Rumble Coming Over Who Runs Schools

FEBRUARY 23, 2009       POLIITICS / JOHN MAGINNIS


   In case it has slipped your notice, your local school board and the man in charge of education statewide are about to go to war.

   Opening shots have been fired, but the real hostilities should ensue during the legislative session when State Superintendent Paul Pastorek asks lawmakers to impose term limits on local school board members and to stop them from interfering with the day-to-day management of schools.

   Now that revamping public healthcare is on hold until the Obama administration gets around to reviewing the state's new Medicaid plan, the battle over control of public education is emerging as a major issue in the year ahead, or two or more.

   "I think we have to reinvigorate the governance of local schools," said Pastorek. Until that's done, "you will not see significant improvement in the dismal rankings."

   Besides term limits, Pastorek wants to end salaries for board members and to set minimum education requirements, like a high school diploma, to hold office. He would strengthen anti-nepotism rules and would prohibit board members from interfering with the superintendent on matters of hiring, firing and entering into contracts.

   Not surprisingly, representatives of parish school boards think Pastorek should stay out of their business and let them run their schools as local voters elected them to do. The state does not impose term limits, salary limits or education requirements on any other local officials. Why should school boards be picked on?

   They have a point, a small one. A number of parishes have term limits for school boards, and more should, without the state telling them to. A policy-making board ought to turn over at least once a decade, in order to have fresh perspectives and not to get so set in its ways. It's usually the members who stay the longest that tend to exert the most influence on a board and school system itself, and that's not always healthy.

   In some cases, in fact, that long-held power is corrupting, especially when school staffing and contracts are seen as sources of patronage and bases of power.

   Yet getting hung up on another fight over term limits misses the thrust of what Pastorek is getting at. Term limits or not, the best way for the state to improve local education is to get school board members to do their jobs and not the superintendent's or some principal's. Board members should set policy. Superintendents and principals should run schools, without some board member telling them who they should hire, transfer or do business with.

   "Superintendents have been fired when they try to fire bus drivers," said Pastorek. "Cafeteria workers sometimes rule the roost in some school districts." School board representatives say Pastorek exaggerates, but there is enough anecdotal evidence to point to a real problem. Is there the political will for a solution?

   Every few years it seems we're told of another "fundamental flaw in the system"--another Pastorek term--that is keeping Louisiana schools at the bottom of the stack. Teacher pay, certification, social promotions, lax curricula, truancy have been cited and, to some degree, addressed, though with only marginal improvements in test scores and rankings.

   That's not to say the superintendent isn't raising valid concerns about control of local schools. He has the right idea. But he will need to bring some strong political firepower to the Capitol to overcome the skepticism of legislators, many of whom started their careers on school boards and feel closer to them than to Pastorek.

   The key will be for Gov. Bobby Jindal to see the urgency of the cause and to support all or part of the superintendent's agenda. So far, the governor has shown reluctance to wade into controversies, especially if he isn't strongly confident about winning.

  This is one of those issues that deserves not just the governor's attention but the public's as well.

  The outcome likely will not be decided in a year or even two. In Texas, it took well-organized advocates and the business lobby seven years to get even some of the changes like what Pastorek proposes through that legislature. If that time is to come here one day, the good fight best get started now.