Education Law

Bernanke?s school board background on display?

BoardBuzz is still catching up on a few items from our hiatus for NSBA’s Annual Conference earlier this month. One thing that caught our eye at that time was a thoughtful profile the Washington Post ran of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. First, you may recall this item we ran back in August, in which Richard Fisher, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, attributed a good deal of the chairman’s success to his experience as chair of the school board of New Jersey’s Montgomery Township: 

“What allows him to run a meeting the way he does, with harmony and results, I think, was that training on the school board.”

We were reminded of those comments as we read the Post’s account of how the chairman gets it done?transforming both his role and that of the Fed itself. For example, this is what you might see at a meeting of the Fed’s leaders:

Then there’s a coffee break. While most of the policymakers make small talk in the hallway, their chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, pops into his office next-door and types out a few lines on his computer.

When the Federal Open Market Committee reconvenes, Bernanke speaks from the notes he printed moments earlier. “Here’s what I think I heard,” he’ll say, before running through the range of views. He sometimes articulates the views of dissenters more persuasively than they did.

“Did I get it right?” he says.

The answer, in recent months, has been a resounding yes. And Bernanke’s ability to understand and synthesize the views of his colleagues goes a long way toward explaining how he has revolutionized the Federal Reserve … .

Then there’s this:

What strikes many who have worked with Bernanke, though, is that he has pulled it all off without grand speeches, arm-twisting or Machiavellian games. Rather, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former Fed officials and others familiar with the workings of the central bank, he has enacted bold policy moves through measured, intellectual debates and by making even those who are resistant to some of the new actions feel that their concerns are understood.

Whoa. That does sound awfully familiar to school board leaders, doesn’t it?

So will a lot of other things in the whole piece. Check it out. It’s worth your time.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on April 20, 2009 (boomark / email).