Thread by @MattWelch

Yesterday’s blowout school board recall in San Francisco was a far more interesting and resonant event than I was able to convey in this morning’s writeup. National implications, sure, but also plenty of glorious, only-in-SF specifics. Let's make a thread!
reason.com/2022/02/16/san…

First of all, successful school board recalls, even in today’s political climate, are exceptionally rare. Only 23 states have the recall mechanism, and even though 2021 saw a record-shattering number of recall efforts (92), only 1 was successful.
reason.com/2022/01/28/wil…

Recall co-organizer Autumn Looijen told me Monday, “Everyone we talked to said this is impossible. Look, out of every recall effort people talk about, 1 in 10 actually get started. Of those, 1 in 10 gets enough signatures to make the ballot, and of those only 1 in 10 passes."

There’s a bunch more school board recalls scheduled this year, with the biggest concentrations in California, Virginia, and Michigan. Most spring from disputes over pandemic-related policies, with a sprinkling of corruption and CRT on the side. ballotpedia.org/School_board_r…

Speaking of Critical Race Theory, that phrase didn't come up once in my 2 days among recall supporters. Last year’s idiotic school-renaming vote was an inflection point, yes, but only because it happened precisely when they were failing to open schools. reason.com/2021/01/27/san…

I asked many pro-recall parents when they started to get mad. The answer was the same: Fall of 2020. Schools in much of the country—including private schools in the City, and other public districts in the Bay Area—were fully open. S.F.’s were fully closed.

I have been warning since the fall of 2020 that by having the most closed K-12 systems in the industrialized world, districts and bureaucrats and teachers unions and politicians would sow a mighty backlash, and kneecap the very institutions they run.
reason.com/2020/12/29/the…

Dem pols who are in bed (literally, in Joe Biden’s case) with restrictionist teachers unions, were able to stave off parental anger by playing the Trump card. Hey, it worked for Gavin Newsom! Well, November in Virginia and New Jersey changed all that.
reason.com/2021/11/03/mad…

What’s amazing to behold is the way that some in the left-of-center political class, faced with this evident potency of parental anger, doubled down on the same increasingly tired playbook: Demonize the parents as racist. That…is not effective persuasion. reason.com/2021/11/02/vir…

Several parents I talked to, even in the context of being present at the recall victory party, did not want their names published, for fear of being labeled a racist & facing repercussions in their job. It’s an infuriating movie I’ve seen before.
reason.com/2019/09/17/is-…

Autumn Looijen: “There were so many people with much more anger and frustration about this issue than even us. Even today. But they were very intimidated by the political environment in the city.”

@jaravis: “They were afraid of being called racist or losing their jobs.”

@jaravis There were plenty other major indications of SFUSD dysfunction contributing to the success of recall, beginning with a staggering $125 million budget deficit, and a rushed change of elite-school admissions standards. @alexnazaryan has good detail. news.yahoo.com/san-francisco-…

Imagine against that budgetary backdrop proposing a new Queer Transgender Parent Advisory Council costing $260,000 to launch then $220,000 a year to staff, as the now-recalled board member Alison Collins did just two weeks ago.
sfchronicle.com/sf/article/On-…

Collins’ proposal was titled, “Equitable Representation and Services for TwoSpirit Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex Asexual (2SLGBTQIA+) Parents and Families.” This type of jargon was shot through the defenses the board members gave the Chron.
sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F…

"Wealth,” @jaravis told, me, in a formulation worth pondering, “gives you insulation from the failure of government." There is a LOT of wealth in beautiful, creative, innovative San Francisco. Things look glorious if you keep your eyes above street level.

@jaravis But the pandemic, for millions of parents, ripped that insulation out, leaving the neglected rot of captured progressive institutions to become, almost overnight, visible, and unbearable.
OK, done, read my article! reason.com/2022/02/16/san…