A remarkable two-part story in the Post-Gazette questions the need for and usefulness of school boards, those dinosaurs of progressive politics. Some researchers are coming to believe (as Gadfly has for some time; see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=120#1505) that school boards are often "composed of unskilled, unprepared people elected by a tiny turnout of voters, and that they handicap the students they're supposed to help." The articles add lots of color to the position that school boards are frequently unruly, incompetent, and almost completely in the pocket of unions: stories of school board members banging their shoes on tables to make their points, Kruschev-like; school board members who want to micromanage decisions like what color shoes the football team should wear; and even school board members who have turned violent, including one Pennsylvania board member who ran over the school police chief with her car. The fixes suggested by many proponents of school boards - including paying school board members to attract higher-quality candidates, more professional development, and rigging elections to assure that all parts of the community are represented - strike us as less efficient than the obvious answer: get rid of them. They're too often a waste, a hindrance, and an entrenched enemy of reform.
"School boards' worth in doubt," by Jane Elizabeth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 30, 2003
"School board reform elusive," by Jane Elizabeth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 1, 2003
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Pennsylvania