The possibility of a return to an appointed Board of Education is growing stronger.
The city’s Charter Revision Commission this week voted 4-3 to pursue the idea despite concerns about a hefty workload and a looming April deadline for completing its recommendations for changes to the city government’s blueprint.
“It’s not that complicated an issue,” said Tim Furey, chairman of the reform panel.
The charter commission plans a Jan. 22 public hearing on the issue and may make a decision on whether to recommend the change the same night. Furey said there’s no reason it couldn’t be dealt with in a single day.
Edward Krawiecki, Jr, the city attorney, said that making the change is relatively simple because the city only needs to return to the charter language used before the decision 15 years ago to shift to an elected school board.
Officials are eyeing the change because some of them are concerned that the school board isn’t responsive enough to the public. Some also argue privately they could appoint a higher caliber board because many qualified people are reluctant to run for elected office.
Hal Kilby, a charter panelist, said that the school board election results this month – where every incumbent on the ballot was reelected – show that perhaps residents weren’t as unhappy with the education overseers as “a vocal minority” who grumbled at city meetings before the election indicated.
Furey said that he considers himself fairly astute about local politics, but when people asked him to vote for in the school board race, he could only come up with a few names of the people running. The rest, he said, were unfamiliar to him.
He said he was bothered by the lack of visibility of the candidates and wondered why the Democratic and Republican town committees passed over potential candidates who were passionate about their interest in education.
Maria Pirro, another charter panel member, said she also didn’t know who the school board candidates were this year.
Those who support a return to an appointed board said that letting the mayor and City Council make the choices would mean that officials with a vested interest in having a good school board would pick wisely. Voters, on the other hand, are stuck with the choices that political parties offer.
Furey said he hopes to hear from the school superintendent and school board members at the hearing. He said he’s interested in knowing their perspective on the issue.
The charter commissioners who didn’t want to pursue the school board change said they prefer to concentrate their limited time on the city manager issue.
Any return to an appointed board would not take effect until the recently elected school panel’s terms of office end in 2011.
The charter commission’s recommendations will go first to the City Council, which can back them, turn them down or ask the commission to revise them. Anything approved by the council would go on the November 2008 general election ballot because no charter changes can occur without voters endorsing them.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
11 comments:
We should return to an appointed Board of education.
The political parties elected the school board not the citizens.
In CT there are only TWO BOE's with appointed boards. New Haven has a board appointed by the mayor. Hartford has a board partially
appointed (3) by the mayor and the rest elected. The Mayor in Hartford also was elected chair of the board of education by the board.
Bristol was the LAST community in CT to move to an elected board sometime in the 1990's.
All other boards in Connecticut, and most of the other 97,000 board of education members in the US in general, are ELECTED to their
positions.
Both New Haven and Hartford are academically challenged districts.
If people are upset about how the BOE members conduct themselves in their elected office, then look no farther than the political parties themselves.
After all, the Democratic and the Republican parties nominated and endorsed them all !!!
If the leaders of the political parties want different BOE members,(ones who know how to behave in a democracy or are more responsive to the public), then they need only to seek out those who hold those values, and nominate them instead.
The solution for problems in a democracry is more democracy, not less.
An all appointed BOE is not the solution. It wasn't before, it won't be again.
And what makes you think we elect a mayor or city councilmembers? All we do is chose between the guy put up by the Democratic Town Committee and the guy put up by the Republican Town Committee.
An appointed school board would be no different than what we have right now. The political parties would still chose who would serve, we just wouldn't have a vote on it.
Not so, the politcal parties would have much less say in it. The Mayor would have virtually all the say, because he/she would make the motion to appoint just as he does/did for all the other appointed boards. Perhaps the council would have some say as well.
I speak of this based on personal experience. The "powers that were" on the RTC had nothing to do with Nicastro's appointment of me to a land use board (a point I used to rub in to them as much as possible).
I think appointed boards generally consist of better qualified people.
This past election there was at least one candidate who ran on a third party ticket. It's not like the Democrats and Republicans have a vice grip on city politics. Instead what we witness are the lifelong habits of voters who instinctually vote down the party line.
But I just have to ask. How does removing the election, by the voters, of the board of ed make them more accountable to the people?
Think about it. Since all 6 democrats are likely to be elected, they can pick the best candidates and be assured that they will be elected, without campaigning. That leaves just three non Ds as remaining choices, and what difference will they make?
Only if there is a split Council/Mayor situation will there will a legitimate effort to get the right people on the Board.
Solution is for everyone to get more involved
Sometimes the "tyranny of the majority" isn't always in the best interest of the commom good.
How is the solution -"to get everyone involved" to occur except by an elective process?
When the "everyones" are selected by the mayor and approved by the council, everyone else is left out.
This is hardly a representative form of government.
The opportunity for a alternative and differing points of view to emerge independently,to be seriously considered, and to take root is squelched -
No third party candidates, no independent candidates, no dissenters from the DEM party, no dissenters from the REP party.
An all appointed BOE hand picked by one person is kin to authoritarianism and monarchy.
The bureacracy that results is
isolated and insulated. An I & I bureacracy only serves itself.
The taxpayers and parents should have a say about who is in charge of their children.
Well that's a fine bunch of rhetoric from the last poster. However the fact is that the current BOE doesn't represent the people either. I don't see it getting any worse.
The appointed members of the current city boards do a fine job of "representing" the people. These current appointed members (I'm referring to the land use boards, police, water, fire, public works etc.) are well-qualified people. Most are not politically orientated such as some on the elected boards.
As was said before, the "elected boards" are selected by the "powers that be" on the town committees. I say that again, from experience. They represent the whims of people not even elected (the town chairmen and other town committee officials) ot qualfied to make those decisions. THE APPOINTED BOARDS ARE BETTER REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ELECTORATE THAN THOSES NOMINATED BY THE TOWN COMMITTEES.
Hopefully under an appointed board of ed no one would appoint Barbara Doyle!
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