I'm disappointed with, and frankly puzzled by the Herald's recommendation of Gabe Galbraith for the Kennewick school board. Members of the Herald Editorial Board stated that, "Even though we don’t agree with some of Galbraith’s complaints against the school district, we believe he represents a voice that is needed on the board." That's a voice that said, "enough is enough" and "it's time to fight back," about keeping kids out of school during a pandemic that's killed almost 700,000 so far, including over thirty thousand in Benton County.
Galbraith wants kids in school, and he wants them there without masks, because "it's difficult to breathe wearing a mask" during recess. The Herald’s view of the mask mandate was made very clear in an August 27th editorial headlined, “Franklin Commissioner Clint Didier’s anti-mask stunt was an embarrassing misuse of power.”
Galbraith’s other issues are the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and sex education. CRT isn’t taught, but that doesn’t stop Galbraith from stating that he “opposes it 100%.” Here again, the Tri-City Herald Editorial Board penned a June 21st op-ed that stated unequivocally, “Contrary to a surge of misinformation online, there is no new law requiring Washington state public schools to adopt the controversial “critical race theory” curriculum. This point needs to be made clear.”
Kennewick school districts are required to adopt a sex education curriculum that meets state standards. Galbraith is dead-set against this, too, stating that sex education should be taught in the home. The fact is, parents may have their kids opt out of the school sex ed program. Another non-issue that Galbraith is running on.
Galbraith has also come out against the “teachers union,” which he said his wife quit. The Kennewick Education Association, “works for the welfare of school children, the advancement of public education, and the improvement of instructional opportunities for all.” It’s essential that anyone serving on the school board work effectively with the teachers’ union, whether or not one agrees with all their positions.
What Galbraith didn’t address was the dismal “report card” the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) gives Kennewick schools. For example, only a third of students meet science standards, and just 41.8% meet math standards. Wouldn’t it be useful to have on the school board a person who is “passionate about science and math;” a person who “double majored in math and physics;” a person who taught science and math to 1st and 2nd graders, and continues to teach ‘children of all ages’ about the wonders of the universe at the Bechtel National Planetarium at CBC? A person like Erin Steinert?
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What's particularly troubling about the Herald Editorial Board's recommendation is how it reflects the ignorance of the Board about how the Republican Party is purposely misrepresenting Critical Race Theory as an ideological gambit by liberals to "indoctrinate" Americans into hating the White race, even their own. According to an article in Politico;
Parents in many places have organized Facebook groups calling for schools to expunge specific diversity-oriented curricula or any elected official backing it. Some of those groups have spawned new candidates — sometimes long before a race.
As Politico wrote,
Historically, school boards have been largely nonpartisan. But as interest in the races spiked this year, some candidates began to sound more like Fox News commentators than school board members of the past.
The Republican Party is using CRT as a ploy to 1) energize their base and get more Republican voters to the polls, 2) get Republicans running for local office to build their resume for runs at state and federal office, and 3) get the faithful to be more generous in their donations to the GOP.
Democrats at the local level seem slow to respond, surprised perhaps that the Republican apparatchik have so blatantly and aggressively turned public service into weaponized voluntarism. In off-year elections, when voter turnout struggles to reach 30%, shrugging off the RNC's faux outrage as temporary insanity is a formula for an epic failure.
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Actually, people have been writing letters to the editors in protest of this very thing. I know several who have, including me. We'll see if they get published or if this gets them to switch their recommendation to the better candidate, Erin Steinert.
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