Moms for Liberty meets its match: Parents in this swing suburban district are fighting back

[Eugene]

Source: Salon

Moms for Liberty meets its match: Parents in this swing suburban district are fighting back

Amanda Marcotte
Tue, October 10, 2023 at 6:00 AM EDT·25 min read

"Monster Liberty": That's how the otherwise excellent closed-captioning service in the auditorium at Pennridge High School interpreted "Moms for Liberty," while one of several dozen citizens who had waited in line to lambast the group spoke at the podium. A chuckle rose up among the parents in the crowded school board meeting, held on a late August evening after the first day of classes for the Pennridge School District in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania. "Fair enough," one mother whispered to another.

That wasn't the only moment of levity that evening, which saw a robust crowd of largely irate parents speak out against the adoption of a social studies curriculum linked to far-right organizations like Moms for Liberty and Hillsdale College. Before the meeting, people exchanged wisecracks about "talented clappers" — an inside-joke reference to an email circulated among local conservatives that appealed for sympathetic outsiders to turn out and applaud the right-wing agenda: "You do not need to be a resident to attend and clap," it advised, for "policies that bless and protect our children."

Link to tweet

Most of the attendees saw that appeal as a minor victory, or at least as evidence that they were gaining ground in the battle for control over the school district — one of hundreds of similar battles unfolding all over the country. Yes, the Pennridge school board was dominated by far-right members, one of whom had been present in Washington for Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally-turned-riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Yes, at least five of the nine board members were linked to Moms for Liberty, a right-wing "astroturf" organization that has orchestrated a national campaign to remake public education along arch-conservative and anti-intellectual lines. But Pennridge board meetings for months had been dominated by outraged parents speaking out against the Moms for Liberty incursion and the board majority's apparent agenda. Conservative forces were sufficiently worried about the optics, it appeared, that they were eager to pull in "talented clappers" from outside the community.

A tightly packed group of Moms for Liberty supporters did indeed show up, huddled together in a few rows of seats. ...

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/moms-liberty-meets-match-parents-100001256.html

[RandySF]

1. Democratic CBSD candidates.

Central Bucks School Board Democratic Slate - https://www.cbsdneighborsunited.com

Individual Candidates:

1. Karen Smith - https://www.karensmithforcbschoolboard.com
2. Heather Reynolds - https://www.electheatherreynolds.com
3. Dana Foley - https://www.electdanafoley.com/
4. Rick Haring - https://www.voterickharing.com/
5. Susan Gibson - https://www.electsusangibson4cbsd8.com

[FalloutShelter]

2. I am Bucks resident with

Granddaughters in the Central Bucks system.
Can’t wait to vote for our Democratic candidates. thanks for posting the slate.

[Lonestarblue]

3. I'm happy to see parents fighting back against Moms for Fascism.

This group is just one more nationally funded organization trying to take local control of schools away from parents and force their white supremacy evangelical curriculum on public education. The New York Times has an article today about the superior performance of students in Department of Defense schools. Some of the key points made are that parents have housing and food security, teachers are paid competitive salaries and classrooms are well equipped, and all DoD schools follow the same challenging curriculum. Their students’ scores on national and international tests surpass those of most public schools.

What is obvious to me is that the DoD schools probably have better disciplined kids and they focus on education instead of working right-wing politics and religion into their schools. We need to get politicians and religion out of our schools.


Gift link


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/us/schools-pandemic-defense-department.html?unlocked_article_code=seJBOefnOEuYS0Q4a6D1BPjiWcmgla0lLQnbplCHVLlB9nH2jesn5m_V92ELVtV6Iop24zBJ5HZ13L3uRtMHGEvp2V5QGBMc02z6ERyc3Pd69G9FzCLBt3oG1ePxgmev60nLwRxwgdJWNcMFgmzM0CqW7Ancc4qatBd6M4JC12haT4tJ5lsaxTUeY_ErqJ-7f4lWqVAxUAny20saE63ric0a0-HISyo08m8u__Qx_B7pH_35Lq8ma8_XhKY-Yu9iAEUOnvooSp-99uzKF0qnhHwr8puOVJlwlcL8k7EE45dIO1GZQChu8yvsrvHrRBzJ4IpeFubMPeKbx3XO_HihaFF9_YPDrH4t&smid=url-share

[AllaN01Bear]

4. i keep hearing that this "group" consists of two ppl , correct? love the backlash.

[Joinfortmill]

5. I'm old & a lot of this stuff reminds me of 1930s Germany

[NNadir]

6. I saw the hearing featuring the father of a third grader.

He was powerful, particularly when he held up Toni Morrison's Beloved as a banned book.

The ignorant fascist book burners need to be stopped.

[Hekate]

7. KnR

[LisaM]

8. Moms for Liberty used the element of surprise to get where they did

(not to mention a misleading name). We can get rid of them by paying attention to school board elections.

Happened in my small town. One of them, who didn't have kids in the district AFAIK, ran for school board the last cycle and tried to campaign on the town's local Facebook page, where - to the credit of people in my home town - she was immediately exposed for who she was, was flustered when confronted with direct questions, and did not win the election.

[calimary]

9. Thank goodness! Many people are not fooled.

Not everybody is taken in by this “Moms” for “Liberty” BS.

Thank Heaven.

[Goddessartist]

10. Excellent!

One of my sisters lives in Sparks, NV, and is going to go to the School Board meetings as she found out that a 'Monster' Liberty mom is on the board. So she's going to show up! Her children, now grown, went through the school system there. She's now retired, so she has time to do this!