Prairie State Wire

Parents advocacy group Awake Illinois is panning Democrats for getting involved in local school board and library races.

“So much for "non-partisan" huh? @GovPritzker @TheDemocrats are determined to keep their Marxist, anti-child stronghold on local government. Wake up, IL,” Awake Illinois said on Twitter.

The group linked to a post in which Gov. J.B. Pritzker is noted to have given $500,000 to influence 60 such school and library board races across the state.

"Support from donors allows the Democratic Party of Illinois to invest in party building and innovative programs that include our municipal election efforts to keep Republican extremists off of school and library boards," Democrat spokesperson Kiera Ellis said.

”We are grateful for the generosity and support from all of our contributors and volunteers across the state and country, including Governor Pritzker, which promotes the election of Democrats in every corner of our state.”

State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) urged last year that conservatives run for local school boards to retake control of education due to the state's education drifting left and bad outcomes in such highly politicized circumstances.

“The conservatives have sat around here and said, ‘well, these school board elections are nonpartisan.’ So we kind of stayed out, out of a political presence in school board races, But the Democrats haven’t,” Caulkins, who represents District 101, told the Macon Reporter.

“The Democrats haven't. They've supported their candidates and we end up with, you know, liberal, progressive socialists, school board members who then allow or promote that to the superintendents.”

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) said strong local representation is needed.

"Speaking for myself, I believe the state places far too many costly, unfunded and burdensome mandates on our educators; not to mention the heavy hand of Illinois politicians and state bureaucrats making new mandates on curriculum,” McCombie told Prairie State Wire.

“I believe in local control of schools, that school boards and administrators with input from parents are best equipped to make decisions regarding curriculum and classroom priorities for our kids’ education.”

“After all, our local school board members live in our community and are accountable to us, the voters. Unfortunately, with the state passing new mandates into law, local school districts across Illinois have no choice other than to comply. We need to begin to return control of curriculum to local school boards and administrators while always giving parents a voice in their child’s education.”