News out of Colorado today has a school board member bringing his gun to school board meetings because of his fear of retaliation over comments he made on his radio show. His comments were to the effect of denigrating and downright insulting Martin Luther King, Jr. The school board member is, apparently, an openly white supremacist and broadcasts his ideas over the radio and internet. In response to his "ideas," he has allegedly received death threats.
In light of the recent school board shooting in Florida and still within the context of events during the previous week in Tucson, this board member feels the best idea is just to bring his gun with him to the school board meeting in case he needs to engage in a shoot-out, wild-west style, I guess.
Aside from this obvious craziness, how do we get rid of folks like this, legally? The Colorado Constitution (Art. 9, Sec. 15), as well as many other states, require there to be a local board of education, so doing away with the whole thing is out of the question barring a constitutional amendment or convention. Further, attempting to impeach (for lack of a better word) a school board member would be procedurally complex and extended, meaning the member's term is likely to expire before the litigation completes. So, now what?
How about this ... could we substantially raise the entry qualifications? We just got through a whole national push for "Highly Qualified Teachers," so perhaps it is time for a national push for "Highly Qualified School Board Members."
Most board qualifications look something like this, where the minimum qualifications are just to be a human adult and live in the district. In fact, that Louisiana one I just cited is unique in that it requires the board member to be able to read and write. Most, it seems, do not. In fact, likely the most complicated thing about running for school board is filling out the nominating papers.
So, what about requiring a college degree to serve on a school board? Such a requirement would be legally possible, it seems. In particular Kentucky seems to be a leader on this front in requiring their board members to have completed the 12th grade or have received a GED certificate. In 1990, with KERA, we increased this from 8th grade to 12th grade, so increases are not out of the question. Further, case law in Kentucky has upheld these educational provisions (Commonwealth v. Norfleet (272 Ky. 800, 1938)). Thus, perhaps other states should consider this model and perhaps it is also time to increase the educational attainment to at least an Associates or Bachelors degree?
In the same way that the federal government put forth the Highly Qualified definition, they could do the same thing for board members. It is a bit more complex because board members are elected officials, but I think the smart people in Washington could figure it out. Alternatively, states could just take it on themselves to increase board member qualifications. Politically, it seems, such a bill in the state legislature would not be dead on arrival, like some other possible changes to school board structure.
Okay, the downside. While I don't see much downside, I do think it could harm representation particularly in two areas, minorities and the aging/elderly. Because drop-out and college attainment rates are lower in some minority populations, there would be less of a pool of candidates in some areas of the county. But, to me, even more of a reason to have college graduates on the board as examples to the students. Secondly, the bigger problem it seems, is that some elderly would not qualify not as a result of their lack of knowledge or hard work, but simply as a result of generational shifts in educational expectations. Because many current board members are older individuals (have a look at the rest of the board in Colorado), a phase-in provision might have to be added to compensate for these generational differences. Certainly there would have to be a grandfathering provision for all existing board members (no pun intended, of course).
This kind of provision certainly would not get rid of all the crazy people. Remember, this guy had no problem attaining degrees from top schools. And, this guy in Colorado may well have a college degree, especially since it is a university town. But, generally, entry requirements for school board members would likely increase the quality and expectations of local school boards. Given that they are the true entity legally tasked with running local schools (not administrators or teachers), I think a national push to set a minimum educational attainment for local school boards makes perfect sense.