The three school-board members who were recalled this week in San Francisco were ousted not because of their progressive ideology, but because they were just plain bad at their jobs, the leaders of the recall effort told National Review on Friday.

Siva Raj and Autumn Looijen, the single parents who launched the recall, said the effort also was evidence of a renewed recognition of the importance of local politics, in San Francisco and around the country.

"The main lesson is that competence matters," Looijen said. "If you have an ideology, if you have lofty things that you want to get done, that's great. But make sure you also do your job."

Raj added that "voters of San Francisco basically said the ideology that we care about is the one that makes the biggest positive impact on the lives of our kids. All our kids."

Local school-board votes don't typically receive a great deal of attention, but Tuesday's recall in liberal San Francisco reverberated nationwide, with some painting it as a warning to progressives about the danger of focusing too heavily on identity politics at the expense of effective governance. Supporters of the recall of school-board members Alison Collins, Gabriela López, and Faauuga Moliga said that was exactly the problem with the San Francisco board.

While votes are still officially being tabulated, it seems that more than 70 percent of voters supported the recall of the board members (74 percent for López, 71 percent for Moliga, and a whopping 78 percent for Collins). They were accused of prioritizing social-justice politics — renaming schools named after prominent American figures, painting over an outdated mural, etc. — over more pressing issues, such as reopening schools and restructuring the district's finances. The district is facing a $125 million budget deficit, and state education leaders threatened to take over last year.

"I think people are starting to judge their elected officials, at least in our school system, not on whether they say a lot of pretty words and did a lot of symbolic stuff, but whether their actions actually changed the arc of people's lives," Looijen said.

Raj said he believes the recall is further evidence that people across the political spectrum are realizing the importance of local government and what one of his volunteers referred to as "pothole politics." If there are potholes in the streets, "don't focus your energy on renaming those streets," Raj said. "First, fix the potholes."

So much political engagement in recent years has been focused on national issues that “local issues have been somewhat submerged,” Raj said. “You see this in San Francisco, where a lot of people traditionally didn't pay much attention to local issues. I didn't either, until recently," he said. "Many of the things that we took for granted, foundational things, bread and butter issues, we couldn't take for granted anymore."

In the days since the recall, Collins and López have not admitted to erring in their roles by embroiling themselves in culture war battles. On Twitter this week, Collins called the recall "backlash politics" that has "emboldened more dehumanization of Black folks."

"This backlash is happening because we effectively centered unheard voices and redistributed power," she wrote, referring to a controversial board decision to replace a merit-based admissions process at the prestigious Lowell High School with a lottery as part of an intentional effort to increase the number of black and Hispanic students at the school, and to lower the number of Asian and white students.

It is amazing how powerful the need is to restrict Black, immigrant, and Native American self-determination when it results in changes for folks who benefit from the status quo. This backlash is happening because we effectively centered unheard voices and redistributed power. https://t.co/sANmadeTry

— Alison Collins 高勵思 (@AliMCollins) February 17, 2022

"So if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence," López tweeted. "Don't be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. And the support of the recall is aligned with this.”

So if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence. Don't be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. And the support of the recall is aligned with this. pic.twitter.com/HsYtQjvVeh

— Commissioner Gabriela López 🇲🇽 (@lopez4schools) February 17, 2022

Asian-American support was a critical part of the recall effort. While just about 30 percent of the San Francisco electorate cast ballots in the election, Chinese-language ballots were returned at a higher rate — about 37 percent — the New York Times reported on Friday. Anti-Asian tweets written by Collins in 2016, chastising the Asian-American community for not sufficiently talking down Donald Trump and for using "white supremacist thinking to assimilate and 'get ahead,'" contributed first to Collins’s removal from her prior position as board vice president, and then to her recall.

Many Asian Americans in San Francisco expressed concerns that they were either ignored by the board, or targeted for working hard and striving for success.

But Raj and Looijen said the recall had significant support across many groups, and crossed political, racial, and ethnic spectrums. "Every single neighborhood in the city voted in favor of recalling (Collins) and López," noted Looijen. Raj pointed out that black and Hispanic kids suffered the most during the pandemic-related school closures, which lasted longer in San Francisco than in most other large cities.

Raj and Looijen also pushed back on allegations that the recall effort was in some way driven by rich conservative donors, or that the results didn't reflect the desires of the city at large, since turnout was lower than in higher-profile elections.

López tweeted this week that the San Francisco recall is part of a narrative being pushed by Republicans across the country. Raj pushed back on that framing, citing opinion polls from last summer. Even while they were still collecting signatures to get on the ballot and before they started receiving any large donations, surveys showed general disapproval of the board, particularly among parents.

"The dissatisfaction with the school board predates us raising even a single dollar," he said.

They also noted that the number of people who voted to oust the three board members is similar to the number of people who voted for them in 2018. Collins received 122,865 votes then; as of Friday, 114,186 people had voted to recall her. Raj and Looijen noted that there are still several thousand recall votes that haven't been tabulated yet.

"We expect by the time they count [all the ballots], there will be more votes to recall these folks than to put them in the first place," Looijen said.

Raj and Looijen said they were not particularly surprised by the overwhelming results on Tuesday, because their forecasts had put support for the recall in the 70-percent range. But, Looijen added, before the results came in "you have that moment of doubt."

"Then to hear the numbers and hear them to be so overwhelming in favor of getting better leadership for our kids, it was like a big hug from the city of San Francisco," she said.

San Francisco mayor London Breed, a Democrat, now is tasked with appointing three new members to the seven-member board. Collins, López, and Moliga were the only members of the board who were eligible to be recalled. Their seats are up for grabs again in November.

Raj and Looijen are starting to gather names of potential replacements that they intend to send to Breed. They are adding a link to their website where people who are interested in a board appointment can add their name and fill out a form with screening questions.

Post-election, both Raj and Looijen said they intend to continue working as advocates on the education front, and fighting for kids who still haven't recovered from the worst of the pandemic-related restrictions. "Getting the education system on a positive trajectory is going to be critical," said Raj.