THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Some Norfolk citizens are trying to put a referendum on the November ballot that would ask voters to approve a change from an appointed to an elected school board.
If they can muster the needed 8,700 petition signatures, they are legally entitled to a vote on the issue. But it's a bad idea. First, it's unclear how an elected school board would lead to improved schools, but there are several ways it could worsen the situation.
Unless an elected school board were given taxing authority, it would have responsibility for school spending without the power to raise the needed revenues. Instead of increasing accountability, this would tend to dilute or diffuse it. Voters need to know whom to hire and fire where public spending is involved.
Unless an elected school board were chosen at large, each member could wind up pandering to his own neighborhood. In many other cities, this has been a prescription for division, rancor and demagoguery. There has been nothing edifying about the spectacle. Indeed, many critics of education think it has paid too much attention to politics and too little to pedagogy.
It is also worth asking whether an elected school board would be composed of people knowledgeable about education and the community or simply skilled at campaigning for office, exciting passions and fanning grievances. The latter, one suspects.
Some critics of the status quo think the appointive process hasn't been public enough. But it ought to be easy enough to make potential appointees available for public scrutiny before a final decision is made - at community forums or town meetings, for instance. The resort to an elected school board isn't necessary to fix that problem.
It is argued that an appointed school board is undemocratic, but that too is spurious. In our democracy, not every public servant is elected. It is enough that the buck stop with people who are subject to the voters. But that's already the case with city councils and county boards of supervisors.
Would we really want scientists at FDA or NASA to be chosen by election? How about admirals and generals? Electing judges certainly doesn't lead to better justice, and electing school board members hasn't led, where it's been tried, to better education. Indeed, those who run government boards or departments often perform best when insulated from and thus not subject to every shift in the political wind.
Norfolk's schools have their problems. If City Council doesn't appoint a School Board that proceeds to fix them, its members should be voted out of office. But creating an elected board filled with grandstanding office seekers who prosper by pitting one part of the community against another doesn't look like a solution. It looks like a brand new problem. by CNB