Black leaders call for elected ed board, but members think otherwise
Amid racial tensions in city schools, Boston’s black leaders are calling for the School Committee to revert to an elected board, charging that the seven members now appointed by the mayor need to be held accountable.
“It has taken the voice away from the citizens about what happens in our school system,” said Juan Cofield, president of the New England Area Chapter of the NAACP. “The black community needs to address the problems and become a strong advocate to improve the underperforming schools.”
The black leaders are pushing for the community to take up the issue as its next battle to improve the city’s schools — where 35 percent of students are black — after Question 2 to lift the cap on charter schools is decided upon in November.
Boston is the only municipal school committee in Massachusetts that has a mayor-appointed board. That has been the case since a homerule petition abolished the elected board in 1991 after the then-elected board was criticized for being dysfunctional and late Mayor Thomas M. Menino lobbied for control.
“It was a blow to democracy. ... Had there been an elected school committee, issues around race and diversity in Boston Public Schools would have been addressed more immediately and more effectively,” said Kevin Peterson of the New Democracy Coalition.
“We’re not sure that the model of the school committee we have now has borne any fruit in terms of eliminating the disparities that exist in education,” Michael Curry, president of the Boston NAACP, told the Herald.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh and School Committee Chairman Michael O’Neill, however, blasted the idea, calling for politics to stay out of education.
“Twice the citizens of Boston have voted in a referendum. Both times, they voted to have an appointed school committee,” O’Neill said.
In a statement, Walsh’s spokeswoman said: “The Mayor believes that the school committee should be appointed so politics stay out of the city’s education system, and the people of Boston have voted twice in support of an appointed school committee.”
O’Neill argued the appointed board is held accountable — with each member having to apply for a seat and sit before a 16-member citizens’ advisory panel made up of representatives of the teachers’ union, parents and community members. For every open seat, the panel selects three to five candidates to recommend to the mayor.
O’Neill said all members “take very seriously” the issues of racial discrimination, adding “the entire committee has been very responsive to this issue.”