Moms for Liberty's Plan to "Light up" School Board Fizzles Out
Ah, back-to-school season in Anchorage—time for fresh pencils, crisp notebooks, and children eager to learn and further improve their reading scores. While students and educators are busily preparing for another year of growth and achievement, the very fine people of Moms for Liberty Anchorage are spending their time attempting to recruit unqualified right-wing dum dums to run for two open seats on the school board in next year's municipal election. They've also spent a lot of time trying to rally others to their cause.
Ahead of last evening's first school board meeting of the new school year, Gabby Ide, chair of the extremist group Moms for Liberty's Anchorage chapter, took to Facebook with inflammatory rhetoric. In an anti-government group, she issued a call to action, urging supporters to attend the meeting and "light 'em [the school board] up." It was a deliberate use of a phrase intended to incite aggression and hostility toward the school board but ultimately failed to ignite the "fires of liberty."
For an extremist organization, using this type of rhetoric is entirely acceptable. And, to be clear, Ide loves spewing inflammatory rhetoric, evidenced by this use of violent imagery, to depict her ongoing Parental Rights war against the non-existent evil forces she falsely claims want to separate the influence of parents over their children.
Thankfully, Anchorage residents aren't buying it. Only one person answered the call to "light up" the school board. Not even Chapter Vice-Chair Doug Weimann showed up to testify, undoubtedly because he's been focused on other, more...important things.
On Tuesday, Ide hijacked the school district's livestream of a meeting otherwise focused on academic outcomes and supporting all students. Curiously, at no time during her public testimony did she wish ASD educators, families, or students a successful school year, but instead chose to spend her three minutes spreading alternative facts and rhetoric, accusing the school district of conniving behind parents' backs, deceiving parents, indoctrinating children, and pushing a political agenda.
All of this, coming from the chapter chair of a Republican-funded hate group designed to carry out a top-down attack on public education, is pretty rich. The Heritage Foundation, which has called for the abolition of the federal Department of Education, funneled at least $25k to Moms for Liberty last year.
Wait, the Heritage Foundation? The right-wing organization behind Project 2025? The same Heritage Foundation that Donald Trump claimed to know nothing about, even though a photo released yesterday shows him with their president, Kevin Roberts, on a plane in April 2022? You betcha!
Anyway, back to the thing - despite Moms for Liberty Anchorage's desperate attempts to rally support, their social media messaging and anti-LGBT propaganda are falling flat. In a telling sign that purplish Anchorage isn't buying into the hate group's rhetoric, the organization's last ten Facebook posts have garnered exactly zero likes. Clearly, their attempts to stoke the "fires of liberty" have failed. They can't even muster the troops to a board meeting.
Why should anyone take Moms for Liberty seriously when they can't even tell the truth about the significant improvements in reading scores among Anchorage School District students? Oh, you didn't know? Well, the data speaks for itself.
At the start of the last school year, only 41% of Alaskan students in grades K-3 were meeting or exceeding literacy benchmarks. By year's end, that number had surged to 57%, with kindergarteners showing the most impressive gains, jumping from 24% to 60% by the end of the year.
The Anchorage School District not only matched but outperformed national trends. While the nation saw a 29% increase in the percentage of kids on track, ASD achieved a rather incredible 42% increase.
Our community's rejection of Mom for Liberty's efforts to dismantle public education is clear evidence that everyday Alaskans simply want public education adequately funded by the legislature and qualified teachers not run out of the state so that children receive the best possible education.
Moms for Liberty? Well, they have other plans.
