Elect Norfolk School Board for accountability

Last month, when the Norfolk School Board forced the resignation of the division's superintendent 16 months into his tenure, residents grumbled that the group had neither listened to parents and teachers nor responded to their concerns.

Speakers suggested that an elected board would force better communication and be more responsive.

Norfolk has grappled with the subject since 1992, when Virginia became one of the last states to permit its residents to elect school boards.

Since then, most cities and counties have switched from appointed school boards to elected ones.

Repeated efforts to put the question to voters in a referendum have failed in Norfolk, starting shortly after the change in the law.

Voters should keep trying until the initiative succeeds.

Norfolk's parents and taxpayers deserve a direct say in the conduct and composition of the city's School Board.

If all other variables are equal between an elected board and an appointed one, the principals of democracy demand that voters have a say in how their children are educated. For some, the discussion ends there.

The primary benefit of an appointed board is also its insurmountable shortcoming: No messy campaigning, with the public scrutiny it entails.

Campaigning is a dirty business, especially in these hyperpolitical days. But a campaign also is a crucible that subjects everyone to the pressure of accountability. It allows voters to examine a candidate's qualifications and ask questions. It's nicer to see the warts before a candidate joins the board, rather than after.

Opponents - including this page, 20 years ago - argue that some qualified people willing to accept an appointment wouldn't run for election. An appointment from the City Council, opponents of election say, offers a layer of political insulation to protect a board that must make unpopular but necessary decisions.

But forgoing a vote is too high a price to pay. Otherwise, we might as well chuck all elections so we can get more qualified people on the council, in the state legislature and governor's office, in Congress and the White House.

Who would select the highly qualified people for these appointments? Who should decide what highly qualified means? One person? Eight?

Any board responsible for an unpopular decision, elected or not, must explain itself. In an elected system, the board must explain itself to voters' satisfaction or face defeat at the polls.

And, as some complained to Norfolk's School Board the night Superintendent Richard Bentley's departure was announced, political insulation shielded the board from angry parents but not from pressure exerted by the council members who appointed them.

School boards in Virginia generally don't have the ability to raise money themselves. Instead, they spend what a city council or board of supervisors approves. That provides some safeguard against profligacy but also creates real tension over the pocketbook.

That's not a flaw.

Research on the subject has been inconclusive. A study by professors at Harvard and Vanderbilt found some reason for "cautious optimism" for student progress in divisions with appointed school boards. It also found districts that struggled under the same circumstances.

Count Norfolk among them.

For several years, the city's appointed School Board has struggled to arrest the division's slide into the basement for performance in the state. It has responded badly to multiple scandals in its schools, from testing irregularities to wayward administrators. The schools have failed to stem the flow of dropouts. And the board is preparing, again, to search for a top administrator.

The council moved in the right direction when it conducted interviews for School Board appointments in public last year. But the most important part of the process, the appointment, occurred in private.

Voters can force this change themselves. A referendum on election of School Board members requires a petition signed by 10 percent of the city's registered voters, or about 12,000 people. That's a lot of work, but it's hard to think of an issue more critical to the city's future than the education of its children.

The result of years of appointing the School Board speaks for itself. From now on, voters should make the call.