[Vision2020] dysfunctional board of education

[bill london]

Idaho has a dysfunctional State Board of Education.  The board's 
political partisanship is obvious in the on-going struggles to usurp the 
authority of the elected educational official, Marilyn Howard.  The 
board's inept rule-making is equally obvious in their decisions on 
sending unprepared teachers into the classrooms and creating a 
computer-based charter school. 

The board's partisanship is hurting Idaho' schoolchildren and 
embittering the K-12 teachers.  It's time for this to stop.

Tom Trail says the board is overworked.  That is a charitable notion, 
and I would support cutting their workload by dividing their 
responsibilities into a K-12 board and a higher education board (like in 
Washington state).  But even with 2 boards, there is nothing that would 
guarantee that both boards would be able to avoid the gross partisanship 
that has guided the present board.

Shirley Ringo has another idea, one that really will help.  She suggests 
that the board be required to represent the geographical and political 
diversity of the state.  She wants to avoid what we have now which is a 
board composed of Republican cronies of the governor's.  I urge our 
legislators to support her plan to require representation on the board 
of Democrats and Republicans from around the state.  I  hope that would 
end this ridiculous partisanship of the existing system.
BL