Politics, corruption, and public education: three words you might never think go together. However, they have never been more intertwined.

***I will mostly be focusing on the corruption surrounding public schools since all of them have similar ways of running/funding/ruling the school. However, this doesn’t mean private and charter schools are error-free, rather since they are individual, independent entities, it’s harder to cover the overall corruption since each school differs drastically.***

Public schools are run, in essence, by the public. And, as a result, the public has many opinions regarding how the schools should be run. This means public schools are continuously influenced by politics, regardless of whether or not they want to be.

The current debate surrounds what schools should and shouldn’t teach. Left-leaning folks have argued for the “1619 Project” and a “basket of policies dubbed as critical race theory”, while right-leaning folks have argued for “parental controls” and “parent rights”.

Since public schools are funded by the public and under rules/regulations from the federal government, many groups have lobbied for different policies to be enforced in public schools. Sometimes candidates are funded by big donors and, as a result, adopt a stance that subtly supports the donor’s goal. Some candidates even receive funds from teacher unions. For example, Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign “raked in just over $232,000” from teacher unions.

Networkforpubliceducation.org does a ranking on “Public Schooling in America: Measuring Each State’s Commitment to Democratically Governed Schools” each month. It’s based off of four categories: privatization laws, homeschooling laws, financial support for public schools, and the freedom to teach and learn. PA ranked #19 with an overall C grade.

March 2024 State Public School Rankings | Image Credits: Newworkforpubliceducation.org

Understanding the political environment and debate surrounding public schools is important in order to understand why a school functions/teaches/is funded the way that it is.

Corruption exists both within the school and amongst the funding discussions outside of the school. Although America is a democracy, D.C.’s political life isn’t known to be the most transparent. D.C.’s politics often result in behind-the-scenes deals, which often leads to corruption in a school’s funding, curriculum, or staffing.

School district corruption often plays out like high school drama, plus a few million dollars in scandals. School board members are usually unpaid volunteers who serve on a board to help run a school. However, there have been many (unfortunate) incidences of school board members embezzling thousands or even millions of dollars that were intended to help support students.

Oftentimes, school board members misuse their positions to help their friends or contacts gain positions. Additionally, school board members have used their power to enforce their personal beliefs – regarding what religious clubs can or can’t exist within a school, or what curriculum “best suits” each subject – onto their school communities. Unfortunately, most of these occurrences aren’t frequently publicly written about. I would encourage you to do some investigative research and see if you can uncover any corruption at schools in your area.

Next blog, we will try to understand why some public-school districts are considered “better” or “worse” than others.