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There has certainly been a lot of discussion (bitter rancor, actually) in the City of Charlottesville this past year about the public schools. The mayor has called for the resignation of the school board chair, and there has been heated public discussion about large issues of policy and direction--differences of vision. Members are appointed to the Charlottesville board by the City Council, and widespread dissatisfaction has led to renewed calls for an elected board. Elected Boards---a tide that is turning Historically in the US, schools were started locally, one by one. As multiple-school systems developed, control remained quite local. School boards came into being to provide the community a degree of oversight--but what boards spent most of their time and energy on was finding teachers. By the mid 20th century there were many so-called 'blue ribbon' school boards, selected by judges or commissions. But the climate changed, as people came to view rampant cronyism and nepotism in appointments as a bad thing, and something they could do something about. Citizens demanded the opportunity to elect their school boards. Today there are about 15,000 school boards in the U.S. (down from a high in 1933 of about 127,000), and more than 90% of the members of these boards are elected. The trend is reversing, however, and there has been a move to return to appointed boards, especially in larger cities--in the past 15 years, over 20 major cities have changed from elected to appointed boards. Virginia reluctantly permits election By 1992, Virginia was the only state in the nation that did not allow elected school boards--evidence of the antidemocratic and paternalistic strain that still lingers throughout the culture of the Old Dominion. Legislation was finally passed in 1992 specifically permitting localities to determine how they would select members of the school board. Since that time, 105 of the 134 school divisions in the state have changed or are in the process of changing to elected--more than 60% of the school board members in Virginia are elected. Thirty of the boards are appointed, and three are mixed with some elected and some appointed members. A mixed board in Williamsburg In one Virginia locality, the Williamsburg-James City County Public School Division is jointly operated by the city and the county. The school board consists of seven members; the two representing the city are appointed, and the five representing the county are elected. Lew Leadbeater is a columnist for the Williamsburg Virginia Gazette who follows local education matters there. He tells us (by electronic mail February 25), "in terms of experience or knowledge of matters educational I would say that the members appointed to the Board by the city do a better job....But I think [this is] because of the background of those serving now on City Council Lew tells us that the Williamsburg City Council members are mainly people with ties to the College of William and Mary. Because of that, in his view, they are respectful of professional competence, upon which they try to base their appointments. He says, "The elected members from the county tend to be more politicized.... The problem here with the election process -- and this pertains to state and local offices as well -- is that all too many times candidates run unopposed. This [can result] in the election of people ... who have a political ax to grind or who look upon the School Board as a stepping stone to better things." Locally, Charlottesville appoints and Albemarle County elects. In the City of Charlottesville, the Council appoints. Of the seven members of the School Board, four are specifically chosen to represent the wards of the city, and the other three are appointed at-large. Ned Michie, a member of the Charlottesville Board, tells us that there is no hard-and-fast rule about the representation -- if a member who was the only representative of a ward were to leave the board, then an appointment from that ward would be made. But if the ward of the person leaving was also represented by another person, there is no policy that the replacement would come from that ward. Until 1995, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors appointed school board members. After the General Assembly passed the enabling legislation, county residents voted by referendum to change from an appointed school board to an elected school board. Each of six Board members is elected by magisterial district in the same year as the supervisor for that district, for a four-year term. A seventh school board member is also elected for a four-year staggered term as the at-large member, serving the county as a whole and not by magisterial district. The arguments for an elected board in Charlottesville Jeff Rossman teaches at UVa, until recently had a child in the City school system (at Venable Elementary) and has thought and spoken publicly about how best to select members of the local school board here. He favors changing the method of selection, and spoke with us by telephone on February 25. "Electing the school board would increase the likelihood of having transparency, responsiveness and public engagement in policy decisions… [for example] we've had a dramatic shift in policy to the focus on drill-and-test, without public dialogue" This echoes some points raised in the 2000 platform of the [Charlottesville] Democrats for Change:
Rossman is aware that "elected boards are not a panacea--you can have disasters either way. But I believe that, as Churchill said [about democracy], electing the school board is the worst possible system except for all the others." His concern is specific to Charlottesville and the public schools' ongoing disarray. "The question we should ask ourselves is, has the present system served the schools well? I'm concerned that it has not." One group has persistently wanted to change the system. Since the City Council has had but one Republican in the past 20 years (and went 16 years with none}, Charlottesville Republicans have made the elected school board a platform item They hope to promote candidates and perhaps achieve some representation on the board, as part of a larger campaign to become a more significant part of the political dialogue. Concerns about ultra-conservatives with an agenda for the schools are not felt here.
Republican activist Kevin Cox tried to get the issue put on the 2002 City Council race ballot as a referendum. Daily Progress political writer Bob Gibson quoted then-Councilor David Toscano wryly pointing out that Republicans 'have a better chance of getting appointed … than getting elected' in Charlottesville. A series of questions for the candidates on the Loper website included several on school board selection. The tone was set in the first question, "... Who is ultimately responsible for the school system in Charlottesville, the School Board or the Council?" And some arguments against an elected board The argument is that elected boards are more responsive to citizen concerns about the schools. If people don't like what they see, they can vote them out. But a voter would have to be a very concerned citizen indeed, with an understanding of the issues and attendance at school board meetings, to have any idea of either the competence or the stance of a member. More serious is the possibility that what concerns citizens at the moment may not lead to the best policy in the long run--this is one significant part of the dispute in Charlottesville right now. School board elections are low-interest. So it is those with a special interest who are more likely to promote candidates and to vote. Or, as Lew Leadbeater of Williamsburg pointed out, those who see a school board election as just a first rung on a ladder. Jim Heilman, who was Albemarle County's registrar of voters for three School Board elections, has questioned whether Charlottesville has enough active voters to support an elected board. At a League of Women Voters forum on the subject three years ago, he said, 'if you can't get more than 30 percent out for a City Council election, how many do you think you'll get out for a School Board election?' Another issue for those who seek to run for election to a school board is the cost of campaigning, and for the economically distressed, the considerable demands on their time if they win. So an elected board may very well wind up with few low income members, and risk lacking a deep understanding of the needs of poor students. Waldo Jaquith, responding to a comment on his blog on January 9, 2005, mused that he "was on the fence about the merits of an elected school board in Charlottesville for a long time. The Jacksonian in me thinks it's a good idea, but I've seen the effects of social disparity in Charlottesville, and I think it would lead to a highly non-representative school board." But he acknowledges that "it's always a tradeoff...."
How does Albemarle County's elected board stack up? Brian Wheeler is the At-Large member of the Albemarle County School Board. He has a background in public affairs (including studies at Larry Sabato's Institute for Politics at the University of Virginia) and a serious interest in good government. We spoke by telephone on March 3. He strongly favors election as the best process for the selection of school board members. "It is the democratic and accountable way to do it." "If you have an elected board, it's clear where the buck stops, in questions about [public] education. There is a clear separation of powers…. Does the public want the board of supervisors involved in issues of education?" We asked Wheeler about diversity--the Albemarle board is all white, despite a 21% minority enrollment in the County schools. He acknowledges the problem. "The at-large seat was added in the interest of [increasing the possibility of] diversity. In fact, John Baker was the first person elected at large. But the next time [that seat was on the ballot] two African American candidates [Jewel Mason and Corey Carter] ran against Gary Grant, and I'm afraid they split the [opposition] vote…. He acknowledges the difficulty. "You can't control diversity …[to achieve it] requires greater engagement by the public [and the political leadership] … to find and recruit and help people campaign. "The elected system is a good process for the public to get to know who they're getting…. I put in a lot of work to get on the board, so I have a real sense of ownership and want to do the job well. I feel that pressure to do well because I want to be reelected--I spend a lot of time in the schools, I go to events, I send out communications "And if some people see the school board as a stepping stone to higher office, that's probably a good thing,* [people] will work their butts off to do a good job and get recognition for it if they want to run for supervisor or something." Wheeler does have one unusual suggestion: "One way the system might be improved is to give the school board taxing authority … to most effectively deliver education services in this climate of [the financial impact of] mandates from the federal government and the state. Right now we have to have a cooperative relationship with the board of supervisors to get the budget passed, and sometimes a school board and the supervisors might be on different pages." Is a change worth the disruption? An interesting compromise position is being put forward for the selection of school board members in Charlottesville: four members elected from the city's wards and three appointed at-large by Council.
This offers some of the advantages of each system--advantages that seem to offset the liabilities. Appointments could be used to insure diversity, as they are now. Election would afford considerable public accountability. And campaigning within a neighborhood would make it less expensive to run. A major concern is that it would take years to approve and implement any change to the Charlottesville selection method, and the woes of the school system administration and the board are at a crisis point today. The ongoing agitation that a change would bring seems a severe price to pay. (Dave Sagarin, March 4, 2005) *Emily
Couric famously got her start in politics with appointment to the Charlottesville
School Board.
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