George,

Good arguments and good people support a yes vote for an elected school board. Better arguments (not better people!) reject the proposal. These are a few of my arguments:

First, because Charlottesville has had progressive politics for more than a generation we have had and—if we vote “no” on the referendum—will continue to have two, three, or four African Americans members. That has been our history and it is the promise of our future. Why risk losing that for nothing more than theories about what might happen, especially if it might not happen?

And I don’t agree with my friend Jeff Rossman’s statement that the African American community “has not felt well-served by the appointed school board.” Several conversations I have had, some with life-members of the NAACP, suggest the opposite.

When I was president of the Southern Regional Council, the South’s oldest interracial civil rights research, information, and advocacy agency, we supported elected school boards as the best way to break the white ruling monopoly. With the Voting Rights Act on our side, we and others succeeded. Interracial school boards became a reality throughout the region. Ironically, if we were to opt for an elected school board here we might well run up against the lessening of black representation and incur challenges via the Voting Rights Act. Why run that risk when we already have a virtually guaranteed interracial school board?

The most important question we can ask about selecting or electing school board members is this: how do we get the persons with the knowledge, skills, experience, commitment, and independence that would equip them to oversee our school system? The current practice of lengthy interviews of potential appointees gives Council the chance really to get to know the qualities of the persons whom it will appoint. The kinds of sound bites and acrimony that too often accompany political contests obscure rather than reveal these qualities. Our system of representative democracy has worked well (not perfectly) over the years. Let’s not chuck it out for jargony words like “transparency,” shallow understandings of “democracy,” and the urge to get even with phantom enemies.

Finally, why are we having this referendum at all? The reason, as everyone knows, lies in the deep divide that surfaced last year. Some were angry because they saw no support for Dr. Griffin; others were angry because they thought she should not have been supported at all. Both sides felt they were ignored. School board meetings provided the setting for these opposing angers to be expressed and the school board took the blame from both sides. It deserved a share. But it makes no sense to overhaul the entire system because of the events of one tumultuous year. Let’s keep our eye on the prize and vote no.

Paul Gaston (electronic mail, November 4, 2005)