Whatever Happened to Local Control?
Like any veteran teacher, I have had occasional doubts about turning Big Education Decisions over to local school boards. I spent thirty years teaching in the same small-town district, which morphed from very rural farmland to the fringes of urban exodus during that period.
The prosperous founding-family farmers who sat on our Board of Ed in the 1970s were supplanted by the "rising tide of mediocrity" hand-wringers in the 1980s, "basic education only" cost-cutters in the 1990s and technology enthusiasts in the 21st century.
I don't believe there has ever been a school year when I wasn't teaching at least one board member's child. I've seen local boards make baseless, idiotic decisions and demonstrate the "I'm only on the board to get benefits for my child" syndrome. I've been asked by an administrator to change the grade of a board member's son, and instructed to "forget" that a board member's daughter stole a musical instrument, when the police report was