In the spring of 2023 in Plano Texas a slate of pro-public education, common-sense candidates won their races for school board. This, despite the fact that extremists had supported a competing slate with expert communications and strategy help. In this episode, we hear from Michael Cook, Tarrah Lantz, and Katherine Chan Goodwin, who joined together on a slate formed by a local non-partisan organization, Keep Plano #1.

In Carmel Clay School District in Indiana, the fairly new superintendent pledged he would do something to address the fact that many students and parents of color had experienced racist incidents or racist assumptions. He hired a diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator. That prompted a backlash from a group of people, many of whom had no children in the schools and some of whom didn’t even live in the school district.

In the 2016 election for the Conejo Valley School Board, an extreme right-wing candidate narrowly beat an incumbent. She hadn’t campaigned on wanting to ban books or fanning resentments of teachers, so many in the community hadn’t recognized the danger.