Bethany Mandel, a Maryland mother and conservative activist, is running for school board in her Deep Blue County to fight a culture of corruption.
The author, cultural critic, and mother of six, known for her stance on “wokeness,” currently homeschools all of her children under what she calls “a dire situation.” I decided to run for the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Board of Education to address this issue. The state of violence, school enrollment, and low test scores in school districts.
For example, at her local elementary school, only 7.5% of students were proficient in English language arts as of 2021, and the district’s low proficiency scores have led parents to view public school as a “last resort.” said Mandel. A friend said that statistically, her children are probably the only ones in the room doing things at grade level, like reading, math, science, etc. She said she was scared to send her children to segregated MCPS schools. . ”
“Public schools should not be the last resort,” Mandel told FOX News Digital. MCPS “was once one of the best school districts in the country, and our property taxes reflect that,” but “that’s no longer the case. Much of that is due to the pandemic, but also… “It also comes from mismanagement. It comes from the one-party rule that’s going on here in this county.”
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Although school board elections are technically nonpartisan, Mandel explained that he is a registered Democrat and has been for years. That’s a “realistic” way to participate in local democracy in a heavily blue county.
Bethany Mandel, author and mother; (Bethany Mandel/Getty Images)
“For many of them, [on the school board]”There’s a Democratic machine…so they can use this as a springboard to run for another office, another office, and another again. I don’t want to be a part of this machine.” she said. They become members of the Planning Commission, become members of the County Council, and then become members of Congress within this county, all for their own political ambitions. ”
“Right now there is a five-alarm situation among progressive lefties in this county because they think I’m going to take over. [but] “I would be vastly outnumbered,” she said, “but we need someone on the school board to raise their hand and say, “75 percent of the kids in our district are literate.” Isn’t this a better use of our time when we can’t read at grade level? And I’m going to keep saying that over and over again.”
“They’re afraid of it. They’re afraid of someone getting in the way of their priorities. And their priorities aren’t their kids,” she added. “It’s not their progress. It’s not their improvement. I don’t know what they’re doing there.”
But Mandel said this “selfish cycle” will only harm children and their futures, especially those affected by learning loss due to the pandemic.
“This will lead to crime, it will lead to recession, it will lead to lower GDP,” she said. “The social problems arising from this education crisis will affect everyone in society.”
“The kids in kindergarten, including the first, second and third graders, were all using Zoom and then wearing masks. It was about what they had fundamentally lost and what had been taken away from them. It was an important time, many years in the making, to know that…those kids aren’t going to recover,” she added.
Bethany Mandel, author and mother;
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“My opponents are talking about how I’m not qualified… What they’re really saying is that I’m not qualified because I homeschool my kids. But I’m not qualified. “We’ve been talking about this for 10 years. It’s bad,” she said. “If a child in first grade doesn’t learn how to read, in sixth grade they won’t be able to do anything in school, they won’t be able to follow the science curriculum, they won’t be able to follow the history curriculum. They won’t be able to read the textbook.”
Mandel said he believes the county and the country are in dire straits, but that the school board lacks the sense of urgency or accountability to ask, “Why did this happen?” Stated. or “How did this happen?”
Mandel said his opponents want to campaign for the school board on “culture wars,” but his goals are social-emotional learning, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender ideology. Instead, he said, the goal is to return the focus to the fundamentals of education. She said it naturally comes to mind as part of her dissatisfaction with the state of education in the county, as there has been a lot of focus on the state of education in the county in recent years.
“In some ways, that has a little bit to do with the over-focus on LGBT stuff,” Mandel said. “But the fundamental reason I am running is because of the mismanagement and lack of urgency with the current state of the county.”
“You take a district that was already struggling, that was already behind, and you take the coronavirus, you add corruption, you add violence… There are no opportunities for children in this county, and there is no one here. “The people in charge seem to care,” she said. “There is no urgency to fix the really fundamental problems within the district because the district is focused on ideology rather than excellence.”
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Mandel also said similar frustrations are reflected in professional development for administrators and staff. She said she has personally been contacted by many teachers who are frustrated that all training focuses on inclusivity when children in their schools cannot read.
“Leftists talk about privilege…It’s a privilege in this county to have our children receive a good education in a safe environment,” she said. “All of these curriculum focuses are born of privilege. If you think it’s more important to teach kids about LGBT lifestyles in kindergarten than to teach them to read in kindergarten, you’re an extremely privileged person. You come from a place, and those things give you privilege, and you give that privilege to people who don’t share that privilege.”
The school board primary election will be held on May 14th, and two of the three women running for the same school board seat will be selected to run in the November general election.
Mandel says he’s “not the darling in this matter.” [MCPS] But people “really want people who stand up and not rubber stamp.
“I think people realize that if you want someone who won’t back down and won’t be bullied, there’s no one better suited to this county than me,” she said.
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Mandel is co-author of the 2023 book Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.
