Antique ballot box (Smithsonian Institution).
As Plainfield heads into its annual Board of Education election, some may be interested in the OTHER kind of Board of Ed allowed in New Jersey -- called 'Type 1' (Plainfield is one of the vast majority which are 'Type 2'.)
Today's Courier carries an item explaining what happens in New Brunswick, a Type 1 district, as the rest of us are pondering candidates and budgets (see story here).
Here is a little comparison table --
| Type 1 | Type 2 | |
| Board | Appointed by the Mayor, without advice and consent. | Candidates file petitions to run. Elections are by public vote in April. |
| Budget | School Board proposes budget. Budget is adopted by Board of School Estimate -- comprised of 2 Board members, 2 Council members and the Mayor. The public plays no part. | School Board proposes budget. Budget is voted up or down by voters at April election. If budget fails, the Council modifies the budget and adopts it. |
| Changing from one to the other | Referendum. | Referendum. |
Plainfield once had an appointed Board of Ed, which I do not recall with fondness.
In fact, I remember meetings so heated that one once ended with a shoving match and fisticuffs in the hall as the meeting was breakings up.
Folks may complain about the low turnout, the indifferent quality of candidates and the expense of an election, but it seems far more democratic to me to put up with all that in place of turning the largest budget in the community -- not to mention the quality of our children's education -- over to the almost-dictatorial control of a Mayor.
Any Mayor -- even a capable and presumably well-intentioned one.
Am I wrong?
-- Dan Damon [follow]
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7 comments:
Does NJ law restrict districts to only these two types of Boards? Both have serious problems. The elected board is too open for small interest groups to dominate. Elections have also become too political. The appointed Board worked well until the demographics in the community began to change and minorities rightly so thought that their interests were being neglected.
In Plainfield the board quality has deteriorated in the past2 decades leading to our substandard school system.
Is a "mixed board" such as one I have proposed possible or prohibited by the DOE? Do you know the answers?
Apologies in advance for a long comment, but I can't resist this topic...
I grew up in a Type 2 district (North Plainfield). As an adult voter I regularly voted in school board elections in Evanston, IL, where I owned my first house. For the past decade here in NJ, I've lived in a Type 1 (Montclair), where a referendum to switch to an elected board was recently defeated.
I voted in favor of the switch. Yes, school board elections are poorly attended. But they mean that every few years current board members need to articulate and defend their thoughts on the state of the schools. Alternative thinkers have to make their case. In a Type 1 district, there is no real impetus for board members to explain themselves, and no outlet for alternative thinkers.
In Montclair last fall there was a strong sentiment that the appointed board, lacking voter accountability, had gotten pretty cavalier about putting together budgets that piled on tax increases. This was a major factor in the momentum for the petition drive that got the question on the November ballot.
While I distrust knee-jerk aversions to school spending, I had to agree that the appointed board seemed out of touch and proud of it. They know what is best for us, you see, and we really mustn't trouble ourselves worrying about complicated policy matters.
Those who favor keeping the appointed school board love to bring up the specter of a wild 'n' crazy splinter party taking over the board in one of those thinly attended elections and ramming through a creationism curriculum or something. Well, fine, what if that did happen in Montclair? (As if.) You think they'd last more than one term?
Some of the rhetoric that pro-appointed board folks tossed around in the days before the referendum was jaw-dropping. There was a letter to the editor from a pro-appointed person who said she'd run for and won a school board seat in Hoboken and was shocked -- shocked! that people expected her to *take their calls* and *listen to their views.* Excuse me? I also thought it inappropriate that our local League of Women Voters chapter officially came out in support of an appointed board. That was quite a spectacle; an organization devoted to voter empowerment taking a position that we shouldn't vote on our school board!
However, there's a very entrenched support of the appointed board in Montclair. The PTAs, for example, are very invested in the idea that an elected board poses a danger to school quality, while an appointed board, free of nasty voter input, can make its decisions in a kind of charmed bubble. I guess if you like oligarchies, appointed boards make sense. But I dislike the distrust of the electorate that seems built into this model.
Elizabeth -- Thanks for the comment.I am shocked the Montclair LWV actually came out for an appointed board. In my experience (I've worked on about 15 annual board elections), the fears of having some sort of 'takeover' by an interest group is pretty darn unlikely. In Plainfield, with a population of about 50,000 and 20,000+ registered voters, the BOE election typically gets 1200-1300 voters. They are widely dispersed throughout the ocmmunity and cannot be herded any more than cats can. So, to take over the board, one would have to find 1,000 or so co-conspirators. Not likely. Which is not to say there can't be problems -- we have had to put up with our Dem legislator funding BOE candidates and while he never gets a complete slate elected, he gets one or two on. Some think he's wasting his money, tho.
olddoc -- Them's the choices, A or B. It's in the statutes.
Since I can have only a Hobsom's choice, I will have to advocate what is the better choice taking into account Plainfield's dysfunctional government.
Reluctantly, here the elected board is the better solution but only if at least 25-30% of the electorate vote. And only if the caliber of candidates are equal to the job.
Under Mayor Lattimore we went all through this.
How about a board made up of paid education professionals, selected by a paid city council made up of people educated in government and municipal management?
It makes no sense to me to have no educational or experiential requirements for the people who spend our blood sweat and tears on their own stupid whims. Look at the Texas school board, who just voted to delete Thomas Jefferson from the history books because he advocated separation of church and state? Made up of stupid southern yahoos.
Are we doing any better here?
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