George,

Lloyd Snook's recent polemic regarding the Charlottesville School Board contains so much sophistry and so many red herrings that it cannot go unchallenged. Let's examine the reality of the situation.

First, the need to have an elected School Board is not simply based on a reaction to the recent superintendent fiasco; the failures of the School Board go back over many years.

These failures include: 1) neglecting to maintain and repair the Jefferson School, 2) the continuing existence of the achievement gap, 3) inept hiring practices that resulted in two early "separations" of superintendents - in 1996 and 2005. If proper vetting procedures had been used, Scottie Griffin would not have been hired and a painful year of racial tensions and acrimony would not have occurred.

Lloyd goes to great lengths to explain that one of the major advantages of a non-elected School Board is that it allows for the appointment of several black members - more than would probably be on the Board if it were elected. And, indeed, the Board has usually had 3 or 4 blacks on it over the years. But what good has that done? Black members were on the Board when the Jefferson School sank into disrepair. Why haven't the black members of the Board insisted that the achievement gap be closed? And why weren't they more vigilant when Scottie Griffin was being considered for the superintendent position? Simply having black members on the Board does not automatically promote the interests of the vast majority of African-Americans in Charlottesville.

The most important qualification of School Board members is the policies and goals they are committed to pursue, not their skin color. With an elected Board, candidates - both black and white -- who run on a platform of closing the achievement gap, making sure no school is neglected, exercising due care in hiring choices, etc. will probably be elected because these are the kinds of goals a majority of people in Charlottesville support. And School Board members who are elected on such a platform can be held accountable by the voters if they fail to follow through on their commitments.

Furthermore, electing by wards or districts would help to insure that no school is neglected. For example, if, years ago, there had been a School Board member elected from the Belmont neighborhood, would the Clark School have failed as it did last year? Yes, there are possible NIMBY problems with ward elections as Lloyd points out, but the problem of neglect of certain underrepresented neighborhoods in our current system is paramount and in need of remedy.

The principal problem with the current School Board system is that it is unworkable. There is no accountability. Who is ultimately responsible for the school system, the City Council or the School Board? If we were to draw an organization chart of the City government, where would we put the School Board? Would it be under the Council? The answer is: "No." Once the Council has appointed School Board members, the Council has no control. Yes, they have lunch with the Board every month, but that is totally informal. The lack of Council control over the School Board was dramatically illustrated this past year when the Mayor had to resort to public statements in the media to try to influence the leadership of the School Board. The fact is that in an organizational chart of City government the School Board would have no lines connecting it to anything - not to the Council, not to the people. It stands alone as a kind of satellite entity, beyond the reach of anyone. An elected Board would have a clear line of accountability to the people.

At one point in his polemic, Lloyd makes the astonishing argument that "there is no way to either prove or disprove" that elected bodies are more likely to be more responsive to the concerns of the community than appointed bodies. Jefferson and Madison must have turned over in their graves when they saw such a statement coming from a major political leader in their hometown. Lloyd asks (rhetorically): "Would [anyone] maintain that the U.S. Congress - which we have elected - is a 'responsive' body?" Congress has become a corrupted shell of what our Founding Fathers intended - corrupted by PAC money and gerrymandering. That one spurious example does not invalidate the principle of representative democracy.

And then Lloyd resorts to a scare tactic by stating that: "everyone needs to realize that a vote for elected School Boards is also a vote for a ward system of electing City Councilors." Not so. It is up to the City Council to initiate changes in voting systems. They can decide whether we have wards for electing the School Board and (separately) whether we maintain our current system of at-large representation on the Council. Fate, or some force of nature, will not determine these decisions. The City Council, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, will make the decisions.

Finally, Lloyd points to the problem of the School Board having no independent taxing authority. About half the School Boards around the United States do not have taxing authority and get most of their funds from the local legislative body in a lump sum. Most of these school systems seem to work fine under this arrangement. Indeed, the lump sum method is already being used here in Charlottesville right now. Little will change if the Board is elected. By custom, a formula has been developed for funding the schools in Charlottesville. The City Manager sets aside 40% for the City revenue to be used as the School Board determines.

Most of the other points that Lloyd brings up have already been dealt with in a piece I wrote for the Loper site in June. See "We Should Elect the School Board."

David RePass (electronic mail, September 15, 2005)

P.S. Lloyd: the Justice Department criteria for determining whether a new election system meets the requirements of the Voting Rights Act has changed since you last looked at it in 1980. The 60% criteria no longer applies.