There is a cost to all the right-wing “culture” battles that have been waged around schools over the past few years. Real money is being wasted on chasing politically manufactured boogymen.

Attacks targeting American public schools over LGBTQ+ rights and education about race and racism cost those schools an estimated $3.2bn in the 2023-24 school year, according to a new report by education professors from four major American universities.

That $3+ billion-with-a-B is not some theoretical expense that penalizes schools, administrators, and teachers. It is paid by the community as a whole. It is money spent on lawyers, and not for the benefit of student learning.

However, no one should be under the illusion that these campaigns are “grassroots” efforts to improve education.

The school-focused campaigns, which started with claims that elementary and middle schools were harming white students by teaching critical race theory and later shifted to attacks on schools’ policies for transgender students, were nationally organized, with “common talking points” that could be traced back to conservative foundations and rightwing legal organizations, and were intensely amplified by rightwing media coverage, Rogers said.

We have some petty, evil people in this country.

The photo, which has nothing to do with the topic, shows traffic heading north on I395 just outside of DC. Everything is a blur.