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Hoppy’s Commentary for Monday

Last Friday evening, I met with about 200 county school board members from across the state during a training session in Charleston.  Generalizations are dangerous, but they strike me, collectively, as an eager, but frustrated bunch.

Consider who serves on county school boards: these are people sufficiently motivated to improve public education in their local communities that they devote considerable time and resources to the job.  Nobody would insert themselves in such a thankless position unless they had a passion for education. 

They really do want to help.

But what happens when they get elected?  Board members are immediately confronted by a confounding bureaucracy of state and federal rules.  One board member told me Friday night that his indoctrination included a massive document explaining what NOT to do.

These impediments to innovation and improvement are not imagined or simply anecdotal.  The recently released independent Education Efficiency Audit by the firm Public Works confirmed that West Virginia’s school system is a bureaucratic morass that has shifted beyond the public’s control.

"The (education) system is detailed to the extreme in statutory language that results in an education system that has little flexibility to modify policy and operations without changes to the Code (state law)," the report said.  "We have encountered no other state (emphasis added) that insulates its education system so much from gubernatorial –or voter–control." 

That "voter control" is, largely, the local school boards.  Yet the very people elected by communities to run their schools are prevented, by law, from doing so.  

Granted, the public sector is not completely analogous to the private sector, but can you imagine for a minute if you tried to run a business, or worked at an organization, where to make any meaningful change in your operation you had to get the state legislature to pass a law?

The school calendar mess is a classic example of the limitations on the local school boards.

The Legislature finally passed a law eliminating the arbitrary start and end dates of the school year in hopes that counties would reach the required 180 days of instruction.  However, because service workers have a 43-week contract in code, there remains a strict limitation on when schools can be open.

The result is that during an average winter, most counties still won’t make the 180. 

What the local school board members fail to completely grasp is their potential power to bring about the change they desire.  They are, after all, the elected representatives of the people. Collectively, they can go to the Legislature and say, "let us do our jobs."

Fortunately, the audit provides an objective and comprehensive guide for going forward.  School board members should use that as an instrument to exercise their independence that will help bring about change and innovation in the public schools.

Yes, when local boards are freed from many of the dictates from Charleston, there will be failures, shortcomings, inefficiencies and unfairness.  That’s the nature of any organization, public or private.

But there will also be excellence, because the freedom to pursue one’s passion produces excellence.  Today, however, that lofty goal is not reachable because of the excessive constraints placed upon these local boards. 





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