Standing Up For Public Education in Plano, Texas

In the spring of 2023 in Plano Texas a slate of pro-public education, common-sense candidates won their races for school board. This, despite the fact that extremists had supported a competing slate with expert communications and strategy help.

In this episode, we hear from Michael Cook, Tarrah Lantz, and Katherine Chan Goodwin, who joined together on a slate formed by a local non-partisan organization, Keep Plano #1.

Keep Plano #1 had been formed to support the “best candidate,” not party labels, according to Steve Lavine, the president. And he urged the three to run together to have the best possible chances of defeating the three candidates who were backed by extremists--as well as three other candidates who could have been spoilers.

Katherine Chan Goodwin had run and lost in 2021, and she had spent the intervening two years getting better known in the community. Tarrah Lantz was known as “Ms. PTA” for the years of working as a PTA mom. Michael was propelled into the race after he and his wife—among the only African Americans in the audience—were heckled and insulted at an anti-critical race theory forum led by a sitting school board member (called trustees in Texas). The Dallas Morning News ran a front page story about the incident.

Michael had a lot to learn about schools and education and about running for office. To prepare, he met with every school board member and city council member who would meet with him and participated in the Dallas-based Leadership ISD. He thought deeply about the message he would convey—that he was running to improve student achievement—and the kind of campaign he would run. He spoke to any group that would have him, including some groups that were initially hostile. But his list of issues won over some who initially thought him too “liberal.” (To hear Michael’s message, listen to 14:03-19:27)

All three were worried about the extremist threat to Plano’s school board.

Extremists had taken the majority in nearby Southlake Carroll and in Frisco, and were causing division and banning books.

Tarrah Lantz even warned voters about it in her first mailer in a gray box above the address.

By the time they got to the last 30 days of the campaign the coordination of the three campaigns paid off—together with their volunteers, the three candidates were able to knock on thousands of doors, leaving doorhangers with all of their names. And they were able to cover every polling place throughout the voting period.

They all won, and Michael won a majority—a real triumph in a three-person race.