Summer 2008: Cala is Right, Abolish Committees!

From very early in my service on the city school board, I have felt that the board committee system was unworkable. For this reason I was happy to see that Dr. Cala, in his parting report to the public, after a brief but very highly regarded tenure as interim superintendent, felt the same way. It is a little strange for a board as small as seven people to establish logjams in the completion of its work, by routing it through numerous committees of three people. The work now done by board committees would better be done by the entire board, and by study sessions of the entire board. This would prompt more timely engagement by all board members, in all of the boards business, and eliminate the situation we have now, which Dr. Cala described to me as each committee functioning much like a separate board. Turf considerations, I believe, are the main reason there is resistance to abolishing this system.

I would add that we should also abolish board liaison assignments. In this system, board members are assigned by the president, willy-nilly, to look after various schools, and "advocate" for them. First, the board, and all members, are elected by the entire city, and have no business "advocating" for anything other than the general welfare of the entire district. Beyond that, this system invites micromanaging. It invites board members, in the name of constituent service, to stick their noses into day by day administration of schools, and all kinds of unfair and unethical ways. The liaison system is a dream for special interests.

The board has two core missions: Policy and fiscal oversight. Special interests, and above all, school bureaucrats like nothing better than to distract boards with side ventures (committee chairmanships that puff up their egos, liaison work that allows board members to play hero to people with axes to grind). But school boards best fulfill their obligations to ALL the people when they focus on policy and fiscal oversight, which is their proper job, and a role they should guard jealously. But boards should resist the sideshows. There is an old expression from the business world, that describes how some bureaucracies like to deal with boards. They call it "the mushroom treatment." How do you cultivate mushrooms? Keep them in the dark, and surround tem with ... fertilizer. Alert boards should resist this.