Editorial: Let's end culture wars in schools

The Venice Gondolier and The Daily Sun, as it does every election year, has put our editorial board to work the past few weeks interviewing candidates for local and state offices.

Our goal is to get to know them and to be able to recommend to our readers, and the community in general, who we believe might best serve them if elected. We have no political agenda, contrary to what some might believe.

If we don’t elect the best candidate, the one who has the best interests of the community they represent, it is an injustice. Simply selecting a candidate based on the party they represent surely cannot be the best way to build our communities.

In interviewing school board candidates in Sarasota and Charlotte counties and two candidates for superintendent in DeSoto County, a popular theme has arisen.

They all promise — actually demand — that we focus on our students. They pledge to take politics out of schools and end the culture wars.

Will that happen? Only time will tell.

Rich Harwood, president and founder of The Harwood Institute, has written an interesting column on eliminating culture wars in schools. He has developed a series based on his “Enough. Time to Build.” campaign, which advocates leaders to look for common agreement and build together.

It’s an interesting column, which you can read on this page. We’re going to use some of the information in that column to try to make a point about how much we hope our school leaders are sincere about focusing on the students.

Books have been at the forefront of culture wars in our schools for a couple of years. Gov. Ron DeSantis and our leaders in the Legislature and the Florida Department of Education ruled that some books in school libraries were inappropriate.

When schools began throwing hundreds of books away, things got out of hand. DeSantis said so himself.

Harwood used Escambia County, in our Panhandle, as an example.

Escambia County received national attention for banning over 1,600 books, the most by any single county in the entire country, he wrote.

Some of those books, believe it or not, were editions of the dictionary, various encyclopedias, and “The Guinness Book of World Records.” Astounding, huh?

Did any of you reading this feel those publications scarred you for life as you used them for references — long before the internet?

This movement began with good intentions. However, some school districts took it too far — either out of a need to show their political leaders they were supportive or from a fear they would be punished financially if they did not respond. You can, by the way, check what books are in each school library through an internet search.

Education culture wars are ongoing throughout our nation.

It’s time to put that on the back burner and concentrate on making sure our first through third-graders are efficient in reading and that our graduation rates are high and that students have an opportunity for a career when they do leave school.

All those goals were brought up by school board candidates and the two superintendent candidates in DeSoto County.

Bob Bennett, incumbent superintendent in DeSoto, indicated there might not be anything more important than making sure those in grades one through three are reading well.

But Harwood wrote he sees groups and organizations responding to the loudest voices and seeking to match them. They create their own group to oppose and fight existing ones; they raise money to mobilize people; they even weaponize their own agendas.

Or, maybe even worse, he said the warring causes some people to retreat and ignore what is going on in schools. That might be the worst reaction of all.

We hope voters, candidates, parents and school board members who are not up for election will take a fresh look at their agendas and make sure — whoever ends up leading the way — that students’ success is the overwhelming priority.