Op-Ed: School Board Candidates Should Run under a Party Label

By Steve Levy

As we approach another round of school board votes, it’s time to consider modifying the voting process to maximize voter choice and transparency. 

The present system of holding school votes far away from the November general elections and without party labels attached to the candidates was a well-intentioned effort to depoliticize the process and the academic environment. However, while the impact of party leaders was diminished, the power of the teachers unions grew exponentially.

Moreover, without any party affiliation of the candidates, voters are often clueless as to the positions that the candidate will espouse on issues including tax rates, school choice, academic standards, age-inappropriate materials and woke curricula. 

Every candidate runs generically on the concepts of raising scholastic performance and keeping budgets affordable, but, ultimately, most candidates brought into office on the sails of union donations will likely conform to the union’s agenda of spending more money, eliminating school choice and curtailing accountability.

Running with a party affiliation can at least give the voter a semblance of whether the candidate tilts more woke or traditional, more budget streamlining or more budget expansion, more parental involvement or centralized control, more critical race theory or more pro-America.

This is especially timely since poll results measuring attitudes of our next generation are frightening in that an alarming number of students graduating from our schools dislike the country in which they live, believe that violence is acceptable in curbing speech one doesn’t like, and believe Hamas terrorists are favorable over a democracy, such as Israel. A majority now believe socialism (and for some, even Marxism) is preferable to our traditional free markets and only a minority agree that they would fight to defend America if we were attacked, as was Ukraine.

Equally disturbing is the fact that, despite the state having tripled aid to education over the last three decades and New York spending double the national average on each pupil, student test scores remain mired in the middle of the pack in a state-by-state comparison and standards continue to decline as the Regents exam has become optional and passing grade thresholds have been lowered. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs have eviscerated the ability of administrators to exact discipline to curb school violence and growing truancy. 

To combat this trend, a new group was incorporated earlier this year for the purpose of helping to educate the public regarding candidates for Long Island school boards who are taxpayer-friendly, are opposed to woke agendas and who promote higher standards and more transparency in the island’s 125 school districts.

The group is known as STF, an acronym for Students & Taxpayers First. STF will place on its website a pledge from candidates to reject union donations, oppose piercing the tax cap, oppose woke and age-inappropriate curricula and the dilution of academic standards.

Since school board candidates do not run on a party platform, voters are often unaware of their positions on issues. Consequently, it is usually the candidates funded and supported by the teachers unions who have the leg up. Unions have a built-in base of over a thousand supporters, usually teachers and their spouses, that they can reliably get to the polls in these quiet, standalone elections in May.

The idea of party-endorsed candidates for school board is not some fringe pie-in-the-sky concept. According to Stanley Katz, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, several states already elect their school boards this way. At least nine states including Alabama, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, either require or allow elections under party labels. Bills are presently being considered in Ohio and Michigan to do the same. 

It’s unlikely such legislation would gain traction in liberal New York, a bastion of teacher union dominance. But if residents want to stop the progressive takeover of our schools and end the ever-increasing spending policies, voters need a system where they can quickly and clearly distinguish candidates beholden to the union establishment or those who are loyal to students and taxpayers first.

Hopefully, those seeking state office in New York will gain a constituency by promoting the party label school reform, while more candidates will sign the pledge offered by STF to enhance taxpayer independence, accountability and representation at the school board level.

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Steve Levy is president of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County, New York, executive, as a New York state assemblyman and host of the “On the Right Side Podcast.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com.