TOPEKA, Kan. – Conservatives could capture majorities on the Kansas and Nebraska state school boards in this year's elections, making it easier for them to shape what's taught in classrooms.
At issue are familiar efforts by conservative Republicans and groups to limit what public K-12 schools can teach about racism, diversity, sexuality and gender. But also up for debate are skill-building lessons that conservatives reject as social engineering.
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An effort to teach soft skills — such as persistence, tolerance for others and managing emotions — came after surveys in recent years suggested that businesses see them as crucial for future employees. But some parents, state lawmakers and groups see what's sometimes called social and emotional learning, or SEL, as promoting liberal values.
“We want to turn the direction away from social engineering and back towards education,” said Fred Postlewait, a retired computer systems manager and a Republican candidate for a Kansas City-area seat on the Kansas board.
Conservative parents, groups on the right and Republican officials across the U.S. who've wanted to ban some books and other materials are increasingly including SEL among the “woke” concepts or programs they want removed from the classroom. SEL has joined DEI — for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — and CRT for critical race theory, which centers on the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions.
Both states lean Republican, helping conservative candidates down the ballot in the Nov. 5 election. In Nebraska, state board races are officially nonpartisan, but in Kansas, they're partisan and party affiliation could prove decisive.
“I am worried that people don’t have this on their radar,” said Judith Deedy, executive director of the pro-public education Game On for Kansas Schools. “If the board flips, there will be a lot of unhappy people.”
The Kansas State Board of Education is perhaps best known for debates two decades ago over whether evolution should be taught in school. The state had five sets of science standards for its K-12 schools between 1999 and 2007, as the board’s majority repeatedly changed hands.
Conservatives last won control in 2004 and rewrote standards about teaching evolution in schools to reflect doubt about the well-established scientific theory — and to leave room for arguments that the universe’s complexity points to an intelligent design. In 2006, the moderate bloc recaptured control and quickly returned to standards grounded in science. The latest standards were adopted last year.
“That kind of topic could come back,” said Kansas state board Chair Melanie Haas, a Democrat facing Postlewait for a second term. “I don’t know that the board would have tremendous success getting it through as policy, but I think it can be really disruptive to education in Kansas.”
Besides Kansas and Nebraska, only Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Texas and Utah elect all their board members, but those states’ current majorities appear unlikely to lose power. In a majority of states, governors appoint most or all state school board members, according to the Education Commission of the States.
Nebraska's State Board of Education is split 4-3 against hard-right Republicans, with one vacancy. Half the seats are on the ballot, including the vacant one, and in the other three districts, members of the board's majority, all longtime educators, aren't running again. Members serve four-year terms.
If conservatives flip two seats for a 5-3 majority, they can pursue GOP-led policies such as banning some books and materials from schools, and ending social and emotional learning programs.
Board member Kirk Penner, a conservative Republican who's denounced “woke culture," described social and emotional learning in a social media post last year as “the TROJAN HORSE for all the gender and CRT lessons being brought into schools.”
"After ’24 elections we should have the majority to have it removed,” he predicted.
Kansas board members also serve four-year terms, and five of the board’s 10 seats are on the ballot this year. A coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans holds six, but three of those members are not seeking reelection.
The push to focus more on social and emotional learning in Kansas began in 2015, and state Education Commissioner Randy Watson said SEL addresses what business and community leaders want from public schools. In past surveys, Watson said, they’ve told the state board that students are doing “pretty well” academically but need to develop soft skills.
One controversy surrounds questionnaires for parents who enroll their kids in kindergarten or preschool programs. One for parents of 5-year-olds poses 39 questions, including whether their children can go to the bathroom by themselves, like playing with other children, have long tantrums, and, “Does your child seem happy?”
The aim, officials told the board at its October monthly meeting, is to help teachers address individual children's needs and better manage their classrooms.
But Republican state board member Danny Zeck, a retired northeast Kansas automobile dealer who was elected to the state board in 2022, said he worries that schools are telling parents how to treat their children and “want all kids to react the same way to everything.”
"That’s not what our great country is founded on — it’s founded on you and me being different,” Zeck, who also served on his local school board, said during a break in the October meeting. “I’m concerned about indoctrinating kids.”
In challenging Haas for her seat, Postlewait argues that “social engineering” initiatives takes too much classroom time. As evidence, he points to Kansas students' scores on annual standardized reading and math tests overseen by the state.
The State Department of Education reported earlier this month that two-thirds of Kansas students taking this spring's state tests had the basic knowledge and skills to be ready for life after high school. It reported slight improvements in the percentages of students scoring at "effective” or “excellent” levels.
But almost a third of the students showed only “limited” knowledge and skills. That strikes Postlewait and other conservatives as far too high, especially when the figures are worse in individual districts and schools.
“To me it’s important that the State Board of Education is assuring that we have rigor in the classroom,” said state Senate Education Committee Chair Molly Baumgardner, another Kansas City-area Republican.
Baumgardner said that while the Legislature tackles education issues, it can't move as quickly as the school board can, so she sees lawmakers taking action as “the last resort."
“The workforce needs that we have in our state are: folks need to be able to read. They need to have strong math skills as well," she added.
Haas, the current board chair, said social and emotional learning programs help ensure that students are prepared both academically and socially so they can thrive in their post-graduation jobs.
Considering the election, she said, “It potentially puts the way that we handle social-emotional learning at risk."
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Associated Press writer Margery A. Beck contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.