Vote for the progressive candidates in the Salem-Keizer school board races

We live in polarized political times. School board elections are part of this dynamic. Sure, it'd be nice if candidates for the Salem-Keizer school board positions on the May 2025 ballot all could be judged individually.

But that's not the world we live in. As has been the case recently, there are two slates of candidates, progressive and conservative. A Salem Reporter story about the Zone 7 candidates for the upcoming school board election says:

As has become standard in Salem, two ideologically opposed slates of school board candidates are running in the nonpartisan races.

Mel Fuller is endorsed by Community for Salem-Keizer Schools, a coalition of union and progressive groups including the Salem-Keizer teacher union and farmworker union PCUN. The group says it’s endorsing “experienced leaders who know that students thrive when they get the support they need to meet high expectations,” and who will focus on protecting public education.

Jeremiah Radka is supported by Marion + Polk First, a conservative political action committee involved in school board and city council races. The group says its candidates focus on schools performing with “academic rigor, quality, and hands-on training” as well as bringing police back into local schools.

Here's the full slate of candidates endorsed by Community for Salem-Keizer Schools. They're the best candidates, in my opinion.

We've seen what happens when right-wing zealots take control of a school board.

Books are banned that don't fit with an extreme conservative purity test. Excessive top-down control prevents teachers from doing what they're good at, helping their students learn. Schools become fortresses, scaring students, rather than buildings with a common sense level of security.

So that's why voters should embrace the progressive slate of candidates and reject the conservative slate. We can't have the political party that wants to do away with the Department of Education and views "diversity" as a dirty word taking over the Salem-Keizer School Board.

Our students deserve better than that.