To the editor:

When everything is political, society is in big trouble. We ought to be able to agree that some of our foundational institutions should not be governed by partisan politics, and public education should find itself at the top of that list. Look what happened when partisan politics took over the CDC: We now have a huge number of citizens who distrust vaccines and get their public health information from dubious sources. Because parents won’t get their kids vaccinated, we are seeing deadly outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles and chickenpox.

Amendment 1 on the November ballot would make district school board elections partisan beginning in 2026. This is ironic because voters mandated in 1998 that those races be nonpartisan. What’s happened to make a change necessary? Certainly, over the past few years we have seen partisan politics creeping into education, but is this a good thing? The results have been book banning, the whitewashing of the history curriculum, and anti-LGTBQ policies.

Most parents trust educators, not politicians, to make wise, informed decisions about their children’s education. There is no evidence children were harmed in the absence of these recent policies driven by partisan politics. We should vote for school board members on the basis of their commitment to support teachers and administrators in their efforts to educate children, not on their zeal to advance some partisan political agenda.

Ray Clasen

North Fort Myers