Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Education Reformation


Some issues simply require additional time for sober reflection.

When Delegate Vanessa Atterbeary and Councilman Jon Weinstein announced their collaboration on a bill that would turn the “all at large” seven member Howard County Board of Education into a body that would feature five district and two at-large seats, my visceral response was that it sounded like a smart reform measure. 

But distracted by all of the glitz and glam that the Metro Center area has to offer, I found myself lacking the time to give an appropriate level of thought to the proposal. 

Two months later, I think their bill makes a great deal of sense.  First, it promotes awareness and accountability.  Having one person serving as one’s district-based Board of Education member, along with two at-large members for everyone, makes it easier for people to get to know their school board member.  It makes individual advocacy efforts by parents, students, and other stakeholders easier.  Have an issue with a school in, for example, Elkridge? If the Atterbeary/Weinstein (Weinstein/Atterbeary?) legislation were to be enacted, a neighborhood-based board member becomes the logical point of contact.  This should also promote geographic diversity among the board membership and, hopefully, a greater familiarity with the unique opportunities and challenges facing all of the schools across our growing County.

Frankly, the same rationale applies to shifting from multi-member state delegate districts to single-member districts, but I will revisit that issue on another day.

Back to my main point, there are many entities that exercise policy-making functions whereby the individual members are elected by a smaller constituency to represent a larger interest.  This is how every state legislature works.  This is how Congress works.  This is how our County Council works. [Note: an earlier version of this post incorrectly cited MoCo's BoE as an example here.  Are there elected Boards of Education with similar arrangements? I am going to go with almost certainly.  Do I have time to look them up? No, but feel free to do so]. [Second note: thinking about local examples, I believe that at least some of the Harford County Board of Education seats are district-based.  I think they have a hybrid that includes elected and appointed as well as at-large and district board members.  Again, you may want to check on that.].

My contention is this: the partial reorganization of the Howard County Board of Education would not invite an epoch of rampant provincialism.   Everyone who holds the office would know that their duty is to act in the best interests of the County as a whole.  Moreover, as is frequently pointed out, majorities are required for the Board to act.  Thus, it is difficult to make a compelling argument that having multiple district-based seats would lead to a “less equitable” distribution of resources anymore than saying that the current arrangement, with representation from only three of the five Council Districts, leads to such inequities.  

Bottom line:  as a measure designed to promote the connection between the public and the policy-setting body, the Atterbeary-Weinstein plan is the right move for Howard County’s public education system.  If you haven’t already, let your elected representatives know.  Tell ‘em Sparty sent you.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.


10 comments:

  1. Montgomery County Board members are not "elected by a smaller constituency to represent a larger interest." Montgomery County has a hybrid system: "In Montgomery County, a Board of Education district means a geographic area in which an elected member of the Board must live. In Montgomery County there are five resident-district members and two at-large members of the Board; however, all Board members are elected by the county as a whole." http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/about/redistricting.aspx


    School attendance areas and Council Districts are not in alignment. If you have an issue with the school, do you contact the member where the school is located or where you live?

    Having analyzed candidate data for the past decade, there is a simple reason why District 3 is not represented on the Board and it is not that they lose on election day; nobody has run for office from that part of the County - NONE. Will having smaller districts encourage more people to run?

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    1. What's your position in the school system administration?

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  2. 1. You are correct on that point. I was going from memory. Correction made.
    2. I am less concerned with that element of the proposal. Council Districts, fine. Another breakout, that could work as well.
    3. Possibly.

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    1. The proponents of this plan are under the mistaken impression that this will simplify who to contact about a school issue. Councilman Weinstein has school maps on his webpage. District 1 contains parts of six high school districts. All of the schools are in at least two Council Districts. Yet, Wilde Lake is in 3 Council Districts, and Centennial is in 4 Council Districts. Which School Board Member would be responsible? Probably the one assigned to the school cluster--the current system.

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    2. Personally, i would rather have a system whereby geographic diversity on the Board is guaranteed...regardless if the district were the same as the Council lines or if there was a separate configuration. To me, that is a more pressing issue than whether or not one or two emails or phone calls is necessary to track down the local BoE member. One assumes that all would be responsive to the question/concern of the resident. The very existence of a cluster system demonstrates an awareness that knowledge of local school issues is important...creating electoral subdistricts would merely formalize the connection between a BoE member and what could be called a "cluster" under a new representation approach.

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  3. The proposed bill is no doubt better than the status quo. Should we take the proposed bill a little further so as not create new problems. How about districts based on school clusters and independent of the county council districts to ensure that the school board remains non partisan. How about having all the 7 positions elected by school clusters and none being at large.

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    1. I disagree. School resdisctricting changes cachement areas, but county council territory remains constant. I'd rather see it implemented as proposed.

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    2. Council districts change with redistricting after each census. To the extent that the eastern part of the county becomes denser in population compared to the western part, District 5 will grow in size while the other districts will become smaller.

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  4. Food for thought. I spoke to a MoCo delegate about the election of BOE members bill. The Delegate stated the schools that receive the majority free and reduced meals in the county (East MoCo) are still overlooked despite the residential districts for school board elections. The Delegate was of the opinion that the wealthier school's voices are heard because the school board members represent the whole county as opposed to representing a specific designated district.

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  5. The Prince George's County School Board is a mix of appointed and elected members. http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/36loc/pg/html/functions/pgeducation.html#educationboard The nine districts are different from the nine County Council Districts.

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