Fix It!!!!!

The following was in response to an article about San Juan Unified in Sacramento, who had to pay out millions of dollars to atone for the unprofessional, sexual discrimination abuse by its former Superintendent.  Once again we are witness to the unprofessionalism and failure of local school boards and leadership.  It needs to change!

If anybody out there still believes in the Local School Board System read this article.  We are wasting billions on an archaic system of "local control" that  not only is waste, but ruins administrative leadership.   It is obvious this Superintendent should never had been hired, and the Board President protected him.  I was a District Superintendent and was never surprised by the rank amateurism of the school boards all over the place.  Many times Superintendents survived by constant gossip to the school board, spending hours on the phone "keeping them in the loop" while the schools floundered.  My last school board was a disaster, made up of people who ran unopposed and were micro managing all the time.  We were not alone...EVERY school board I worked for, did the same lunacy to varying degrees.  One of our best Principals was demoted because a school board member's son was disciplilned correctly, the trustee (?) held a grudge and finally "got" the best leader in the district.

And it goes on and on.   Seldom is a board position contested, often members are appointed; cronies often of the teacher's union or an employee's spouse.  That's right, nepotism runs rampant.  One of my former districts allowed an Assistant Principal's spouse on the board, and then we all watched as he was immediately promoted to the District Office, taking a job he was not qualified for; and then the mistakes began. I watched a Principal "pack the board" with his cornies and actually get the Superintendent fired so he could take his place.  Immediately the guy (I can't call him an educator) then raised his own salary, hired his friends, ran off many competent adminstrators (I was one), and "fixed" the district with a system of cronyism that exists well past his retirement.

I also was a member for many years of ACSA (Association of California Administrators) and listened to similar horror stories all the time.

A disclaimer: there are some fine school board members who work hard for professional leadership.  But they are outnumbered massively by those who don't know what to do, or who are appointed or elected with agendas that have nothing to do with academic achievement.

Our kids deserve professional educational leadership.  Our kids deserve professonal leadership of educatonal leaders way better than the goul from San Juan.

  Eliminate local school boards.  Eliminate state school boards.  Establish by student population joint state/federal schools trustees who represent at a minimum millions of students.    As part of that system, establish professional school evaluation systems that hold schools, Principals and teachers accountable.  Yes, build a bureacracy (like ALL other industrialized nations)  that holds all schools to the same standards and professionally evaluates performance.

The Local School Board system, including the out dated county schools office, is harming our children more than ANY teacher union.  Besides, as currently constructed, for my conservative friends out there, the present local control system cannot compete with a professional union advocacy.  Often, as I have stated, some  of the local board are related to teacher union representatives.

Put control of our schools where it belongs:   in the school.  Keep the overall leadership at a common bureacratic distance.

Does it work?  Ask Finland, Germany, et al!!!!!