ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that the crises of democracy has shifted out of the global financial markets and increasingly into local-political contests, such as small town school board elections. Examining how political crises have migrated into these spaces offers rich lessons for future struggles for democracy, especially in education. The chapter examines two school boards elections in politically mixed, mid-sized US cities, one in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2013 and another in Jefferson County, Colorado in 2016. Between 2010 and 2013, the Kenosha school district followed the classic neoliberal roadmap: financial collapse provided justification to reorganize elements of the state, altering both the content of the social services and their organization. Despite the dissent among some Kenosha voters, the conservatives defeated Taube and the other union-supporting candidate in the April 2014 elections. The triumph against conservative alliances in Jeffco, Colorado provides important lessons for those of us committed to a critically democratic education for all of our children.
