LOMPOC SCHOOL BOARD: 'CENTRIST' CANDIDATES VOW MORE OF THE SAME, LESS SCHOOL

Lompoc, the little city that could… if only its school board would let it. KEYT NewsChannel 3-12, ever diligent in its pursuit of the glaringly obvious, covered a recent candidate forum, highlighting the riveting 'face-off' between two 'centrists' for a Lompoc Unified School District seat. Apparently, the biggest political battle in town is over who can best manage the inevitable decline of test scores while ensuring gender-neutral bathrooms are adequately funded.

While the legacy media hypes manufactured drama, what's truly missing from Lompoc's education discussion is any candidate brave enough to ask why our schools are churning out more activists than engineers. Instead, we're treated to platitudes about 'student well-being' and 'educator support,' which in current bureaucratic parlance translates to 'more administrators, less actual learning.' One might think with all this focus on 'nonpartisan' harmony, they'd at least teach kids that two plus two equals four, not some 'lived experience' approximation.

What these local outlets won't tell you is that 'centrist' in today's Lompoc often means 'left of center, but not crazy enough to scare the Boomers.' The real Lompoc 'center seat' isn't on a dais; it's in the taxpayer's wallet, continually emptying to fund initiatives that do everything but improve basic literacy. Perhaps if these candidates spent less time debating the nuances of progressive pedagogy and more time on phonics, Lompoc students might actually be able to read the KEYT headlines about their future. But then again, maybe that's the point.