The California School Boards Association — Principles for Political Reform

CSBA’s Vision:
The California School Boards Association envisions a state where the public schools are widely recognized as the foundation of a free and democratic society, where local citizen governing boards are fully vested with the means to advance the best interests of students and the public, and where the futures of all children are driven by their aspirations, not bounded by their circumstances.
 
CSBA’s Mission:
CSBA promotes success for all students by defining and driving the public education agenda and strengthening school board governance at the district and county levels.
 
The vision statement above contain terms like “public schools,” “democratic society,” and “local citizen governing boards.” The use of these terms demonstrates CSBA’s commitment to the core values of democracy and democratic institutions and recognition that these values are both reflected in and strengthened by public education. Moreover, the mission to define and drive the public education agenda and strengthen school board governance extends this commitment to taking an active role in making our democratic institutions—especially public schools—work for all children.

In California, the purpose and quality of public education is determined and affected by all levels of government. While locally-elected school boards are the cornerstone of our public education governance system, federal, state, and even other local governments play critical roles. Therefore, CSBA cannot effectively pursue its mission without engaging in other levels of government.

Typically, this engagement consists of working within existing political and legislative processes to produce outcomes that are best for children. However, those processes themselves can affect outcomes. As American history and current events around the world show, who makes decisions, who decides who makes decisions, and how those decisions are made are not divorced from the decisions themselves. Different processes and different decision makers result in different decisions.

In California today, our government institutions are increasingly seen as broken. Record deficits, late budgets, the energy crisis, and other problems are blamed, not on bad people, but on good people who are caught up in a dysfunctional system. Schools also feel the consequences of these problems. Late and inadequate budgets disrupt local planning, reforms du jour require schools to change directions before prior reforms have had a chance to work, and the combination of more local accountability with continued, or even increased, state control are just a few of the conditions that hamper local governance of public schools.

As a result of these problems, we have seen an increased number of proposals, in the form of legislation or ballot initiatives, to reform various aspects of our political and legislative processes. Most proposals have focused on four areas: (1) reapportionment, (2) campaign finance, (3) term limits, and (4) recall elections.

CSBA’s Delegate Assembly has determined that, because of the direct impact of all of these issues on public education and public school students, CSBA should adopt a set of principles for political reform that will guide the organization in evaluating specific proposals and help to inform the broader discussion.

Accordingly, CSBA subscribes to the following Principles for Political Reform and believes that reform should strive to achieve one or more of these objectives:

• Maintain and strengthen local control to empower decision making at the lowest possible level of government
• Strengthen political accountability
• Make legislative and congressional districts more competitive
• Maintain the balance of power between branches of government
• Encourage elected officials to take the long view, not just do what is politically expedient
• Assert majority rule
• Minimize the influence of money and special interests
• Value grassroots democracy and encourage community involvement
• Reduce partisan gridlock and polarization
• Protect the right of voters to select their own representatives without constraints like term limits

In addition, CSBA believes that the future of our democratic institutions depends upon a public school system that teaches and promotes democratic values. Therefore, CSBA supports strong civic education that instills a sense of civic responsibility and an appreciation of democratic values.