The N&R’s Doug Clark analyzes Sen. Trudy Wade’s plan to restructure the Guilford County school board. He doesn’t like it:
The school board doesn’t have the power to tax, so opportunities for truly partisan politics would seem to be limited. But they might show up in one of the board’s most important functions, which is to hire and direct the superintendent.
Would a Republican school board have hired Mo Green? I doubt it because, you’ll never guess, he’s a Democrat. The better question going forward is whether a Republican school board would keep him. That might present a problem for Republicans since, on the one hand, they’ll want to take advantage of their opportunity to bring in a Republican superintendent, but, gosh darn it, Green is both popular and effective. Maybe they would just encourage him to find another job somewhere else.
As I indicated earlier, I take it personally that Wade, who is my senator and for whom I voted, wants to take away one of my school board votes. I also take it personally that she is doing a disservice to voters, like me, who are unaffiliated.
Yeah, but I sure don’t see this board hiring a guy like, say, former Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata, either.
The Rhino’s John Hammer says:
The most surprising aspect of the bill is that it does not reduce the number of school board members from 11 to 9 as was done with the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. An 11-member board is simply unwieldy, but perhaps the bill had already made enough radical changes.
I’d settle just for that and making the school board races partisan, since “non partisan” elections are wink-wink for hiding the liberal stripes. I agree that two-year terms do not give the voters much time to grasp complicated school issues (not helped any by educarat jargon) much less candidates.
Still I think it’s fair to ask whether or not we’re happy with school board politics as they are, with 2 out of 6 races contested in the last election — and in one of those races the lone budget hawk was was defeated.
Especially considering the fact this is the board that controls the greater chunk of the county’s budget.