the office for the first time, and was listed by the Tea Party of Greater Gaston County as a candidate who aligns with the group’s priorities of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.

“Because of the political climate, people were a lot more interested in everything,” Mr. Stephens said, including school board races to which they might not normally have paid attention. Mr. Stephens said he promoted himself as a school district outsider who would use his finance knowledge to prevent spending cuts from affecting classrooms in the 32,000-student district.

“The biggest issue in education right now is where’s the money going to come from. How are we going to try and save teachers’ jobs?” he said.

In rural Baraboo, Wis., about 40 miles north of Madison, local tea party organizer John Meegan is running for a seat on the school board of the 3,000-student district—one of six candidates vying for three open spots. In the February primary, he was the top vote-getter, with 840 votes.

Mr. Meegan, an organizer of the Sauk County Tea Party, said he wants to join the board to return ...

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