Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 18, 1990                   TAG: 9006180188
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SHELLEY ROLFE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

APPOINTED BOARDS WORKING WELL

Everywhere in the state, city and county alike, board members are appointed - by commissioners named by judges or by local governing bodies.

The article in the paper - this was the big news, of course - also reported that the U.S. Supreme Court let stand without comment a 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that appointing school board members does not produce unlawful discrimination against blacks.

Question: Wonder how the federal courts would have ruled 15 or 20 years ago?

Brief history lesson:

When the state's first post-Civil War constitution was adopted, there was no question that appointing school boards was looked on as one way to keep blacks far removed from the levers of power.

And there was the 1901 constitution which, in retrospect, represents a low-water mark for the state.

In 1901, appointed school boards again were meant to keep blacks in their place as was the adoption of harsh segregation laws and the approval of a poll tax that, as it happened, disenfranchised poor whites as well as blacks.

All of which led to a constitutional convention exchange that lives in Virginia's annals. "This is discrimination," said a convention delegate. To which an architect of the constitution, Carter Glass, who was to earn a place in history as a father of the Federal Reserve System, replied, "We mean to discriminate."

But that was then and this is now.

I am not naive enough to suggest that racism has been eliminated entirely in the selection of school board members. Man has not yet achieved perfection.

But I do believe many white Virginians in the past couple of decades have begun to realize and rectify mistakes of the past. Exhibit A would be the presence of Doug Wilder in the governor's office.

And I do not believe that electing school boards would greatly increase the number of blacks serving on them. Blacks make up about 18 percent of Virginia's population. About 18 percent of the members of local school boards are black.

If we elected school boards, we might have a few more blacks serving on boards in Southside.

But I don't think that is reason enough to change the system statewide. To fall back on what has become a politician's cliche: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Appointed school boards ain't broke.

People who favor appointing school boards like to say - now that we can begin to put away racial reasons - that this shields board members from politics.

Good point. We have the General Assembly appointing state judges for the same reason. Suppose judges had to go out and raise campaign money and run in a general election. The possibility for conflicts-of-interest boggles the mind.

All right, so if you want to be a member of a school board you don't have to stand in an election and maybe make extravagant promises that can't possibly be kept. But aside form isolation from politics, appointed board members can stand aloof from whatever happens to be the most popular pressures of the moment.

And nationally, the popular pressures generally deal with cutting money for schools. As Casey Stengel used to say, you can look it up.

In some states, it is called a taxpayers' revolt. Those in revolt probbly do not have children in the public school system and have no regard for social costs and responsibilities. So, school-board members are elected who do not think much of providing money for schools.

An appointed school-board member doesn't directly face these pressures. He or she hopefully can make sound decisions without having to wonder: Will this get me re-elected?

And the potential for pressures does exist in Virginia. When candidates for county commissioners or city councils appear at forums, they are likely to hear from at least one voter - generally an older one - who looks on school expenditures as a reason he or she can't get taxes cut.

The state's public schools are constantly improving. But clearly there is a lot of fixing still to be done. So let's not stand in the way of the repairs by debating how school-board members are selected. Let's just hope that the appointed members believe that first-rate educational opportunity is one of the great boons state and local government can bestow on its people.