On an Elected School Committee
March 13, 2009

In my announcement video, I said that we need to talk about whether an appointed school committee is best for our children. The Globe and the Herald have since written editorials making a case against an elected school committee. And while they are publishing a letter from me clarifying my position, I want to set the record straight here, as well.

Let’s be perfectly clear – I never said we should return to an elected committee. But I am glad we are finally talking about it.

My concern is that mayoral appointees cannot challenge the system enough, because they are part of the system. And when it comes to the Boston Public Schools, the system needs to change.

The Globe’s editorial criticizing my call for another look at an elected school committee validly cited the reasons why Boston replaced the elected school committee in favor of an appointed one. Neighborhood favoritism, patronage, corruption – these are symptoms of a system that was seriously ill, symptoms that anyone with their eyes open would find widespread in Boston government.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the elected school committee was a dysfunctional body, and it was hiring and firing school superintendents on an annual basis. Mayor Flynn had the courage to challenge the system back then, and offered the citizens of Boston the chance to weigh in, allowing them to vote on the change.

Mayor Flynn saw that unless we were willing to boldly re-examine every aspect of how our schools are run, we would not achieve the transformational change our schools and our kids needed to compete.

The appointed school committee did what Boston’s voters and Mayor Flynn wanted them to. They stabilized our schools, and allowed Superintendent Thomas Payzant to run them for an unprecedented 15 years.

Make no mistake: Superintendent Payzant made steady, incremental progress. But we are still light-years away from where we need our schools to be. The numbers make this clear. Take a class of twenty high school freshmen. Twelve of them will make it to their senior year. Eight will not. Take any six BPS students who enter college in Boston. One of the six will graduate with their class. The other five will not, if ever.

How exactly is our system preparing students for the 21st century?

It is time for transformational change once again.

Before he retired, Superintendent Payzant told me that of all the school districts he had ever led (and he had led many), Boston was the only city where he had no say about how much money he got for the schools. Instead, he was handed a number from Mayor Menino and told to make do, end of story. This system has not changed.

Our current superintendent, Dr. Carol Johnson, and the Mayor’s School Committee was handed a number this year, a number that threw our schools into a crisis. There has never been an explanation of how the Mayor arrived at its school budget number. In fact, the Boston Teacher’s Union has hired its own analyst to try to understand it, because the Mayor has refused to explain.

One school committee member recently summed up the problem. Speaking to several hundred students at Boston English High School on March 5th, he said, “Unfortunately, we have no say over revenue.” Only one person does – the same person who appoints the school committee.

A groundbreaking study on education by The Wallace Foundation found two kinds of leaders in urban school systems: There are transformers, those who advocate for wholesale change. And there are the other kind, copers, those who just want to survive and get by.

What we need right now are not copers, but transformers. I question whether a school committee that is simply an appendage of the mayor can advocate for wholesale change.

We all know an electoral process does not always produce needed change. But I believe lasting transformation often comes through an electoral process. An elected school committee could be constituted to avoid the abuses of the past, while bringing accountability and different viewpoints to the Boston Public Schools. This is the goal, and I am eager to continue our conversation about it.

If we’re satisfied with the way things we are, let’s not ask any more questions.

As for me, I’m not satisfied. We can’t afford to be. So I will continue asking questions.