Update: School Board Association apologizes...to the wrong people
So the big story that most media thought was a non-story proves to be an even bigger story
Happy Saturday morning everybody! We had some breaking news last night…
Hopefully you read my earlier piece this week about the coordination that my organization, Parents Defending Education, uncovered between the National School Board Association and the White House. Their goal? To get parents to pipe down, to stop raising concerns at school board meetings, to back off with all this unprecedented scrutiny, to just go away. Click below to get up to speed…
The plot thickened last night when the National School Board Association’s Board of Directors published an apology to its members for the now infamous letter their president and CEO sent to the Biden administration on September 29th.
On the one hand, their members absolutely do deserve an apology since they were left out of the loop when their “leadership” went rogue and spent weeks coordinating with the White House to draft the letter that likened frustrated and angry parents to “the equivalent of domestic terrorism” and suggested potential invocation of the PATRIOT Act.
But the letter is also a huge miss because it offers no apology to parents. Maud Maron, NYC mom of four, attorney and independent city council candidate, put it perfectly in her response to me on Twitter last night.
(Side-note: Maud’s moral courage is a personal inspiration to me. If you don’t know her story, read it here.)
Attorney General Garland is going to have a very rough go of it this coming Wednesday at his Senate oversight hearing. Why? Because he just told House members, under oath, that the NSBA letter was the sole evidence that drove him to put federal law enforcement in charge of investigating parents who are concerned and angry about school practices and policies.
I suspect that the White House leaned on Garland to send out that memo and he did so without taking the time to understand what he was actually being asked to do. His decision to fall in line like all good partisans do has now blown up in his face.
In the meantime, we parents will continue to wait for our apology from the National School Board Association—and those of us who live in places where our state school board association refused to denounce the letter, will wait for an apology from them too. (To see if your state association distanced itself/denounced the NSBA letter, check here.)
This morning a killer line up of moms from NY, Virginia and Florida woke up and made themselves tv ready before dawn to talk about this whole NSBA debacle—they are my colleague and friend Asra Nomani, Quisha King and Karol Markowicz. Mama bears of different races and ethnicities, different politics and different backgrounds will not be divided when it comes to protecting our children from damaging policies and practices at school. To watch the full clip, click here.
And lastly, I share with you a clip of my boss (and friend!) Nicki Neily on Megyn Kelly’s show—she explains how she uncovered the documents that prove coordination between the NSBA execs and the White House and also explains the grounds on which Parents Defending Education filed our first lawsuit.
I am grateful to all of these women for their commitment and courage to speaking out for kids and families.
Talk soon,
Erika