FERRIABOUGH: HUB NEEDS ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD,
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a forum that hosted women who serve on school boards in their communities. I couldn’t bring myself to go. Why? Because I have long been offended that elected school boards exist in 350 of Massachusetts’ 351 cities and towns with the exception of its capital — Boston. I vote we return to an elected school committee.
I am not going to single out any one person or thing as the overarching reason we need to return to an elected school committee. It is about an unfair system that is tantamount to dis enfranchisement.
Back in the early 1990s, city and state legislators, taking aim at what they deemed bad behavior by some of the school committee members, converted the board from elected to appointed. They claimed the move was in the best interests of the children in the system. Adding insult to injury, the switch to an appointed committee was imposed at a time when the school committee membership was close to majority minority and children in the system were then, as now, majority minority. Today, progress for our schools and our children, most would agree, under this form of governance over the past 28 years has been negligible at best. And the alienation of parents and other stakeholders has been consistent in fueling a growing chorus for a return to an elected body with greater and more direct accountability to the stakeholders and respect for differing points of view.
I am not going to dive back 28 years to assess all the reasons the powers that be at the time felt forced to upend democracy. For too long, we have had a bad habit of going backward instead of forward, and at least a couple of generations have been left by the wayside as a result of a sustained lack of progress. The longtalkedabout push for more teachers of color, as one example, has not seen a lot of action for more than a decade.
No doubt, there will be many pundits, comfortable with the status quo, who will challenge my position. They will point to a citywide ballot question that affirmed the decision to keep the appointed committee. Not many in communities of color voted to disenfranchise voters. Many over the years have wondered if the shoe were on the other foot and the children in the schools were mostly white, would this have ever happened. There was no outcry or outrage to change the governance of the school committee when it was led by Louise Day Hicks and the antibusing majority forces on the school committee. Thank God for the pushback by local heroes Ruth Batson and Ellen Jackson, Thelma Burns and Melnea Cass, who challenged the system and worked to elect icons Jean McGuire and John O’Bryant to diversify the body. Not to mention that Boston really looked bad among voting rights activists nationally. Still does.
But times have changed. And with change comes opportunity. Going back to an elected school committee is by no means an indictment against anyone. There have been some very accomplished individuals who have served and continue to serve with distinction. They just are not required to answer to the stakeholders. An elected school committee makes them accountable to both stakeholders and the electorate.
For the record, I believe Laura Perille is a good interim superintendent only — I believe she has the skills to keep the systems and initiatives, currently stuck in limbo or not fully developed, moving forward. So would Al Holland, the hero of the Burke High turnaround who also helped cool the flames at Boston Latin. Or Roger Harris. Or John McDonough — all good choices for interim superintendent. But we absolutely need a new superintendent with the requisite experience and skills to take the Boston Public Schools to the next level of excellence academically and otherwise. An elected school committee would help spread the responsibility. Until then, we need to keep the process transparent, inclusive and accountable.