A progressive invention, public district school boards (in
theory) would allow respected (?) members of the community to represent the
societal (read, public) interests of the voting community. Numerous accounts
have exposed the folly, failure, and corruption of
school boards (Los Angeles
Unified, NYC)
but a LA working-class suburban school districts, Centinela Valley Union High
School District, displays everything wrong with the school boards in and of
themselves.
Every two years, a slate of candidates run for school board,
citing concerns about the procedures and values of their local school. Any problems
which community shareholders discovered, they could address to the leaders, and
in turn the board would respond and reform the school district for the better.
The ideal is unreal.
Let’s start with the political fiction that school boards
represent their community. Schools serve students, yet students are required to
attend public school, and they do not vote. Where’s the representation for
them?
The appalling voter apathy so apparent in school board races
further attests to poor representation. Often held during off-year elections,
school board races attract at best 10-15% voter turnout. The consequences for
such pathetic voter turnout include not only unaccountable or unreliable
leaders, or comfortable incumbents, but the rising power of dedicated, focused
interest groups who can by school board elections and influence members to
support policies, hire staff, and vote on motions as they please.
With the infiltration of these interests, coupled with voter
apathy and the disjunction between the responsibilities of the school board
with the individuals whom they are elected to represent and regard,
Instead of overseeing the daily procedures and
decision-making of the school officials, members invest their prior experience,
apart from a researched regard for the opinions and experiences of teachers
ands school staff. Preferring to institute policies which promote their
ideology while ignoring the better ideas of simple solutions, school boards can
create more problems instead of what the intended to solve.
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| "Overpaid" Jose Fernandez |
Even the best of intentions go awry, as in Los Angeles
Unified, where the school board installed a new, comprehensive payroll
system in 2007,which inadvertently docked thousands of teachers their pay,
then cost the district hundreds of millions in repairs. Following the 2013 rollout
of LAUSD’s Ipad program,
equipment abuses and losses reaped more costs than benefits.
Instead of promoting oversight, school boards have become
unsightly stomping grounds for vain retirees or ambitious officer-seekers.
Instead of representing the public interest, school boards reflect the
self-interest of the members or the will of special interests with more money and
combined ambition than busy parents, powerless students, and uninformed community
leaders.
Democracy without democratic values has created an
undemocratic system, in which the will of the minority affects the vast majority
of residents in a school district, and oftentimes residents shrug their
shoulders following revelations of waste, fraud, and corruption in their local
school board:
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
In a way, this sentiment is sentient, since one voter alone
cannot sway any election. Yet a massive attitude of “There’s nothing I can do”
allows the diligent minority of special interests – unions, contractors,
corporate interests – to do just what they want.
Case in point for the failure of school districts: Centinela
Valley Union High School District (CVUHSD) of Lawndale, CA (Suburb of LA),
composed of three high schools and one continuation school. Maximum enrollment:
6000-7,000 students.
The predominantly Latino, working-class suburbs of Lawndale,
Hawthorne, and Lennox end their kids through one of four feeder Elementary
districts, whose test scores and academic culture often exceed the high school.
Voter
turnout hovers around 11%.
In the last two elections, TELACU
construction company set up a PAC, Citizens for Better Schools, to promote
candidates to the school board, who in turn joined with a recently-installed
superintendent, Jose Fernandez, to raise his compensation and award
multi-million dollar construction contracts to TELACU.
The superintendent oversaw massive teacher transfers and
layoffs. A compliant school board awarded him hundred-thousand dollar salary
increases, and a
near-million dollar home loan (despite Fernandez’ prior bankruptcy
filings). “Overpaid” under-describes Superintendent Fernandez.
Students protested
the sudden transfer of teachers. The school board didn’t care. Paying attention
to a contractor who paid for their election, the school board financed
multi-million dollar construction contracts, yet closed the adult school and
laid off teachers. Beyond financing junkets to Las Vegas and Washington DC, the
superintendent took
in a record $660,000 salary in 2013, including pensions-spiking “air time”.
If there is any poster child of the inherent dysfunction of school
boards unchecked, look no further than Centinela Valley. After years of
protracted frustration with lingering corruption and stagnant test scores, one
elementary district broke away from CV. Following revelations of Fernandez’
outrageous pay, the Daily Breeze reported on the school board shenanigans,
pay-for-play elections, and offensive emoluments to a lavish, live-it-up
superintendent representing a working-class school district.
The district should not be called Centinela, according
to critics, but Centi-Bell-a, after the LA
Times expose of greedy public corruption against an uninformed voting
community.
More importantly, CV is an argument for abolishing school
boards and institute school choice for better fiscal management and accountability.
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