More on School Boards

Last week, I wrote a post about this article in the Washington Post. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think about what is the proper role of an elected school board? This quote in particular bothered me?

From the dais of a windowless meeting room, the elected leader of Southern Maryland's largest school system strained to smile politely this week as she faced angry accusations from a teacher.

She had heard similar questions before: How can you be an advocate for the public schools when you home-school your children? Are you going to replace science books with Bibles? And why are you trying to censor classic literature? (empahsis added)

The question presented by the teacher assumes that a school board is supposed to be an advocate for public education. But is that necessarily true? How is an elected school board member more of an advocate for public education than say, the governor of a state, or the chairman of the state legislature's education committee? Why do people find that higher elected officials may chose to send their children to private schools somehow more palatable than the chairman of the local school board? Put another way, why can't a school board member send their kids to private school or homeschool the children and still be a proper school board member? These questions challenge the assumption that the school board is an advocate for public education. But if the school board is not an advocate for public education, for whom, or for what, should an elected school board advocate? Furthermore, what is the constituency of a school board and to whom does the school board owe its first duty?

Taking the last question first, from a purely electoral aspect, the voters of the district are the school board's consitutency, and the board answers, ultimately, to those voters. Because it is based on republican principles, i.e. the elected school board members are supposed to represent someone, I began to wonder who is the school board's primary constituency? Nominally, the school board represents the voters, but who are those voters? When you consider that many people do not vote on down ticket races like school board, the question is who does vote for school board members? Unfortunately, I don't know and if anyone can point to an electoral study on the subject, please let me know.

I suspect that school boards, as a population, are heavily influenced by teachers unions and, one would hope, parents. But the one constituency the school board should represent is the constituency that cannot vote, students.

Put another way, the one constituency a school board should represent is the one constituency with no voice in the process, except by proxy. The school board is responsible for setting policy designed to educate all children in the district. Matters of how those educational standards are met are properly within the scope of the school board's authority, but public education is but one method for achieving those standards. Any method authorized by the state to achieve education ends should be supported by the school board, including homeschooling.

The implicit problem faced by school boards like that in Charles County Maryland is that school boards with a conservative membership run counter to the liberal orthodoxy espoused by teachers' unions. But a conservative school board with an open mind about educational alternatives may be more successful at their overall goal, ensuring all kids get a high quality education. In the end, the school board can be judged only by the effectiveness of its policies on the education of kids. Regardless of the political affiliations or educational choices school board members make for their own kids, the only standard to judge a board by is how successful they are at serving their primary constituency, namely the students of the district. Everything else is hot air.