Florida is America’s hottest culture war battleground, and Sarasota school board meetings are center stage. Underneath the school board culture wars there is another agenda at work: privatization of K-12 education. A free, quality public education is the bedrock of our democracy and our economy. There is an effort underway to undermine public education. Wedge issues like CRT (Critical Race Theory), designed to inflame and divide, are part of a strategy to kill public education by declaring it broken and strangling funding. The “solution” to this contrived crisis? Privatization.
Sarasota residents have a front row seat as school board elections have become a national political flashpoint. Our local politicians include Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters (State Senator), Florida GOP Vice Chair Christian Ziegler (Sarasota County Commissioner) and Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Bridget Ziegler (Sarasota County School Board). As leaders of the Florida GOP and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, these pols want to make our school board elections partisan. They advance the claim that CRT in the classroom is a real problem. Nevermind that Critical Race Theory is a law school subject, and isn’t taught in K-12 public schools. These pols promote CRT as a wedge issue. Sarasota children deserve clear and age-appropriate historical instruction. Yet, local elected officials are purveyors of the CRT boogeyman.
Hysterical hyperbole is a Ziegler tactic. County Commissioner Christian Ziegler recently advocated for giving $825,000 of our tax dollars to the video platform Rumble. Rumble broadcasts Russian state television (aka Putin propaganda) as well as QAnon conspiracy theories and COVID misinformation. Rumble provides a say anything, “free speech” platform for insurrectionists like Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn (both are now banned from Twitter). Christian Ziegler characterized constituents opposed to the ultimately denied Rumble taxayers funding as “flag burners”. In 2021, as an early promoter of the CRT wedge issue, Bridget Ziegler appeared on a national news program claiming CRT was being taught in public schools. A banner underneath her read “making kids feel bad for being white is chilling”.
Look further into Florida’s culture war “influencers”, and you’ll find Christopher Rufo. He is the architect of misappropriating Critical Race Theory as a bogus political talking point. Rufo flagged CRT in his review of academic references in popular books on racism. He conflates CRT, taught in law school, with anecdotes of clumsy diversity training or teaching (yes, Mr. Rufo, we are not good at the race conversation in this country). And…Voila! A repackaged wedge issue was born.
One result of Rufo’s influence has been HB 7, referred to as the “Stop Woke” (aka ban CRT) Act. Mr. Rufo spoke at the Governor’s December press conference announcing the adoption of HB 7. At that conference Rufo described how he spent the last year “meticulously documenting Critical Race Theory in American Institutions”. Somehow, because Mr. Rufo has gathered anecdotes of over the top diversity training we are all supposed to accept that he is an expert on how to fix what ails us when it comes to race relations.
Rufo’s most recent manifesto in Hillsdale College’s “Inprimis” newsletter is titled “Laying Siege to the Institutions”. Rufo claims that how race and gender are handled in schools “can’t be reformed from within”. Rufo says this is “why I call for a siege strategy”. Rufo believes if there are problems in education (and we are to take his “meticulously” documented word for it), then the whole system is broken and Rufo’s solution is to destroy it. It’s a Bannon-esque approach to destroying public education.
Rufo’s means of destruction is “Universal School Choice”; that is, defunding public education through private school vouchers and corporate charter schools.
Enter Bridge Zieger, Co-Founder of Moms For Liberty…..
Sarasota County School board member Bridget Zieger is a Christopher Rufo acolyte. None of the three Ziegler children attend public schools. The Zieglers choose to have one of their children attend a local charter school founded in collaboration with, and implementing a curriculum created by Hillsdale College. Moms for Liberty, co-founded by Ziegler, embraces Christopher Rufo’s ideas.
Hillsdale College is opening charter schools across the county. Hillsdale College published Rufo’s “siege strategy” against public education. Ms. Ziegler tweeted a photo of herself and Rufo at the Governor’s December press conference,. with the caption “Thank you to @realchrisrufo who has been instrumental in shining a light on CRT & what is at stake”.
There is a robust body of reporting describing how corporate charter schools siphon funding from public schools. One great resource documenting this exploitation is the white paper “Are Charter Schools the Second Coming of Enron?”, published in the Indiana Law Journal and still available online. The authors describe how “unscrupulous individuals and corporations are using their control over charter schools and their affiliates to obtain unreasonable management fees for their services and funnel money intended for charter schools into other business ventures” Corporate charter schools offer many opportunities for profiteers to pillage public education dollars. Their education outcomes are no better, and often are worse. Charter schools can cherry pick students, refusing to educated special need children or children with other challenges which require more resources, like behavioral issues. Real public schools do not turn children away. Real public schools educate all children.
The management structure of corporate charters means that parental rights are actually diminished. A leaked Imagine Schools memo from November 2, 2009 makes it clear that parents are not to have a real role in school governance. The corporate charter school chain founder says the school boards are not to have real authority in running the schools. He recommends getting signed, but undated letters of resignation from parents serving on their school boards, to “protect” school administrators. Parents who believe charter schools offer them more influence may find this is not the case.
An important influencer of Florida’s elected leaders and Moms for Liberty, Christopher Rufo is calling for laying siege to public education. CRT and other culture war wedge issues serve the interests of those who want to privatize public education, like corporate charter school investors. A healthy, robust public education system is the bedrock of democracy, and our economy. We must take this threat to public education seriously. Our democracy depends on it.
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Other important reads:
Charter School Memo Blasted as “Outline for a Hostile Takeover”
Blame and Ignorance Follow 200th Charter School to Flop in Ohio
Thank you for your activism and great journalism. Keep speaking!!