Abolish School Boards

Mario Dumont, ADQ Opposition Leader in Quebec, had pledged to abolish school boards and reinvest the savings in students and schools, or so he said in the last provincial election (Mar ’07) in Quebec. Now, Chris Eustace,a grandfather of 4 school-aged children writes an open letter to Mario to do his best to promote this idea:

The English school boards in Montreal are costly, autocratic, educational bureaucracies, accountable to no one…It’s time to give schools back to the community – parents, teachers, school principals, caretakers and support personnel. They are the people who know what is in the best interest of the students. (Opponents) must realize that times have changed. School boards are being revamped all over the world because they are proving to be unnecessary, expensive intermediaries. Look at New Zealand and the Netherlands, with their "money follows the child" approach. Chicago, New York, Detroit and New Brunswick are some other examples. Take a look at what’s happening in Alberta. As you are now opposition leader, I am looking forward to you … abolishing school boards and adopting a more family-oriented approach in the managing of our public schools.

Please see the complete article of May 03/07 here.

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
Mark Twain

ADQ leader in Quebec, Mario Dumont, says he would abolish school boards to improve education. See ADQ wants to scrap school boards.

I have long written about how school boards ignore parents and are the main obstacle preventing excellence in education. Below is my letter to the Editor of the North Shore News, June 05, 2000. GET RID OF ELECTED TRUSTEES

Dear Editor:

The many issues in our public schools that continue to trouble us: poor communication, unresponsiveness, discouragement of parent volunteers, trustees’ expensive retreats, etc. are not new. When I was an active parent volunteer there was an occasion when we were even called “scabs” (North Shore News, front page story, Jan 5, 1983). Another time when parents stated they liked sports days for their kids, a principal told us that staff did not like them as it was an opportunity to compare notes.

So, resentment of parent volunteers is not just about jobs!

We can go back to 1976 when an international report of Canadian public education systems found school boards dealing with “fringe” matters rather than the substance of education and learning. “Parents complain that the school boards are remote and take no notice of them.” (OECD Report of Educational Policy in Canada, 1976).

Parents and the public have a long history of suffering under our present archaic system of educational governance. It is an industrial model and completely out of date with modern times. It produces layers and layers of obstacles and busy work for the industry, while parents and teachers are artificially kept from having meaningful relationships. It is the structure that needs to be changed.

We need to abolish politically elected school trustees who so-called “govern” over a whole district and instead have parents as unpaid governors of their own individual schools, similar to the structure in private schools. Elected trustees are “babes-in-the-woods” when it comes to dealing with employee groups and unions. They are easily overwhelmed and taken advantage of. How can they keep ahead of the professional advice, persistence, and knowledge build-up of the union groups?

The benefits of such a change would be immense: accountability, responsiveness, cost saving, efficiency, etc.

Tunya Audain

It’s been largely true that parents on the whole lack both voice and choice in a monopoly public school system. Essentially, they and their children are trapped into being a captive audience. Yet, remember, education is about learning to be critical thinkers, developing self-expression skills, making wise life choices, etc., etc. However, some say, voice is granted through parent advisory councils in schools, and district advisory councils on the district level. But, how much does it really count?

Choice, it is also said, is granted to those few parents who choose to send their children to private (often costly schools) or independent religious schools. Some parents exercise their choice by educating their children at home. Choice advocates promote vouchers or tuition tax credits, so that public dollars collected for education can follow the child. But, these efforts are beaten down by stakeholders, mainly teacher unions, who mobilize funds, manpower, and public relations against such efforts. But, it seems parents might be getting choice via the back door! How ironic! Look what’s happening. Feb. 05/07 Vancouver Sun reports on the topic of school closures. The threat of a school closure triggers parental response to seek openings for their children in other schools before spaces become unavailable. What has happened on the north shore of Vancouver, in the two communities of North and West Vancouver is that one school district is suffering falling enrolment, while another is experiencing migration of students from next door. North Shore News has the headline: N. Van’s school pain is W. Van’s gain. A N. Van school (Balmoral) is expected to be closed. Not only are parents choosing stability and continuity in a school, they are also choosing from a variety of choices that are likely to suit their children’s talents and interests. West Vancouver has a variety of choices including a hockey academy, soccer academy and the International Baccalaureate Program. Parents from North Vancouver would also like more choices that would be a magnet to draw students to their schools. Lacking a voice in producing magnet schools, parents vote with their feet. Lacking voice and influence in their schools frustrated parents have the recourse of trying to gain support from their community through letters to the editor. A recent letter in the North Shore News urges such mobilization. People may wonder about the role of school boards and how fair or businesslike are their decisions. We must remember, school district trustees are politicians, and "petty" (as in small) politicians at that. Too often school trustee politicians use their role as stepping stones to greater political stature, using school district affairs as a "farm team" experience. They are elected from their community, usually running on ideological, political platforms and with the backing of various self-interested lobby groups. They might either be politicos-in-training, or, as in the Vancouver School Board, the "community representatives" are dominated by educators. 7 of the 9 trustees are either teachers, ex-teachers (one having been a long time teacher union official) or otherwise with education backgrounds. One trustee has been there for 20 years, therefore qualifies as a member of the status quo, a charter member of the system. How can parents get some representation in decision-making in this scenario? In a recent blog in North Vancouver I discovered the following:

Anonymous said…

I hate to be cynical, but no one really cares about School Board. School Trustees are not worth much to this community. All the work and decision-making is done by the Admistration and simply rubber-stamped by the Trustees, the same trustees that voted themselves a big raise for serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The provincial government should scrap School Boards altogether.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007 9:09:31 AM

Another blog in that same discussion about Balmoral has this to say about choice:

Sue Cook said… The thing is, I do not think that past school boards have given a lot of choice to parents. I am not sure about the new school board, as my children are all grown. But if choices are not given then parents will find alternate forms of education.

A day later in the same discussion Mr. Anonymous proposes a plan to dissolve school boards:

School Boards should be dissolved. Their "responsibilities" could easily be taken over by municipal councils which would give Councils full control of school facilities 24/7. As Trustees actually do very little, the additional workload to Councils would be minimal. Municipalities could also set up a Schools Commission, similar to the Recreation Commission model. Taxpayers would benefit by doing away with the unneccesary expense of School Boards.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007 1:41:11 PM

In reading Myron Lieberman’s excellent book, Public Education: An Autopsy (1993), he recommends that school boards be abolished as one item in a list of recommendations to make education more responsive to the consumer.

24. School boards should be abolished or appointed by mayors, not elected in "non-partisan" elections in which the organized producers have more influence than the unorganized consumers. (p277)

I attach my letter to the editor published in the North Shore News, June 05/00. I had as yet not read Lieberman’s book with all his compiled research but I came to this conclusion watching school affairs for 30 years. In future I will attach earlier works of mine dealing with this topic.

GET RID OF SCHOOL TRUSTEES Dear Editor: The many issues in our public schools that continue to trouble us: poor communication, unresponsiveness, discouragement of parent volunteers, trustees’ expensive retreats, etc. are not new. When I was an active parent volunteer there was an occasion when we were even called "scabs" (North Shore News, front page story, Jan 5, 1983). Another time when parents stated they liked sports days for their kids, a principal told us that staff did not like them as it was an opportunity to compare notes. So resentment of parent volunteers is not just about jobs! We can go back to 1976 when an international report of Canadian public education systems found school boards dealing with "fringe" matters rather than the substance of education and learning. "Parents complain that the school boards are remote and take no notice of them." (OECD Report of Educational Policy in Canada, 1976). Parents and the public have a long history of suffering under our present archaic system of educational governance. It is an industrial model and completely out of date with modern times. It produces layers and layers of obstacles and busy work for the industry, while parents and teachers are artificially kept from having meaningful relationships. It is the structure that needs to be changed. We need to abolish politically elected school trustees who so-called "govern" over a whole district and have parents as unpaid governors of their own individual schools, similar to the structure in private schools. Elected trustees are "babes-in-the-woods" when it comes to dealing with employee groups and unions. They are easily overwhelmed and taken advantage of. How can they keep ahead of the professional advice, persistence, and knowledge build-up of the union groups? The benefits of such a change would be immense: accountability, responsiveness, cost saving, efficiency, etc. Tunya Audain West Vancouver