There are countless definitions floating around in cyberspace regarding the role of a local school board. Nearly all resemble the AI composite stating that such boards exist to “govern the school district by setting vision, creating policy, hiring and evaluating the superintendent, approving budgets and ensuring accountability, all while representing community values and advocating for student success.”
In practice, however, the unspoken objective of school boards is to rubber-stamp the teachers union agenda and provide cover for its misbehavior.
Case in point, the Sycamore Community School Board in Ohio, overturned an earlier decision by its own district superintendent to terminate a high school science teacher who had shown up intoxicated to a school board meeting the previous September.
JOE CONCHA: AN INCONVENIENT FACT CHECK: AL GORE’S INCONVENIENT TRUTH ON ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY
The teacher, Danielle Scrase, allegedly used the occasion to expose her naked buttocks to attendees and describe her own boss, Sycamore High School principal Taylor Porter, as an “incompetent black man.”
For anyone else, a similar performance at an official school district function would have cost the offender his or her job on the spot. But Scrase, by an uncanny coincidence, had until very recently served as president of the Sycamore Education Association, the union representing the district’s school teachers.
SEA’s political action committee, “Citizens for Sycamore,” had, in fact, endorsed, campaigned for, and donated to a majority of the sitting school board members, including Sara Bitter, its current president.
Nationally, teachers unions are the single most powerful interest group in education, spending nearly $1.5 billion of their members’ dues dollars annually on lobbying and campaign activity.
They endorse and fund school board candidates, ensuring boards are sympathetic to union demands. Consequently, more than 70% of elected public school board members in this country are endorsed by local teachers’ unions in their district.
In addition to funding, the teachers’ unions support school board candidates by mobilizing union members and other allies. This past November, for example, Bitter was the choice not only of SEA but also of the AFL-CIO and the Hamilton County Democratic Party.
Union and party operatives didn’t just canvass on behalf of their endorsed candidates; they also manned polling locations.
Perhaps next school board election cycle, the union-endorsed board candidates will enlist the help of the Teamsters and Longshoremen to help voters “get their mind right.”
WHAT ARE TRUMP ACCOUNTS? GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES $1000 BABY BONUS
The two largest public teachers unions in the U.S. are the National Education Association, of which the SEA is a local chapter, and the American Federation of Teachers.
Not surprisingly, the heads of both unions — Becky Pringle (NEA) and Randi Weingarten (AFT) — have both served on the board of Democratic National Committee. (Note: Weingarten resigned from the DNC in June 2025 after 23 years of enthusiastic service.)
One could make a strong case that not only is the American public school system totally in the grips of public sector unions, but so is the Democratic Party.
This is hardly conjecture, in Weingarten’s AFT Convention Speech last summer, she insisted that “politics belong in the classroom.” And in her hyper-partisan book “Why Fascists Fear Teachers,” published last fall, she defends the practice of inculcating children with left-leaning political ideology.
During the Biden administration, teachers unions, including the NEA and AFT coordinated with the DNC to shape Democratic platforms, policy development, and implementation.
It’s not hyperbole to say America’s modern public school classrooms put too little emphasis on the “Three R’s” and far too much on political agendas — and national reading and math proficiency tests validate this.
Gone are the days when a civic-minded parent or resident serves on a school board for the good of the community and its children. School board election results nowadays are unduly influenced by multi-billion dollar special interest groups who use sophisticated union member mobilization, mail-in and early voting strategies, direct-mail and social media campaigns, digital ads, phone and text banks.
And along with this strategy are misleading “pro-education” branding and messaging from the teachers’ unions.
TEACHERS UNION LEADERS SPENT THOUSANDS AT SWANKY RESORTS
Add to this the low voter turnout in school board elections (typically 5 to 10% of the affected community, according to the National School Board Association), and the result is a recipe for union-endorsed school board hegemony.
To say nothing of horrific student outcomes.
Bill Laverty lives in Cincinnati and is the former CEO/Founder of Partner HIT, one of the largest healthcare IT consulting firms in the U.S.