School Board Elections, Redux
Yesterday’s NJ had a remarkable article from Matthew Albright that purports to take a look at the usually out-of-sight school board elections and the possibility of influence by outside interests on the eventual winners. It is remarkable, because it singles out teacher’s unions as the outside interests being served by the inattention of voters to these elections. There isn’t even a fig leaf of a “both sides do it” argument — in large part because this article lets Jea Street pontificate about how teacher’s unions are running the board for school board elections:
“The teachers have a lock on it. They control almost all the school districts,” Street said. “You’ve got to give the unions credit for being aggressive, assertive and effective. But on the other hand, you can take the position that it’s counterproductive.
“If they control the board, is the board acting in the interest of the students or the interest of the union?” he asked.
Really? It isn’t apparent to me that teacher’s unions run school boards. Just before Street’s rant, the reporter notes how two major funding referenda for Appoquinimink and Colonial went to defeat and brought out more people to vote than the usual school board elections do. You’d think — in unions were running the school board show — that they would have gotten more folks out to say YES to more money for their agenda. Whatever that is.
What no one rants about (just a little from John Young and he doesn’t name names) is the effort by other outside interests who often don’t care much about what goes on in classrooms. Anyone remember Skip Schoenhals and the Vision4Delaware crew? The Chamber of Commerce endorsed candidates (no idea of they spent money). And what about the parents groups who try to protect their little enclaves and new facilities who work for candidates? But the paragraphs are spent on unions and not the other special interests trying to influence the system too.
I don’t doubt that the teacher’s union is an active participant in school board elections. They are an active participant in all of the other elections too. But you have to do more than outsource an opinion to Jea Street that teacher’s unions run school boards. Because from where I sit, some of these boards could use a few more subject matter experts.
But we do get back to the idea that perhaps you can change the formula of increasing voter turnout by changing the school board elections to the regular Election Day and stop letting school boards basically hide their electoral activity from the broader pool voters. I’m a fan of this. I’m a big fan of this. (And while I’m here — why in heaven’s name is the school board election on 14 May, but the referenda for Appoquinimink and Colonial are a few days earlier? Why not all the same day?) I don’t buy that these elections will be politicized if held on the usual Election Day. They are politicized now — otherwise why accuse teacher’s unions of controlling the process — and I see the effort to pretend otherwise a particularly poisonous version of the Delaware Way. Let’s stop demonizing teachers and get to fixing this thing.
ps. I don’ recall the NJ actually spilling this much ink on the *actual* school board elections or their candidates for that matter? Am I wrong about that? Because I wonder how much more attention people would pay to school boards if the newspaper of record would pay attention to them in any meaningful way.
Tags: Jea Street, School Board Elections
The article was written BECAUSE the referendums went down in defeat. This a front row seat at the public rejection of union influence in government funding matters. Hard to call the fight at this point, but it could be some really ugly years ahead. To keep your sanity, don’t confuse the nobility and sacrifice of teachers with the political machinations of their labor union. They have completely different agendas when they wake up each day. Not a speck of common ground except the paycheck.
Yes, Jea Street loves to talk about school failures (rather than community failures). Did you ever expect any different? How much harder would it become to spread Wilmington crime and decay to the suburbs if he didn’t have the school systems as a dual purpose whipping post and Trojan horse?
Move the school board elections to the usual election day! Now! I’m sick and tired of people pretending school boards are above the political fray. Choice, charters, Ed Reform and the NSA were driven and implemented by school board members.
Winning school board elections is a simple numbers game – and much of the time winning relies on completely ignoring entire communities. Move it to the general and make school board candidates campaign for everyone’s vote. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea? In addition, stop letting people vote for candidates not representing their district.
And while there have been school board members that aren’t political, pretending this is the norm is nuts. People who believe school board elections aren’t political are drinking the Delaware Way Kool-Aid. If you don’t know your school board candidate’s political views/agenda it isn’t because they don’t have them it’s because you haven’t been paying attention.
The system is rigged. Right now Red Clay has three candidates running for District A and two candidates running for District D, but it won’t be the residents of those districts deciding who will represent their communities since everyone in RCCD gets to vote. That means if the outside community decides a candidate doesn’t represent their interests – even though they’re representing the community they will represent – they can take them out. Hey, why not have all of NCC vote for mayor, or every state rep?
The article by Matthew Albright is an embarrassment. Either he has an agenda, or he was too lazy to research what happened last year with Voices4Delaware – and they haven’t gone away. Seriously, how could he write that article without mentioning Voices4Delaware and the other groups?
I doubt that the reporter has an agenda — he’s new on the job, and he may well have a new editor too.
If they went back 40 years — to the pre-deseg days — they would see the same thing. Lots of unopposed candidates and hardly anyone voting. Every once in a while there would be a hot-button issue in a district that would prompt a contested race with a larger turnout … but I doubt that anyone in Delaware has ever had to wait in line more than 5 minutes to vote in a school board election.
Would voting in November improve turnout? Yes.
Would it result in better candidates and more informed voting? Not sure. No doubt school board contests would be placed at the bottom of the ballot — below sheriff and clerk of the peace — where folks tend to just vote (if at all) for the candidate endorsed by their favorite party.
Also, many logistical hurdles re election districts would have to be resolved. Polling places and the voting system rely on this complex drawing of lines for election districts. To incorporate school boards into the system would likely require that the various “areas” used in school district races be redrawn so they match up with the EDs used for the governmental races. I suspect that this process might also require redrawing some boundaries of the school districts themselves.
Not saying this would be a bad thing … but I am saying there are probably people in education and government who have given this more than a cursory look and have decided, rightly or wrongly, that the logistics would be far too much of a pain in the butt (and an expense) to convince anyone that it’s worth doing.
What I would like to see, however, is a requirement that any district that is holding a tax referendum schedule it for the same day as the school board election. That would likely generate a larger turnout.
I get that he’s new on the job, but reading this article why did he only mention the teacher’s union? Sorry, that’s not acceptable.
Agreed, on holding school board elections on the same day.
And while we ponder how, and if, we can move SB elections, let’s stop letting people in District A, B and C vote for the candidate in District D.
“ps. I don’ recall the NJ actually spilling this much ink on the *actual* school board elections or their candidates for that matter? Am I wrong about that? Because I wonder how much more attention people would pay to school boards if the newspaper of record would pay attention to them in any meaningful way.”
Exactly right. For the last few years, school board elections were largely ignored by the former beat reporter. I had hopes for this new guy, but he can’t even get the name of the union right. Sloppy work.
I WANT to vote in the school board elections, but for the life of me can’t find anything other than bios on the candidates for my district (Brandywine). Without knowing where they stand on any issues, how can I make an informed decision? Am I missing something?
This wasn’t the greatest in reporting but … years ago, the NJ would send all school board candidates a form, requesting bio information and candidates’ comments on what they considered the most significant issues in their district. This would get wrapped into a package that would run a couple of days before the election. Sometimes the reporter would actually interview a couple of candidates to get more detail.
I realize resources have been cut but there’s a measure of hypocrisy in the NJ paying no heed whatever to school board elections and then writing a story saying that the public doesn’t care.
And yes, they should have mentioned Skip’s State Chamber/Vision 2015 group whose effort totally backfired last year. I suspect they’ve been quieter this time around — perhaps the reporter thinks they have gone away.
There are 6 candidates for 3 races in Brandywine School District, and I found out by accident. Not a peep anywhere about the election. There might be a thousand people who vote next week in BSD. Sad.
They don’t make it easy, John – and after all the hoopla last year a lot of these races are running under the radar. In RCCD, the candidates have been attending PTA/PTO meetings, neighborhood meetings, etc. I called the candidates in Red Clay (A) and met with all of them.
Haven’t checked out the BSD candidates. Is there a list of events where they’ll appear on their websites?
Department of elections lists the candidates’ contact info (email/phone).
Yes, because it was the teacher’s union that elected Bill Manning to start the plundering of Red Clay.
Bill Manning? Look how well that worked out for the teachers’ unions. He is still a high profile personality in Delaware’s Charter School promotion game.
http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/PubSchool/candidates/2013_sch_cand.pdf
http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/PubSchool/candidates/candidate_list.xls
(Just to stay out of the filter) John here you go.
There is a candidates’ forum for Brandywine on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Springer Middle School on Shipley Road.
Here are the bios: http://www.brandywineschools.org/domain/106.
There’s a candidate’s forum — featuring Red Clay, Brandywine, Christina, Colonial, Appoquinimink — TONIGHT at Ezion. From 6-8.
Details here.
if you live in Christina School District, the one good candidate left is Minnehan. The other candidate has been on previously, and put Joe Wise in as Christina’s superintendent… That did not go well.
Here is the best endorsement of anyone I think I have ever seen in Delaware politics… The endorsement is near the bottom….
http://www.elizabethscheinberg.blogspot.com/2013/04/im-out-and-minnehans-my-candidate.html
@John Manifold
The teacher’s union didn’t go big into school board elections until about 2009; prior to that DSEA had taken a position that it was more important to influence legislative and statewide elections. That didn’t work out too well. Since then they have been effective but not unbeatable; glancing at their own state endorsement page I’d say they win about 60% of the races they make an endorsement in.
@pandora
I’m with you to move the elections to November with the proviso that it not be done without an accompanying requirement to be voted on only by your own district.
As a thought, I’d actually (in the abstract sense, I haven’t fully thought it out yet) like to see a plan that did somehow align school districts with representative districts. I will be if there was a real 1 to 1 alignment that you would see a lot more enlightened interest in public education on the part of state reps.
The other big hurdle for school board elections is this: are they going to remain non-partisan, and which voter eligibility requirements would you use?
I was snarking when I wrote that, Steve, and should have been clearer. Indeed, the teachers’ union had nothing to do with electing anyone [except Jack Buckley] to the Red Clay board. My comment was intended in irony. The reality is that Hockessin interests have effectively mobilized so that after 25 years, Red Clay has been contorted – in its offerings, its attendance zones and above all its semi-private charter schools – to serve one narrow slice of its constituency, and eviscerate many of its schools.
That quiet but efficient organizing has been a fact of Red Clay life going back to Manning’s initial election in 1988, but it may be too subtle for a new reporter to notice or a transient editor to have followed. Grabbing an agenda-driven quote from Jea Street is easier.
And while we ponder how, and if, we can move SB elections, let’s stop letting people in District A, B and C vote for the candidate in District D.
I won’t jump in the move them to November fray except to say I am in favor of leaving them in May and allowing all 18yo residents access to the polls.
As for the pandora concern above in italics. There are reasons for this. If you only allow residents/voters in nominating districts only vote for candidates in their district, you effectively disenfranchise 6/7th of the residents from access to those candidates. Why is this important? Becasue school boards make decisions about schools ALL ACROSS a SCHOOL DISTRICT, not just nominating district. We are not nominate 7 Kings and Queens of just the schools that happen to exist in their nominating district.
Example: George Evans, elected from Nominating District A does not have a high school in his nominating district, yet children from Wilmington certainly attend our High Schools. Should he have no say in HS decisions? Of course not. So he gets to weigh in on HS decisions so why shouldn’t residents ALL OVER CSD have a say in who represents them in those decisions?
I think there is crude genius in permitting/mandating that school board candidates must face the electoral power of the entire school district’s residents since their decisions affects schools in ALL nominating districts. I make and set policy that affects schools in Wilmington, so those voters have the right to weigh in on my election.
At least that’s how I see it.
Given the small numbers that turn out now for elections, if you change the law so you can only vote for the candidate in your little nominating district:
1) you’ll only be able to vote once every 4-5 years, however long the terms are these days, thus reducing interest in voting; and
2) you would probably be able to tally the results on your fingers and toes.
As for Bill Manning — when he was elected to the Red Clay Board of Ed, folks sure knew what they were going to get. Manning had previously been legal counsel and chief of staff for the antithesis of public education, Pete du Pont, who might as well be considered the Godfather of Delaware Charter Schools. Pete, some might recall, championed a program called “Basics Plus” as a sort of choice option. It never did get off the ground, but he planted the seed.
Manning watered and fertilized it and, with Tom Carper’s help, grew the first charter to maturity in Red Clay.
And if it’s Jea Street vs. Freeman Williams, it’s Freeman in a TKO.
Jea should return to the Tower Hill parents’ council.