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Illinois School Board Journal
January-February 1999
The case for school boards
By David G. Harding
In the July-August issue of Illinois School Board Journal, Lee M. Silver of New Jersey makes a passionate argument for doing away with school boards. Any school board member who has been quoted out of context, personally insulted for expressing an opinion, or blamed for the failings of state or federal governments can identify with his frustration. Those of us who have not (yet) shared a board table with axe-grinders and opportunists can only sympathize with his anger, give thanks for having so far been spared the experience, and expect this growing phenomenon as certainly as night follows day.
This is the lot of the school board member. Since the cynical view is usually the most accurate where money and power are concerned, the negative side of being a school board member is probably the only reason school boards were enfranchised in the first place. Public education in the United States is primarily directed by the states, but obtains its funding primarily at the county/city level. Our ancestors threw tea into Boston Harbor when they were taxed without representation. When our constituents get the urge to toss something into a harbor, they can spare the tea.
We all knew this kind of responsibility (and abuse) was part of the job when we chose to run for an elective position which came with no paycheck, but proven potential for public humiliation.
What most of us did not know at the outset, and what Mr. Silver apparently has yet to realize, is that school board membership, although it has many common threads, is never the same from one district to another. And this is where state government has, in serving its own interests, created an opportunity for communities to control their own destinies through their local school boards. True, our mission is always the best possible education for our children, math is the same the world over, and professional educators should make educational decisions, but only in a far simpler world would it end there.
There would be no need for representation if government worked the way most of us like to think it works when we are not looking. Government, even educational government, does not operate as an ideal, for the simple reason that any discussion of fundamental goals and values is always an invitation to chaos. The school board, imperfect device that it is, is the best available compromise between total chaos and our ideal. Mr. Silver's article begs not only rebuttal, but also a demonstration of how a high-functioning board can move our compromise farther from chaos and so closer to the ideal.
Realistic goals
Some boards write mission statements; some set policy. It all amounts to the same thing - defining and balancing. Saying we want the best possible education for our children is meaningless unless we define our terms. Do we stress skills or emphasize creativity? Math or reading? Physical sciences or social sciences? Are the answers really going to be the same in an art colony as in a factory town? In a fully employed community as in a community with a high rate of unemployment? What about in a community with a high incidence of adult illiteracy? "Best," if it is to have any rational meaning, must take into account both the homogenized, all-inclusive plans of big government and the community's most immediate needs and most immediately reachable goals. We, as representatives of the community, determine those needs, determine what goals can be realistically reached, and adjust our definition of "best" accordingly.
Assuming we can strike an uneasy truce - and this is all that is possible - as to what is "best," we then have to deal with what is "possible." In a perfect world, all classrooms would have a manageable number of children, appropriate equipment and supplies, and teachers with exemplary credentials, crystal communication skills, and loving personalities. We would have the freedom, both economical and ideological, to try out every new idea with the potential to take us closer to our definition of "best." All school buildings would be state-of-the-art in both structure and amenity, and of course, meticulously maintained.
We do not live in a perfect world; the realm of the possible has borders, strictly defined by capital and attitude. We may have limited dollars, and so be forced to choose between valuable alternatives. Does school A get new computers or does school B get additional teachers? Do we hire reading specialists or replace out-of-date textbooks? Do we cut intramural sports or instrumental music? Our professional educators may well say that we need all of these: the choice falls to us. Or we may be so awash in dollars that our professional educators, unchecked by the natural discipline of scarcity, are tempted to follow every trend without any particular plan or pattern. If this happens, then we must encourage direction or eventually come to resemble our bloated, meandering federal government. Or we may have a small, loud faction in the community which wants to drag us back to the first half of this century or rocket us into their own peculiar vision of the second half of the next. If so, we may need to serve as facilitators of civilized discourse, even if we are tempted to adopt and adhere to one or more rigid positions.
Setting curriculum
Curriculum may seem like a matter strictly for professionals, since math is the same the world over. But what do we do when our math teachers tell us that their students lack the necessary reading skills to succeed in our math curriculum? Again, we can be indispensable, if only in the role of arbiter. And even if we face no such difficulty, we live in a competitive commercial world. There are dozens of mathematics curricula available for sale in the marketplace. If educators could agree on which one was best, a basic tenet of capitalism dictates that there would be only one. So far, this has not happened.
And math is one of the easiest subjects to deal with, since it is one of the most universal, least subjective fields of study. Without school boards assisting in the selection of curriculum and absorbing the heat after the decisions are made, our professional educators would live under siege over their choices in science, health, and music and arts curricula. The Scopes trial was not so long ago that its lesson can be dismissed. It seems remarkably contemporary when the issue of book banning, another demand for school board intervention, renews itself with alarming frequency. We live in a more ideologically diverse environment than do our European cousins, and in this we have certain advantages. But accepting our diversity as fact, we also must accept the burden this diversity places on local school boards as conduits for community input. Without us, our professional educators would either find themselves frozen into inaction or enter into their jobs hopeful and energetic only to serve briefly, then exit, disillusioned and beaten.
What makes a board tick
The generally accepted best practice in hiring administrators is that we should find a first-rate superintendent and then publicly support him or her. A school board which does not publicly support its superintendent is cutting its own throat. But again, there is more to the relationship than just this. Administrators live in an environment which leaves them vulnerable to misinformation and even disinformation. As school board members, living and working outside the academic system, we can be a source of undistorted information.
Schools and school systems are highly structured hierarchies. The reality of any hierarchy is that good news travels up just as fast as those at the lower levels can move it, but that bad news travels up only as fast as it can under its own steam - and then only after being polished and spun by those in the stream of responsibility. Outside businesses and organizations pose much the same problem. Each has something to sell or an agenda to push, and each will dispense information in its own interest and conceal or slant that which does not enhance its advantage.
The same thing that makes a school board unwieldy - that its members are independent of and have (or should have) no vested interest in the outcome of any decision - can also make it an asset. We are not experts; we are notoriously inefficient; we may have no particular organizational skills; but we are unique in that we can be totally honest with our administrators without fear of damaging our personal interests. We also bring a perspective on what generally does and does not work. If the average age of school board members is around 45, a seven-member board provides its superintendent with more than three hundred years of diverse living experience. Our administrators operate a complex, diversified business. They buy products in the market place, operate transit lines and restaurants, construct and maintain buildings, raise capital, invest funds, lobby state and federal governments. Someone with all those responsibilities might find so much unbiased experience useful.
I am privileged to be a member of a highly-functioning school board. This is not to say that we all agree all the time or even with any regularity, or that we do not occasionally slip into negative habits, present company included. We argue, fuss and fight constantly and publicly about issues before we come to a decision as a board, but neither publicly nor privately after a decision is reached. We are human and so occasionally err in very human (irritating) ways, but as adults, we watch for our own slips into less desirable conduct, do what is necessary to make peace, and proceed with the job at hand. Attending to ideas and actively downplaying personalities keeps us out of a lot of trouble.
Mr. Silver's critique of school boards has an uncomfortably familiar ring. From newspaper accounts of school board feuds and listening to board members complain at conferences - and Mr. Silver's experience is reminiscent of such complaints - I believe all dysfunctional boards have one thing in common - mutual disrespect. Members sitting in judgment over one another, attacking each other over personality, or generally behaving like spoiled children can make the whole experience unpleasant for all concerned. An unpleasant experience would still be bearable - as adults, we've all had plenty of those but in this environment, chronic disrespect has predictable side-effects which can grid-lock the schools we claim to serve. All of the positive services we could perform are soon displaced by their mirror opposites.
Damage from disrespect
Setting policy or defining our mission becomes impossible without communication. Open, productive communication is impossible when personalities are dragged into every discussion. "You only believe that because you are a pigheaded nitwit!" is a conversation stopper. In a disrespectful environment, accomplished decisions, subject to no further productive discussion, are openly criticized, sometimes in print. Deciding any issue soon becomes less a matter of determining what is "best" than determining how one's enemies are going to act and then doing or saying the opposite. If I point out your flaws, your natural reflex will be to point out mine, and soon we will be all about little other than making each other appear wrong.
The damage warring board members can do to our schools is immeasurable. What would you do if your employers, the partners/ owners of the company you work for, went mad one day, some more disagreeably than others, and asked you to take sides? In such a personally-charged environment, our administrators can, at best, be expected to withdraw, and those on the front lines (teachers) will be left to their own devices. Worse still, administrators may choose sides and provide sanitized information to board members who are seen as troublesome, if only to avoid confrontation. Even if our administrators can somehow remain non-combatant, they can no longer mine board members for their experience if the motivations of even "friendly" members are suspect. And those who work under the administrators will sense the friction and react fearfully.
As the board continues to rip itself apart, the public will justifiably treat the board as an object of ridicule rather than the source of community leadership it could and should be. If we do not respect each other, how can we expect the public to respect us, or by extension, those we employ? If we do not respect our own decisions, how can we expect the public to respect and abide by them? As the board's employees strive to protect themselves in this perilous environment, their attention is diverted from their jobs. Soon the district is about survival, not about teaching and learning.
Disrespect, the lowest form of protected free expression, has become pervasive in our society. The fact is that most of us live in a work or home environment tainted by disrespect, consciously unhappy with it only when we are on the losing end, but fully supporting and feeding it when we have the upper hand. Under the conditions which flow naturally from lack of respect, it would be hard to imagine anyone doing anything well - cooking dinner, balancing the books, or digging a ditch. Mr. Silver's prescription for school boards - tear them down and discard the rubble - is easily understood in this context.
Rules to follow
It is too late now, but I wish Mr. Silver had witnessed a school board living up, rather than down, to its potential and a school district responding to a positive board before abdicating his membership and advocating the same for the rest of us. Before anyone else gives up and throws in the towel, I would like to offer the rules I follow in board membership and invite you to test them. They are not research-based, far-reaching or lofty, but they work for me, and they seem to work for the people with whom I work:
David G. Harding is a member of the Board of Education of Palatine C.C. District 15.