One of the dominant political developments of our time is the legislative branch’s abdication of its Constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch. What kid oakland called a “battle for governance.” It’s most pronounced in Congress, which has almost voted itself out of existence under the Bush Administration (even when Democrats control it).
But you can see it to some degree here in California, at the state and even the local level. Although designed to be co-equal branches, the state legislature has often deferred to the governor’s office on major legislation. Unwilling to challenge a weakened Arnold, Democrats in 2006 cut deals with him and helped his reelection, intentionally or not. In 2007 Democrats wound up having to give into the governor’s demands for a $1.3 billion public transportation cut and adopted much of his health care proposal, including Arnold’s individual mandate plan.
So far, though, the California legislature has resisted Arnold’s other power grabs – with crucial help from progressive groups, activists, and voters in the 2005 special election, of course. Now Arnold is trying again, using his “Year of Education” as an effort to seize more control over state government. In this instance his plan is to take control of the state Department of Education from the Superintendent of Public Instruction:
Another idea on the agenda that went nowhere in 2002 was handing the governor much of the responsibility for education. That proposal was part of the California Master Plan for Education, headed by then-state Sen. Dede Alpert, a San Diego Democrat, and opposed by Jack O’Connell, who was running for state superintendent at the time. He was on the master plan committee but withdrew his name because of that proposal.
Now, Alpert is the vice chairwoman of the governor’s education committee.
On Friday, O’Connell declined to comment on the new report until its official release.
Although the Chronicle frames this as a personal spat, there is a more fundamental issue here: democratic governance of education. The Superintendent is an elected position, designed for one purpose – overseeing public education. Obviously the governor is elected as well, but to oversee a number of different subjects. In a race for the governor’s office any number of issues may determine the outcome, but in a race for the Superintendent’s office, education is the only issue.
At root is a suspicion of, even a hostility to, the role of democracy in education. More and more schools around the country are being taken over by executives, in some cases unelected, on the unproven theory that strong leadership is more important for education than democracy and inclusion.
It’s an ironic story. Schools are consistently underfunded and their surrounding communities left to rot in poverty. When students predictably fail to achieve success at the same rates as their peers in better funded, wealthier locales, the media and politicians blame the schools, blame the teachers, and eventually, blame the elected school boards for the problem. Someone, usually a mayor or a governor, proposes a takeover of the schools “to produce results.” It’s happened in Newark, Washington DC, Chicago, and was proposed for LA under Antonio Villaraigosa.
Putting an executive in charge is only a good idea to those who think that education is or should be a top-down affair. In reality education is neither top-down nor bottom-up, it’s instead a collaborative effort where students, teachers, parents, administrators, politicians, and members of the public all have a role to play. In some cases the role is primary, in other cases it’s supportive. But in all cases education is something that only works when there is a lot of involvement, not when people follow orders from the top.
As public education is a public affair, the voters have a right to their voice in the matter. Locally, the elected school board is the way that gets done, the way that democracy functions in public education. It’s not perfect, and not sufficient – there is always room for more democracy at the school level and elsewhere in education – but it is at least a way for the public to have a role in planning and administering education.
School boards are inherently controversial. There have often been efforts by wingnuts to hijack these boards for their own agenda – the Dover, PA school board that wanted to force “intelligent design” on students is a recent high-profile case, but it’s happened many times here in California as well. And sometimes progressives get a hold of school boards and actually try to use them to address things like the achievement gap. When they do, however, they’re often attacked by a business-media alliance, as they were in Seattle last year. Accused of abandoning the core mission of schools to focus on “unnecessary” issues, progressive school boards are often targeted because they have what political scientist Samuel Huntington once infamously called “an excess of democracy.” Rein in democracy, it is believed, and we can finally “get things done.”
The Superintendent of Public Education is the closest thing to a state school board we have, at least in terms of democracy. There are MANY boards, commissions, and departments that have jurisdiction over education in this state, from the Department of Education to the UC Regents – but of these, only the Superintendent is directly elected. And since 1970, when Californians threw out the far-right Max Rafferty for the progressive Wilson Riles, the nonpartisan office has been held by Democrats. In contrast, since 1900 there have only been four Democrats elected governor in California, two of whom were named Edmund G. Brown.
Arnold’s attack on the office of the Superintendent of Public Education should then be understood in that context – the larger context of an attack on educational democracy, and Arnold’s desire to take power over education away from an office held usually by Democrats.
Yesterday I explained the funding elements of Arnold’s plan – how it involves eliminating specific program funding and instead provides block grants to schools. Oversight of this process is key to its success, and unfortunately, not all districts can be trusted to handle it properly. By removing the Department of Education from the Superintendent of Public Instruction Arnold proposes to make it more difficult for the public to have a democratic oversight role, and would wind up limiting the role of democracy in public education.
Democracy is difficult. Democracy can be ugly. But it’s also crucial not just to a free society, but to an educated society, and to the public education system that undergirds them both.
