Neal McCluskey
Neal McCluskey

Last year at about this time, I reported something alarming: 2023 had set a record for values and identity-based conflicts—culture war—in public schools, according to Cato’s Public Schooling Battle Map. Today, I report good news: 2024 saw a 42 percent reduction in conflicts.
Are we entering an era of relative peace after several years of intense conflict?
Figure 1 shows the trend since 2013: fairly steady annual increases until 2019 and 2020, which saw dips, and then big increases in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The 2024 totals are well below those of 2021, 2022, and 2023. (Note that 2019 likely reflects “normal” reductions in conflicts, but 2020 is likely abbreviated because the COVID-19 pandemic struck in full force in March, at which point the overwhelming education discussion was not about how to teach history or what books were in libraries but simply how to reopen schools.)

Examining 2024 conflicts by month suggests that something might have occurred during the year that drastically curtailed conflict. As seen in Figure 2, January saw 67 battles. Had that happened every month, we would have seen roughly 800 battles—by far a record. February was lower at 47 but also constituted a record pace. The big drop seemed to come with the summer months, as one might expect with schools off, but it largely continued to remain lower thereafter.

It is not clear what happened, but in October, as the conflict slowdown started to become noticeable, I suggested several possible causes, including that the end of the pandemic cooled overall anger intensified by school district COVID-19 policies; the end of online learning kept parents from seeing objectionable things their kids were learning; there was not much contested ground left; and plain fatigue.
I also conjectured that the presidential election might have crowded out district and state education battles,  » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/public-schooling-culture-war-cooled-considerably-2024