THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 13, 1996 TAG: 9604130005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: By MAURICE R. BERUBE
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
As school systems in Virginia make the transition to elected school boards, one hopes that problems such as have surfaced in Virginia Beach can be avoided. Perhaps the experience of the community-control activists of the late 1960s, who originally succeeded in having the first elected urban school boards, may prove instructive.
One must first realize that school boards, whether appointed or elected, are composed of lay people who are not expected to be experts in school policy. Rather school boards hire a school superintendent who is, presumably, expert in the major areas of policy; namely, budget, curriculum and personnel. Nevertheless, board members make the final policy decisions. Yet school board members could profit from some training in the intricacies of school policy.
That is one of the lessons learned in the community-control struggle. In New York City, three experimental school districts were formed in 1968 with elected boards as a result of pressure from the civil-rights movement. The newly elected school board members were entering unchartered territory. A majority of them were African American and Hispanic working poor with little formal education. They were intent on improving a school system they felt had failed their children. But they needed help.
Enter the Ford Foundation. Ford granted political-science Professor Marilyn Gittell of Queens College, a major architect of the community-control movement, a $1 million grant to aid the new school districts. Gittell conceived her role, through her newly formed Institute for Community Studies, to provide research and technical assistance to the school boards. She assembled a multiracial staff of some two dozen young academics and community activists. I was her chief aide.
On budget, the institute published a 41-page primer, ``A Guide to the New York School City Budget.'' Written by Marcia Feld, a planning expert, the guide presented an overview of the New York City school budget, the process by which it becomes adopted and the ways board members - and community people as well - could influence the final product. Ms. Feld conducted a number of workshops on the budget. Consequently, new board members were able not only to ask the right questions of school administrators but also were able to obtain the right answers.
As a backgrounder, the institute published ``New York City School Fact Book,'' a 300-page tome. The fact book, assembled by Fran Gottfriend and staff, analyzed each of the 900 schools for such basic data as reading and math scores, class size, teacher/pupil ratio, teacher experience, per-pupil instructional costs, ethnic composition of students, building utilization and a host of other quantitative variables.
Other publications were on curriculum issues. Each policy area - budget, curriculum and personnel - was further explicated in a number of training workshops. In short, new board members were familiarized with the actual workings of school policy.
However, there was a crucial component to the community-control experiment that is lacking in the elected boards in Hampton Roads. Only parents with children in the public schools were permitted to vote in school elections. Thus, the major stakeholders in public education were guaranteed an opportunity to shape the education of their children. With the dismantling of the experimental districts after a bitter racial confrontation with the teachers' union, voting was opened to all citizens. The immediate result was that the succeeding board members were primarily white, male Catholic professionals with two children in parochial schools.
That latter prospect looms large in Hampton Roads. Indeed, with the involvement of the Christian Coalition in public school-board elections, one fears that the Virginia Beach school-budget crisis may pale in significance with possible school culture wars over curriculum.
Can the community-control model be applicable to suburban, middle-class school boards? One would hope so. And what agencies could ensure that school-board members be properly trained? Most probably, the best arrangement would be to contract the training to an outside agency be it university, educational watchdog group or a state school- board association. However, workshops provided by affiliates of the National School Board Association have received mixed reviews on their effectiveness.
The history of appointed boards suggests that they have had a tendency to be dominated by strong school superintendents. Elected boards bring with them an increased measure of public accountability. They also introduce a greater degree of politicization, which can be, depending on one's view, for good or ill.
Given the probable difficulties in shifting to elected school boards in Hampton Roads, the wise course for city leaders may be to provide help to those dedicated citizens in our community who are willing to serve on school boards.
KEYWORDS: ELECTED SCHOOL BOARDS by CNB