David Lentini is a lawyer and school board member in Maine. I am always happy to read his informed comments. In this one, he responds to an earlier post that explained that the radical group ALEC is trying to bypass and extinguish local school boards in their pursuit of privatization.
Lentini writes:
I’ve been sounding this alarm for a long time now; it’s good to see other, more expert, commentators reaching the same conclusion.
Still, as a school board member I also fear there are many ways boards will disappear ALEC or no. Too many boards are under siege trying to balance state and federal budget cuts, increasing child and family poverty, parents and unions with unrealistic expectations, and a “school-industrial complex” that has become the province of administrators and consultants who dominate discussions with technical gobbledegook. Boards are thus left with fighting nasty, frustrating battles and having little to no direct impact on setting educational policy.
This year, my board is losing two members who have lost patience with the process. Another member who was just re-elected has openly expressed regret for returning, and I doubt I’ll run for re-election. The trend over the decades to treat education as a science (which is false), the increasing centralization at the state and federal level created by more and more funded and un-funded mandates, and the inability of the public to really confuse education with jobs-training, will, I fear, kill local control sooner than later.
To keep our local boards, we then have to acknowledge that local control has a real function in defining education that must be respected. We need to remove the noise of the politicians and “experts” who hawk faddish policies, ideas, and technologies as educational silver bullets. Most of all, we need to return to an understanding of the function education that is broader than just “getting a good job”.
Education is about creating and maintaining a culture; that’s why local control is so important. Only local boards can identify and define the issues of their communities and define educational policies to meet those issues. The question is do we want to hold on to this vision?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Maine has a governor just like we do here in Louisiana, so Maine teachers are on their way to the fresh hell we’ve experienced! It’s starting with budget cuts… Of public schools of course. Because there’s always money for charters. And vouchers. Then the governor will try to find the fastest way to close schools. Because flawed evaluation systems don’t work fast enough, he will have to learn John White’s “new math” and fudge the SPS scores so that vouchers will have to be given to kids in all of Maine’s new “failing” schools! It’s ALEC and Broad’s 1-2 punch on how to take public education away from the citizens and out of the state budget. And Arne Duncan and Obama are just letting it happen! What the hell is Arne actually paying attention to these days? Basketball season is over, so we know he’s not busy watching the Bulls! Geez…
David Letini is right when he points out the siege elected boards face today. My last three years as Superintendent (2008-11) were far and away the most difficult as the three districts I led faced daunting budget challenges and lots of contract headaches as a result. Instead of planning aggressively for the future we found ourselves retrenching and defending elective offerings at the high school and extra-curriculars.
As one who served as superintendent for 29 years in 6 states (including ME in the early 1980s) with at least 56 different boards (New England has multiple-board school units), I have seen the pros and cons of many governance structures and worked with hundreds of board members. Clearly the worst governance structure is turning the district over to politicians (see Philadelphia, NYC, Chicago). But I’m sure your readers know that not all school boards have the interest of children at heart. I DID work with one board who took pride in the fact they did not hire Kindergarten, music or art teachers, or have a librarian, AND had large class sizes because their taxpayers were overburdened and—(this MAY have been a coincidence)— knew that if they hired one more teacher they’d have to allow a union to form. I also worked as a building level administrator for a Board that had a majority of parochial school parents who wanted to keep a lid on public school expenditures because they didn’t want to “have to pay twice” for education. These negative Boards I described did turn over, but the damage done was lasting. 95% of the board members I worked with were selfless and hardworking advocates for public education who tried to strike a balance between the needs of the system and the pocketbooks of the taxpayers. I hope that David Letini will hang in there and recruit some colleagues who share his passion!
One of the worst lessons from districts under mayoral or state control is that there tends to be no provision built in for getting the district back, once it’s gone, and with democratic representation on an elected school board –very much like what happens when public schools are handed over to charters. Thus, we see cities like Chicago under mayoral control for 18 years –without any evidence of resulting improvement, but the mayor and his crony appointees are not held accountable.
Unlike in DC, where mayor Fenty was voted out of office due to Michelle Rhee’s unpopular authoritarian rule over the schools, in Chicago, when people elected the mayor in the past, they’ve tended to forget that they were also voting for the person in charge of the schools, as well as his appointed CEO/superintendent and school board cronies. Plus our last mayor, Daley, was entrenched in that position for 22 years (much like his father had been in the 50s – 70s).
Many Chicagoans today want an elected school board, since we’ve never actually had one, because the state school code has long had different requirements for Chicago than for all other districts. However, Rahm, our elected mayor since Daley retired two years ago, as well as machine politicians in the City Council who rubber stamp whatever the mayor wants, prevented even a proposal for having an elected school board from being a measure that all citizens could vote on in the last election.
The select wards that were permitted to vote on this were overwhelmingly in favor of it –which is probably why Rahm et al. didn’t want there to be a vote. You can be sure that, in future elections, we will be reminding people how votes for Rahm and those who approve whatever he wants are votes AGAINST their own democratic representation and, hopefully, we will do a Fenty/Rhee overturn here as well…
The bad news is that yet another Daley brother, who had previously been working for Obama in DC, announced this week that he will be running for governor of IL. This is not a viable alternative for those of us who are very displeased with our current governor, Quinn, for deciding to resume funding of the multimillion dollar grant to UNO charter schools, while the corrupt Juan Rangel remains CEO of UNO and refuses to step down voluntarily.
You were a superintendent?
Much respect for you!
We live in scary times and yes I am constantly questioning how “democracy” is evolving (want to say regrettably .. being ripped away). Prince George’s County is so fraught with cronyism, nepotism and shady dealings that it was easy for a complete take-over by the county executive to happen. He has no education experience but is able to appoint the board members so that he has an advantage when it comes time to a vote. He fixed the rules so that he could appoint the superintendent of schools and chose his brother-in-law (to be “fair” his sister is divorced from the new superintendent). No concern for parents, teachers, students and PG administrators was addressed. The actions were swift. I am guessing that what happened in PG is just symptomatic of what is coming to other districts in various states around this nation. Sad to see. If something is truly “on board” there would not be a need for this “sweep in quick” mentality. There would be town meetings and such.
The next step is to get rid of those market distorting child labor laws and turn schools into cheap Bangladesh style sweatshops which is exactly the business model of the Harold Birch Vocational School in Providence, Rhode Island. This vanguard operation segregates special needs students into “sheltered workshops” where the school contracts with private businesses to perform menial work for 50 cents to two dollar/hour.
“One former student stated that she was required to spend a much greater portion of her school day in the workshop, including full days, when the workshop had important production deadlines.”
http://www.alternet.org/rhode-island-school-forces-disabled-kids-work
Out with democracy and bring back indentured labor is the new motto.
It is not only ALEC, Jebbie’s Chiefs have the same agenda.
http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/boards-eye-view/2011/chris-cerf-takes-on-education-governance.html
Duncan has this agenda, too –with mayoral control comes mayor appointed school boards and mayor appointed CEOs/Superintendents, which is how Duncan, a non-educator, got his career in education. One can assume Obama supports this as well: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/arne-duncan-mayors-schools-033109.html
The school board in my community follows an ALEC agenda and as such is extremely difficult to support. Is the issue more about local control or more about local control that is trying to do something remarkably different with public education
ALEC = ??
Not up to date on this group
Neanderthal, if you want to learn about ALEC, which represents corporate interests, read the website “ALEC exposed”
ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council. They write “model” legislation in support of conservative and corporate agendas, which politicians then propose in their state houses. They operated very secretively for decades and the public knew nothing about them until Trayvon Martin was killed and it came out that they had authored the Stand Your Ground legislation.
Definitely watch Bill Moyers’ “The United States of ALEC”: http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-united-states-of-alec/
When you give up they win by default. This is just what they want as they have patience. They are after the big cookies. You have to be tougher than they are and arm yourself with the documented facts and confront them with the facts and the fairy tales they tell with the proof of such. This melts them down. The problem is that almost no one seems to do this especially in the budgets. Want to be dangerous to them learn the budget.
Louisiana had a bill that passed the senate and died in house committee– the goal of it was to increase power to school principals and divest school boards. I immediately thought of ALEC.
By the way, it died by only a single vote.
http://theadvocate.com/news/education/6107321-123/new-authority-for-principals-fails
It seems to me that in some states there are too many school districts, but having the state control all districts is simply not manageable. In Ohio we have 613 districts now. I think we had 614. In some cases it would be better to pool some resources and share. We do have county Educational Services Centers. We do have various districts that work within consortia. However, our state’s “governor” has run his entire campaign upon lowering state taxes by slashing government programs and dumping the burden on local governments, even with state mandates to do more. So they want people to do more with less. The less tends to be less pay or less employees told to do more for that blessing of disrespect.
People need to realize that in some districts the need is almost like that of a community after a tornado disaster. But, in other districts the need is minimal. There needs to be recognition that all districts aren’t “equal” for various reasons. Do we “judge” the need of tornado victims? We shouldn’t. But some do.
Live by the sword, Die by the sword!
Lentini hit the nail on the head, if you don’t confuse education with schooling.”Schooling (K-12) is about creating and maintaining a culture…”
Schooling is about order, Education is about questioning.
Given that to remain viable within a system, you must join the cheering throng…To do as you are told. To portray American rectitude (Hands are clean), to instill false notions of our “democratic/representative governance”. It matters NOT whom we elect, the NON-elected (appointees) will determine Policy disguised as the “Will of the People” or for the “Greater Good”, the Public Good.
Democracy, or rule by the “Demos” (ordinary people, as distinct from elites) centered on equality of condition, wealth and income,…The Public Good.
The proper cure will only follow the proper diagnosis. Creating and maintaining a culture
of Domination/Submission IS the objective of the Elite. Leashes disguised as Bootstraps
are the means. To carry water for the Elite, or your fellow man is a choice. Live by the sword, die by the sword…
False dichotomy, NoBrick. Sometimes the demos is downright stupid. The romance of the common man. How do you like that hope and change that the demos went for?
Hope and change, HA. I never went for it. Political conditioning or
creating and maintaining a culture for the elite, serves the elite.
Carry on.
Hi everyone,
I’d like to share a talk I recently gave to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL about the excessive standardized testing going on in our public schools and who is profiting by it.