Fordham Institute: Democracy is Overrated
Democracy? We don't need no
stinkin' democracy!
stinkin' democracy!
Writing in the Thomas B. Fordham Institute'sOhio Gadfly Online, Aaron Churchill says that we shouldn't worry so much about whether school boards are elected, as in most public schools, or appointed, as in most charter schools, because democracy doesn't really work so well in education.
Churchill's key argument is that not many voters show up for school board elections because voters are not well-motivated for these off- cycle, low-profile elections; so who really cares if the school board members are elected or appointed by some charter operator. The problem is, according to Churchill, that these low-turnout elections leave the field open to "special interest groups" to unduly influence elections. By special interest groups, Churchill means teacher unions. Apparently, he cannot think of any other special interest groups that might want to influence a school board election.
To support his thesis, Churchill cites the work of Terry Moe, the William Bennett Monroe professor of political science at Stanford. This sounds really impressive until you google Professor Moe and find out that he is also a member of the Hoover Institute's Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. The Hoover Institute is a conservative think tank that has a long history of anti-unionism. Moe discovered, lo and behold, that Russ on Reading: Fordham Institute: Democracy is Overrated:
