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September 14, 2007
Leave school decisions to school boardsCheck out this fun item from yesterday's Legal Clips, NSBA's school law e-newsletter, on a topic BoardBuzz has addressed before:
State encroachments on local decisions about the school calendar. Interesting collection of links there.
Seems more state lawmakers are getting the school board itch on this one, often at the behest of their tourism industry, according to USA Today. For fun, we should all carefully note the name of every lawmaker who thinks he or she knows better than school boards what school schedules should be, and then check whether that same lawmaker is prone to sanctimony about school accountability, achievement gaps, competitiveness, etc. As Legal Clips highlights, there are lots of considerations that have to go into a calendar decision—academic, operational, financial, and practical. All the more reason this needs to be a local call, as Pennsylvania School Boards Association executive director Tom Gentzel tells USA Today. And if ever an issue highlighted why you want a body whose sole mission is education making calls like this, here's a perfect example.
Speaking of local calls, an eye-popping quote by presidential contender Fred Thompson caught BoardBuzz's attention. But first, some serious caveats: We will be giving attention to other candidates, we do happen to believe the federal government has important responsibilities to public education, we know nobody's about to turn back the clock on accountability, and NSBA is one of the groups occupying the middle ground in the No Child Left Behind debates (mend it, don't end it).
Even so, given how enthusiastic some folks are for ever more federal mandates, we can't help but take note of Thompson's answer to a question about his ideas for education:
"It's your responsibility. If you don't like what's going on, don't get in your car and drive by your school board and maybe drive by the capitol and get on an airplane and fly to Washington and say, 'I don't like the way the school down the street is being run."'
Posted September 14, 2007 4:01 PM | School Boards | School Law | Students | Teachers
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Comments(1)
Posted by: Tiffany Rolsing on September 16, 2007 4:24 PM
Change can be most effective in the classroom. Nothing will be done without our own participation and knowledge. We need accountability. But as educators we need to be involved and make beneficial changes.
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