Checker, Terry, and Fordham board member David Driscoll offer up their opinions on school governance at the state and local levels over at Education Week.
Last year, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland sought greater influence over K-12 public education in his State of the State address.???? He called for minimizing the role and responsibility of the state board of education and state superintendent and putting in place a governor-appointed director to run the state education department (akin to what Massachusetts has done).???? The legislature didn't oblige his request, but, given the breadth of reforms the governor wanted to make, Terry noted that power politics prevailed here: "Governor Strickland came in, and he had his own agenda and wanted his own people to help push it through."????
Is such strong gubernatorial control over public education a good thing? Consider this:
David P. Driscoll, who stepped down in 2007 as the Massachusetts commissioner of education, says he sympathizes with governors' desire for more control, but suggests an independent commissioner or board can foster "positive tension."
"It's good to get things done," he says, "but on the other hand, a little difference of opinion can often be a positive thing."
Meanwhile, Checker continues his call for overhauling how we govern public schools:
Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank, puts the state of school governance in even more dire terms: "It's totally obsolete."
"We've got this whole layer cake of schools and districts, the state, and the federal [levels], each of which ends up functioning as a veto over the others," he says. "We need to reinvent it."
