State Board of Education: Ann Eubank’s political interests started with anti-Common Core drive

Ann Eubank is a Republican candidate for District 3 on the Alabama State Board of Education. (Contributed)

This is one in a series of profiles of Alabama State Board of Education candidates. Read the profiles to date here.

Ann Eubank started going to the Alabama Statehouse in 2010 to protest Common Core, standards aimed at providing consistency in state educational standards around the country.

“So I went to the Legislature and I started fighting there,” she said. “And I’ve been there since then.”

Eubank said she has not been able to make the change she has hoped for on the outside of the system, so she’s going to try to do so from the inside.

Ann Eubank

Age: 75

Profession: Retired

Education: A.A., Jefferson State Community College, political science, 2012.

Party: Republican

Offices held/ sought: First run for public office

Eubank, a Republican, is running to represent District 3 on the State Board of Education. The district runs through the middle of the state and includes parts of both Montgomery and Jefferson counties. Incumbent Stephanie Bell, a Republican, decided not to run again after nearly three decades on the board.

Eubank said that she decided to run to stop the “Marxification of education,” quoting James Lindsay, a right-wing author who appears in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Extremist Files, which cite his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and racism.

Eubank said that Common Core was a part of the transformation of America, and she said it lowered standards.

“In order to close the gap, everybody had to become common, and nobody could be taught better than anybody else,” she said.

Eubank said she was interested in implementing a curriculum like the Hillsdale education model, a classical Christian education. Eubank said that this model was based in fact, not emotion.

Hillsdale charter schools have become more popular in recent years, especially in red states like Tennessee. Hillsdale College is a conservative, private school in Michigan.

“The woke policies, the sexual revolution policies, that’s not what public school is for,” she said. “Public school is to teach children history, math, and how to read so that they can be a productive citizen. That’s what I want.”

The Alabama House of Representatives Wednesday approved a voucher-like program that would extend up to $7,000 in tax credits for households to use on non-public education expenses, including private school tuition and tutoring.

Eubank said she supported education savings accounts but was working through the practicalities of this year’s legislation from the governor.

“I think it’s a parent’s God-given right to educate their children, as they see fit,” she said.

Eubank’s top three priorities for the district are more teachers and fewer students in the classroom; fewer school administrators, which she said distracts from the focus of teachers in the classroom; and less paperwork for teachers from the federal government.

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