Conventional wisdom has it that local governing bodies are more responsive to the public than those at the state or national level. They're closer-literally- to the people who elect them.
Would that were true of the Board of Directors of Portland Public Schools, which works a mere five miles from my house. Unfortunately it isn't. We the people didn't elect them. The seven current school board members were "anointed" by a tiny cabal of influential Portlanders with deep connections to the Portland Schools Foundation and Stand for Children. In effect, the two organizations ran a "slate" of lavishly funded candidates in 2003, all of whom were elected. The process was repeated in 2005 with the "election" of three more "anointees".
That's no longer mere speculation on my part. This Annenberg Institute document provides corroboration:
To turn things around, in 2003 the Portland Schools Foundation (PSF) and former school board members from the 1970s and 1980s formed a pact, working with the teachers union and Stand for Children to elect a new slate of school board members. In May 2004 [2003 actually], four new members were elected to the seven-member school board, supporting an agenda for better leadership and the existing community-constructed strategic plan.
Worse yet, this coup was accomplished with the help of outside money, much of it from the right-wing Broad Foundation:
PSF enlisted the support of the Broad Foundation to support this new slate of reform-minded board members and help them recommit to the 2000 strategic plan. Broad also helped board members learn what they needed to know and be able to do in order to hire a superintendent and set a collective strategic direction for the district to create a system of high-performing schools.
This "reform-minded board" seems intent on imposing efficiencies on the district by closing schools. It's the business model, embraced by Broad, which seems to enthrall the board, not real school reform. In fact none of the "anointees" seem to know much about what's taught in district schools, or how it's taught, which, as I pointed out recently, is the heart of viable school reform.
Potential decisions on school reconfiguration by the board are being carefully scrutinized by local media and by parent groups who care about their schools. That's the good news that tempers the growing realization that the district and its elected officials don't truly represent the interests of all Portlanders.
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