Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #158

By

Samuel Wonacott

Welcome to Hall Pass, a newsletter written to keep you plugged into the conversations driving  school board governance, the politics surrounding it, and education policy. 

In today’s edition, you’ll find:

  • On the issues: the debate over Donald Trump’s (R) executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) in schools
  • In your district: Improving low-performing schools
  • School board filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications
  • Listen to Georgetown University’s Marguerite Roza discuss school district budget challenges on Ballotpedia’s On the Ballot podcast
  • U.S. Supreme Court deadlocks over religious charter school case
  • Extracurricular: education news and numbers from around the web
  • Candidate Connection survey

Reply to this email to share reactions or story ideas!

On the issues: The debate over Donald Trump’s (R) executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) in schools

In this section, we curate reporting, analysis, and commentary on the issues school board members deliberate when they set out to offer the best education possible in their district. Missed an issue? Click here to see the previous education debates we’ve covered.

ChatGPT was released in late 2022, giving the world its first glimpse at the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Suddenly, students could lean on a single app to write essays, code software, and answer questions. Since then, ChatGPT, Claude, and other generative AI platforms improved, becoming better writers, sharper coders, and more reliable guides on  myriad topics. As the tools improved, more students and teachers reported using them. Recent surveys suggest that roughly three-quarters of students—and nearly as many teachers—regularly use AI. 

AI is now a central concern in K-12 education policy debates. 

On April 23, President Donald Trump (R) issued an executive order titled Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth. Among other things, the order states that it is the policy of the U.S. to “promote AI literacy and proficiency among Americans by promoting the appropriate integration of AI into education,” establishes a White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education, and directs U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to prioritize grants for teacher AI training. 

What are the arguments?

Jessica Grose writes AI will hurt critical thinking and reduce student trust in the education system. Grose says social development is one of the most important elements of learning and AI will hinder such growth by reducing or eliminating human connection.

Sid Dobrin says AI in K-12 schools is necessary to keep up with foreign adversaries like China. Dobrin says AI literacy will be necessary for the next generation to succeed. He compared the need for such instruction to the need for education restructuring after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957.

Read on

A.I. Will Destroy Critical Thinking in K-12 | Jessica Grose, New York Times

“Personally, I do not trust [Secretary of Education Linda] McMahon to responsibly administer anything having to do with A.I. when she repeatedly confused A.I. with A1, the steak sauce, in a speech this year. … If A.I. is carelessly incorporated all the way down to pre-K, it will be a horrible mistake. It could inhibit children’s critical thinking and literacy skills and damage their trust in the learning process and in one another. … I feel like a broken record saying this, but I still cannot believe that after living through the school closures of 2020-21, our policymakers continue to underestimate the importance of human connection, especially in primary school. Parents definitely understand how important social development is, and according to a Gallup poll from March, many parents felt their children were still struggling. … Despite what some tech leaders say, nothing about A.I. is inevitable. Humans are making decisions about its use every day, and we need to convince the ones in charge of our schools — especially our elementary schools — that the zealous embrace of the latest tech is not the way forward.”

Is This Our ‘Sputnik’ Moment for AI in K-12? | Sid Dobrin, Government Technology

“The need for artificial intelligence-based K-12 education reform has never been greater, and President Donald Trump’s April 23 executive order, Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, will be pivotal for maintaining our global competitiveness. … Leadership across government, education and industry in the U.S. must collaborate to develop a nimble strategy for providing students with the fundamental AI literacy skills needed to excel in this emerging AI-driven environment, and doing so may require a nationwide paradigm shift in our approach to education. It is clear that, in the worldwide AI landscape, China is the primary competitor when it comes to education, and the U.S. needs to keep pace. … It is a moment akin to the restructuring of the U.S. education system following the 1957 Sputnik launch and the subsequent 1958 National Defense Education Act, which provided substantial federal funding to improve science, mathematics and foreign language education in schools at all levels. This is our Sputnik moment.”

In your district: Improving low-performing schools

We recently asked readers the following question: What strategies should districts use to turn around low-performing schools?

Thank you to all who responded. Today, we’re sharing a handful of those responses. We’ll return next month with another reader question. Click here to see all responses to this question, as well as to view older surveys. 

A school board member in California wrote:

Providing structure-based high interest lessons where teachers are facilitators engages students because they also have a stake in their own learning. This worked for my low-performing students and public school.

A retired teacher in Texas wrote:

Teachers need to be in charge. Parents need to be parents. All phones need to be locked up so that students focus on learning and not social media.

A community member and former school board candidate in Texas wrote: 

Make the schools more accessible and accountable to the parents and taxpayers who which [sic] to visit and see the children’s scores and performance in the 3 R’s. 

A school board candidate from Michigan wrote: 

Adopt phonics, no social advancement, handwriting and math memorization. Keep honors and advanced classes.

A community member from South Carolina wrote: 

I truly believe that technology has a part to play in low-performing schools. Low-performing schools, and frankly all schools, should go back to analog ways of teaching. No phones from bell to bell. Computers only in computer class. Not only has it been shown that using pencil and paper leads to greater knowledge retention, but students start fights on purpose in order to capture them for social media, which cause a very disruptive learning environment for all students. Removing technology, especially for elementary school is part of the solution to getting kids back on track.

A school board member from California: 

Get rid of 1:1 tech and go back to effective teaching strategies that foster relationships, safety, and mental well-being

School board update: filing deadlines, election results, and recall certifications

In 2025, Ballotpedia will cover elections for more than 30,000 school board seats. We’re expanding our coverage each year with our eye on covering the country’s more than 80,000 school board seats.

  • June 15—Texas (runoff elections)
  • Aug. 5—Kansas

Click here to learn more about this year’s school board elections. 

Listen to Georgetown University’s Marguerite Roza discuss school district budget challenges on Ballotpedia’s On the Ballot podcast

This week, Dr. Marguerite Roza —Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University—joined On the Ballot for a wide-ranging discussion on school finance and the budget challenges K-12 districts are grappling with this year. Host Norm Leahy and Dr. Roza explain how education funding works, who makes key budget decisions, what parents and community members should know about how school boards allocated education dollars, and whether districts can expect less federal funding this year.  

Here an excerpt from the conversation:

On ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) and the fiscal cliff

Roza: A lot of districts started shrinking about five years ago, and that’s because birth rates have been down and there were fewer kindergartners, and first graders, and second graders. And instead of shrinking, all this money came from the federal government. So [districts] said, “we don’t have to shrink right now—this is great. We can keep all these excess staff that we have, maybe even hire some more because we got all this federal money.” And then—bam!—the federal money ran out, because it was always one-time money. And so this is the year where many districts are having to reconcile with the fact that they have too few kids to sustain the operations they have and too many staff. So, a lot of them are doing layoffs. We see that across the country. Many more are doing a hiring freeze, and hoping that staff attrition—so when staff normally leave—that that will help them shrink their operations and that’s leaving openings in some schools that they’re not filling.

Click here to listen to this episode on YouTube. You can also find it on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

U.S. Supreme Court deadlocks over religious charter school case

One of the most anticipated K-12 education cases of the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) 2024-25 term, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, ended in a rare 4-4 tie, leaving the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision in place. The case concerned whether Oklahoma violated the U.S. Constitution when it approved the country’s first religious charter school.

We covered the case in detail in the April 23 education of this newsletter. 

Here’s a quick update. 

Why it matters: The 4-4 decision means that Oklahoma can’t establish the country’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school. When SCOTUS deadlocks, the decision of the lower court stands. The lower court in this case is the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled in 2024 that Oklahoma violated the state constitution when it approved the charter application for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. 

  • Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, offering no explanation as to why.
  • The brief, unsigned opinion did not tell us how the eight justices who participated in the case voted. 

History of the case: The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved an application for St. Isidore in 2023. According to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, St. Isidore’s curriculum was to be puposely rooted in Catholic teachings and doctrines.

  • Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) sued the board, writing that he was protecting religious liberty and opposing state-sponsored religion.
  • The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 6-2 that “religious charter schools violate the state’s constitution, which prohibits state funding for the ‘use, benefit or support of a sect or system of religion.’”

Drummond’s lawsuit put him at odds with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who supports religious charter schools. Drummond announced he’s running for governor in 2026. Stitt is term-limited. 

  • The case divided charter school advocates. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools opposed the decision to approve St. Isidore of Seville, arguing charter schools are and ought to remain nonsectarian public schools. Classical Charter Schools of America said that Oklahoma’s approval of St. Isidore’s application was correct because the fundamental purpose of charter schools is to provide flexible alternatives to traditional public education.

Reactions: 

  • Drummond said, “The Supreme Court’s decision represents a resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding.”
  • Stitt said, “This 4-4 tie is a non-decision. Now we’re in overtime. There will be another case just like this one and Justice Barrett will break the tie.”

SCOTUS context: The nation’s highest court has deadlocked on fewer than 1% of cases since it convened for the first time in 1790. The last time the judges on the court were evenly split was in 2021 in LeDure v. Union Pacific Railroad Company. Justice Barrett recused herself from LeDure because she previously participated in the case in 2020 as a judge on the 7th Circuit before it—and she—reached SCOTUS.   

Ballotpedia maintains encyclopedic pages on every SCOTUS case going back to the 1790s. 

Here’s what is next for K-12 education at the Court: The justices will rule on additional cases that touch on schools this term. 

Extracurricular: education news from around the web

This section contains links to recent education-related articles from around the internet. If you know of a story we should be reading, reply to this email to share it with us! 

Take our Candidate Connection survey to reach voters in your district

Today, we’re looking at survey responses from the two candidates who ran in the May 20 election for Position 7 on the Centennial School District 28J school board, in Oregon. Position 7 is an at-large seat. 

Incumbent Pam Shields and Rudie Watzig ran in the election. Unofficial results show Shields leading Watzig 60-39%. Shields was first elected in 2023. 

Centennial School District 28J is located east of Portland within Multnomah County. Four seats were up for election this year. 

Here’s how Shields answered the question, “What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?”

“For me, it is showing up. Over the years we have had board members running for a board position to further a political aspiration or to champion a cause. The reality is there are seven elected who must attend to the business of the district, together. Working together in the best interest of our students is our primary job. Not to promote themselves, their singular view point, or to grandstand. Our job is to stand firm in doing the best by our students, by our community.”

Click here to read the rest of Shields’ responses. 

Here’s how Watzig answered the question, “What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?”

“The primary job of a school board member is to be a champion for students. Our role is to help ensure every student has access to the best academic outcomes possible by supporting strong teaching, innovative programs, and opportunities that prepare them for the future. School board members must also help build a strong, connected community by listening to parents, staff, and residents, and making decisions that reflect those voices. This is about more than governance — it’s about creating positive outcomes through student-centered leadership that puts kids first in every decision we make.”

Click here to read the rest of Watzig’s responses.