Conservative Republicans running for school boards in North Carolina and New York overwhelmingly lost their elections Tuesday night, the latest sign that the GOP’s effort to wage a sweeping anti-LGBTQ, anti-Black culture war on public schools is failing.

In North Carolina, a slate of five right-wing ideologues ran together in Durham’s nonpartisan school board election, under the phrase “Better Board, Better Schools, Better Futures.” All were hoping to unseat Democratic incumbents. All were defeated in a landslide.

In New York, right-wing school board candidates who opposed diversity training, sex and gender education, and pandemic protocols were similarly trounced on Tuesday.

These races generated a “huge swell in turnout,” reported the Times Union, which it attributed to parents’ strong rejection of right-wing “take back our schools” candidates.

“The attempt to cloak book bans and censorship as a parent issue is not working,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “What is happening is that the pro-public education forces — which include the overwhelming number of parents who send their kids to public schools — want to have a safe and welcoming and high-quality environment for their kids. They want their kids to have critical thinking skills. They want their kids to distinguish fact from fiction, to be taught accurate history.”

It’s a trend that’s been playing out for months.

Earlier in May, conservative school board candidates all across Montana overwhelmingly lost. Progressive school board candidates trounced in New Hampshire in March, even in conservative towns. In Wisconsin, the results were mixed, but a number of conservative candidates lost despite significant funding. In the town of Eau Claire, for example, all three right-wing school board candidates who ran on anti-LGBTQ platforms lost to incumbents and their allies.

[huffpost.com]