Thread by @ClaraJeffery

1/ @daveweigel is a great reporter, and no piece for a national audience can summarize a 2+ multifront debate but from where I sit, couple of things this misses washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…

2/ First, I think it's a mistake to look at the SFUSD recall as mostly/just a progressive vs moderate debate. There are a lot of very left people who've had it with the school board.

3/ Nor are people who are pro SFUSD recall necessarily aligned with the Boudin recall. Some are, some aren't. Lots of people passionately care about one and don't really care about the other.

4/ the school board frustration is, in part/for some, linked to a larger frustration with SF politicians prioritizing performativeness over actual performance.

Letting perfect be the enemy of the good.

5/ This piece gave a lot of air time to Collins, who is eager to position her recall as a gift to national Republicans, which...no.

6/ SFUSD's budget gap is alluded to but not how the board, after refusing to address the shortfall only finally staved off a state takeover.

7/ Nor was how SFUSD has been woefully unprepared—and board often not willing TO prepare—for each predictable inflection point of the pandemic. Yet again now: missionlocal.org/2022/01/san-fr…

8/ Renaming schools controversy isn't even just that it took attention from pandemic planning, though yes, that. It's the pathetically slip-shod process that made a mockery of actual scholarship. Performativeness over real performance. theguardian.com/us-news/2021/a…

9/ Then there was this:

https://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery/status/1360399377768927232

10/ Through all of this SF BOE has also just run meetings incredibly badly, and sometimes very non transparently, which seems like a small thing but dumps gasoline onto the fire re public opinion of it on each of these fronts.

11/ Anyway if Lopez, Collins, Moliga (or 2 of 3) get recalled it will have some echos of and feed into national debates, but there's just a lot of very very very SF wrinkles to this story, many more than this thread even alludes to.

12/ Finally there's probably no way to properly express how Collins suing the school board for $87m—amid a gigantic budget shortfall and a year+ school closures—poisoned the well against her and Lopez. sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl…

13/ Some folks reading this thread seem convinced that the people funding SFBOE recall are the same as those funding Boudin recall. You can check prior here: voterguide.sfelections.org/en/ballot-meas… and we reported on latter here. Very different motherjones.com/politics/2021/…

14/ Those signing onto argument for SFBOE recalls include noted SF centrist*...Matt Gonzalez

(*For non SFers: the guy who ran against Newsom in 2003 for mayor from the left.)