All Politics & Education Is (Becoming) More Local – Top 3 Takeaways

All Politics & Education Is (Becoming) More Local – Top 3 Takeaways – September 7th, 2022 

1. All politics is local. While the phrase was popularized by former House Speaker Tip O’Neill in the 80’s, the saying itself dates back to the Great Depression in the early 1930’s. Conceptionally it makes sense (in the way originally advanced, as opposed to the premise of Tip O’Neill), practically it never has. If local politics were so truly important to us, election turnout would reflect it. The last year turnout in local elections even rivaled turnout in other election cycles was 1968. And what’s happened since? The divergence between local elections and federal elections has only grown. Using Florida as the guide, here’s turnout most recently based on election type. Presidential election: 77%, Midterm & State Elections: 63%, Local only elections: 18%. It’s clear that the larger the election the more we collectively care. Now practically, we should care equitably about local politics as we do our federal politics, hence my saying that all elections have consequences, though it's those closest to you which often have the biggest impact on your daily life. The reason I’ve brought this up today is that we could be on the verge of seeing a bit of a swing back towards somewhat more local politics mattering more to voters. If anything were to serve as a catalyst shift towards increased importance of state elections the pandemic would be it. And it appears, as we’re now getting down to brass tax time politically in advance of this year’s midterm elections, pandemic policy is showing up in the polls. An interesting phenomenon that’s playing out across the country in polling right now, is that in every state, including Florida - in which there is a governor’s race and a senate race... 
2. The Republican candidate for governor is performing better than the Republican candidate for senate. And the average difference between the two is about five points. You can take it or leave it when it comes to the polls themselves but what’s always interesting is when you have somewhat significantly different polling results between same party candidates for different races within a given control group. And when literally all polls in all states are saying the same thing, that Republicans are performing better at the state level than within federal races, it shows that local politics is in focus more than it has been in previous cycles. There’s also a likely realization that during the peak of the pandemic, generally speaking, Democrats equaled lockdowns while Republicans equaled the opportunity to live of our lives. So, if you wondered what the impact of pandemic policy at the state level looks like this midterm cycle – that's it. A Republican advantage of about five points in those races and what appears to be a specifically elevated interest in politics at the state level by some this cycle. What this may mean is that for the first time, in a long time, it could be state and local issues which matter most to voters and perhaps in part because we’ve seen just how local even economic policy during a pandemic can be.  
3. Rewriting history. Like politics there are a lot of sayings about history. None more profound than history tends to repeat itself and those who don’t know it are doomed to repeat it. It’s for that reason that the history of what teachers' unions did to influence and in various ways derail education during the pandemic be known. In an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal, in response to a recent critical editorial published in the Journal, Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers – parent to all teachers' unions in the state of Florida, had this to say: Teachers deserve our ear and our help, not shame and blame. Randi, who recently compared the actions of teachers to first responders during the pandemic, attempted to rewrite the history behind what actually happened, and in many cases didn’t, in public education during the pandemic. Blaming Trump administration officials for remote learning and crediting the Biden administration for reopening schools. It’s like the Bizzaro world because it was none other than her union which demanded schools be closed, demanded remote learning only education (only relenting last fall), and still demanding mandatory masking of all teachers and students (proven to significantly inhibit learning and educating) – which she even coerced the CDC into recommending last school year after the CDC’s original guidance dropped a masking recommendation. As I stated in March during the debate over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation... 78% of Florida’s public-school teachers are members of a union whose parent is the American Federation of Teachers. The teachers' unions repeatedly sued to keep classroom education closed in Florida all throughout the fall of 2020 – only ending the effort in January of 2021 after having lost a series of legal decisions over the course of six months. As my February 2021 analysis revealed... Kids have been far more likely to contract COVID-19 outside of schools than in them. In fact, children who were remote learning, as opposed to going to the classroom for education, contracted COVID-19 at a rate that was three times higher than those who were remote learning. This is on top of the fact that fewer than 20% of students who engaged in remote learning maintained the same level of learning as those in the classroom. So, you had Florida’s teachers sue for six months to attempt to provide lower quality education, worse results for students and higher COVID-19 contagion risk. But already that history is being attempted to be rewritten, ironically by those tasked with teaching it.