Reviewing Political Science on a Local School Board

Abstract

For eight years, I have been a member of my local Board of Education, including two years as its president. While doing what I could to improve education of 1,500 students annually, I have also broadened my awareness of relevance of political science to practical work of government. My colleagues did not always appreciate my academic specialty. On one occasion, when I made a particularly unrealistic suggestion, board president (ironically, also a Ph.D. in field) commented, speaks a true political scientist. Yet sometimes discipline proved helpful to them. For example, we wrestled one evening past midnight with proposed promotion of a mediocre but highly popular athletic coach. I convinced myself, and some others, to support appointment by invoking Max Weber's ethics of responsibility--surely one of most arcane considerations ever used in making local educational decisions. In this informal report, I want to stress relationships between my limited experience to more general aspects of democracy. School boards, to a great extent, emphasize that strand of democratic thought, exemplified by ancient Greeks and Rousseau, that focuses on importance of community. In these theories of what Jane Mansbridge calls unitary democracy, citizens voluntarily assume office, repress any private interests, and promote a discoverable common good. This is official doctrine, but surprising reality is that school board behavior largely fits ideal. Of twenty board members with whom I served, only one had an unsheathed ax to grind. And he (or, respecting confidentiality, she) gained neither victory nor respect. Board members receive neither pay nor perquisites more attractive than free tickets to chilly football games. They typically will spend one to two evenings a week on school business, slighting their families and careers, earning unpleasant rewards of complaints over everything from taxes to crayons. Still, they come each week, to consider carpeting in high school library, or price of grilled cheese sandwiches, or -too rarely-the goals of education. School board members believe in doctrine of common good. In practice, however, they must deal with a more familiar strand of democratic thought. This strand, well represented in our founding political philosophers such as Locke and Madison, focuses on competition of interests, in conflict and its resolution, and on winning of immediate victories. Being Americans, school board members are attracted to this competitive form of politics. In statewide training sessions of newly elected board members, for example, most lively discussion in corridors will be about campaign strategies, not scheduled topics of parliamentary procedure or curriculum development. There are many reasons for this preference. Election campaigns are exciting, satisfying to ego (if you win), and clear in results. In contrast, governing schools involves considerable tedium, constantly reminds you of limitations on your power, and produces few clear results. Having won their seats, school board members often echo Robert Redford's closing line in The Candidate: What do we do now? The difference between electioneering and governing is a familiar problem for office-holders, most recently illustrated by President George Bush's surgery to remove lips that promised No new taxes. I believe it is a particular problem for school board members, who are not professional politicians and are therefore less likely to be able to find appropriate middle way between two opposite temptations. One temptation is to concentrate on winning and holding office, a course sometimes pursued by legislators who overemphasize the electoral connection. Since there are few extrinsic rewards, this course is less likely to attract boards of education. The greater peril for these officials is that they will concentrate too much on governing and neglect their constituents. The anthropologist must beware of going native, and becoming overly identified with his or her host society. Similarly, a board member must beware of going professional, and becoming overly identified with school district's permanent administrators. It surely is tempting. The voters pay little attention to schools, unless their children or their wallets are affected; professionals sincerely devote their lives. The voters are factually uninformed; professionals know literature. The voters collectively speak to board only once a year, when budget is presented; professionals talk to board weekly, sometimes daily. The voters have only one, if powerful, sanction over board, its potential defeat in next election (although many will not run for a new term); professionals have multiple sanctions, from teacher resistance to personal disapproval. Moreover, institutional framework fosters this identification. Virtually everything that happens in schools is legal responsibility of