Hastings dead wrong about school boards
Published: April 1, 2014
(Editor’s note: This commentary by CSBA President Josephine “Jo” Lucey, responding to criticisms of elected school boards by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, ran last month in the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s a prime example of CSBA’s Governance First advocacy agenda.)
Recently, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings spoke at the California Charter Schools Association conference to advocate for the end of locally elected school boards. Mr. Hastings said that the “fundamental problem” with school districts is that they “don’t get to control their boards.” He suggested that democratically elected school board members are the problem with public education and they must be replaced by privately held corporations.
The California School Boards Association would like to take the opportunity to educate Mr. Hastings and set the record straight about the role and impact of local school boards.
Public oversight of local government is the foundation of American democracy. Nowhere is this more evident than in our public schools, where boards of education are entrusted by voters with the education of our youth.
If Mr. Hastings thinks local school boards should be replaced, does he also believe that we should also get rid of all other locally elected bodies, including city council and county board of supervisors? Does he not think that voters are capable of deciding who is best to represent and serve their best interests? We would beg to differ.
For more than 100 years, local school boards have been an integral feature of the U.S. public education system and are widely regarded as the principal democratic body to represent citizens in local education decisions.
Local school boards have been described as the historic linchpin of American educational governance and its role is seen as crucial to sustaining participatory and representative government. In today’s pluralistic society, it’s important that individuals representing diverse viewpoints and experiences are elected to serve on school governing boards.
As Matt Haney, a board member of the San Francisco Unified School District, wrote in his recent op-ed, “school boards exist because public schools belong to and are directly accountable to the communities they serve.”
To suggest that appointed boards, such as corporate boards and non-public boards that operate charter schools, are the answer is a gross error and would be a disservice to the communities in which local school board members are elected to serve and represent. It also goes against the democratic principles that our country was founded on.
Recognizing that those officials closest to working with students are in the best position to understand and improve student outcomes, California Gov. Jerry Brown has recently introduced the principle of “subsidiarity” that acknowledges smart and thoughtful local control are the keys to improving schools.
No one can protect and represent the diverse interests of the children in their communities better than local leaders—and nothing keeps the “public” in public schools better than publicly elected local leadership.
People hold their public servants accountable and turnover on a school board, or any elected body for that matter, is how we let our representatives know whether we are satisfied with their service. As a former member of the California State Board of Education, Mr. Hastings should know that local school board member tenure is pretty high as CSBA members, on average, have more than 8.5 years of service.
It’s unfortunate that instead of choosing to focus the awareness and conversation on the dire underfunding of public schools, which is truly the biggest challenge our state faces, Mr. Hastings is choosing to pit charter schools against local school boards.
We hope that he understands that elected school boards are committed to advocating for and providing a high quality education for all of our students and that we should be working together, not against one another, to achieve success. Our students deserve it.