A Sham and A Shame
The movement for an elected school board on the Senate side was nearly completely wiped out yesterday, with SB28 being withdrawn and with Sen. DeGrange siding with the anti-election faction.
The entire process is now turning into a farce. Sen. Astle calls the bill a "compromise bill" because it will "appease critics of the current law," completely ignoring the fact that the people who criticize the current law don't think that this idea of an elitist nominating commission is any better. This critic says the Leopold/Astle bill is a gigantic step backwards for everybody. Even the current system, with its byzantine rules and processes, is more democratic and provides more opportunities for public participation than this sham of a bill.
What's even more distressing is the attitude shown by some. Alan Friedman, Leopold's legislative director, is quoted as saying;
The turn of events in the last several days is a complete disaster for education in Anne Arundel County. Instead of siding with parents, citizens, and taxpayers, the Senate delegation has decided to kowtow to John Leopold's idea that the School Board should be controlled by a coterie of unelected elites. And it is a shame that the Senators are following the lead of a career politician like Leopold(who, incidentally, was elected to the Hawaii State Board of Education forty years ago) in deciding that citizens, taxpayers, and particularly parents, should have no say in who makes decisions for the schools in our county.
This is a travesty. I hope that there is enough common sense in the House Delegation to suppress this bill. No change is better than a bad change...
The entire process is now turning into a farce. Sen. Astle calls the bill a "compromise bill" because it will "appease critics of the current law," completely ignoring the fact that the people who criticize the current law don't think that this idea of an elitist nominating commission is any better. This critic says the Leopold/Astle bill is a gigantic step backwards for everybody. Even the current system, with its byzantine rules and processes, is more democratic and provides more opportunities for public participation than this sham of a bill.
What's even more distressing is the attitude shown by some. Alan Friedman, Leopold's legislative director, is quoted as saying;
"This is an issue that has been debated for 24 years, and I think everybody feels we've waited long enough."Is that really an acceptable rationale to pass any bill, much less a bill the people do not want?
The turn of events in the last several days is a complete disaster for education in Anne Arundel County. Instead of siding with parents, citizens, and taxpayers, the Senate delegation has decided to kowtow to John Leopold's idea that the School Board should be controlled by a coterie of unelected elites. And it is a shame that the Senators are following the lead of a career politician like Leopold(who, incidentally, was elected to the Hawaii State Board of Education forty years ago) in deciding that citizens, taxpayers, and particularly parents, should have no say in who makes decisions for the schools in our county.
This is a travesty. I hope that there is enough common sense in the House Delegation to suppress this bill. No change is better than a bad change...
Labels: School Board Reform
posted by Brian Griffiths at 10:06 PM
3 Comments:
It's practical politics 101 for Bryan Simonaire. He's a freshman senator in the minority party. He smartly backed down before the powers that be embarrassed him.
Lets not forget to mention..... Why should a man who doesn't trust his own district's schools to educate his children be allowed to make decisions for ours?
Even though he smartly backed down, Its still going to come back to bite him in the ass. He placed it in motion in the first place, now will get the consequences of not making it happen, and backing down from behind his original stance in the first place. If you lose, and you know your going to, do it gracefully, rather than running away from the fight.
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