Conservative mother of six in Maryland runs for school board in blue county: 'Someone who will not back down'

Maryland mother and conservative activist Bethany Mandel is running for school board in her deep-blue county to combat what she says is a culture of corruption. 

The author, cultural commentator and mother of six known for her stance against "wokeness" currently homeschools all of her children, but decided to run for the school board for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to address what she says is a "dire" situation regarding violence, enrollment rates and low test scores in the school district.

At her local elementary school, for example, she said only 7.5% of students were proficient in English Language Arts in 2021 and because of the low proficiency scores in the district, Mandel said parents view public schools as a "last resort." One friend said she was afraid to send her children to their zoned MCPS school because in all likelihood her children, statistically speaking, would be "the only children in the room who are doing anything on grade level, whether it be reading, math or science." 

"Public schools should not be a last resort," Mandel told Fox News Digital. MCPS "used to be one of the best school districts in the country and our property taxes reflect that," but "it is no longer. A lot of that comes from the pandemic, but it also comes from … mismanagement from the school board, from the one-party rule that happens here in this county."

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While the school board race is technically nonpartisan, Mandel explained she is a registered Democrat and has been for years, because that's how to "pragmatically" participate in local democracy in a heavily blue county. 

"For a lot of them [on the school board], there's a Democratic machine … so they can use this as a stepping stone to run for another office and another office and another office and I do not want to be part of this machine," she said. "But there is a ladder that people use within this county to be on the planning board, to be on the county council, to then move on to being a legislator, and it's all in service of their own political ambitions."

"There's a five-alarm fire right now within progressive lefty people in this county because they think I'm going to take over, [but] I will be vastly outnumbered," she said. "But we need someone on the school board who will raise their hand and say: 'Is this the best use of our time, when 75% of children in the school district can't read on grade level?' and I will just keep on saying that over and over and over."

"They're afraid of that, they're afraid of someone interrupting their priority and their priority is not children," she added. "It's not their advancement. It's not their betterment. I don't know what they're doing there. "

But, Mandel said this "self-serving cycle" is only going to hurt children and their futures, especially those impacted by the learning loss that resulted during the pandemic. 

"This is going to lead to crime, it's going to lead to depression, it's going to lead to lower GDP," she said. "You name it, the societal issues that will stem from this educational crisis will impact every single person in our society."

"All of these kids in kindergarten, first, second, third grade even, were on Zoom and then behind masks, that's years of a critical window in time for learning that they have fundamentally lost and has been stolen from them … those kids are not going to recover," she added. 

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"My opponents are talking about how I'm not qualified … what they're really saying is: I homeschool my kids, and therefore I'm not qualified. But, I've been talking about this issue for a decade, and it's bad," she said. "When a kid in first grade doesn't learn how to read, when they get to sixth grade, they can't do anything in school, they can't follow their science curriculum, they can't follow the history curriculum, because they can't read the textbook."

Despite the dire state that she believes the county and the country is headed in, Mandel said there is no sense of urgency or accountability from the school board to ask: "Why did this happen?" or "How did this happen?"

While she said her opponents want to make her campaign for school board about the "culture wars," Mandel said her goal is to bring the focus back to the basics of education, not social emotional learning, diversity, equity and inclusion or gender ideology. She said that naturally comes up as part of her frustration around the state of education in the county because that's where the focus has been in recent years.

"It sort of is tangentially about the hyper focus on the LGBT stuff," Mandel said. "But the fundamental reason that I'm running is because of the mismanagement, and it's because of the lack of urgency about the state of the county." 

"The COVID stuff happened to a district that was already struggling, that was already lagging and then you add in the corruption and then you add in the violence ... the kids in this county don't have a chance, and there's no one in charge here who seems to care," she said. "There's no urgency to fix really fundamental issues in the school district and it's because they are they're focused on ideology instead of excellence."

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Mandel also said similar frustrations are reflected in the professional development of administrators and staff. She said she's had many teachers privately reach out to her about their frustration that all of their trainings are about inclusivity, when kids in their schools can't read. 

"The left talks about privilege... it's become a privilege in this county to have your children receive an adequate education in a safe environment," she said. "All of these curriculum focuses are born of privilege. If you think that teaching a child about LGBT lifestyle in kindergarten is more important than teaching that child to read in kindergarten, you're coming from a place of extreme privilege, and they are inflicting that privilege on a population that do not share that privilege."

The primary for the school board election will take place on May 14, where two of the three women running for the same school board seat will be chosen to advance to run in the November general election. 

Mandel says she is "not a beloved person in this [MCPS] county by any means," but that people are "really desperate for someone who will stand up and not be a rubber stamp. 

"I think people recognize if you want someone who will not back down and who will not be bullied, you cannot find a more appropriate person in this county than me," she said.

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Mandel is the co-author of the 2023 book "Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation."