Opinion: Anonymous letter shows how nasty the education debate can become

Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center offers anecdotal evidence of how mean-spirited the public debate over education can become.

WSSDA members will be convening this fall to decide on the proposals WSSDA will make to the 2025 Legislature

Liv Finne
Washington Policy Center

In the most recent sign of how mean-spirited the public debate over education can become, a mysterious group of school board members have sent a nasty anonymous letter to the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA). The tax-funded Association is the state-level lobby organization representing local school boards. Each year it promotes a one-item agenda in the legislature: Make their members’ budgets bigger.

That is why it is so interesting that, according a news report, “an unknown number” (one?) of the WSSDA members released an anonymous letter attacking their fellow school board members for seeking to protect children from harmful Critical Race Theory (CRT) and false gender ideologies in local schools. Yet school boards are simply responding to the concerns of families about children’s access to learning.

Parents and most elected school board members in Washington’s 295 public school districts want teachers to focus on learning and academics, not left-wing politics. This is how democracy works. Local communities elect school board members who in turn run public schools for the educational benefit of children.

The letter’s bias is clearly on the political left, but providing students access to a great public education is not partisan. In fact, in the most recent session a large bipartisan majority of the legislature enacted citizens’ Initiative 2081, recognizing the rights of parents to be involved and notified about their children’s education. The measure passed by 82 to 15 in the House and 49 to 0 in the Senate.

The letter attacks Washington Policy Center, because we support the civil rights of students and equal access for all. A favorite tactic of left-leaning activists is to say anyone who disagrees with them harbors racial animus. As I told reporter Grace Deng at The Washington Standard, I don’t appreciate being called a racist by some cowardly anonymous letter-writer(s). Education policy should be debated openly and honestly even when, or perhaps especially, when there is strong disagreement.

At a minimum, adults in any public discussion should model respect, kindness and courtesy toward each other, for the benefit of young students who one day will be voting and participating in democracy themselves. The malicious anonymous letter falls well below that standard.

WSSDA members will be convening this fall to decide on the proposals WSSDA will make to the 2025 Legislature. In addition to the usual push for more money, WSSDA members should consider asking lawmakers to repeal the discredited and harmful CRT law the governor signed in 2021 and seek support in re-building the reputation of public schools as respected centers of learning.

Liv Finne is the director of the Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center.