January 15, 2022

"Until this fall, the National School Boards Association was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter."

"It alleged that the threatening and aggressive acts against school board members across the country might be a form of 'domestic terrorism' and asked for federal law enforcement intervention. Now, the association is at risk of total collapse....  If the school board association’s goal was to tamp down conservative parent protests, it had the exact opposite effect, galvanizing a movement that coalesced last fall around the idea of parental rights.... In one email, an NSBA board member wrote that [its interim director Chip] Slaven had said the letter had been requested by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for use by the White House. In another, Slaven wrote that the letter included 'additional information on some of the specific threats,' as requested by the White House.... Five days after the NSBA letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland responded. He directed the FBI to work with U.S. attorneys across the country to convene meetings within 30 days with federal, state and local leaders to discuss strategies for addressing threats to school personnel...."

From "National School Boards Association stumbles into politics and is blasted apart/Its leaders compared aggressive school protests to ‘domestic terrorism.’ The backlash was fast and severe" (WaPo).

46 comments:

Temujin said...

It's a wonderful thing, our Government. The Secretary of Education requests a letter from the NSBA asking them to request help in combating parents who ask too many questions. The White House used that letter to hype up it's Narrative against parents- probably White Supremacists- who think they should have some say in their kids education. Silly citizens.

Yes, parents are a threat to our society. Well...maybe not our society, but to the closed society that is our 'public' school system. Well, maybe not just to the school system, but to the unions that run the 'public' school systems. Well, maybe not so much the unions, but the Democratic Party that depends on the unions that run our 'public' school systems. The Democrats require the money and the teaching of The Narrative- all guaranteed by the unions.

Just so you know where your tax dollars are going. It's getting harder to play along.

gilbar said...

"Until this fall, the National School Boards Association pretended that it was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter.".. And let the cloak fall to the ground.

fixed it for them!

wendybar said...

Well said Temujin!!

Oh Yea said...

I think "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes" is appropriate in this instance.

Mr. Forward said...

"I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you
I'm gonna write words, oh, so sweet
They're gonna knock me off my feet
Kisses on the bottom
I'll be glad I've got 'em

I'm gonna smile and say "I hope you're feelin' better"
And sign "with love" the way you do
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you"
Fats Waller

R C Belaire said...

The EPA and various enviro groups have been doing this for years. The EPA in one way or another "invites" interested parties to comment on something or the other, or if these parties have serious issues, to file a lawsuit. As a result of the lawsuit, action is taken that satisfies the complainant and, coincidentally, furthers the goals of the EPA -- all without going through that nasty legislative process.

Michael said...

What we are witnessing is the slow collapse of the American empire....the point where the empire became so banal evil. Treating its own citizens as existential threats and using the mindless bureaucracy to control the citizenry is so 1980s Soviet Union.

TreeJoe said...

Why does this article start by representing the NSBA as some non partisan group and then reveal later it wrote a letter at the request of the admin with specific wording represented by the admin. You can’t be both.

You can respond to a request by the admin. But then you reveal it was their request. And you don’t kow tow to their edits and requested language without calling that out.

This is how we know the NYTimes and others are partisan as well. When they write things as requested or edit as requested without noting those requests.

Jess said...

It must have created chaos when the National School Board Association realized the minions were being pressed by the parents, they had no method to prevent close scrutiny, and the only option was reaching out to the corruption in the capitol for strong-arm thugs to keep the angry parents at bay. A less polite group of parents would have tarred and feathered the rogue administrators, and had good reason to do so. That, and had a sheriff that arrested the feds attempting to usurp the Constitution.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Never appoint a rejected Supreme Court nominee to a powerful position like attorneys general. The opportunities for revenge will emerge and test his integrity again and again. This is the unexplored angle to the Jan6 federal response. Payback time.

CWJ said...

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter... Fats Waller"

Great song, aptly invoked here, but though Waller made it popular, he didn't write those words. They were written by Joe Young.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

NSBA lies down with dogs, gives them fleas.

FIFY.

Mr Wibble said...

This isn't surprising. It's RussiaGate and the Sue-and-Settle practice which was common in the Obama admin.

The political class long ago figured out ways to work around the constraints imposed on them by the law. They've gotten very good at gaming the system to their advantage. They absolutely suck at actual governance, but who really gives a damn about that?

tim maguire said...

The NSBA was uncontroversial because most people didn’t know it existed. It’s controversial now because now they do. The letter didn’t come from nowhere—the rot has been eating away for a long time.

I don’t know what to make of the “requested by Cardona” scandal. Every source says he requested the letter, but does that mean he requested that they provide cover for the DOJ determination? Or did he simply solicit their opinion and they gave it? Of those two possibilities, only the first one is a problem on Cardona’s end, but I haven’t seen a single outlet reporting on it say what they mean by “requested.”

Krumhorn said...

I recall when Chuckles repeatedly asserted that there was no connection between the letter and the response of the AG. Leftie madness.

- Krumhorn
(my preferred adjectives: brilliant/awesome)

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

'Government' is simply the word we use for things we decide to do together.

- typical statist ostrich

Lewis Wetzel said...

A lot of what has happened since November 9, 2016, is explained by the term "elite panic."
Disaster researchers call this phenomenon “elite panic.” When authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public, rather than on addressing the disaster itself. They clamp down on information, restrict freedom of movement, and devote unnecessary energy to enforcing laws they assume are about to be broken. These strategies don’t just waste resources, one study notes; they also “undermine the public’s capacity for resilient behaviors.” In other words, nervous officials can actively impede the ordinary people trying to help themselves and their neighbors.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/james-meigs/elite-panic-vs-the-resilient-populace/

Owen said...

NSBA seems to have been a useless excrescence. Why would we need a national-level organization of local or state school boards? They sucked down dues from local districts in order to do exactly what worthy work in DC?
So my view is, NSBA was actively working all along for the teachers’ unions and other Prog causes, and either inserted itself into this recent “controversy” or was tapped by Biden and his handlers to step in. The White House needed that letter as a pretext to turn Merrick Garland loose and show sudden “concern” about “domestic terrorism” so people in every district in the country could look at their neighbors with new fear and suspicion, and check their own tendency to offer an opinion against the dumpster fire that the teachers’ unions have produced.
I do hope everybody involved in NSBA and in the Administration who cooked this up, will soon be kicking their lunch bucket down the road. A vain hope, I know; but one sincerely held.

Aggie said...

"Email correspondence from the time suggested that the NSBA might have been acting at request of the White House, according to documents released through open records requests filed by a conservative group called Parents Defending Education. Slaven and the White House said that isn’t true..."

Then there is the other data point: The DOJ leaping enthusiastically into the breach to deploy forces just as if they had been primed to do so, because they had been. Put more accurately, the only data point that doesn't suggest coordination between Cardona and the NSBA is the denial issued by Cardona's department and the White House, the two criminals involved. That sounds a little more accurate, doesn't it?

They didn't 'stumble' into National Politics. They grossly misjudged their authority and parents peeled up the decking to discover the hull rot. How many states have signed out now? Over half? Good - Long may it continue.

Bruce Hayden said...

The various school boards across the country have been essentially under the control of their teachers’ unions for decades. I saw evidence of this even when I was getting out of college, almost a half century ago. It was a classic case of regulatory capture. The unions essentially elected the school boards, and the school boards in turn coddled the teachers. The teachers were able to do this through paid time off (summer recess) as well as their captive PTAs. Then they would get weird election dates, where school board members, and maybe school district bonds would be the only thing on the ballot. Sometimes they got the elections set in the summer, when the teachers could politic full time. In any case, mostly only good friends of the teachers would show up for the school board elections.

Knowing that probably a majority of the school boards, at least as to number of kids being taught, had been captured by their teachers’ unions, it shouldn’t be any surprise that their trade group would have been captured as well.

Drago said...

Krumhorn: "I recall when ******** repeatedly asserted that there was no connection between the letter and the response of the AG. Leftie madness"

Indeed, our *** ***** wasn't just angry such a connection between the fed govt and NASB was suggested, he became viciously angry...almost as angry as when it had been suggested democraticals in Detroit were corrupt. Wow, that really put him over the edge. He simply would not abide any criticism of any type against any dem for any reason.

Good times, good times.

Kevin said...

In other news, social media outlets are blocking the accounts of conservatives because they thought up the idea themselves.

Michael K said...

Parents are learning who runs the public schools.

Even in Chicago, they are voting with their feet.

Greg Richmond, superintendent of the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools, said it’s too early to gauge the impact of the latest CPS shutdown on enrollment at the 157 archdiocesan-run schools in Cook and Lake counties, including 85 Catholic elementary schools and high schools in the city.

Ann Althouse said...

"Why does this article start by representing the NSBA as some non partisan group and then reveal later it wrote a letter at the request of the admin with specific wording represented by the admin. You can’t be both. You can respond to a request by the admin. But then you reveal it was their request. And you don’t kow tow to their edits and requested language without calling that out."

Great point, but I should insert that there isn't a concession that that's the true story.

LH in Montana said...

My state, Montana, was one that quickly terminated our membership. We didn’t even wait for our term to expire.

It bothers me so much that they attribute the opposition to anti-public school activists. Something like 80% of Montana’s students attend rural schools, where one single public school serves multiple towns. We don’t have options for private or charter schools. Our public schools are one of the most important institutions in our communities, providing jobs, public facilities, sports, and a common grounding for everyone who lives there.

To assume we are all trying to subvert public schools is another example of how little these bureaucrats understand flyover country.

Ceciliahere said...

All I can say is thank God that Mitch McConnell prevented Merriick Garland from getting on the Supreme Court. Garland is proof of what Obama’s agenda was and still is with Biden sitting in as proxy.

Bob Boyd said...

I should insert that there isn't a concession that that's the true story.

Did they bother to ask?

Bob Boyd said...

What the WH wanted was for the NSBA to use the word terrorism. That's the magic word that unties fed hands. Thanks W.

Joe Smith said...

Fascism, anyone?

rehajm said...

Their destruction is one of the fee feel good stories of 2021.

Howard said...

So our system of checks and balances are working. The sky is not falling.

Mark said...

If you can stomach it, spend some time reading the comments to the Washington Post article.
Most commenters think that the NSBA was right to ask the federal government for help and if you disagree you are pro-bullying, pro-harassment and pro-domestic terrorism. They can't even conceive that there are people who think harassment, assault and property damage are wrong but that it doesn't require FBI involvement.

From there, comments descend into "observations" that people protesting at school boards are probably against public schools, education and generally being horrible human beings. Its a perfect example that shows how quickly debates about school policy degrades into extremist rhetoric and assuming the worst about people that disagree with you.

Bruce Hayden said...

“My state, Montana, was one that quickly terminated our membership. We didn’t even wait for our term to expire.”

Legally a resident there (NW corner - town is 1500, county is 15k), but spend half the year in Phoenix (metro area has approx 5 million people). Day and night, in terms of public education. Everyone in town in MT loves their schools. But the City of Phoenix has clearly been running their school system for the benefit of the teachers for a long time. My old secretary had all three of her kids booted from their school, and the school system in maybe October of their Junior or Senior year of HS. The schools just kept them around long enough to obtain state and federal funding for them for the year, and then cut teaching loads back as soon as they could. Her boys, in particular, weren’t really behavior problems, but had learning disabilities (youngest was dyslexic). Met the kids, and the boys, in particular, were good kids.

Wa St Blogger said...

As I keep saying. The Dems are at war with at least half of America.

Yancey Ward said...

I can promise you this- all those parents publicly pushing the school boards are on the DoJ's list, a list that will be forwarded to the IRS for extra scrutiny.

Alison said...

Good riddance to a useless entity. So many state level school board organizations have now withdrawn membership, the NSBA is probably doomed to go broke. They absolutely deserve this.

Gospace said...

gilbar said...
"Until this fall, the National School Boards Association pretended that it was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter.".. And let the cloak fall to the ground.


He said it better than I was thinking of saying it.

Josephbleau said...

“As a result of the lawsuit, action is taken that satisfies the complainant and, coincidentally, furthers the goals of the EPA -- all without going through that nasty legislative process.”

And also results in settlements for attorney’s fees for plaintiffs counsel and structured payouts to form activist groups as compensation for damages which pay high salaries to activist leadership. Pure open theft of tax money.

Rabel said...

"On Nov. 23, Slaven said, he was fired and offered a severance package that barred him from discussing anything about the letter with future employers or the media. He said he declined to accept it. A NSBA spokesperson declined to comment on Slaven’s status."

The job pays $450,000 annually.

Slaven was recently appointed to replace this woman, Anna Maria Chavez, who served for about a year before leaving to "enter the private sector."

If you read her bio it's pretty clear she is not a "non-partisan" and her brief tenure is probably a sign of the group's sharply leftward turn.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Mark,
Re: people protesting / against public schools...
I advise small company founders. I tell them to pay attention to customer feedback, ESPECIALLY negative feedback. That comes from people who really want what you are supposedly selling, and are engaged enough to spend their time to let you know.
Of course, with regard to school boards, this would be assuming agreement of purpose between the boards and the parents. Which agreement is not in evidence.

narciso said...

back in the real world, youngkin is replacing the crt backing superintendent, and miyares the new atty general is cleaning house

Browndog said...

Blogger narciso said...

back in the real world, youngkin is replacing the crt backing superintendent, and miyares the new atty general is cleaning house


Lt. Governor is woke af- (the good kind)

also:

Youngkin’s Day 1 Executive Orders, per his office, include:

- Ban CRT

- parents decide if kids wear masks in school

- declare VA open for business

- end vax mandate for state employees

- investigate Loudoun County

- fire parole board

- leave green house gas initiative

lane ranger said...

"Until this fall, the National School Board Association was a [dedicated left-wing organization masquerading as a] noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group."

There. Fixed it for you.

Tina Trent said...

Anyone who has ever suffered through an education committee meeting sitting next to the rent a tart (and her 100 peers from similar organizations) hired to lobby for them figures out pretty quickly that the point of the NASB is to disempower real community participation in public schools while pretending to do the opposite.

The mask slipped a little this week.

I always tell the people who invite me to speak that the state education committee meeting room is the most powerful room in state government. Also the wealthiest, most important, and least honest.

Tina Trent said...

There are dozens of groups representing the interest of the education borg and teacher unions. Principals, Vice Principals, Chancellors, teacher groups, teacher educator groups, multicult groups, state boards, tech shills, textbook shills, librarians, school psychologists, curricular specialists, all speaking in one voice and you quickly smell the leftist fragrance of vast power and wealth and the rot of their agendas.