For the Sake of the Children…and $700,000

On November 13, after only two years in the job, Abram Lucabaugh resigned as superintendent of the Central Bucks District School Board in eastern Pennsylvania.  What made this seemingly nondescript event newsworthy was that in a rather small school district, only 17,000 students in 23 schools, Lucabaugh, whose annual salary was $315,000—after an $85,000 raise in July—was awarded a monstrous $712,000 severance package by the school board.

For contrast, in nearby Philadelphia, a school district with more than 197,000 students who attend 329 schools, the superintendent’s salary is only $2,000 more than was Lucabaugh’s. 

This lofty compensation becomes even more curious because when Lucabaugh was hired in September 2021, he was hardly a man of vast experience.  In fact, he had never before been a district superintendent anywhere, nor was he bringing a reservoir of knowledge gleaned in schools across the nation.  Before his elevation, Lucabaugh, with a doctorate in “Educational Leadership and Administration” from elite Delaware Valley University, had never been more than assistant superintendent in the same district, where he had also been a high school principal for eleven years.

It would be reasonable to ask why a man with a rather prosaic background who had just been given a 40% raise to an absurdly high level of remuneration would even consider leaving his job only four months later.  Adding to the mystery is why his severance agreement included a “hold harmless” clause, protecting Lucabaugh from “any and all demands, claims, lawsuits, actions and legal proceedings brought against him in his individual capacity and/or in his official capacity as permitted by Pennsylvania law.”

The answers can be found in the November elections, in which the school board changed from a 6-3 Republican majority—the precise vote for Lucabaugh’s hire, his raise, and his severance package—to a 6-3 majority for Democrats.  Had Lucabaugh remained after the new board took office, any severance package would have been drastically reduced, and likely his bloated salary as well.  So he chose to get out while the getting was good.

Lucabaugh had been afforded this regal treatment because the outgoing board members were not just any Republicans, but rather a slate put together by a group called Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit begun in 2020 by two former Florida school board members to “Fight for Our Children” because “Power Belongs to the People.”  As they put it, “Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”  They describe themselves as “Joyful Warriors who Stand for Truth.” 

They stand for other things as well.

From their first crusade to ban mask mandates in schools, the group moved on quickly to other right wing pet causes, such as removing books from schools that offend conservative sensibilities, teaching a white-centric version of American history, pretending racial injustice is non-existent, and denying the rights of LGBTQ students.  (Laughably, the founders denied that they are in favor of banning books at the same time their home Florida chapter submitted a list of 150 books they wanted banned.)

Part of the Moms’ appeal is that they bill themselves as a grass-roots movement, “driven entirely by passionate parents,” unaffiliated with any political group and funded solely by $50 membership fees and sales of t-shirts and hats.  However, as an investigation by Media Matters uncovered, the group “appears to be using parents as pawns to advance a far-right agenda,” and “in reality, it benefits from right-wing funding and ties to traditional Republican political figures,” including Ron DeSantis. 

Nevertheless, pretending to have no other motive than protecting America’s impressionable youth proved extremely popular, allowing the group to grow to 135 chapters in 35 states, with some 56,000 members.  Their main tactic is harassment.  They “target local school board meetings, school board members, administrators, and teachers.”  After a school district has been inundated with Moms screeching about the denial of parents’ rights, the group takes aim at local elections, a tactic that has gained them control of school boards across the nation.

It doesn’t always go smoothly. The Moms’ far-right agenda often results in no shortage of outrage and legal expenses. Since they took over Central Bucks and hired Lucabaugh, the district “has spent $1.5 million on legal and public relations fees amid competing lawsuits, discrimination complaints and investigations in the past two years, including a pending suit over its suspension of a middle school teacher who supported LGBTQ+ and other marginalized students.”

What is more, as evidenced by the Lucabaugh affair, sure to end up in more expensive litigation for the school district, money that cannot be spent on the students, conservatives’ overthrow of school boards seems as much a power-and-money grab as a campaign to protect children.  Showering Lucabaugh with lucre and protecting him with a hold harmless clause will help Moms recruit other potential district superintendents, who will feel free to pursue their agenda without fear of financial loss or ending up in court.

Like some other conservative forays into local politics, the Moms’ early record of success may not last.  In addition to losing Central Bucks, in the most recent elections, as reported in USA Today, “Conservative activists pushing for parents to have more of a say in what their children are taught in school suffered a series of high-profile losses, dealing a major blow to a movement that has advocated for book bans and restrictions on classroom discussion about issues of gender and race. Voters in multiple states rejected local school board candidates backed by groups such as Moms for Liberty, choosing moderate or liberal candidates instead.”

While those results are heartening and eliminating bigotry and right-wing perversions of American history in school curricula is a step in the right direction, the overall problem remains.

Politicizing education, be it from the left or from the right, does a grievous disservice to students who will be forced to make their way in an ever more competitive world where real knowledge and genuine skills may well determine success or failure.

If these passionate Moms really want to “Fight for Our Children,” how about starting by giving them a proper education?