Why won’t Delegate Mary-Dulany James just admit she opposes school board elections? If it’s because the Delegate from District 34A shares school board member Mark Wolkow’s dim view of democracy, she’s wise to keep her opinions to herself.
Clearly, Wolkow is working with someone in the State Legislature to craft an alternative to elections. Most likely it’s James – they’ve worked together on this issue in the past. But if Wolkow and James are planning a battle against the tide of public support for elections, they’ll need new ammunition.
Board of Education Vice President Lee Merrell introduced a motion at last night’s meeting to remove the position on school board elections from a proposed Legislative Platform for the 2009 Maryland General Assembly session.
Merrell said the Board was split on the issue and while he personally favored elections, he wanted to “leave each board member free to take a position” by taking no official stance as a board. The proposed Legislative Platform included language opposing elections in favor of having board members appointed by the Governor.
Gov. Martin O’Malley was misinformed. How else to explain the letter from his education adviser explaining it was O’Malley’s job to pick the candidates “he believed were the most highly qualified” for the Harford County Board of Education?
If the Governor thought his selections were the most eager, or had rallied the right political support; fair enough. But the most qualified?
The fate of the elected School Board bill goes down to the wire in Annapolis. For the latest updates, check out the comments to this article…
When a majority of delegates from a local jurisdiction sponsor legislation affecting their jurisdiction alone, the custom of the Maryland General Assembly is to approve it as a “local courtesy.” The bill proposing an elected Board of Education in Harford County should be a good example the Annapolis political tradition.
When the bill establishing a fully elected board was amended to create a partially elected, or blended school board, http://mlis.state.md.us/2008rs/billfile/SB0306.htm, it got the support of all three Harford County senators, unanimous approval in the full state senate and unanimous approval by a vote of the Harford County delegation – although Delegate Mary-Dulany James, a staunch opponent of elections, was not present for the delegation vote (remember this for later).
I am writing to express my disappointment in your sponsorship of HB 806. HB 806 would create an oligarchy to control Harford County’s voice in the appointment of our school board members. I believe that this bill is directly in opposition to what is best for good government, positive education decision-making, and the people of Harford County.
The greatest accomplishment this bill could achieve is the creation of additional bureaucracy. Your bill would give the power to special interest groups, chosen by a means unknown to the public, to choose dues-paying members of their clubs to sit on a government-created “commission.” The commission would then make, using the criteria it creates, a list of the individuals the collection of special-interest representatives believes should serve on the school board.
Take a wild guess – throw a dart with a blindfold on – and you might divine that I’m not a big fan of establishment politics. Nor am I big on PR stunts. The problem with PR stunts is they are inherently deceptive. The stuntmen and stunt women want us to believe what we’re seeing is real. The problem with establishment politics is that society’s pressing need – “the children,” for instance – always ends up playing second fiddle to flaccid businessmen and guileful dealmakers.
PR stunts and establishment politics go hand in hand. One such stunt, designed to protect the status quo against what has become a groundswell of support for an elected school board in Harford County, played out in Annapolis Wednesday.
Del. Mary-Dulany James (D-District 34) considers herself a stalwart of the community’s educational institutions. She has every right to. Not just because her father helped found Harford Community ...Continue Reading
