Education Law

School board elections: One editorial that gets it

Kudos to the Des Moines Register for a terrific editorial on the critical importance of school boards and school board elections. Read it in its entirety, but here are some highlights.

The editorial starts out with an acknowledgement that more news media ought to take to heart and—ahem—do something about: "School board elections tend to get little attention, unless there's a controversy of some sort ... ." Then it really hits the nail on the head by identifying the key point of discussion for Iowa's September 9 school board elections:

What will candidates do to create world-class schools in their community, to ensure students get the necessary preparation to thrive in the competitive global economy? ... It's not enough to post on the district's Web site a philosophical statement about high expectations. In their policy-setting capacity, school boards ought to require more of students, teachers and administrators than the state, even if there's push-back from parents that kids need time for sports and other extracurricular activities.

The Register also gives credit to the Iowa School Boards Association for its leadership:

The Iowa School Boards Association has been a strong advocate for raising student achievement. It pushed to establish challenging statewide academic content standards, although the Iowa Department of Education has resisted, arguing that the Iowa Core Curriculum embodies high standards. And in July, the Iowa School Boards Foundation previewed its study finding Iowa was 33rd among the 50 states in making improvements in achievement, taking into account test scores and progress in closing the achievement gap between affluent and low-income students.

And the parting words for voters?

The state association represents local school boards, which can be ambitious or complacent. That depends entirely on the candidates voters elect to serve in unpaid but extraordinarily important positions. Candidate forums are still scheduled in many districts. You have just more than a week to learn more about the priorities of those seeking to serve in your community - and to tell them what you expect.

A lot of busy people can't be bothered to pay close enough attention to school board elections. And the focus of voters may not be on the academic bottom line. But try asking people in this community whether these choices matter or not. More here. The message to that community from their governor is that the future comes down to the upcoming school board election, and the ball is in the voters' court. If your community is about to elect its own board, here again is a user-friendly tool to share with your fellow voters to help keep their eyes on the prize.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).