Can the Wisdom of the Crowd Pick a Good School Board?
Today, after months of speculation, Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission announced that Superintendent Arlene Ackerman would step down. Ackerman has been under fire for close to a year over a number of issues. Far from the least of those issues was a budget deficit for the upcoming school year of over $600 million. That deficit resulted in a wave of layoffs that affected some of my colleagues and has me looking over my shoulder, so I am by no means a disinterested party here. Now, in light of this deficit, the next bit of info may seem a bit shocking. In exchange for walking away from the three years remaining on her contract, Ackerman is receiving $905,000. The SRC is on the hook for about $500,000. The rest is coming from private donations, which is a whole different story.
Now you may be asking yourself why, during a budget crisis, would you pay someone almost a million dollars not to do any work. What’s scary is that this may be the most sensible decision the School Reform Commission has made on this issue. Because the SRC originally hired Ackerman with an exorbitant salary and set of perks, and because the SRC then extended her contract even after controversy started, the SRC was going to be giving Arlene Ackerman close to a million dollars or more over the next three years. The question is whether the schools would get more value for that money if they did have Ackerman’s services, or if they didn’t. Clearly, they decided that she was doing more arm than good. One can only wish they had that realization when they extended the contract, or when they signed it in the first place.
So, clearly, the SRC has neither covered itself in glory nor demonstrated great wisdom in this affair. This has some people wondering if the SRC is a good idea in the first place. The SRC replaced the old school board about a decade ago when the state came in to deliver added funding. The governor appoints three members and the mayor appoints two. So the citizens of Philadelphia have very little control over the commission, and a natural response is to want the people of the city to have more say. So there’s a small movement to replace the SRC with an elected school board.
I honestly don’t think there’s much chance of the current Pennsylvania legislature getting rid of the SRC, but if they did, I wonder if an elected school board would be the best replacement. There is a point of diminishing returns with elected offices. The more detailed the job, the harder it is for citizens to be informed enough about the job and the candidates to make an intelligent decision. In Philadelphia we have a set of positions called row offices – jobs like City Commissioner, Sheriff, and Register of Wills. I am a political junkie and it has taken me years to figure out exactly what each job does, let alone to figure out who has the best platform for the job. We elect judges, and I just skip those offices on the ballot because I do not have the legal expertise to know who is a good judge and who isn’t. Because fewer voters pay attention to these offices, party bosses tend to have more influence over who gets nominated and who wins. It’s not a pretty picture of electoral sausage-making. I don’t know if that’s the process I want to determine education policy.
On the other hand, lots of people in the community have a stake in the schools’ success. If schools can really integrate themselves with their communities, through the work of administrators, staff, and parents, it might create an informed enough electorate to make an elected board work. But there are a lot of necessary changes to our political and academic cultures between here and there.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.