Last month I wrote about the Valley Forge Classical Academy’s application to start a Chester County charter school. After that, I went to VFCA’s first hearing to speak against the application, and I was not alone.
But nothing any of us said could have been more damning than the VFCA’s own presentation. The lack of preparation, the unscripted meandering, the bumbling, the inability to manage a PowerPoint presentation, it all spoke more eloquently than we could have (and some of us were pretty eloquent).
During the question-and-answer period, the applicants evinced an astonishing unfamiliarity with their own application. After three years of planning and even being afforded the opportunity to amend their application, they seemed surprised by some of the questions.
Not the hardball questions, either. “Will there be a library?” is pretty straightforward. But one founder said “yes” and another said “no.”
I honestly felt a little embarrassed for them.
Here is how bad it was: While a large number of people wearing VFCA pins, stickers, and shirts attended, after the presentation, only three actually spoke in support.
By my informal tally, 29 residents spoke against VFCA.
The responsible thing to do when you are facing a 9% favorability rating is to withdraw your application and not waste any more of anyone’s time and our tax dollars.
I am not just here to encourage residents to speak out against VFCA at their second hearing on August 1st. I also want to point out that VFCA did not arise by accident or in a vacuum. It is a symptom of something deeper in today’s politics: a reliance on the unreliable. For instance, the belief that our public schools are somehow corrupting our youth, brainwashing them into being a bunch of Marxists (whatever that means), that equity means white people must suffer, that schools are grooming kids, or secretly helping them switch genders.
The most illogical part about this belief is that Republicans here believe this is happening in West Chester, where it is obviously counterfactual.
Up until 2011, the school board was comprised entirely of Republicans, only slowly giving way to a 5-4 Republican majority in 2019. In other words, the history, social studies, and health curricula, the social and emotional learning initiatives, and the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — all the things the Very Loud People (VLP) have been carrying on about since 2020 — were implemented during the time when Republicans had control of the board.
These are not radical leftist indoctrination programs foisted upon our students by liberals. They are data-driven curricula and programs intended to foster well-rounded students and decent human beings, selected and approved by Republicans.
It has only been since 2021 — since the radical hijacking of the Republican party by the VLP — that the Democrats have taken a 6-3 majority on the board. Now, the same campaign managers that cost the GOP the majority in 2021 have turned the party against two of the remaining three Republican board members, resulting in them effectively switching parties. A loss of two more seats between elections! From a 5-4 majority to 1-8 minority in two short years.
It’s a level of incompetence that rivals VFCA’s PowerPoint skills.
And that is the lesson I want to draw here.
If you are one of the Republicans who wanted to support VFCA on the principle of school choice, and you found VFCA’s presentation as shocking as I did, you need to understand that the VLP cannot attract anyone better, because their platform is based on zero logic and even less evidence. All they can do is make running for office unappealing to anyone who would do a better job.
There are Republicans who can put aside political leanings to actually do the hard work of managing a school district (which involves surprisingly little critical race theory and gender conversion therapy and a predictably large amount of figuring out how to get lunches into the hands of students and bus routes squared away).
Two such reasonable, competent Republicans — Gary Bevilacqua and Karen Herrmann — are currently on the board and running for reelection. I urge you, Republicans, to vote for competency over noise.
The radicals can be beat: The VLP repeatedly and consistently demonstrate that they are inept and the Democrats have shown a refreshing willingness to put party aside to vote for pragmatic Republicans.
Will Wood is a small business owner, veteran, and half decent runner. He lives, works, and writes in West Chester.
