From the arrest of parents at school board meetings to the allegations of covering up rapes in student bathrooms, Virginia school boards have been making headlines in recent years. As a result, several political action committees have formed to fund and promote school board candidates they believe will best serve their agendas.
Last month, a “nonpartisan” Virginia-based group called We the People of Education emerged, claiming to prioritize good governance, financial stewardship, and positive student outcomes versus political agendas and divisiveness when supporting school board candidates. However, despite the group’s neutral-sounding platform, several of the group’s board members have a history of supporting leftist political agendas in Virginia’s public education system.
Anne Holton, the wife of Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, sits on the group’s board. We the People of Education takes its name from the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, which Holton publicly criticized during the Board of Education’s approval of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new history standards.
“To an audience as inclusive as our Virginia is, you cannot reference the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as ‘remarkable documents’ without also acknowledging that they [are] fundamental in enshrining slavery, and limiting the protections that they provided only to white property-owning men,” Holton said.
Another board member is former Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, who also commented on the revised history standards of learning (SOL). In an interview with Virginia-based Democratic political blogger and commentator Lowell Feld, Qarni argued that the backlash against teaching the left’s preferred version of
