I see the Trib is peddling its usual line of malarky today, attacking the Chapa LaVia bill on the state charter commission---- the commission of appointees that gets to override the democratically elected school board members around the state.
We still think the commission is a good idea, a way to brush aside the education bureaucracy's massive resistance to change and make the best decision in the interests of students.
Tired, tired, tired. The "education bureaucracy" that they're referring to is actually what we used to call "locally elected school board members." The stewards of the schools. The people who take all the grief for local school districts and yet continue to serve. I've worked pretty closely with a number of suburban school boards, and I can tell you that when the Trib tries to imply that these boards are somehow working against the students, it's because the Trib editorial people don't know what they're talking about.
I doubt I'll get a Niagara Foundation award for pointing that out, but it's true.
The Trib wants elected people to be overruled by an obscure committee of appointed people, none of whom have ever run for election anywhere. It seems to be the way in ed reform circles; if you can't win at the polls, then just overrule by fiat the people who bothered to run for office.
There used to be this quaint little idea in Illinois where if you had an idea for a public policy, you'd run for the appropriate office on the basis of your publicly held opinion on that policy. You'd advocate it, you'd debate your opponent, and you'd let the voters ratify your opinions at the ballot box. Whatever happened to that?
Zealotry happened. These people see a market in public education, and they're bound and determined to dismantle anything public about it.
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