COMMENTARY: NYS SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION THINKS ZARB DOES NOT GO FAR ENOUGH

Timothy G. Kremer, the Executive Director of the New York State School Boards Association, wrote in his regular commentary a few months ago that, while NYSSBA “has some problems with the reports” regarding its recommendations for funding, his organization supports Zarb’s conclusions

Kremer says that he understands that “most commentators panned the report” when it was published in the beginning of April, 2004. But what Kremer seems most disturbed about is that the Zarb report does not go far enough: that, in its recommendations for redistributing funds, it does “little more than maintain the status quo.” Director Kremer says he is aggravated that the “mayors of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers” would retain too much “control of their school systems,” and criticizes Zarb for buying into “the myth that public education is sufficiently accountable for its operations and results when in fact it is less publicly open and accountable than any other governmental institution.” On the other hand – and this impacts directly on our fellow ESSAA members – as recently as the end of July Kremer stated: “school boards enthusiastically (sic) endorse some elements of the governor’s (sic) proposal,” saying that: “Reforms to the Wick Law, administrative tenure, and teacher certification and discipline procedures must be enacted in order to permit school districts to operate more efficiently and effectively.” I’d like to know what the different planets are named that Mr. Kremer and I have been inhabiting for the last 30 years! When many of us started our careers in education a generation ago, we were promised by boards of education that the bedrock of public education was then, and would always be, local control over their children’s schooling

Thirty years ago there was little disagreement on this basic point, and in the intervening years, battalions of political candidates from both major parties have continued to be elected on the platform of “local control – once, now, and forever.” Meanwhile, seemingly while we slept, we have witnessed a titanic siphoning of power away from town and city boards of education and toward the State and Federal Governments – and neither No Child Left Behind nor the Zarb Report gives us any reason to believe that this movement has ended

No one can blame Executive Director Timothy Kremer of the New York School Boards Association for being solely responsible for what amounts to a betrayal of the American schoolhouse dream, but it remains peculiar that Boards of Education – once the energetic cheer leading squads for neighborhood schools that reflect local and community values – now complain the loudest that their local schools are not controlled more tightly by the State and Federal governments

And now their representatives want to surrender even more of their power to Big Government

As Shakespeare said: “O, Brave New World, that has such people in it!” Quo Vadis, guys? What gives?

R. A. L