MyAACPS.net

School Board Nominating Commission Update for 2011

2011-06-18T21:39:00.003-05:00

My column in the Severna Park Patch (click on the title to go to the article).

The public comments regarding the proposed Board of Education Policy to gut the Countywide CAC

2011-06-15T19:40:00.089-05:00

On June 15, 2011, one day after the end of the school year, the Board of Education provided the second reading of its proposed policy and accompanying regulations to gut the Countywide Citizen Advisory Committee system. Attached below are links to the two proposed policies.

Policy KBA/501.01 - Citizen Advisory Committee

Regulation KBA-RA/AR501.01 - Citizens Advisory Committee

The submitted comments by parents, also as of June 15, 2011, are pasted below. According to Board policy, these comments are only publicly available for thirty days after a proposed public policy is posted. The link to the relevant Board of Education page is here.

Note that the Countywide PTA has become the major public voice opposing the continued existence of the Countywide CAC system as an independent, grassroots organization.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am the CAC representative from our school. I have read the draft of the proposed policy and regulation changes for the CAC.

I think it is important and valuable to keep the membership as it is now, in that it is volunteer-based and not selected by the Board of Education. This could create an appearance of conflict of interest which I imagine you do not wish to have and part of the strength that can build within CAC is having parents exhibiting leadership on their own intiative which will build our volunteer base throughout the county.

B. Holcomb
School Counselor
Point Pleasant Elementary School

As the chair of the CAC at Cape St. Claire Elementary School for the past two years, I respectfully submit to you that your proposed changes to the way the CAC's function within out school structure is not appropriate. CAC's are parent and community led committees. They are not to be led by the elected members of the BOE, nor should the BOE be responsible for selecting the members of the CAC. Please continue to allow the individual schools to have their own voices. If a sizeable CAC cannot be attained for each school, allow one representative to serve on a larger School Cluster CAC as a voice for their individual school. The CAC can be a very effective voice for change and discussion of important issues relating to our schools.

Thank you,

H. Kilpatrick
Cape St. Claire CAC Chair

Some comments on the proposed CAC policy:

1. There should be a way for parent and community groups to meet as a “cluster” to discuss cluster-wide issues. Therefore, in addition to a county-wide group, there should be cluster CAC’s.

Rationale: School staff meet as “vertical teams” to discuss educational issues – there should also be a means for the community to discuss feeder system (cluster) issues. This would insure continuity and communication throughout a feeder system - and demonstrate that parent and community input is valued at all school levels. It would also help parents and students with transitions to middle and high school. In addition, business partners on Business Advisory Boards would have input – and can support - all three educational levels (elementary, middle and high) and signature programs can be supported throughout a cluster.

2. Every school should have a means for parent and community input – but some schools may not have functioning parent groups. Therefore, there should be a provision that if a school does not have a parent group (PTA, PTO, etc) the principal will establish a CAC.

Rationale: This will insure that there is a means for parent and community input in ALL schools – including schools that may not have an existing parent group. The school-based CAC can eventually evolve into a PTA or PTO if appropriate.

3. The county-wide CAC should also include a representative from the Advanced Programs (GT) Advisory Committee, Student Government, and other county-wide advisory committees. Consideration should be given to also having a representative of the teacher’s union and the administrator’s union.

Rationale: The proposed policy states that SECAC and PI-AC will have a representative on the county-wide CAC. Other school system sponsored county-wide advisory groups should also be included.

4. The relationship between a school’s CAC and a school’s SIT team should be defined and SIT goals clearly communicated to the CAC.

Rationale: When parents and community members know the school’s goals, the community can provide support to reach the goals.

5. Consideration should be given to having CAC be a “hybrid” of both elected and appointed members.

Rationale: CAC should be representative of the diversity of our county and all parent groups should have a voice. Members elected from the “ranks” of CAC can provide a grassroots voice – and appointed individuals can insure diversity.

Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Shore (lisashore@verizon.net)
410-544-6239

Board Members:

As a concerned citizen and parent in this school system, I have concerns about the CAC. I am a current PIAC member and CAC member for 2 years until just recently when I resigned. There needs to be a CAC!!! It worked well for my school when I would attend the CAC meetings and report back to the principal and the PTO meetings. The representative should be nominated by the school whether it be by nominations from the parent body or the principal. THE BOARD SHOULD NOT NOMINATE the representatives. I understand the need for a working CAC. Each rep should have a say in the votes! My voice should not be ignored just because I'm and elementary rep and not middle school or high school. The current regime of the CAC is trying to make political moves I don't agree with. My hope is to rejoin when there is a working CAC in place. Please take my comments into consideration when revising the policy.

Laurie Dietrich
Richard Henry Lee Elementary
SIT Team R. H. Lee
PIAC Member
Former CAC Member
Concerned Mother

[Note: The author is the president of the Countywide PTA]

My concerns: That the process for parents and other interested parties be easy to access and as transparent as possible. My hope is that parents can volunteer to serve either through their principal and or the Office of school and family partnerships, and possibly through a link on the AACPS web page. I know on the other hand that in some areas it is rare to get volunteer participation, I hope a system can be developed that lets these under-served areas garner some representation. I am all for the 2 from each feeder area concept, in my opinion it will make it hard for one feeder systems concerns to overwhelm meetings and hinder the ability to get real work done. I am ok with a AACCPTA representative, PTA can bring some meeting skills and different perspective to the room. We do not however want this to hinder our ability to advocate on children's issues, because this is a core activity of PTA. We would be more comfortable not being able to serve as officers on the executive team but in an advisory role, as TAAAC, CRASC, and AEL do on our executive board. However with the other at large members, I anticipate that in a group of 27 individuals, there would be little reason to have one serve in a Chair, Vice Chair or Secretary role. I would also like to see a student representation on the CAC.

Please consider that volunteers can come from many places and make sure that participation is not limited but advertised for widely and though as many avenues as possible. The chosen participants should also be responsible for making sure their feeder schools are informed of activities as needed and should be encouraging participation from as many areas as possible.

Ray Leone
President
AACCPTA

[Note: The author is the former president of the Countywide PTA]

Dear Board Members,

I am so glad you are finally updating the CAC Policy. For years the CAC as it is now has not be working for the parents and citizens of this county. One of the responsibilities for both the PTA and CAC was to have representatives on committees. I know the PTA had representatives but many times there wasn’t any representatives from CAC on these committees. I support the changes that the Board is making to this policy because the CAC has been dysfunctional for some time and not working the way it was intended. At the first reading of the policy, there was no representative from the current CAC to speak on the policy. You would think that the current CAC chair would have been there to express their opinion of the updating of the policy. I fully support the policy changes for CAC.

Sincerely,

Anita Owens

I support the changes to the Board of Education's policy on the CAC. I would suggest that the regulations include in the membership two at-large members who do not have an affiliation with a particular school or cluster. This would allow for input from such groups as the chambers of commerce or higher education interests, which would benefit our school system by increasing community involvement. I firmly support the inclusion of representation from the County Council of PTAs and the SECAC.

The cluster design will help to build stronger relationships between the elementary, middle and high schools in each region, and hopefully we will see much greater effectiveness in communication between the CAC, the Board, and all of the schools.

Laura Carr
Parent
South River High School

To Board Policy makers,

After careful review of the changes being proposed for an appointed CaC committee to be formed instead of just parents from the area schools, I am in complete agreement with this change. After attending several CAC meeting I have become very aware of the inconsistency of any school sending the same members and the attendance to CAC meetings has dropped. At least if there were assigned members to the CAC board the good work and community outreach would be very consistent throughout all of Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

Please consider changing the CAC policy KBA/501.01 to have districts appoint a CAC executive member to represent a cluster of schools at each level.

Sincerely,

Laura Schmidt

PICA Board member , BAB Board Member of Northeast High School. And incoming PTSO Vice president Of Old Mill Middle North.

I participated in the CAC program for three years. I feel that it is an effective organization the way it is now. Appointed representatives from the board would weaken the effect of the CAC and install surrogates of the board. My understanding of the purpose of the council is to interject commnets a views of the general public.

Donald E. Winkler

Hello

I was recently informed of your possible action to disband the current CAC organization/structure and replace it with who you want representing the school.

I must state that not only is this wrong but it has overtones of a dictatorship. I do not understand how you will appoint representatives for school unless they are parents of students within the schools they are appointed for. With that you would need to open your application process to the possibility of more than 10,000 applicants which you would not have the time nor would you take the time to screen all of those nor could you complete that in a time frame that would allow for a proper transition in to the position. People in positions like CAC, PTA and Athletic Boosters volunteer because they care about their children's education and want to assist in making situations better in the schools where their children attend. To appoint an "outsider" to the school is ridiculous.

EX= let's say you appoint someone who lives Annapolis to North County HS would you appoint someone who lives in North County to Severna Park, Arundel, Chesapeake? I think not. Those schools, by the way I believe they have the most money per capita and have the most influence in AA county, would not stand for that and they would somehow get there way and one of their own would wind up in the CAC for their school.

Maybe I am wrong and you already have this worked out and the AACPS will be a great place after this next attempt by the school board to interfere. I wish I could believe that but from my personal experiences with the board regarding the revision of the IB program just 3 years ago, I do not believe you have thought this through nor do I believe appointing a person you want to be the CAC representative for a particular school will work.

I am not hard to contact if you would like to reply as I do not hide behind emails

Sincerely
Larry Marconi
410-979-7890- mobile phone

I disagree with appointments as many of the people (including myself) who want to be active, educated and productive for the children are NOT into politics, don’t sit on different boards around the county or hold high power jobs. They are local parents and citizens that are looking out for the children with no political agenda, need to be politically correct or make decisions for personal future gain. We are the people who simply want to help and do right by the kids.

I believe that creating an appointed group would eliminate the availability of a resource to parents and citizens who feel disconnected to the political powers of the school board and county reps. CAC should be that link from the local level to the county level. Let each school send 1 representative if they so choose. It must be the people at the local levels that represent for the locals.

Warm Regards,

Kerry A. Petz
Director of Marketing

Understand the desire to streamline the Citizens Advisory Committee at a county level, overall I think the process needs to be streamlined to some degree - but I am concerned about several items as it relates to the new policy/regulation approach for the CAC as proposed. Here are some comments that I believe are shared on a wider scale within the school community.

Local CAC representation - If we lose the concept of a local CAC representation (requirement) many local school administrators will not participate and/or even allow a local CAC process. The process as the original policy outlined definitely needs to be simplified - so perhaps we should only require/request one representative from each school - to at a minimum participate at a cluster level to select the cluster representatives. This representative can be selected by existing local parent groups and/or appointed by the school principal. If an active school or cluster wants to expand on that approach by having a full blown local CAC, they can but this will at least provide a communication chain to and from the Countywide group back to the Cluster and individual schools.

Cluster representation - I support the concept of cluster representation for the official county wide CAC mgmt board (whatever we want to call it) but we should want this process to encourage much wider scale participation in meetings, speakers, discussion etc. The representation team will have the voting rights and mgmt responsibilities but it should be an open process, open to wide scale community participation. I think the concept of one Upper school and lower school representative on this board is a good approach, but I question the need for representatives from some of the other already existing advisory groups (PIAC, Special Ed CAC) since they already have an existing process in place for interacting with the BOE, so should just be cluster reps for this team.

CAC reps will be appointed by the BOE - In a county where we having a non-elected school board, appointed by the Governor (not local representatives), recommended by an appointed commission - the CAC is one of the few entities left where parental involvement in the process is from the ctizens/community level forward. We should include a process that allows for local election of representatives from each cluster, in the case where public participation is not adequate to a level to support a local election then the BOE would appoint members through an application process. The local rep and cluster elections would stimulate initial participation at the cluster level that will be an improvement even if they just meet once a year and will likely lead to more cluster level participation in clusters currently not participating in this process.

BRAD Myers
Current Parent/Alumni/Concerned Citizen
301-367-4643
jbcomm1@yahoo.com

Hello Policy Committee,

My name is Betsy Hartge. I was a school teacher for 40 years before becoming a realtor, but my heart and soul have always been those of a teacher.

Education has been a major part of my life and I have extensive background. Over the years I organized peer mediation (student to student) groups within schools, taught all the grades and subjects from grade 1 through 8, worked as a student government liaison for the SGA, wrote curriculum for gifted and talented students, was a special ed consultant, resource teacher, and self-contained teacher, and many other items too many to mention.

Recently I met Joanne Conti and was introduced to the CAC with hopes of giving back to education after such a rewarding career.

I now understand that there are decisions being made to disband it in its present form.

I am speaking in favor of continuing with the present structure. Too often in education we don’t listen to the views of others outside of our field, but I have learned that, even when we do not like what they are staying, we can still learn from the discussion. Now more than ever we need to think critically and creatively to get the job of educating our youth done the best we can. We need to listen to the thoughts of others both inside and outside of the world of education and CAC needs to help with that task.

I will be at the Board Meeting in support of the CAC and hope you will consider altering your decision.

Betsy Hartge
Cell 4433701277

AACPS Board of Education,

Why would you change the current Citizens Advisory Committee in such a way that would allow you to appoint the CAC members? The recent survey of parents of AACPS students showed that they would prefer to elect the Board of Education members, so why do you think that the same people would approve of you dismantling a committee whose job is to represent their concerns. If you alter the CAC in any way that would allow board members, or any other appointed AACPS affiliated person or office, to appoint CAC members you will reenforce exactly why AACPS Board of Ed members must be elected in the future! I am horrified that the board would even have the power to do something like that. This is exactly what is wrong with AACPS and our country! You know, Nazi party members were elected until Hitler dissolved and reconstructed it in such a way that would permit him to appoint members. That didn't work too well either.

Very disappointedly,

J. Allen

As a school employee for 32 years, six as a teacher and 26 as a high school Guidance Counselor, I have been a member of our CAC for years. The CAC as a community organization is invaluable in fostering change and supporting our schools. As it is comprised of volunteers who are interested in better education for our children, and not comprised of political appointees as is our board of education, it can be effective. Our citizens have a right to advocate for our children and our schools because they care, not because they want power. They need to be heard!!!!!!!

Nancy Baker

BOE members,

I am sincerely worried about the latest proposal to alter the CAC as it is today. The CAC needs to maintain its grassroots organization - members should not be appointed by you. Any attempts to alter the way it is run now in my opinion is a breach of fundamental and constitutional rights. I sincerely hope you re-consider your plans and let the voice of parents, teachers, schools remain in our hands.

Thank you,

Monica Resa
Writer/Editor
410.271.0292

I was just informed that you are trying to cut the CAC. I am very upset about this. The CAC helps parents get thier voices heard. There has been many times when you are not able to go to a teacher or administrative support because well lets face it you get pushed aside or pleased for the moment. I ask you let this be a public vote don't take it upon yourself to cut the CAC out. Thank You, Crystal Brown

Please do not make any changes to the way the CAC is set up at this time. Please do NOT have this committee set up with appointments from the board. We need "real" people expressing our "real" concerns and this is the only place to do this at this time.

Thank you,

Teresa Tapp

How can the Board of Education realistically and ethically appoint their own advisory committee? If they are supposed to keep the Board in check, this relationship seems like it would inevitably become incestuous.

I will offer other opinions as I can word them properly so as not to offend.

Sophia Marx

The proposed policy and regulation do not reflect input from the CACs. Furthermore, the proposed policy and regulation are contrary to the results of the survey conducted by the Board earlier this year - the stated purpose of which was to obtain input from the CACs.

The results of the survey (provided by over 100 CACs, with approximately 4 schools missing) overwhelmingly conveyed that the role performed by the CACs cannot be fulfilled by any other parent/citizen body (including PTAs, PIAC, etc) and that the Boardshould not: 1) eliminate the local school CACs; 2) eliminate the cluster CACs; or 3) create a County-wide CAC that consists of members appointed by the Board or Superintendant.

In my experience working with the CAC on all levels, I have seen the CACs work effectively to assist in accomplishing many improvements in our schools (despite times of outspoken disagreements or perhaps because the CACs offer a forum for expressing dissension).

Although Board Member Ritchie has commented publicly that the CACs have not been effective since the 1970s, my time spent with the CACs began circa 2000 and I count myself fortunate to be able to report that in Severna Park and on the County-wide level, I have witnessed the CACs effectively advocate for, and advise and educate parents, students, and citizens and the Board on a variety of school issues. While some might shrug this experience off with a comment along the lines of “that’s Severna Park” - doing so would only shortchange the efforts of many people around the County who have striven for successful CACs. An example to all are the ladies of the Freetown Elementary CAC, and parents from the Annapolis feeder system CACs, who spoke at the last County-wide CAC meeting about how hard they have fought to make their CACs vital organizations.

Over the last decade, I have observed the CACs address such topics as school construction, avoidance of or steps towards school redistricting, Board sponsored task forces, student health concerns (including bullying, last day of school hazing, procedures for flu outbreaks, better diets/cafeteria food services, etc.), funding, classroom walls, safety measures, schedules, curriculum (e.g. – where has all the science gone), after school programs, treatment of our teachers and staff, recess time, parking lots, special ed. and gifted programs, grading systems, early release for seniors (now K-11 education), classes sizes, and other facility issues like mold, the availability of technology and media resource, sidewalks – to name a few that come to mind immediately.

Some Board members have made sincere inquiries regarding the impact of the local school CACs. While not all schools have CACs, the ones that are operational often have been the ones that have identified many of the concerns mentioned above, either individually or in conjunction with one or more other schools, inside and outside a cluster. A plan was then formulated on the local level as to how to take the concern forward to a Principal, Cluster, the County-wide CAC, or at times directly to the Board. Action has been taken via CAC resolutions (motioned and approved under the Roberts rules), CAC presentations and reports to the Board, and/or member testimony to the Board or other governmental bodies. Classroom walls in open schools is a specific example of an issue that moved both horizontally and vertically through the CAC, to the Board, and eventually out to the County for funding support that has resulted in a number of schools being fitted with walls.

Strengthening communications up and down the CAC/Board structure was the primary focus of the comments received from the Board’s survey. In my mind, therefore, the goal of the Board should be to figure out how to enfranchise, rather than disenfranchise, members of our CAC community on the issues related to our schools and education. Presently the County-wide CAC has put together a draft alternative policy and regulation that will both streamline the organization and improve communications and participation. To adequately consider the alternative policy and regulation expected to come out of the CAC, the pending policy and regulation should go back to the Board’s Policy Committee, which in turn should invite the participation of the CAC in rewriting the policy and regulation.

Sincerely, Julie Sweeney, SPHS CAC Chair

I am not an activist, so please take my comment regarding proposed changes to the Citizen Advisory Committee structure and operation in the positive spirit intended.

The CAC, as a state-mandated group, has the clear mission of representing the interests and concerns of parents and citizens -- the actual users of our educational system. It was established as an adviser to the Board of Education, to be a voice for the grass roots participants in the educational system. If actions being considered by the Board to diminish the external perspective of this important function -- by Board-appointing members, no less! -- then a great disservice will have been done to your constituency.

While I totally understand that subordinating, and effectively neutering, the customer focus of the CAC would perhaps make your work in some sense easier within the larger 'school process' as practiced by the Board, it would come at the cost of removing a necessary voice that is a very important contributor to that larger process. The CAC was put in place over 30 years ago for that very purpose. Please don't tamper with the established working order of things! The current citizen representatives speak for the grass roots people of this county in a way that the Board (and its proxies) simply cannot. They are an elected part of the system. Please do not eviscerate it and in doing so disable a valuable element of the educational structure of the county.

Thank you,
Glenn Whaley

Dear Sir/Ms.:

Just wondering how impartial an appointed panel would be if it is to replace a basically grassroots organization i.e.. the CAC. Though I do not doubt the integrity of the to-be-appointed persons, I think there would be more possibilities of conflict of interest.

Please record my opinion of the proposed eradication of the CAC organization as opposed.

Donna Larkin

I disagree with changing the CAC structure. The structure, rules, regulations, etc. should remain the same as they are now.

CAC should not be appointed by the board. The current cluster system allows a fair and equal voice to all AACO citizens.

Thank you,

David

Southern High School, CAC

In my best Joe Pesci voice..okay okay okay.yous mean to tell me that the powers rangers (aka known as school board) wants to totally dismantle the CAC as it is. Tear up the rules and regulations and hand pick a group of their own chosen so the school board can control their minds. That individual schools will no longer have a CAC and there will no longer be meetings for concerned citizens to have input for comments and concerns. Get outa here!!!!

jan955po@aol.com

I commend the initiative to examine existing CAC policy in hopes of creating a new operational template that will serve the purpose of encouraging input from the community on issues of concern. A few suggestions:

* Student representation does not appear to be included in the proposed model. Why would the CAC not want to include this key stakeholder group? I would propose that each cluster appoint a representative from their High School SGA.

* Clusters should select one representative from interested applicants; the Board should appoint one representative from interested applicants in each cluster.

* Clusters should be required to hold open meetings prior to quarterly CAC meetings to allow local input by stakeholders. This would allow representatives to be apprised of issues of concern in their cluster, and provide an opportunity for dialogue among local community members.

It would be great if the policy committee would take all the feedback given and revise the draft policy to reflect those concerns, then repost for additional feedback. Because this is a major overhaul to an existing policy, it may take several iterations to achieve the desired result.

Regina Cornelius, Parent
Chesapeake High School
Former CAC Chair

To Whom It May Concern:

I strongly oppose a Board of Education/Superintendent appointed CAC. Representatives should be nominated by the school parent body, if that is not possible then representatives should be appointed by the principal. The Board of Education should not appoint CAC representatives.

I am a member of my local elementary school CAC, middle school CAC and have attended high school CAC meetings. While I do not attend the county wide CAC meeting I appreciate that I have two way communication with the executive CAC board. My representatives listen to what I have to say and inform me of what is being said at the county level. I am comforted knowing that if/when I have an issue there is a CAC parent/community member at my school that I can contact to get the answer/help. I feel a part of the process because I had a hand in electing my school’s representation. It goes against the fundamental democratic principles our country was founded on, by the people for the people.

Sincerely,

Kathie Hamlett
Concerned parent/CAC member

Dear School Board Members,

I am writing to express concern about the restructuring of the CAC. I believe the local clusters should be able to appoint/elect their CAC representatives rather than having them be appointed by the Board. It seems to be antithetical to the nature of the CAC to take that power away from the CITIZENS in the individual schools or clusters and is just another way to make the Board appear one step removed from the needs and concerns of those who are living and working in the school communities.

Sincerely, Melissa Robertson

West River, MD

To Whom It May Concern:

Setting aside the question of what one might think about the substance of the Board’s proposed CAC regulations, they do have the advantage of honesty. Under the previous regulations, the Board and Administration made a pretense, consistent with the formal written rules and nominal procedures, that CAC officers were independently elected, not appointed, and that the CACs could control their own agenda even if it conflicted with that of the Board and Administration. The proposed regulations make very little pretense of continuing that fraud.

For a glimpse of the often hidden relationship between CAC leaders and the Administration/Board, see the two letters from the past and current Board presidents concerning the mandated Countywide CAC agenda for the current, 2010-2011, school year. The first is from the former Board President to then Countywide CAC Chair Tom Frank. The second is from the current Board President reaffirming the first letter and clarifying that the Countywide CAC would not be allowed to host any candidate forums, including a forum for the four school board members up for an approval vote on November 2, 2010.

My commentary on related matters published in the Capital, “Can we strengthen the parents’ voice in education,” is available here. My extensive comments to Countywide CAC members on rewriting the CAC regulations are available here. My survey of Countywide CAC members on related matters is available here. (If these links are stripped out by AACPS when it posts this comment, you can find them all atwww.aacac.info.)

It should be understood by those involved in the revision of the CAC regulations that administrators, school boards, and PTAs have never been, to put it mildly, champions of a strong CAC system. Maryland’s original state mandated CAC system in 1970 was set up uniquely for Anne Arundel County, and there is no record that it was supported by either the School Board or countywide PTA.

Unfortunately, the original strong CAC system in Anne Arundel County was viewed as too successful as a means of giving parent stakeholders a voice in the school system. Worcester County, also with an appointed school board at that time, copied Anne Arundel County in 1973.

Then there was a push to create a statewide CAC system. This was a big mistake, as it mobilized the Maryland School Boards Association and the PTAs against the proposed legislation. In 1976, the General Assembly created a statewide CAC system but at the price of significantly watering down the original rules specifically written for Anne Arundel County. For example, the original rules mandated a system of local CACs with a countywide CAC for Anne Arundel County. The revised rules, which applied to all Maryland counties, cut out the vision of a multi-level CAC system. Nevertheless, Anne Arundel’s CAC regulations, which were orginally written before the statewide revision, maintained the multi-level CAC system, which the Administration and Board now wants to gut.

Governor Marvin Mandel, the big champion of creating a strong CAC system in Maryland, wanted to call CACs “Parent Advisory Councils.” He was defeated, however, as a result of the strong lobbying push on the legislature by the local school boards and PTAs. One of the best strategies for killing the CACs with poison pills (sold as “friendly amendments”) has always been to give the CACs an ill-defined role overlapping with other stakeholder groups. I am in favor of having current and former AACPS parents serve on CACs. I see no advantage in having other stakeholder groups represented, each of which already has its own group to represent their interests.

The current public face of the attack on the CACs has come from current and former Countywide PTA leaders (most notably one who currently serves on the School Board). Going back to the creation of the CAC system in the early 1970s, PTAs have argued that CACs are unnecessary.

The School Board currently grants PTAs the right both to lobby and raise funds. It has withheld those rights from the CACs because it views the CACs as designed by the legislature as a checks & balances institution and therefore as a threat to its perogatives. The PTA would retain this monopoly under the proposed CAC rules.

As an aside, I would also like to note that PTAs do not represent all the students in Anne Arundel County. Over the years, this is an assertion that I have heard by the PTA representative to the School Board Nominating Commission, as well as by legislators who created the School Board Nominating Commission. It is also consistent with the School Board’s practice of letting the Countywide PTA president speak at every school board meeting but the Countywide CAC chair only every second meeting. PTA members are also appointed to serve on key countywide committees as the parents’ representative (e.g., see Superintendent Maxwell’s column in the Capital this week). But this claim, whether made implicitly or explicitly, is misleading. In the Severna Park feeder system, for example,fewer than 50% of the students attend public schools with a PTA. Both the high school and middle school, and at least one elementary school, have PTOs. Given all the talk by the current and former countywide PTA leaders about how unrepresentative the CACs are and how representative the PTAs are, I call on the Countywide PTA leadership to publicly provide the detailed membership information that the Countywide CAC has been asked to provide. There also needs to be an acknowledgement that Maryland’s Governor and Anne Arundel County’s delegation to the General Assembly originally created the CAC system based on their observations that PTAs, while serving a very valuable role within the public school system, were not well suited to represent parents as a stakeholder group.

AACPS administrators have reported to school board members that they have done a thorough investigation of CAC practices throughout the state. This study should be publicly released. Moreover, the study should clearly distinguish between school systems with appointed and genuinely elected school boards. It seems to me that any data collected for appointed boards should be dismissed as irrelevant and that the focus of any data gathering effort should not be on doing the minimal amount required by Maryland statute but on explaining why the original vision of the CAC system is no longer appropriate for Anne Arundel County. There also should be an acknowledgement and explanation of the revisions to the original CAC regulations over the last few decades that have gradually weakened the CACs. With the decline of the School Board Nominating Convention and the rise of the School Board Nominating Commission (seewww.myaacps.net for details), the need for a strong CAC system may be greater than ever in Anne Arundel County.

Sincerely,

--Jim Snider, Former Vice-Chair and Chair of the Countywide CAC, as well as amateur Countywide CAC historian (see CAC laws/regulations atwww.aacac.info and Chair’s “Weekly” Letter to Members, dated January 4, 2011, for additional information)

I am writing to encourage the Anne Arundel County School Board NOT to make the proposed changes to the Citizens Advisory Committee. I understand the need for changes to ensure engagement throughout the County, but think that we should work with the system we have and make improvements rather than completely overhaul it.

1) Our existing system allows for democratically elected members of the CAC. This is a critical opportunity for all community members to express their voices. Accountability to constituents is a critical element of representative democracy and provides the adequate balance to our current appointed school board. It allows anyone to enter the forum at any time and participate without having some prior connection to the existing system.

2) Do not eliminate school-CAC representatives. By representing each of our schools, it allows for every school to have an equal voice chosen BY and FOR the people they represent. While the cluster level is helpful to prioritize and combine voices, a high-school based cluster will never hear the voice of elementary schools.

3) Some of our existing school and cluster CACs continue to function well. I attend an elementary school that has a 3-member CAC and participates in monthly cluster CAC meetings with other schools’ CAC members. This new system cuts the current (and newly elected) CAC members (our Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary) off from the system entirely! We’ve just completed elections and have 3 very enthusiastic CAC members who are shocked to find they aren’t welcome by the Board’s new proposal!

4) If the Board is concerned that some school and cluster CACs are weak and positions go unfilled, perhaps they could present a hybrid option. For schools who can fill their CACs, they should be allowed to do so. These individuals are democratically elected and provide regular feedback to PTAs, communities, and schools, alike. They want to volunteer to serve their communities. For schools or clusters who can’t fill their CAC positions, perhaps the Board could appoint members to serve on their CACs. That way everyone who wants to participate can do so and the Board can ensure that everyone is represented, not just those schools who have an abundance of volunteers.

5) The new CAC leadership (only in their positions for a few months) have worked HARD to establish regular procedures that adhere to the bylaws and have sought input from the Board as to adjustments that can be made to accommodate the Boards’ concerns while allowing the organization to continue. They are off to a strong start and should be given an opportunity to get the organization functioning well before the Board decides to overhaul and destroy the hard work they’ve put in. They’ve offered a comprehensive survey to parents to solicit County-wide feedback, they’re responsive to the Board’s concerns and criticism. They are also not associated with the prior CAC, so are off to a fresh start.

The Board and AACPS should have nothing to fear from citizen input. Will some citizens be more pushy than others? Of course, but those members of the community who volunteer to help make improvements to our schools should not be turned away. Our schools face an unprecedented financial challenge at a time of all time high enrollment numbers. All volunteers should be encouraged. It takes a village – and that’s just what the CAC is, it is Anne Arundel County citizens only way of entering a dialogue with our school system to effect change. I fear that, while the intentions of the proposal are noble in terms of creating equal voice for all constituents across the County, the design of appointed citizen advisors could lead to political cronyism.

Please allow concerned citizens to remain engaged in our schools and their management, please don’t end the current elected, school-based Citizens Advisory Committee of Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

Sincerely,

Jessica Farrar
Jones Elementary School

To whom it may concern,

The CAC is very important to the parents and students and should be ensured of an existence and not hampered in any way by the Board of Education. The Board of Education should NOT be the body that appoints the CAC representatives. That should be left up to the schools and clusters. This will ensure more student's families are having their opinions heard in any issues the Board will be dealing with. Doesn't the Board of Education WANT to be transparent and have as much involvement from it's student's families???? Or do they want to appear "set apart" and "above" the people they are serving????

Thank you for your consideration,

Laura Miller
concerned parent

I'm writing to voice my concerns of the proposed changes to CAC policy. As a member of the school based CAC for many years, I've heard the concerns of the parents. I've also experienced the differences that school based CACs were successful with, and those that were not. Nevertheless, it remains, without a local voice, from those who experience it, the CAC loses its effectiveness as an advisory committee, and just becomes another way for the Board to meet its agenda. I, wholeheartedly, disagree with the proposed changes as they have been presented to me.

To the members of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education,

This is a brief message from a concerned parent about the changes proposed to the Citizen Advisory Committee. I understand that the Board is considering doing away with the representative structure of that committee and instead plan to appoint members of the CAC. The issues that this committee plans to tackle, as suggested by the recent survey and report, are of vital importance to me and my children. In fact, I plan to begin regularly attending these meetings, hopefully representing Broadneck Elementary School where my daughter will attend as a fourth grader and my son as a kindergartner this fall.

I believe that the CAC will serve the community best by better advertising the issues it will address and its role in our educational system and by being made up of representatives chosen by each school. Local citizens who are directly involved in each school bring a different and valuable point of view to the issues. A CAC of local representatives also gives a voice to those with a direct interest in the county's school system. I believe that this was the intent behind the creation of the committee. I do not believe that individuals appointed by the Board can allow for this truly different and local perspective and that under such a system the CAC runs the risk of becoming a redundant arm of the Board. I hope that you will reconsider restructuring the CAC.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Gwen Davis
Arnold, Maryland

As a former member of the CAC (2000-2003) It saddens me to see that the BOE wants to eliminate a CAC representative for each school. This reminds me of just one more thing that is being taken away .. just like trying to eliminate bargaining with the unions. It seems we are in a constant state of 'giving up things' nowadays. So instead of trying to 'fix' problems....just get rid of it and start over.

You want parents to take a more active role in their students education, yet you are pulling the rug out from under them. It is my understanding that the CAC officers are trying desperately to keep things together. Instead of scrapping the CAC as we know it, why can't you 'help' in making them a stronger organization?

Sincerely,
Bonnie Gollup
bonbongol@aol.com

Dear Anne Arundel County Board of Education,

I have learned of the proposed changes to the CAC regulations that eliminate the representative system in which CACs are formed at the school and cluster level, and replaces it by a Board of Education appointed CAC.

I would like to voice my disagreement with this proposed regulation as it undercuts the input from concerned citizens and parents that is crucial in improving our school system.

I urge you not to enact this policy.

Sincerely,

Victor Urrutia

Dear Dr. Maxwell and Members of the Board:

I am deeply concerned,( if my understanding is correct), about your intent or proposal to eliminate school based and cluster CAC groups. If this is correct, it is my sincere desire to persuade you to do otherwise;

1. The school based CAC is not only active in their community, but also in their school. They hear, and know first hand, concerns of their school's parents, students and school staff, and see, daily, the conditions under which their school is expected to effectively operate.

2 Since the local PTA and the school based CAC are separate intities who function under different guideline and regulations, neither can legally render the services of the other (without very creative, determined leaders)

3. Feeder school Cluster CACs have a better opportunity to collaborate with elementary schools to better coordinate the continuity of all concerns which may be indicative to their schools and communities, and to ensure a smoother transition from elementary school, to middle school, to high school.

By selecting County-wide CAC representatives who know little to nothing, steriotypes and or folktales about communities and schools that make up our school system, would be a grave mistake and would render a disservice to the capable volunteers who are ready and willing to serve .

Please to not eliminate the School Based and Cluster CAC .

Lillie Caldwell

Members of the Board:

One of the things that surprised me upon moving to AACo was an unelected school board. Thankfully, we had the CACs, a local, school-based, active organization that has kept me informed. I have a student at an elementary, middle and a high school, and rely on the CAC members to tell us "what's going on".

I read the proposed new policy and the regulation. Truthfully, all I really had to read with the red line through the following phrases in the Regulation, Section C, Paragraphs 1-5. There is just no replacement language anywhere for local school engagement and involvement, and there is no replacement for the local CACs.

Maybe there are schools with ineffective CACs. Why not invest in making them better, learning lessons from those that are?

Thank you,

Ben Regalado

[Note: The author is the current secretary of the Countywide PTA as well as secretary to an AACPS principal]

I am an actively involved parent and I know firsthand how difficult it is to get parents to attend meetings at the school. In most cases unless there is a major issue most parents in my area are not going to attend another meeting.

After reviewing the current policy and comparing it to the proposed changes I can see how this would be a great benefit for the county as a whole. The structure would allow for FAIR representation from around the county, anyone is eligible to nominate themselves and in my opinion may open it up to more people being involved. I like that a representative from elementary and secondary would be from each cluster bringing the diverse opinions and views from all areas of our school system.

One change that I think would be beneficial is the addition of at least 2 at large members that do not have direct ties to a school, this would provide the much needed voice of the community as a whole and an added perspective that we don’t always have. The way that the current policy is written does not really encourage involvement from this arena .

Upon reading some of the remarks on the website I am disappointed that people think the CAC is a grassroots organization, it is not. It is an arm of the board is used to advise the board on matters of concern - not only to the board but also at the school level that have a county wide impact. The CAC is not intended to advocate, there are other organizations that will advocate on behalf of our children. I see nothing in the proposed draft that prevents a local school from having a CAC, if they are fortunate enough to have parents who want to do this. The change in the structure of the CAC also does not prevent any citizen from coming before the board to advocate for their child or school, it will hopefully increase the knowledge of issues around the county, which will in turn make people want to come and be an advocate.

Thank you and I once again support the proposed restructuring of the countywide CAC.

Dawn Jung

On our last PTA meeting Germantown Elementary PTA voted to supportstrong grassroots organization for CAC and not appointed members by the Board of Education.

Ingrid Antonelli
Germantown Elementary, Annapolis PTA Wellness

[Note: The author is the former president of the Countywide PTA]

Good Afternoon Board members,

I have read many of the comments on the updating of the CAC policy by the Board and I am concerned that there are some misunderstandings regarding the current policy, for instance the comments from Mr. Marconi seem to imply that the BOE would choose a representative to serve for another school, that is not what is being proposed at all. The proposed regulations for the CAC would ensure that every feeder system would have 2 representative, as it stands now a few people from one feeder system can make decisions for the entire CAC. First, the CAC is an advisory council for the Board of Education and is not independent organization like PTA or PTO. Second, if everyone would just read the current policy, it clearly says the CAC is the arm of the board. CAC stands for Citizen Advisory Council which advises the board of education on issues that have come to their attention and need input from the Advisory group. This is not a parent group like PTA or PTO which are independent groups and all school have one of these groups. In the current policy and regulations for the CAC the principal is the person responsible for organizing the CAC, with this proposed policy it makes it more open anyone can apply from the school and feeder system. The current policy and regulations also state that there has to be a minimum of 6 people on the local CAC, how many current CAC's have at least 6 members?

It has always been hard to get parents to step up to be on the CAC because they are pulled in so many directions and do not know what the CAC does for the school system. What action has the CAC taken recently, I have heard members refer to the CAC as a grassroots organization, it isn't they are an advisory council to the board of education.

Sincerely

Anita Owens

Anita V Owens
410-507-2908

To the Board:

I vehemently disagree with your proposal to implement new policies and regulations that would eliminate all school and cluster CACs and proceed with Board appointment of 26 members to an Executive Committee. Such a move would stifle the CAC's effectiveness as a grassroots organization and basically defeat its purpose, which is to advise the Board on issues of concern to parents and citizens in general. There can be no assurance of unbiased representation if members are appointed by those they are charged with advising. For this reason, I believe the Board's proposal is inappropriate and unreasonable.

Although I acknowledge the need for revision of current CAC reguations, I ask the Board of Education to drop it's proposal to radically restructure the CAC and thereby effectively strip the organization of any meaningful citizen representation.\

Respectfully,

Lara Boeck
Annapolis
Germantown Elementary CAC representative

Board Members,

I am writing to respectfully ask that you reconsider restructuring the Local/Cluster/CWCAC. The CAC is a grassroots organization composed of parents and citizens with no political aspiration and only the welfare of our children at heart. I have attended CWCAC meeting for 5 years and always leave with new information and resources for my school. I am OPPOSED to the BOARD NOMINATING representatives, you NEED to hear our voices and ideas, aren't we on the same team?

Best Regards,

Lindy Marks
Concerned Parent

Board of Education,

I am a concerned parent of four children (ranging in ages from 4 months to 12 years), an active member of my children's school, the outgoing VP of our Elementary schools PTA, and the CAC representative for Marley Elementary School. I have read through the Board of Educations propsal to alter the eay the CAC is to be run in the upcoming years. I have also attended the Countywide CAC sessions and am concerned about the way the Board of Education proposes a change to the structure of the CAC.

The Citizen Advisory Committee is a state-mandated group whose mission is to represent the interests and concerns of parents and citizens as an advisor to the Board of Education. As proposed (link below), the drafted policy does not identify the need for local and cluster CACs. I recognize from the CAC meetings that this is part of the Board's efforts to gut the CAC as an effective grassroots organization and the Board's desire to appoint the 26 members that would constitute the CAC.

This effort to silence the voice of the citizens of Anne Arundel County, the CAC, and opposition to the Board is one of, if not the primary, cause for last years CAC representatives to step down publicly.

I recognize that not all communities or school systems have an active CAC board, but those that do are extremely active and the nearly 2,000 people who responded to the most recent CAC survey clearly outlines the reach of the CAC. Electing to have a CAC w/in the school system should be the option of the school and cluster community. Election of CAC representation, decided by active CAC members and not the Board of Education. The policy must stipulate these provisions.

The Board has identified what limits there are to the CAC (link and excerpt below). If the County's voices continue to be ignored by the Board, I can foresee the opportunity for those disbanded voices to rally together and announce their concerns to the Board. As citizens not tied to the CAC, there would be no restriction to our lobbying, fund raising, or otherwise challenging the Board by all legal means necessary.

Please take these concerns to heart and hear the voices of the CAC to better our schools and the education of our future - our children.

Respectfully
William Matthews

The Citizen Advisory Committee is a state-mandated group whose mission is to represent the interests and concerns of parents and citizens as an advisor to the Board of Education. While there have been some recent challenges, the CAC has been effectively fulfilling this mission for almost four decades through CAC groups organized at the school, high school feeder system, and countywide level.\

Since Carol Kissal and I were elected this February, we have been working hard to rebuild the CAC into an effective grassroots organization focused on the biggest concerns of Anne Arundel County citizens. Over 4,000 citizens responded to our March survey about the improvements they wanted to see in AAC public schools, giving us excellent data with which to choose the topics the CAC will focus on next year. Additionally, during these three months, more than 150 new people have expressed interest in getting involved with the CAC. We are well on our way to building a CAC that will be a real asset to you as we work together to strengthen our public schools.

The policy and regulation being proposed will destroy the CAC as an effective grassroots organization. Eliminating all school and cluster CACs will gut the CAC by taking away our ability to communicate with involved parents at each school. And having the Board of Education appoint the members of the CAC will be disastrous to the quasi-independence required for us to fulfill our mission. To be effective advocates for parents and citizens to the Board, our first allegiance must be to them.

In order to improve our public schools, concerned citizens need an effective way to advocate for change. We ask you to reconsider these ill-advised proposals and work with us to develop new policies and regulations that strengthen, not destroy, the CAC.

Joanna Conti, Chair
Countywide CAC

To Whom It May Concern:

As parents of children at three different schools in Anne Arundel County, we have seen many positive changes that CAC has worked towards over the years that our children have attended. We believe that is important for the board to hear from the parents at the schools, NOT appointed representatives. The CAC has always been available for concerned parents who want to take a more active role in inspiring change for our schools. To appoint these representatives removes the inside voice of the parents and students in the Arundel school system.

We have personally been involved in changes that were a result of the CAC at the elementary school level, and have had regular updates from our CAC representative at the High School level. They inform us from a perspective that we can identify with.

IF changes need to be made to the CAC, the one thing that should NOT be considered is appointing the representatives! As several others have commented, the survey that was just recently given to parents proved we want elected Board members. Why would that be any different when considering the CAC

Thank you for considering our concerns,

Beth and Rob Sharo

While I'm listening to a ton of testimony...

I would like to comment about the proposed CAC changes - please don't!

I just learned about the CAC a few months ago. At Hillsmere, I've got a group of parents that are active in the school, the PTA and want to take on another active role in the our CAC. I'm a fairly new parent, with my oldest just in 1st grade. I am learning all about the different programs, groups and all the rest in the school system. And this "de-tracking" thing they are talking about...who knew? Not me.

With some work, well a lot of work, the CAC could be not only an outlet to encourage parent involvement but give parents the direction as to how to find what is real and how to effect change without crying wolf with each problem.

Mrs. Ritchie -you stated this spring that there were only 33 real comments about the budget to the BOE (which I've used as a "contact your representative" banner with my parents thank you)...what if each school CAC could help bring attention to this major event . Or help disseminate more accurate information about issues directly to parents. Such as in the last CAC meeting, Solom Webb & Teresa Tudor were able to point out programs and staff that had information about the topic that came up. Those CAC members can then go and advise local parents that those programs do exist.

Please hold off on any changes to the structure. Please give Joanna Conti a chance.

Thank you,
Angelic Carroll

I think we must hear from our many local CACs. At the school level only, will the CACs reflect the citizenry. Anne Arundel County is huge and diverse. One standing CAC can’t possibly reflect the specific issues impacting our citizens throughout the county. Let the democratic process work!

Gretchen Ostrom
School Counselor
Crofton Meadows

[Note: The author is the president of the Countywide PTA]

As an Amateur historian of PTA and CAC in this county, my county history today will only go back 10 years, however I am a lifelong resident and product of the South River Feeder system as it was being built. Be clear though, PTA is an organization that draws its roots and advocacy background from 117 years of history, and cut its teeth on things like polio and child labor. In this county where I count my parental involvement in years amounting to longer than a decade, I have seen both entities grow and shrink. I found the CAC model so compelling that I was the CAC chair at 3 schools; Edgewater ES (4 years), Central Middle (2 years)and South River HS (2 years), all the while in PTA leadership positions. With the exception of the last year and a half I have attended most if not all of the CWCAC Meetings since Sam Georgiou’s second term. I was asked to step into the void filled by Tom Frank, and declined due to my current role as PTA president at the County Level. Representing 13,300 members is a time consuming endeavor. I have not had the time in the past year to attend CAC meetings except one or two local South River ones, Central Middle no longer has a CAC. Anne Arundel County currently has 87 PTA Locals and 1 community PTA We hold no animosity toward CAC or PTO’s (as long as they represent themselves as who they are).

During those 10 years of wearing both hats the bigger CAC meetings that I attended had an issue at the core that stakeholders from many areas of the county could identify with. Middle School structure changes, the MGT Study, even the school start time issue. Most meetings however did not. I would guess, that at most we saw over 10 years, representation of maybe 50-60 schools. Principals that I talked to had a common theme ” It is hard to get folks to step up and come to yet another meeting”, my CAC meetings were typically coupled with PTA or PTO (yes I even went to PTO meetings)meetings to keep more people informed. I personally have been a big supporter of CAC. PTA has a fundamental opposition to CAC because we have the right to advocate already, not granted by the board but by our bylaws and mission, we are all part of a national organization. We have 5 minutes every board meeting because we are respectful, topical, and reporting on the activities of an organization that involves over 13,000 voices that use the school system as a consumer would. We get seats at school system meetings because we can put aside individual school issues and give commentary from an everychild onevoice perspective. PTO’s rarely step outside the local school arena because they are not set up that way; they are single school based and do wonderful work that way. CAC is invited to all the same things PTA is, they don’t always have someone there but the chair is open, when they have attended their voice is one of the strongest in the room. PTA’s do not get any rights from the board period, PTA is a Nationwide Advocacy Organization with its own 501c3, it does its fundraising on its own, and with the permission of the local school principal. Its funds are used for school enrichment, training and advocacy. Our seat on the SBNC is mandated by the State legislature, and if you listened to my questions recently you would have found that I took great pains in not having a PTA only stance in my questions, although I have every right to. I focused on what the candidates thought could enhance parental involvement and what they thought that involvement would entail.

I have even taken steps to help and provide perspective to both Tom Frank and Joanna Conti; I have met with both as AACCPTA President and have found our conversations to be very productive. I will not however stand by and let someone write untruths and misrepresent the Anne Arundel County Council of PTA’s. We do not have a long standing campaign against CAC. I (current President) certainly have not had a opposed position in the last 10 years, and have questioned the CAC/BOE relationship many times. We do have a good working relationship with the School system and the Board of Education born out of mutual respect.

Countywide CAC meetings have run the entire range over the years from productive calm meetings to raucous, hurtful, demeaning diatribes on 13thHigh School Issues, and single school or cluster issues that have been beaten to death. People have left meetings in tears, and many have just left never to participate again.

Clusters: only 2 have been even close to effective over the last 7-10 years, Severna Park and Chesapeake, I’m not so naive to think that others haven’t tried or even succeeded in the past, just never long term. I never went away without something from a CWCAC meeting but rarely without having to ignore comments that were out of line or disrespectful.

A 26 person board would assure all voices get to the table, where most do not now. I personally want to see a Student and an At Large representation, and as stated before do not believe a PTA seat is necessary but am fine with lending a hand to help things as I always have with CAC.

Ray Leone
Past CAC Chair Edgewater ES, Central Middle, South River HS
President AACCPTA

To Whom it may Concern:

I would like to express my support for maintaining the CAC as it currently stands as a grassroots organization instead of a School Board appointed organization. I believe it is essential to the quality of our schools to allow schools and clusters to have representatives that are nominated at the school/PTA level and not at the board level. Effective change can happen from the bottom up, and does not always need to be controlled or regulated by a political body or through a top down approach. Please understand that more parent, student and teacher voices can be heard if you maintain the current set up.

Sincerely,

Kirsten Chapman
Annapolis, MD

To Whom It May Concern,

Just wanted to say it is about time that the board of education updated the CAC Policy. This group has been dysfunctional for years. I believe your concept of 24 members for the Executive committee guarantees equal representation from around the county and your at large members will complement this group. I do however, believe that there should be some form of student representation to truly make this an equal partnership.

I would also like to bring to your attention the word you use in the Policy itself under Part C, number 4, I would remove the words "countywide and replace with "executive committee", this keeps the consistency and removes what might be confusing for some.

Rita Lowman
Treasurer
Monarch Academy Public Charter School

My name is Philip Kijak, I have been involved in the CAC at High Point Elementary, George Fox Middle, and Northeast High School. I currently am the Northeast High School representative to the county CAC. I wish to comment on the proposed policy changes and regulations to the CAC. I do want to be clear that I am sending my personal thoughts and views on the policy changes.

I will be the first to admit that the current CAC system is broken and not functioning effectively. As set up, it is overly bureaucratic, often does not function at the local or school board level as intended, and needs to be updated.

That said, the proposed policy and regulations for the CAC represent a classic example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I strongly urge that the Board not adopt the proposed policy change and instead take a second attempt at modifying the CAC regulations. I oppose this poorly thought out modification for the following reasons:

1) While many county schools do not have a functioning CAC, where they are used they can be a very effective tool in addressing local problems that are beyond the scope of PTAs and PTSOs. While I was at High Point Elementary, the CAC was critical in addressing traffic issues on Duvall Highway, sponsored school cleanups, sponsored the science fair, championed the cause of walls for the open space teaching areas, and helped to elevate concerns about lack of security around portable classrooms. CAC representation of the Northeast Cluster played a role in raising the issue of the poor state of Northeast High School following the review of county wide school facilities and through this effort played a role in starting the push for the renovation of this facility which is currently underway. In my view, the problem is that the CAC functions well at the local level when there are legitimate issues to address. However, the proposed policy totally eliminates these organizations instead of providing options for local and cluster CACs when needed.

2. The policy has only 24 citizens on an advisory board for which they must fill out an application to the Board. This process will self select a limited number of individuals and likely focus on the limited few who are already politically connected in the schools. I for example came to be on the county CAC through getting involved at the local CAC. I did not know, and still do not know, many individuals at the county school headquarters, yet have been able to bring local issues to the attention of the county CAC. I have seen many individuals over the years who have contributed greatly to the CAC who came into the organization via the local school system. The decision on who should serve should rest at the local school level.

3) Additionally, from a philosophic standpoint, I think the school system is already overly centralized with limited input from the local schools on policies that directly impact the quality of life for not only the students, but parents, residents and local business owners of our communities. The removal of the power to appoint the local CAC removes one more voice that can raise local concerns to the school board. CAC representatives that are appointed by the school board are more likely to reflect the views of the school board, and less likely to be willing to be critical of school board actions. It will increase the probability of "Abilene Paradox" decisions.

4) The final concern is that the new regulations appear to me to give greater weight to the School Board determining and directing what problems or issues CAC can and cannot study or address. One of the concerns with the current CAC structure which lead to the resignation of the previous County Chair and the studying of the current regulations was the lack of independence of the CAC and inferred control of the CAC by the school board. Yet in my view, the proposed regulations increase rather than decrease the control of the CAC by the board. The CAC needs to be an independent voice to raise concerns to the school board. Many of the issues that the County CAC has addressed over the years did not come from the broad giving direction to the CAC to study an issue. Rather, the issues were brought to the attention of the board by concerns raised by local CAC representatives. Only an independent CAC has the ability to truly raise those issues that are difficult, unpleasant, or politically incorrect that require the School Board to address. By giving greater control of the CAC agenda to the board, the CAC will simply become a mirror, reflecting back to the school board what it wants to see.

I realize that there is an issue of getting sufficient number of volunteers to work on the county CAC, and there is the concern that meetings are sometimes dominated by a small group from a single school or cluster. However, this argument can be flipped. When there are not hot button issues, it is expected that attendance will drop. When an issue impacts a particular school or cluster, why would you not expect many people from that school or cluster to attend a meeting?

At the last School Board meeting, I heard a lady from the Meade Feeder system give testimony supporting the proposed policy change. The gist of her argument was we don't have a local CAC, we haven't tried a local CAC, so lets do away with them. I think that is the easy but unproductive way out. Instead, I would suggest to those who have not seen the impact of a CAC on issues locally, jump in the waters fine.

On June 11, 2011, Countywide CAC Chair Joanna Conti wrote a column in the Capital making the case for an independent and grassroots CAC system. Three current or former Countywide PTA leaders, including one currently serving on the school board, responded with the following comments on the Capital's website:

It seems if you were truly interested in the students of AACPS and all of their needs you would be seeking to redesign the CAC so it better represents the entire county as well as using other avenues which are meant to advocate-such as the PTA..

Dawn Jung - Odenton, Md

(Ms. Jung is Countywide PTA Secretary for FY2011 as well as a principal's secretary within AACPS)

where have you been?

So I have to wonder where have you been Ms Conti for these past few years? why is it that until you were elected you had NEVER attended a county-wide CAC meeting.
Just seems odd that now you want to help us poor parents advocate through the CAC. No thanks I can advocate without you and your agenda.

just a thought - Pasadena, MD

(The author of "just a thought," Debbie Ritchie, is currently serving on the Board of Education and was formerly Chair of the Countywide PTA)

CAC

What Ms. Conti does not seem to understand is that the CAC is not an organization but an advisory board to the Board of Education. it is not a parent group but can only advise the board on issues. She seems to be using this platform for her own political reasons and not to benefit the school system. According to the policy as it is written now the CAC is an arm of the board of education so they are not independent organization.

Anita Owens - Annapolis, MD

(Anita Owens is a former president of the Countywide PTA as well as the PTA's representative on the Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission)

My written comments to the School Board regarding its proposed rewrite of the CAC regulations

2011-05-04T13:34:00.003-05:00

To Whom It May Concern:

Setting aside the question of what one might think about the substance of the Board’s proposed CAC regulations, they do have the advantage of honesty. Under the previous regulations, the Board and Administration made a pretense, consistent with the formal written rules and nominal procedures, that CAC officers were independently elected, not appointed, and that the CACs could control their own agenda even if it conflicted with that of the Board and Administration. The proposed regulations make very little pretense of continuing that fraud.

For a glimpse of the often hidden relationship between CAC leaders and the Administration/Board, see the two letters from the past and current Board presidents concerning the mandated Countywide CAC agenda for the current, 2010-2011, school year. The first is from the former Board President to then Countywide CAC Chair Tom Frank. The second is from the current Board President reaffirming the first letter and clarifying that the Countywide CAC would not be allowed to host any candidate forums, including a forum for the four school board members up for an approval vote on November 2, 2010.

My commentary on related matters published in the Capital, “Can we strengthen the parents’ voice in education,” is available here. My extensive comments to Countywide CAC members on rewriting the CAC regulations are available here. My survey of Countywide CAC members on related matters is available here. (If these links are stripped out by AACPS when it posts this comment, you can find them all atwww.aacac.info.)

It should be understood by those involved in the revision of the CAC regulations that administrators, school boards, and PTAs have never been, to put it mildly, champions of a strong CAC system. Maryland’s original state mandated CAC system in 1970 was set up uniquely for Anne Arundel County, and there is no record that it was supported by either the School Board or countywide PTA.

Unfortunately, the original strong CAC system in Anne Arundel County was viewed as too successful as a means of giving parent stakeholders a voice in the school system. Worcester County, also with an appointed school board at that time, copied Anne Arundel County in 1973.

Then there was a push to create a statewide CAC system. This was a big mistake, as it mobilized the Maryland School Boards Association and the PTAs against the proposed legislation. In 1976, the General Assembly created a statewide CAC system but at the price of significantly watering down the original rules specifically written for Anne Arundel County. For example, the original rules mandated a system of local CACs with a countywide CAC for Anne Arundel County. The revised rules, which applied to all Maryland counties, cut out the vision of a multi-level CAC system. Nevertheless, Anne Arundel’s CAC regulations, which were orginally written before the statewide revision, maintained the multi-level CAC system, which the Administration and Board now wants to gut.

Governor Marvin Mandel, the big champion of creating a strong CAC system in Maryland, wanted to call CACs “Parent Advisory Councils.” He was defeated, however, as a result of the strong lobbying push on the legislature by the local school boards and PTAs. One of the best strategies for killing the CACs with poison pills (sold as “friendly amendments”) has always been to give the CACs an ill-defined role overlapping with other stakeholder groups. I am in favor of having current and former AACPS parents serve on CACs. I see no advantage in having other stakeholder groups represented, each of which already has its own group to represent their interests.

The current public face of the attack on the CACs has come from current and former Countywide PTA leaders (most notably one who currently serves on the School Board). Going back to the creation of the CAC system in the early 1970s, PTAs have argued that CACs are unnecessary.

The School Board currently grants PTAs the right both to lobby and raise funds. It has withheld those rights from the CACs because it views the CACs as designed by the legislature as a checks & balances institution and therefore as a threat to its perogatives. The PTA would retain this monopoly under the proposed CAC rules.

As an aside, I would also like to note that PTAs do not represent all the students in Anne Arundel County. Over the years, this is an assertion that I have heard by the PTA representative to the School Board Nominating Commission, as well as by legislators who created the School Board Nominating Commission. It is also consistent with the School Board’s practice of letting the Countywide PTA president speak at every school board meeting but the Countywide CAC chair only every second meeting. PTA members are also appointed to serve on key countywide committees as the parents’ representative (e.g., see Superintendent Maxwell’s column in the Capital this week). But this claim, whether made implicitly or explicitly, is misleading. In the Severna Park feeder system, for example,fewer than 50% of the students attend public schools with a PTA. Both the high school and middle school, and at least one elementary school, have PTOs. Given all the talk by the current and former countywide PTA leaders about how unrepresentative the CACs are and how representative the PTAs are, I call on the Countywide PTA leadership to publicly provide the detailed membership information that the Countywide CAC has been asked to provide. There also needs to be an acknowledgement that Maryland’s Governor and Anne Arundel County’s delegation to the General Assembly originally created the CAC system based on their observations that PTAs, while serving a very valuable role within the public school system, were not well suited to represent parents as a stakeholder group.

AACPS administrators have reported to school board members that they have done a thorough investigation of CAC practices throughout the state. This study should be publicly released. Moreover, the study should clearly distinguish between school systems with appointed and genuinely elected school boards. It seems to me that any data collected for appointed boards should be dismissed as irrelevant and that the focus of any data gathering effort should not be on doing the minimal amount required by Maryland statute but on explaining why the original vision of the CAC system is no longer appropriate for Anne Arundel County. There also should be an acknowledgement and explanation of the revisions to the original CAC regulations over the last few decades that have gradually weakened the CACs. With the decline of the School Board Nominating Convention and the rise of the School Board Nominating Commission (seewww.myaacps.net for details), the need for a strong CAC system may be greater than ever in Anne Arundel County.

Sincerely,

--Jim Snider, Former Vice-Chair and Chair of the Countywide CAC, as well as amateur Countywide CAC historian (see CAC laws/regulations atwww.aacac.info and Chair’s “Weekly” Letter to Members, dated January 4, 2011, for additional information)

SBNC reform bill dies in the Maryland General Assembly

2011-03-19T13:30:00.002-05:00

The Capital reports that the Maryland legislature has rejected a bill to codify the laws regarding the SBNC and to add some electoral features to the school board selection process:

The chances of changing Anne Arundel County's school board process are likely dead this year and through the next election in 2014, but the local House delegation still wants to study options for changing it.

Despite staunch opposition in the Senate, the county House delegation decided yesterday to study the school board set-up in the interim between this General Assembly session and next year's.

"There is a lot of will in this delegation to make some changes," said Del. Bob Costa, R-Deale, the chairman of the body. "We need to sit down with everyone involved. … We can do this over the interim and come back with a real bill."

County delegation to Maryland General Assembly passes SBNC reform bill

2011-03-05T13:08:00.002-05:00

The Capital reports that the Anne Arundel County delegation to the Maryland House of Delegates has approved a bill to add electoral features to the School Board selection process:

The county's House delegation has approved a bill requiring appointed members of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education be subject to contested elections.

The 8-7 party-line vote was held during a meeting Friday. Del. Tony McConkey, R-Severna Park, the bill's sponsor, said it would allow more representation from different parties on the board but opponents saw it as a way to further politicize what is supposed to be a non-partisan appointment.

The legislation will now head to the county's five-member Senate delegation for consideration.

Four County Council Members Endorse Elected School Board

2011-02-24T01:57:00.000-05:00

The Capital reports that the County Council endorsed an elected school board:

"Four Anne Arundel County Councilmen have introduced a resolution endorsing an elected Board of Education. The resolution supports a state Senate bill designed to put the county's education leaders on the ballot. School board members currently are appointed to their jobs, although they do stand for approval from county voters. Republican Councilmen John Grasso, Dick Ladd, Derek Fink and Jerry Walker introduced the legislation at Tuesday night's council meeting. They are expected to vote for the measure at the council's March 7 meeting."

In a unanimous vote, the County Delegation to the Maryland General Assembly reduces the terms of newly elected school board members

2011-02-18T23:15:00.000-05:00

On February 17, 2011, the Anne Arundel Delegation to the Maryland House of Delegates unanimously approved HB220 (the same bill as SB78), which mandates that incumbent school board members to win an additional term must go through the SBNC nominating process as well as win a retention vote. This would overturn the Maryland Attorney General’s opinion last spring that incumbents did not have to either get renominated by the SBNC or be reappointed by Maryland’s governor, only win a retention vote to seek re-election. Given the partisan nature of most Delegation debates on the SBNC as well as that a large majority of the school board members individually opposed passage of the bill (although collectively the school board took no position), the unanimous vote in favor of HB220 is remarkable. More votes on SBNC bills will be coming up over the coming weeks. My testimony in favor of HB220/SB78 can be found here and is posted below.

My testimony on SBNC before the Anne Arundel County Delegation to the Maryland House of Delegates

2011-02-18T10:00:00.005-05:00

My name is Jim Snider, and I’m here to talk about the historic number of bills introduced into the General Assembly regarding the Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission. I’ve been closely following the School Board Nominating Commission since it was created in 2007. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve attended more meetings of the SBNC than anyone other than a handful of commissioners themselves. I’ve also attended about twice as many SBNC meetings as any member of the press. In terms of coverage, I’ve probably written twenty to forty times as much about the SBNC on my blog, MyAACPS.net and the Countywide CAC’s discussion forum, as any local newspaper.

I also am the chair of the Countywide CAC, which represents the local Countywide CAC reps from the approximately 120 public schools in Anne Arundel County. Although I have written extensively about the SBNC to Countywide CAC members, I’d like to be clear that I’m speaking personally here today and not on behalf of the Countywide CAC.

Lastly, I’m a political scientist by training who has worked in the academic and Washington, DC think tank communities on issues of democratic reform.

I’m generally in support of five of the SBNC bills, including HB 220, HB 399, HB 991, SB 78, and SB 114. Although these bills conflict with each other in parts and although I would add or change many provisions to improve them, I generally believe they are an improvement over the status quo.

As you review these bills, I hope you will keep the following facts and democratic values in mind:

First, the citizens in a democracy have a right to be able to understand, without unreasonable effort, the laws under which they are governed.

I believe that this is not currently possible with the laws regulating the SBNC. The SBNC embodies a novel method of electing school board members. Of the more than 14,000 school boards in the U.S., I don’t believe that in 2007 there was one with an electoral process that even remotely resembled the SBNC. Perhaps it should be no surpise, then, that many key issues in electoral design were not clearly specified or in some cases not included at all in the statute creating the SBNC.

The result has been that the SBNC and other government agencies responsible for enforcing the statute have had to make it up as they went along over the last four years. The key SBNC laws are now scattered across SBNC minutes, SBNC bylaws, Maryland Board of Elections rulings, and, arguably most important, a long series of opinions issued by Maryland’s Attorney General. To understand the laws, one must also now consult a broad array of other statutes and regulations that are education or election related but not obviously related to the SBNC, except for the fact that the SBNC statute didn’t clarify certain questions so that other laws had to be consulted to fill in the gaps. There is thus a crying need to codify the key provisions of these laws into a single statute so that a reasonably diligent citizen could get an overall sense of how the SBNC operates from reading the statute. Currently, many prospective candidates for the SBNC and even incumbent school board members call me asking me what the rules of the SBNC actually are. They shouldn’t have to do this.

The problem has been compounded by the SBNC’s generally awful record keeping. Not only does the SBNC have no physical and public location where it stores its records, but it often only posts publicly online the public records for the current year, with the balance needlessly placed behind a firewall granting access only to insiders. I am pleased to report that the SBNC is now selectively posting on its website its meeting minutes from prior years, but many other critical public documents specifying the rules under which the SBNC operates are not similarly available.

I hope the entire delegation will agree that democracy requires not only the rule of law but also laws that a reasonably diligent citizen can locate and understand. I believe that a number of the SBNC related bills that have been introduced mark a significant improvement in the codification of SBNC law.

Now to the second point: the SBNC that we have now is not the SBNC that the public was promised in 2007.

When the public eventually finds out what has happened, I think we could have an ugly situation. For example, last spring the Maryland Attorney General ruled in an opinion that incumbent school board members elected under the new system would not have to seek re-election either by going through the School Board Nominating Commission or seeking reappointment by the Governor. All they would have to do to serve another term in office is survive an uncontested retention vote. This is a remarkable reinterpretation of the law, which was most certainly not stated in any public announcement by the SBNC’s advocates or reported in the newspapers in 2007.

How remarkable is this reinterpretation? I’m not aware of any local school board or town council in the United States—and there are approximately 40,000 scattered across the U.S.—where incumbents can go for more than twelve years (two full five year terms plus a partial term) without facing a competitive re-election process.

What do you think the public will think when they find out about this? Perhaps you should imagine how they’d react if you proposed making your own seats similarly uncontestable.

Last spring you had a reprieve. The Capital education reporter was leaving the Capital and didn’t attend most of the SBNC meetings, let alone do due diligence other than calling the chair of the SBNC for official summaries of the meetings. Even now, I understand that some of the delegates here don’t believe that the Maryland Attorney General has interpreted the law as I have described. But at some point word will get out, and even the local newspapers will have to report on what’s happened.

What I’d suggest to you is that you fix the problem before word gets out and it becomes a political embarrassment. Indeed, there are many other embarrassments in the law that have cropped up and that I believe you should also fix, but I don’t have enough time here to go into them, and, in any case, I doubt they’re as politically dangerous as the problem I’ve just described.

Lastly, as my third point, I’d like to reiterate a point that I’ve made to most of you before: the current SBNC statute violates the essential democratic principle of political equality, as embodied in the widely understood phrase of one-person, one-vote.

In America, we’ve had a 200+ year struggle to expand suffrage to poor whites, blacks, women, and other disenfranchised groups. Even today, Maryland has a strong civil rights community dedicated to preventing vote dilution, so that all citizens are treated equally. But by giving private groups a disproportionate share of the vote on a general purpose public body, the SBNC violates this sacred democratic principle.

Advocates of this violation of one-person, one-vote have countered that the SBNC models judicial nominating commissions, water district commissions, and other special purpose districts. But there is a qualitative difference, as the courts have recognized, between those types of public bodies and a general purpose public body such as the SBNC. Whether the SBNC not only violates one-person, one-vote but is unconstitutional is admittedly a much more difficult matter to assess. Based on a series of U.S. and state Supreme Court cases regarding the application of one-person, one-vote to school boards, I believe there is a high likelihood that a high court would indeed rule that the SBNC statute violates the political equality principle embedded in the U.S. Constitution. But I cannot imagine who would bring such a case, and I’d agree that the circumstances of the SBNC are unique and unprecedented, thus making prediction very difficult. But regardless of the legality of the SBNC’s violation of one-person, one-vote, it indisputably conflicts with core democratic principles.

This observation by no means implies that there is any inherent problem with an appointed nominating body such as the SBNC; only that there is a distinction between nominating bodies that conform to democratic principles and others, such as the SBNC in its current form, that do not.

In conclusion, the bills I’ve endorsed above improve on the status quo school board electoral process in a least one of the following three ways: by codifying the law, by fixing the politically embarrassing reinterpretations and evolution of the law since 2007, or by mitigating the effects of the law’s violation of one-person, one-vote through the addition of auxiliary mechanisms to enhance political competition and popular sovereignty.

Even if you’re an advocate of the current SBNC process, I hope you will agree that the law should be written in such a way that it is reasonably accessible to the public. The current laws regarding the SBNC, scattered as they are in so many inaccessible places, clearly do not meet that test.

SBNC Update: Wrap-up for 2010

2010-05-23T18:15:00.001-05:00

Introduction & Summary

On May 11 and 12, the Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) interviewed candidates for District 30 and District 31. On May 17 the SBNC heard testimony on behalf of the candidates and then voted for two nominees for each district. The two nominees for District 30 are Richard K. Giroux of Arnold and Solon K. Webb of Annapolis; for District 31, Deborah T. Ritchie of Pasadena and Lisa Shore of Pasadena . The links point to the applications they submitted. The SBNC removes applications from the public portion of its website after the electoral cycle is complete, so if you want to see the applications, I recommend doing it now.

The three hearings, followed by a vote, showed off the SBNC at its finest. The candidates were well-qualified to serve on the Board of Education (“School Board”), and the SBNC commissioners came across as thoughtful leaders working on behalf of the community.

The average number of candidates running for each open seat declined from 12 during the first SBNC nominating cycle in 2008 to 3.5 in 2010 (four for District 30 and three for District 31). Assuming that all the candidates had an equal chance of winning, those running in District 30 had a 50% chance of winning while those running in District 31 had a 66.7% chance of winning. The decline in number of candidates highlights the growing importance of the early and invisible part of the SBNC nominating cycle, whereby candidates are recruited and otherwise given incentives to formally apply for a nomination.

The Governor must now appoint a representative from districts 30 and 31 by July 1, when the next Board of Education takes office.

Based on a legal opinion delivered by Maryland’s Attorney General on April 8, 2010 (and posted on the SBNC’s website only AFTER my last SBNC Update on May 9, 2010), Board members appointed after June 30, 2008 are automatically reappointed by the Governor for a second term and are not subject to a competitive election for the duration of their two terms in office, for a total of 10 years (two new terms) or as many as fourteen if they came to office midterm (two new terms plus the completion of a partial term). School Board members are only allowed to serve two full terms. School Board members are subject to a second reterntion vote at the next general election AFTER their second term begins.

The next big event on the School Board electoral calendar takes place on November 2, 2010, when four sitting Board members, half of the adult Board, are on the ballot for a retention vote, often called an “approval” vote in the political science literature. Board members who pass this hurdle will then be able to serve for as many as 6.4 years before being subject to another reterntion vote. The 6.4-year calculation is as follows: Board terms are for five years. Those appointed after June 30, 2008 are automatically appointed to a second term and subject to a retention vote at the next general election, which is 16+ months later during odd-year automatic reappointments (and four months during even years). Five years plus 16 months equals 6.4 years. In practice, however, it may take many months after a lost reterntion vote for the SBNC to nominate and the Governor to appoint a replacement, during which time the incumbent board member stays in office. Note, too, that there appears to be no DEADLINE to replace an incumbent who has lost a retention vote. Thus, the 6.4 year figure is a MINIMUM term of office for odd-year appointments.

The duration of an Anne Arundel County School Board member’s term of office without facing a competitive election is striking because I believe it is the longest such term of office for any school board member in not only Maryland but possibly also any elected office, other than a judge, in the entire United States.

Unless there is an unexpected development, I expect this to be my last SBNC Update until the next SBNC nominating cycle in 2011.

The outline of my observations and analysis follows:

1) May 10 District 30 Public Hearing

2) May 11 District 31 Public Hearing

3) May 17 Hearing for Candidate Testimonials and Vote

4) Implications of Ned Carey’s Withdrawal Announcement

5) November 2, 2010 Retention Vote for Four Board of Education Members

6) Third Complaint Filed with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board

1) May 10, 2010 District 30 Public Hearing

All SBNC Commissioners plus their legal counsel and four members of the AACPS Public Information Office (including three TV producers) were in attendance. No reporter was present. Thirteen individuals were in the audience, including only three people not affiliated with the candidates or the Board of Education. I left after about an hour, during the mid-hearing break, and watched much of the remainder of the hearing at home on my TV. Although the half-million dollar TV setup in the Board room and quarter-million dollar TV backroom facility can support high definition television, the production was in standard definition due to ongoing negotiations with Comcast about high definition carriage.

Four candidates were competing for the two nominations for District 30. However, one candidate, Richard D’Amato, a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates, couldn’t make it for the District 30 hearing, so he was allowed to join the District 31 hearing the following evening.

Each commissioner was allowed to ask a question of the candidates. The hearing ran for more than two hours. Those not present could watch via TV, which was broadcast at a higher quality than most C-SPAN coverage of public affairs events but at a lower quality than network TV coverage of presidential debates. For example, C-SPAN covers most think thank events with a one or two person crew, not the three person crew used here (four people if you include the TV crew’s boss). Similarly, C-SPAN usually doesn’t operate in a conference room with a half dozen robotic cameras and perfect lighting; indeed, it is unlikely that there is a single think tank in Washington, DC with a conference room—even one used for events a half dozen times a day—outfitted with a half million dollars of TV equipment ($464,000, to be exact).

I will not summarize the Q&A here. But I’d like to note one part of the Q&A that might be of particular interest to citizen advisory committee readers. Commissioner Christine Davenport, following in a long tradition of School Board candidate questioners in Anne Arundel County, asked the candidates what they would do to enhance parental involvement. Candidate Victoria Garcia replied: “televise CAC meetings.” The following night, responding to a similar question, two other candidates advocated using more “technology” to get parents involved in the school system.

I agree with Candidate Garcia that when a high level public official comes to speak to a CAC meeting, especially of the Countywide CAC, those not physically present should have the opportunity to hear what is said. Coming from the think tank world, where it has become routine to webcast events, I would consider such coverage a no-brainer.

(Incidentally, more parents in Anne Arundel County now have broadband than cable TV connections; note that satellite TV is separate from cable TV and that satellite TV customers cannot see the County’s educational channels. In addition, County libraries provide free broadband but not free cable TV service. So broadband is now not only the most convenient but also the most equitable medium for educational public affairs TV coverage. Of course, there is no reason that CAC TV cannot be delivered over BOTH broadband and PEG cable TV, as is now done in many U.S. towns with a population a fiftieth the size of Anne Arundel County and a commensurately smaller TV/PR budget.)

However, I consider the odds of AACPS allowing the Countywide CAC to televise its meetings close to zero. Indeed, Riva Road is so senstive about its public officials saying anything controversial on TV (or otherwise on the record) that I would bet that it would greatly restrict access to senior level ACCPS officials if the Countywide CAC recorded their presentations and Q&A. A caveat would be if Riva Road could keep the video under lock and key, as it does the SBNC’s video recordings. This would allow it to preserve an important measure of control. But such restricted access would defeat much of the purpose for providing video coverage in the first place. Needless to say, I believe Riva Road’s mindset seeking to tightly control information is harmful to public participation and our democracy. I hope and expect that the current tight control of information will loosen up in the coming years.

Commissioner Sandra Anderson, in charge of the SBNC’s communications plan (a euphemism, in my opinion, for PR), closed the meeting with the following observation: “Regardless of how many press releases we send out, we’re not overwhelemed with people coming to our hearings…. Please think about how we might engage the parents on these topics.”

Commissioner Anderson’s observation about poor parental involvement was, of course, correct. I attended every SBNC event this election cycle and I could count on my fingers the number of audience members who weren’t AACPS officials, prospective candidates, or relatives of prospective candidates. Even the Capital reporter stopped coming during the SBNC’s last five public meetings.

So I applaud Commissioner Anderson’s heartfelt concluding remark. But who or what is to blame for the problem she describes? It’s not clear to me why a rational member of the public would want to participate since the public has no real role in the SBNC’s selection process. The public doesn’t select the nominees, and it doesn’t select the commissioners who select the nominees. The democratic lines of accountability are so blurred as, in my opinion, to be all-but-unreadable by anyone except a handful of insiders. Asking the public to participate is like asking someone from Anne Arundel County to participate in an election in East Podunk, Illinois. Why should they?

The part of Commissioner Anderson’s statement that made me wince was her conclusion pleading for more parental involvement. I’ve been attending School Board candidate hearings for close to ten years and have observed that there is no greater cliché in AACPS school politics than the plea for more parental public policy involvement. Yet it never seems to happen. The reason, unfortunately, is much more fundamental than the fact that politically astute parents recognize they have no meaningful role in the SBNC election process. It is that real public participation—the way that democratic theorists define it—is often actually considered, at best, an annoyance. Real public participation must come from the bottom up; that is, people must feel that they can make a real difference and that they aren’t being used just for show. But the incentives, all too often, are to use public participation and the appearance of openness for show. After all, we live in a democracy, and school boards and other public bodies get their public legitimacy from appearing democratic. Indeed, the calling of a public meeting with warm bodies in the audience has proven to be one of the most effective democratic shows. Admittedly, there are pockets of real participation in AACPS. But the SBNC hasn’t been one of them.

Lastly, I’d like to note one of my greatest frustrations attending the SBNC hearings in the Board room: no WiFI (wireless Internet) access for my laptop. The Board room has two very strong WiFi hotspots, but they are only accessible to ACCPS employees with a password; the public is barred from access. I routinely attend public events in federal buildings, hotels, and think tanks, and I can say it is now very common to provide free WiFi access during public meetings. Such WiFi access greatly increases both the quantity and quality of public participation. That’s because it’s much less burdensome attending a long, boring public meeting if one can multitask; and the quality of participation increases when audience members can become active listeners by looking up speaker references, better researching their questions, and exploring unexpected implications of what the speaker is saying. The same goes for CAC meetings held in the evening in the Board room. I just cannot fathom any reason why CAC members shouldn’t have WiFi access.

Actually, this is not quite true. Try on this for an explanation: Via its I-NET link, Riva Road can access broadband Internet access about 1,000 times faster than the fastest broadband service (about 20 Mbps) available to Anne Arundel County residents. Perhaps someone is worried that if the public experienced Riva Road’s superfast broadband connections, especially in the evening when Riva Road is empty and the network unused, the Board room would be overwhelmed with public participation. :-)

2) May 11, 2010 District 31 Hearing

All SBNC commissioners were eventually in attendance, but two of the eleven commissioners arrived late. No reporter was present. Other than AACPS and SBNC staff, only two individuals, including myself, were in the audience during the first hour of the hearing. This hearing went on for more than three hours. I left after the first break and watched most of the remainder of the hearing at home.

Four candidates were present, one competing for a District 30 nomination, three for a District 31 nomination.

This time the SBNC’s PTA representative, Commissioner Anita Owens, asked the parental involvement question: How do we increase parental involvement in the schools? Candidates Lisa Shore and Richard D’ Amato both called for better use of technology. But it wasn’t clear to me whether they meant more top-down communications (as in PR) or bottom-up communications (which, if not astroturf, I would call democratic participation). Whenever the parental involvement question comes up, there is also the question of what exactly is meant by “parental involvement”: does it mean civic involvement or mentoring one’s own children with their schoolwork? Often the latter is meant, but it is noteworthy that the candidates interpreted the question as including both parential civic involvement and child mentoring.

Perhaps my favorite question of the evening, also involving ambiguous concepts, was Commissioner Konrad Wayson’s: Should School Board members vote by district or at-large? This question gets at a fundamental ambiguity in the current School Board electoral system. Three of the four candidates, with some hedging, answered: “by district.” The other candidate, who would go on to win the most votes of any nominee for District 31, answered: “at-large.” Since School Board members are supposed to care about all kids first and foremost and forego anything resembling politics, I believe the at-large answer was clearly the politically correct one.

But a reasonable person, including a School Board candidate, could (and should) be confused on this point. I’ve discussed this at length in earlier SBNC Updates, so I won’t repeat myself here. The key points are that the design of the electoral system, how SBNC members are selected, and how the SBNC conducts its business, all send very mixed messages. But what I want to add is that even if the electoral system unambiguously sent the message that “at-large” was the correct answer, it still wouldn’t be a politically plausible strategy for many of the School Board members. That is because most School Board members in recent years have used the School Board as a launching pad for political careers. And for all other legislative positions other than the School Board, the correct answer is absolutely unambiguous: by district. School Board members aspiring for higher office have every incentive to represent the subset of Anne Arundel County constituents they hope to represent if elected to higher office. Although I’ve never seen the Capital report them this way, high profile School Board earmarks should always be viewed, at least partially, based on Board room politics. (As an aside, the Capital’s lack of coverage of Board politics—either due to indifference or ignorance--remains a striking feature of its news and editorials.)

3) May 17 Hearing for Candidate Testimonials and Vote

All SBNC commissioners and support staff were present. No reporter was present. The initial audience, including candidates, candidate relatives, and those giving testimonials on behalf of the candidates, was the largest of the three hearings. But only one member of the public, other than me, was present.

The meeting was supposed to consist of four parts: 1) designated candidate witnesses, 2) public comments about the candidates, 3) secret deliberations by the SBNC commissioners, and 4) the final, public vote. Since there were no public comments about the candidates, that part of the meeting was skipped.

One confusing part of the testimonials in favor of the candidates was their separation into public and secret parts. Those giving their testimonials in person did so in public. But there were apparently a number of written testimonials that were not read and were otherwise publicly inaccessible. The SBNC commissioners did not publicly state how or if the written recommendations had been privately distributed to them. But it’s reasonable to presume that the SBNC commissiones had access to the written recommendations before the hearing.

Commissioner Greene opened the meeting reporting that today he had received a letter from School Board Member Ned Carey stating that Carey would not accept the Governor’s appointment to the School Board even if it was offered to him. Greene noted that the letter was dated May 13.

One interesting feature of the TV coverage on May 17 compared to May 11 was the TV camera work. I don’t recall any audience shots on May 11 when the Board room looked all but completely empty (note that I did miss part of the May 11 hearing). But on May 17, when the camera could focus on a cluster of folks, the audience was introduced to viewers.

I thought the candidate testimonials were impressive and compelling. I also thought there was a close correlation between the number and intensity of the testimonials and the number of votes the candidates ultimately received from the SBNC commissioners.

As a ballpark figure, I estimate that the total taxpayer cost of the three hearings was $3,000: $2,000 for the four AACPS staff ($200/hour for the four staff times 10 hours) and $1,000 for the SBNC’s attorney ($100/hour times 10 hours). Of course, AACPS employees and the SBNC’s attorney (provided gratis by the Maryland General Assembly) are paid on a salary basis and don’t charge the SBNC for their services. But they also certainly don’t come free for taxpayers. If 50 members of the public watched the hearings (and this is little more than a wild guess), that comes to $40/viewer ($2,000/50 viewers = $40/viewer).

In my opinion, the public might have been better served by having an all-volunteer high school student TV crew televise the meetings (using their own equipment, not Riva Road’s), automatically index the footage to the agenda (standard even for tiny rural towns in Vermont), and then post the resulting footage on an independent website such as YouTube (one of the most common websites used by think tanks for public affairs events).

Note that these calculations assume that the SBNC has discontinued the costly (and secret) practice of transcribing the candidates’ testimony and Q&A. These transcripts, presumably paid for by the Maryland General Assembly, were never posted on the SBNC’s website and were for the exclusive use of SBNC commissioners.

Overall, the lack of press coverage of the SBNC during this electoral cycle was striking. In the old days of the nominating convention—and I’m not advocating a return to those days—the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and Capital would all compete in their coverage of the School Board candidates. In recent years, the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun completely abandoned the School Board electoral beat. And now we’re left with the Capital’s reports, which have evolved during this election cycle into little more than rewritten press releases. As for informed and thoughtful commentary, I don’t recall that we ever had that, so there hasn’t been a change there.

4) Implications of Ned Carey’s Withdrawal Announcement

Following my two SBNC Updates describing the Attorney General’s ruling that incumbent School Board candidates elected prior to June 30, 2008 automatically have their names forwarded to the Governor for nomination, the Capital reported on May 14, 2010 that incumbent Ned Carey would definitely not accept an appointment if appointed to another term by the Governor. Part of the article included the following statement:

Carey said he was unaware of the [Attorney General’s] ruling and assumed that by not submitting an application he was out of the running for a second term. But to clarify his position, on the advice of attorneys, he sent a letter to the commission yesterday stating he doesn't want to stay on the board.

Assuming that the Capital accurately reported Carey’s statement, we have the following three implications:

a) The SBNC didn’t do its job. One of the primary duties of the SBNC is to encourage the strongest possible candidates to run for the SBNC. If potential candidates are under the impression that a popular incumbent, sure to win the Governor’s endorsement, is likely to run, it is reasonable to infer that fewer and less qualified candidates would be likely to run. In this circumstance, the SBNC would have a responsibility not only to ask Carey whether he was running but inform him of the Attorney General’s January 22, 2010 public legal opinion (issued more than three months before the April 30, 2010 candidate deadline) that his name would automatically be forwarded to the Governor and that potential candidates would learn that fact. I say the January 22, 2010 “public” legal opinion because the Attorney General recently revealed an apparently private memo to the SBNC on May 1, 2009 (exactly one year before the April 30, 2010 application deadline) providing the same legal advice (see footnote 2 to the Attorney General’s April 8, 2010 legal opinion). Accordingly, the SBNC had the correct information about the nominating system for Ned Carey more than one year before Carey says he knew that information. (As an aside, my guess is that the May 1, 2009 memo was kept private because its public release on May 1, 2009 would have been highly embarrassing to the SBNC, which had already accepted applications, including 2 incumbent School Board members, and announced public hearings based on the original understanding of the law.)

The SBNC was chosen so that all important stakeholders would have a say in the nominating process. Those stakeholders are in regular contact with the School Board, so it would have been easy for them to alert Carey of the January 22, 2010 legal opinion (or, presumably, the earlier, apparently private, May 1, 2009 legal opinion), but it apparently didn’t happen.

It is clear that throughout the winter and spring of 2010 the SBNC agonized over whether Carey would run and regularly asked him about his intentions. Those who observed their deliberations could see that Carey was popular and that the SBNC did not at all relish the prospect of recruting challengers or even nominating anyone other than Carey for the District 31 opening. In the end, I think the SBNC made a genuine attempt to recruit people to attend both the District 30 and District 31 field hearings and to encourage candidates to run in District 31. Nevertheless, I believe its members were negligent in not informing Carey of the May 1, 2009 legal opinion and then reaffirmed in the January 22, 2010 legal opinion (which has been inexplicably removed from the SBNC website; the May 1, 2009 memo was never posted there).

An additional important consideration is that astute candidates for the District 31 seat would have recognized that even if Carey ran and was appointed by the Governor for a second term, it was to their advantage to run in this electoral cycle. The best precedent here is Tricia Johnson, the former School Board president nominated for a second term starting on July 1, 2009. The Governor appointed her to a second term, which she resigned weeks later when she was elected to the County Council. The SBNC was happy with one of the candidates who was nominated with her and so, with minimal fuss in the middle of the summer (July 28, 2009), nominated him and someone else who had no chance of being selected by the Governor (by the way, this rushed, low profile electoral cycle is an excellent illustration of the SBNC’s invisible nominating system at work). If this happened once (the last election), it could happen again, which may help explain the strong candidates who eventually applied for the District 31 seat.

b) The Capital didn’t do its job. The Capital’s education reporter was at the January 25, 2010 SBNC meeting where the January 22, 2010 Attorney General legal opinion was publicly announced. I then wrote about it in my January 27, 2010 SBNC Update, which is widely read throughout the County, including by various Capital reporters. Here is what I said: “The AG also ruled that incumbent school board members don’t have to go through the SBNC nominating process to have their names forwarded to the governor; all incumbents eligible for an additional term will have their names forwarded to the governor.”

The Capital reporter attended some of the early SBNC meetings where the practical significance of whether Carey would run was repeatedly mentioned. The Capital then reported three times, presumably based on first-hand communications with Carey, that Carey was undecided. Two of these reports, the last on April 23, 2010 (7 days before candidate applications were due), came after the January 25, 2010 SBNC meeting where the January 22, 2010 Attorney General letter was discussed.

I do not believe the Capital should have been held responsible for not knowing about the SBNC’s apparently secret May 1, 2009 memo from the Attorney General. But several Capital reporters were aware of my complaints concerning the SBNC’s pattern of violating both the spirit and letter of Maryland’s right-to-know laws. Indeed, the complaints were featured in my May 30, 2009 wrap-up to the 2009 SBNC nominating cycle (which, I think, comes off as prescient in light of the fact that at that time I was ignorant of the May 1, 2009 legal opinion). The Capital’s determination that these complaints—or even an earlier ruling that the SBNC had violated Maryland’s Open Meetings Act—were not newsworthy helped establish an environment where vital information, such as the May 1, 2009 legal opinion, could be withheld from the public, including apparently, the president of the Board of Education.

c) Ned Carey didn’t do his job. Please note that I have great respect for Ned Carey’s skill as both a member and president of the School Board. But logic leads me to conclude that in this particular case he didn’t do his job.

Carey is in frequent contact with both SBNC commissioners and the Capital reporter. As president of the School Board, he also recieves copies of Capital articles and my SBNC Update. Regardless of whether or not he knew of the Attorney General’s May 1, 2009 and January 22, 2010 legal opinions, he certainly knew about the April 30, 2010 deadline for candidates to submit applications. He also knew that the Capital repeatedly reported on his indecision and that the SBNC repeatedly asked him about his plans. This was not for no reason: everyone with any political knowledge knew that Carey’s plans could have great practical significance, and Carey must have known that, too. Of course, Carey has every right to want to keep his political options open. And, nothwithstanding his lawyer’s apparent legal advice (see the Carey quote above), elected officials have generally not faced legal obstacles when holding one office while running for another. (Here I’ll add two caveats: I’m not a lawyer, and the current School Board electoral system is so bizarre and has been subject to so many Alice in Wonderland interpretations that perhaps I’ve overlooked something.)

However, the claim here is one of ignorance, not whether Carey had a duty to announce his political plans. Candidates who run for the School Board are regularly told that they need to be good listeners and regularly reach out to major stakeholders for information. If all the SBNC commissioners, the Capital education reporter, and senior AACPS staff knew of the January 22, 2010 legal opinion (if only because they religously read my SBNC Update!), then there was a striking breakdown in communications between Carey and the school system’s key stakeholders in the three plus months between January 22, 2010 and April 30, 2010 (or, if May 1, 2009 is used as the reference point, the twelve months between May 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010). In my opinion, the democratic implications of such a breakdown are scary.

5) November 2, 2010 Retention Vote for Four Board of Education Members

On Novermber 2, 2010, the four School Board members appointed by the Governor during 2009 and 2010 will have their names placed on the ballot for a retention vote. I expect this to be an invisible election, as is almost always the case with retention votes for judges (an incumbent who hasn’t done anything extremely controversial has historically had virtually no chance of losing a retention vote). One way to explain this phenomenon is that in an election for “X” or “Nobody,” X should always win because it’s better to have someone in office than no one. Public officials do have an important job to do, and somebody, not Nobody, needs to do it.

Nevertheless, this is a big and potentially highly visible vote because it’s for an uncontested term of up to ten years—quite a novelty in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, U.S., and perhaps even world politics.

Please note that I was incorrect in my May 9, 2010 report on the interpretation of the Attorney General’s April 8, 2010 legal opinion. I was operating from memory and should have reread the legal opinion, which at the time was still not posted on the SBNC’s website. (It can now be found there, and I’d encourage anyone interested in the School Board electoral system to read it.)

Here is the correction: Incumbents appointed after June 30, 2008 are automatically reappointed for a second term, but—and here is the correction--they do have to undergo a second retention vote at the next general election after their automatic reappointment. The second election, like the first, is uncontested. And, like the first, the SBNC is under no obligation to replace the incumbent by a specific deadline.

Now let’s suppose one or more of the four candidates on the ballot lose the retention vote. Since the enabling legislation creating the SBNC is very vague on what happens next, I suppose we’d get a new series of Attorney General legal opinions telling the SBNC what it should do. One of the problems is that the retention vote doesn’t appear to be like any other retention vote held in Maryland or possibly the U.S. for that matter. On the surface, the retention vote looks like it is binding (hence the legislators’ claim that the new school board electoral system gives the public a meaningful vote). But, in fact, the election is only advisory because, as far as I know, there is no date by which the SBNC must select a replacement. So it is conceivable (but exceedingly unlikely) that a candidate could serve ten years even after losing a retention vote.

It gets much more interesting, especially from a political standpoint, if all four candidates lose the retention vote. I consider this as unlikely as a large asteroid hitting the U.S. on November 2, 2010 and creating a second Grand Canyon. But it’s still an interesting thought experiment.

This would mean that in one year the SBNC could replace 5 of 8 adult members of the School Board. I don’t think it would want to do that, both because it would be too much work and would eliminate too much institutional knowledge.

At the same time, the Maryland General Assembly would have a firestorm of proposals to modify or completely can the legislation creating the SBNC. This would create a lot of uncertainty, which could provide the SBNC with many excuses for delay or other impromptu actions.

But now what if a Republican were elected governor in November? Then I would imagine there would be a panicky rush to 1) appoint five new school board members before the governor could appoint new SBNC commissioners and take control of the School Board, and 2) draft legislation canning the SBNC.

In any case, I would be shocked if during its next session the Maryland General Assembly doesn’t pass some legislation reforming the statute creating the SBNC. In the wake of the last three Attorney General legal opinions, there are just too many easy pickings for reform for a smart legislator not to pick up the ball. I’d start by reducing the extraordinarily long terms to a more democratic length.

My further sense is that, regardless of the outcome of the November 2 elections, we may be entering the home stretch for the SBNC during the next four-year term of the General Assembly. It’s hard for me to imagine that during a single session (that is, one year) the Anne Arundel delegation to the General Assembly could come up with a politically viable substitute for the SBNC. In the short-term, only expect some easy patches (such as eliminating the automatic second term). But a sense of inevitably could quickly emerge that the SBNC is doomed. Despite my criticism of the SBNC, I think that would be a misfortune. Just as the legislature (and press and citizenry) mindlessly rushed into creating and endorsing the SBNC, the danger is that it will equally mindlessly rush into destroying it rather than thinking carefully about how a commission nominating system could preserve its virtues while also ensuring a greater measure of genuine democratic accountability. What a tragedy that the Maryland General Assembly and our local press appear to be completely unable to engage in an adult conversation on electoral systems.

Meanwhile, an advocate for the current retention voting system should demonstrate that, as promised, it is possible for the November 2, 2010 retention vote to actually mean something other than a PR gambit. I’m not sure how that could be accomplished, but a good starting point would be to post the SBNC candidate testimony online. Unfortunately, that means going through the AACPS Public Information Office to ask for a controversial piece of information—an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. During the first electoral cycle I asked for those tapes (because during Spring Semester 2008 I was a fellow living in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and couldn’t watch the hearings in person), and it took me something like three months of enduring excuses and being referred to different people to get them. When you ask for a controversial piece of information, you’re immediately pegged as a potential troublemaker (this type of phenomenon was written about by the famous German sociologist Max Weber during the 1920s). As the delays pile up and you don’t go away, this only confirms the original suspicion that you’re a troublemaker. It’s sort of like the Salem witch trials: there is no right answer for the inquisitor. But the Salem witch trials eventually came to an end, and I suspect that the Public Information Office’s instinctive practice of hoarding video is not sustainable. And, in this case, there is nothing to hide: the video records are perfectly innocuous. The AACPS Public Information Office could have its cake and eat it, too. None of the above should imply that AACPS doesn’t have an exceedingly talented Public Information Office that is just doing its job.

6) Third Complaint Filed with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board

On Monday, May 24, 2010 I will file my third set of complaints concerning the SBNC’s compliance with Maryland’s Open Meetings Act (see MyAACPS.net for a copy). The complaints primarily deal with loose ends remaining from my complaints filed at the end of the SBNC’s last electoral cycle.

The three most striking lessons I have learned from dealing with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board are the following:

1) The Open Meetings Compliance Board is only concerned with providing legal opinions about the letter rather than the spirit of the Open Meetings Act.

2) The Open Meetings Compliance Board primarily serves to advise public bodies on the absolute minimum they need to do to comply with the letter of Maryland’s Open Meetings Act.

3) The Open Meetings Compliance Board has adopted a standard of evidence that, in practice if not theory, not only strongly favors public bodies over citizens, but is inconsistent with widely adopted norms of evidence that require documentary evidence of compliance with documentary legal requirements.

SBNC Update, Including a Bombshell

2010-05-09T12:26:00.002-05:00

Since my last School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) update, there have been three major events:

1) The candidate application deadline passed (April 30)

2) Two field hearings were held (April 12 and April 19)

3) The Attorney General issued a legal opinion (April 8)

The bombshell is the Attorney General’s legal opinion, but I’ll start with the candidate applications. Some readers may want to jump to the bombshell, which increases the term of office for a school board member to ten years, assuming the board member wins the initial retention vote after first being appointed by Maryland’s governor. The result is that Anne Arundel County not only has a unique school board electoral process, but likely the longest school board member term in the U.S. and possibly the world. With more than 14,000 school boards in the U.S., that’s quite a distinction.

Candidate Applications

As the Capital has already reported, seven candidates applied to the SBNC, including four for the District 30 seat and three for the District 31 seat. The seven candidates for the school board all have excellent credentials and offer diverse demographic options for the SBNC. Collectively, the candidates have a wealth of knowledge of Anne Arundel County schools as parents, in-school volunteers, PTA leaders, CAC leaders, and spouses of school employees. Compared to past applicants, there appears to be a growing understanding of what is involved in writing a winning application. This may because the current round of applicants had the benefit of learning from what succeeded and failed in the three earlier rounds of applications.

Of course, one shouldn’t confuse the number of SBNC applicants with the number of eligible nominees for the School Board. That’s because incumbent school board members serving a first term before June 30, 2008 are automatically nominated regardless of whether they submit applications to the SBNC. Since school board members Enrique Melendez and Ned Carey will automatically be nominated regardless of whether they have any intent to actually serve a second term, the total number of people eligible to be nominated is actally nine, rather than seven, as the Capital article implied.

I was unhappy that it took six days from the date candidate applications were due (from Friday, April 30 at the “close of business” to the evening of Thursday, May 6) to publicly announce the names of the candidates and post their applications on the SBNC’s website. As of Saturday evening, May 8, one of the candidate applications, for C. Richard D'Amato, had still not been posted. After candidate applications were due, I repeatedly emailed the SBNC Chair for an explanation of the delay. He explained that the delay was caused by technical difficulties, including coordinating with the AACPS public information officer who maintains the SBNC’s website.

The SBNC will interview the candidates on Monday, May 10, and Tuesday, May 11, at 7 pm. The SBNC has moved the venue for the interviews from the Anne Arundel Community College to the Board of Education room at Riva Road. This will be the first set of candidate hearings broadcast on the School Board’s new half million dollar TV facilities.

One item in the Capital’s news coverage may be incorrect. The SBNC has regularly reported during the spring that incumbent School Board member Ned Carey had not yet decided whether he would run for a second term on the School Board or run for the state senate seat currently held by Bryan Simonaire. The Capital also reported this. Thus, I was very surprised to see that the Capital seemed to report that Carey had publicly announced he was not running for a second term on the school board. I don’t always read the Capital, and it’s possible that I missed this public announcement in its pages. But it’s also possible that the Capital made the seemingly logical inference that because 1) three candidates have submitted applications to run for Carey’s seat in District 31, and 2) Carey isn’t one of those three, that 3) Carey must have decided not to seek a second term on the School Board. But if you read the attorney general’s letter, discussed below, you’ll see that this is a faulty set of inferences. Carey is automatically nominated regardless of whether he goes through the SBNC process.

Why would Carey take so long to announce his intentions? Here’s a plausible explanation based on my observations of many other candidates in similar situations. Senator Simonaire is a popular incumbent who has announced that he hasn’t decided whether to run for another term. Carey may simply be waiting to find out if Simonaire is running before deciding whether to run himself. Since it is usually much harder to beat an incumbent than win an open seat, this would be a rational course of action. Again, this is little more than speculation. The important point is that unless the Capital has information that I somehow missed, its information about the status of the District 31 open seat may be incorrect.

Of course, one should also not assume that if Carey runs for Simonaire’s seat he will necessarily choose to leave the school board ahead of time. For example, school board member Vic Bernson has announced he’s running for the House of Delegates but no one expects him to resign from the school board unless he actually wins the House of Delegates seat. As far as I can tell, the same political logic applies to Carey, except that Bernson sent out a press release clearly announcing his intensions, whereas I’ve seen no such statement from Carey.

District 31 Field Hearing, April 12, 2010

The District 31 field hearing was held at Glen Burnie High School on April 12, 2010. Ten of eleven SBNC commissioners showed up, as well as the SBNC’s evepresent staff attorney provided free of charge by Maryland’s Department of Legislative Services. The audience consisted of three individuals: two residents of District 31 and myself. No reporter was present.

The SBNC chair discussed routine business, including the dates of the candidate hearings, a correction in the minutes involving a previous attorney general opinion letter, and notice of a new attorney general opinion letter dated April 8, 2010.

The discussion of the SBNC’s publicity/outreach plan was unintelligible to me because it was whispered between Commissioner Anderson and Commissioner Greene, who were sitting next to each other. There were no mics, so it was easy to discuss this part of the public meeting in private.

Chairman Greene stated that the goal of the field hearings was to foster interaction with the community. He then opened the meeting to audience questions. Each audience member would ask a question.

The first resident was highly critical of the SBNC’s election process. My summary of his comments follows:

General Assembly representatives to District 31 are Republicans, the County Executive is Republican, and a majority of county councilors are Republicans, yet the school board has ‘dangerously tilted to one side.’ District 31 doesn’t have a voice on the School Board. I don’t have a voice electing the Governor. Folks in Prince George’s County and Baltimore choose the Governor. Our County was formed by people who believed that one shouldn’t be taxed without representation. We deserve to have a voice on the School Board. Without that, people will tune out.

Chairman Greene replied that “we have a statutory requirement to nominate at least 2 candidates to the Governor. We try not to do that on the basis of politics.”

As an aside, Chairman Greene’s notion of nominating two candidates may be a bit confusing because it suggests that the SBNC has discretion in the selection of the two candidates. According to the Attorney General’s legal opinion, the SBNC has no discretion in nominating a first-term incumbent member of the school board such as the current school board member from District 31.

The second resident wanted to know 1) if “politics or a commitment to children is more important in a candidate, and 2) “Why this process?”

Starting with the second question, Chairman Greene replied that compared to the old process, the new process gives the public a greater voice. The new process finally gives the public a vote on who serves in office. He also noted that the new process was created in statute. In answer to the first question, he observed that “we evaluate each candidate on their merits.”

I asked Chairman Greene if the SBNC had held an executive session, as announced at the previous SBNC meeting, to discuss an opinion from the Attorney General. He replied “yes.”

The SBNC did not hand out the Attorney General’s legal opinion dated April 8, 2010 (and as of May 9 it was still not posted on the SBNC’s website), but I was able to get the SBNC’s staff attorney to give me a copy.

As an aside, last year I also attended the SBNC’s first field hearing, which had a slightly larger audience. When I raised my hand to ask a question, I was told that field hearings were only for members of the legislative district in which they were held but that I would nevertheless be allowed to speak. I then asked for clarification whether school board members represent all the citizens of Anne Arundel County or just the members of the legislative district in which they live. This year the residency test for asking questions was dropped.

District 30 Field Hearing, April 19, 2010

The District 30 field hearing was held at Annoplis High School on April 12, 2010. All SBNC commissioners attended, as well as the SBNC’s staff attorney. Ten members of the public attended, including myself. Three members of the audience appeared to be children--or friends of the children--of one of the parents. As at the previous field hearing, no reporter was present.

The comments/questions were too numerous for me to report here. The most popular comment was that members of the School Board should make caring about children their first priority. For example, one audience member said that “what is important in a school board member is caring about the child, showing not just in word but in deed a dedication to children.” Another said: “the priority should be children.” Other comments included a complaint about the increasing use of quantitative data to evaluate teachers, a complaint about the need to get School Board approval for a school-specific issue, and praise for the SBNC’s work.

Commissioner Wayson read a letter from a resident of District 30 who couldn’t be present but wanted her comments heard. He asked for the letter to be placed in the SBNC’s record and Chairman Greene moved to place the letter in the record, without objection.

I thought this was curious because it seemed to raise a double standard. There was no recording or meaningful record of public comments made in person, but here was a comment being preserved in full fidelity and, as far as I could tell, for eternity. I wondered: Where would this letter be held? Would it be published on the SBNC’s websitge? What did it mean to have a letter placed in the record?

Later, I asked a question concerning the SBNC’s archival policy. I observed that almost all the information posted to the SBNC’s website prior to 2010, including candidate applications, press releases, and attorney general legal opinions, had been removed from the SBNC’s website. I thus wanted to know the SBNC’s archival policy.

Chairman Greene said he didn’t know that such information had been removed from the SBNC’s website, that the SBNC did not control its website, that the SBNC didn’t have an archival policy, and that he would get back to me.

As readers of my previous SBNC updates know, I consider easily accessible public records of public bodies to be very important. I recalled that years ago I had sought clarification that SBNC candidate applications would remain on the SBNC website and had gotten an answer such as “we don’t plan to take them down” that suggested a yes. I don’t have an objection to taking down the applications of losing candidates, but I believe it is essential to democratic accountability to keep up the applications of winning candidates. I also believe, as I’ve previously argued numerous times, that the videos of the candidate hearings should be publicly archived and posted online.

Perhaps most important, I believe the public has a right to know the laws under which it is governed. As it has evolved, the series of legal opinions the Attorney General has written interpreting the statute creating the SBNC are arguably far more important to understanding how the SBNC actually works than the statutes that created it or the bylaws the SBNC adopted. But of the many opinions the Attorney General has issued since early 2008, only one remains on the SBNC’s website.

I am surely being a bit unfair to the SBNC in the sense that its archives are not in its control. Maryland’s General Assembly didn’t want to give the SBNC an operating budget, including money for a website. So the SBNC is dependent on the goodwill of others to maintain its public records. The School Board has the resources and expertise to maintain the SBNC’s website, but it also has a blatant conflict of interest in doing so. Any public official wants maximum control over public records, especially those with political salience. So removing potentially controversial information from easy public access is an obvious and perfectly predictable move.

Assuming that the SBNC is actually an independent body from AACPS and would want its nominees to be democratically accountable, the solution is to give the SBNC a budget so it can maintain its own website. A webhosting account costing less than $4/month (or $60/year, including a web domain) should be ample to cover more than 10,000 years of SBNC records (based on their present rate of creation) as well as thousands of times as much usage (my impression is that the SBNC website would never have very high traffic). This assumes that at least one member of the SBNC, or the SBNC’s staff attorney, would have the technical skill and time to post SBNC records to a website. From my perspective, this is no harder than hitting the “save” button on a word processing document. But I recognize that some people would disagree with this assessment.

What is galling to me is that Maryland taxpayers have paid tens of thousands of dollars for extensive legal advice and administrative support to the SBNC, but the SBNC claims it has no money to pay for a webhosting service. Similarly, AACPS has contributed significant resources to the SBNC. My estimate is that the AACPS public information officer earns approximately $125 hour. Even if he only spent a half hour per year managing the SBNC’s website, the cost would be greater than hiring an independent web hosting service. The televised evening meetings on January 10, January 11, and January 17, which will require use of AACPS professional staff, will probably also cost the school district thousands of dollars in labor time, if labor costs were charged by the hour rather than treated as a fixed cost.

From the SBNC’s perspective, pleading poverty about a $60 cost is actually reasonable. The legislature’s accounting and bill scoring rules allow it to provide its staff services to the SBNC without having to include the cost as a budget line item. Similarly, AACPS can provide resources to the SBNC without having to bill the SBNC. In contrast, even a negligible budget for webhosting would mandate a budget outlay, which would violate the legislature’s promise that the SBNC would cost the taxpayers nothing.

Legal Opinion of Sandra Brantley, Maryland’s Assistant Attorney General, April 8, 2010

This legal opinion, written in the form of a letter, contains the completely unexpected bombshell. Despite the fact that the Attorney General sent the letter to the SBNC more than a month ago, it still has not been posted on the SBNC’s website. Here are the key points from this single-spaced, four page letter:

1) The statute creating the SBNC requires two completely different electoral processes for school board incumbents, one for those initially appointed before June 30, 2008 (the first class of SBNC nominated candidates took office July 1, 2008) and one for those initially appointed after that date.

2) For incumbents appointed before June 30, 2008, their names will automatically be nominated regardless of whether they go through the SBNC nominating process. Thus, for example, Ned Carey is automatically nominated for a second term regardless of whether he goes through the SBNC nominating process. In contrast, both Tricia Johnson and Mike Leahy, former school board members who sought a second term, thought that they had to go through the SBNC to be eligible for gubernatorial appointment. Traditionally, incumbent school board candidates seeking a second term went through the school board nominating convention process. It was assumed by everyone that the same process would apply with the new SBNC. That has turned out to be a faulty assumption.

3) The SBNC only has to nominate 1 individual in years when an incumbent elected before June 30, 2009 seeks a second term.

4) Now for the bombshell: Anyone appointed after June 30, 2008 is subject to a retention vote but does not have to either go through the SBNC nominating process or seek gubernatorial reappointment. So, for example, if the school board members appointed this year win the November 2, 2010 retention vote, they are in for ten years if they want to be. This suggests that a school board member filling a vacant seat and thus eligible for two more terms could serve, say, 14 years after initial appointment. This may help explain why the SBNC wanted to hold an executive session to discuss School Board Memberer Andrew Pruski’s electoral status. Pruski was appointed last year to replace Tricia Johnson, who left the School Board to join the County Council.

Why is this a bombshell? No one, absolutely no one, publicly stated that the legislation creating the SBNC would allow school board members to have ten year terms if they passed the initial retention vote after being appointed by the Governor. Look through the legislative record; look through the minutes of the SBNC; look at the articles about the SBNC in the Capital and other newspapers: no where is this supposed feature of the school board electoral system mentioned.

Perhaps even more shocking to me was that the Attorney General cited me as an authority for this interpretation of the legislature’s intent in creating a ten year term for school board members apponted after June 30, 2008. When I read this, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Back in 2007 I submitted written testimony at a House of Delegates hearing just prior to passage of the bill creating the SBNC. I had tried to testify in person but was told that I would not be allowed to: no member of the public would be allowed to testify at this hearing (or, for that matter, at any meeting about the proposed SBNC legislation). Thus, I submitted comments merely on the record, which anyone can do. As far as I could tell, those comments were not read by any legislators and had absolutely no impact on the passage of the bill. I certainly got no feedback from a legislator saying my comments were read, let alone taken seriously. But my written comments for the record included this text: “In reality, then, almost anyone who wanted to stay on the board for 10 years will almost certainly be able to do so.” The Attorney General used this quote to suggest the legislature’s intent in creating a ten year term for incumbent school board members. But what I primarily meant by this statement is that judicial incumbents who avoid doing anything controversial rarely, if ever, lose a retention vote. We should thus expect the same for school board members, who would only face one retention vote on a November ballot in their school board careers no matter how long they served. In addition, an incumbent initially appointed by the SBNC and who avoids controversy during his or her term would most likely be reappointed by the SBNC for a second term. The Attorney General’s use of me as an authority, therefore, seems absurd to me. What it does suggest, once again, is the sloppy and rushed legislative drafting that went into creating the statute creating the SBNC.

An additional irony is that the Attorney General previously ridiculed my analysis that the statute creating the SBNC may violate the constitutionally protected principle of one-person, one-vote, thus violating the U.S. Constitution. From my perspective, the cases the Attorney General cited to make her case were irrelevant to the argument I was making (and, by the way, the Attorney General’s office in Maryland has a long history of ignoring the one-person, one-vote law of democracy, which was why the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that Maryland had to reapportion legislative districts as a result of decades of willfully ignoring this law). So here I am, cited on behalf of the Attorney General as an authority, despite the fact that in both cases my arguments were used out-of-context.

Lastly, the Attorney General’s bombshell has made me rethink a prediction I made on an earlier SBNC update. There I predicted that if the Republicans won the governor’s office this November the politics of the SBNC would flip: Democrats would turn into its opponents and Republicans into its champions. That is because the governor gets to appoint five of the SBNC’s eleven members as well as its chairman. A Republican governor, combined with a Republican county executive (who gets to appoint one of the SBNC’s commissioners) would thus be in a position to take control of the SBNC. But with this new interpretation of the law creating the SBNC, the next governor, regardless of his party affiliation, might have minimal control over the composition of the School Board if its incumbents, who are overwhelmingly first termers, decide to serve a second term. However, if it were perceived that many first term school board members would not run for a second term (most school board members in recent years have left the school board to run for higher office before completing or winning a second term) or a Republican won a second term to the governor’s office (a political scenario that seems most implausible for Maryland), my initial political analysis would still hold.

Favorite Capital quote of the year

2010-03-07T19:35:00.001-05:00

The Capital's front page, lead story on March 3, 2010, Cuts planned for Annapolis High School," included my favorite Capital quote of the year. The article began as follows:

County school officials say they feel good about the progress made at Annapolis High.

So good, in fact, that they're going to pull funding from some of the changes that helped revive the troubled school, like paying teachers extra to work year-round.

"I think this is more fine-tuning," said George Arlotto, an assistant superintendent. "If we didn't really feel the school was making progress, we would most likely remain where we were or move in a different direction."

Note the quote: "If we didn't really feel the school was making progress, we would most likely remain where we were or move in a different direction." I had to read it over several times before I believed what I was reading. Since it's not possible for a thing to simultaneously be both one thing and its opposite, the sentence is logically meaningless as a statement of fact.

Why would the Capital print such meaningless political mumbo jumbo as an explanation for a public policy?

Despite the logical inconsistency, the quote does contain useful information. What it conveys is that the school representative wanted to say nothing controversial, thus hiding the true reason. The technique used was to make a statement and negate it in the same sentence. Politicians making such self-serving inconsistent statements to create political cover is hardly unusual. But it's unusual to have the inconsistency both violate the rules of logic and be expressed in the same sentence. It also raises eyebrows to have a newspaper that purports to be more than a PR outlet report such a statement as though it contained useful information to explain a public policy. The problem could have been mitigated if the article contained at least one other source with a coherent explanation of the school system's decision. But none was provided.

SBNC Update

2010-03-04T19:24:00.000-05:00

The Anne Arundel County School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) met to discuss administrative matters on Monday, March 1 at the Anne Arundel Community College.

Attendance

Ten of the eleven commissioners were present. Commissioner Wayson has so far missed the two SBNC meetings for this election cycle and continues his three year record of having the worst attendance record of the eleven commissioners. No reason for his absence was provided.

Representing the school administrators, Commissioner Kovelant resigned and was replaced by Christopher Mirenzi.

Commissioner Owens, who represents the PTA, announced she will be resigning after this election cycle.

The audience included five people: two school board members, an expected candidate, the Capital reporter, and me.

Proceedings

The SBNC Chair announced that the SBNC will hold an executive (i.e., secret) session to deal with an opinion of Maryland’s Attorney General concerning school board member Pruski. No date or reason for the executive session was provided.

Candidate applications will be due by April 30, and a modified candidate application will shortly be posted on the SBNC’s website.

The SBNC must submit names to the governor for two school board seats: districts 30 and 31. However, most of the discussion focused on what to do about the district 31 seat currently held by School Board Member Carey. Carey is eligible to be appointed for a second term and doesn’t need to go through the SBNC nominating process to have his name passed on to the governor. But unlike School Board Member Melendez, who has informed the SBNC he will not seek another term, Carey has not announced his intentions. Apparently, a number of candidates have been recruited to run for district 30, but potential district 31 candidates are waiting to find out what Carey plans to do before committing. My perception is that the SBNC is happy with Carey and won’t recruit actively in district 31 unless Carey decides not to run. However, if Carey decides to run or doesn’t announce his plans, there is some question about whether the SBNC will nevertheless have to submit the names of two nominees to the governor. I got the sense that this requirement to find candidates to potentially compete against Carey was unwelcome.

The SBNC Chair announced that Commissioner Wayson informed him that he is looking at either Annapolis High School or Southern High School as the location for the district 30 field hearing. There was no mention of the location for the district 31 field hearing.

In the only formal motion for this meeting of the SBNC, the SBNC unanimously passed a motion, without discussion, to move its operations to the Board of Education at 2624 Riva Road. Riva Road will henceforth be the location of its mail box (its permanent physical location) and place for its hearings, except for field hearings. One reason for preferring Riva Road over the Community College was access to Riva Road’s TV coverage. The Board of Education has apparently decided to make not only its facilities available to the SBNC but also its personnel and equipment for televising meetings.

From my perspective, this is a curious choice. Boards of election, which only have the job of supervising elections, nevertheless often try to create a firewall between themselves and those they are expected to hold accountable. In Anne Arundel County, for example, the Board of Elections, listed at 7320 Ritchie Highway in Glen Burnie, is physically separate from the Arundel Center, and I don’t believe the County Executive would ever be allowed to physically control the election equipment. Such firewalls may be merely symbolic, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist for a reason. Given that the SBNC not only monitors the candidate selection process but also chooses the candidates, I would think it would be especially sensitive to appearances.

One item that especially bothers me is that the school system’s PR office would apparently be given control of recording and making accessible the video records of SBNC hearings. This wouldn’t bother me if the meetings, in addition to being cablecast, were webcast and made permanently available online and anonymously to the public. But the school system has strenuously opposed proposals to do this in the past. In today’s YouTuibe world, there is no reason why the SBNC shouldn’t insist that its meetings be webcast as well as cablecast and made accessible anonymously and permanently on the web. Giving the PR office control over candidate information sets up an intrinsic conflict of interest. [As an aside, it would be nice to have a clear, comprehensive, consistent, and formal written policy from the PR office posted and time stamped on its website regarding its policies for televising and making accessible any candidate debates, such as candidate debates for county executive.]

On the whole, I think it’s politically smart for the SBNC to begin televising more of its meetings, regardless of location. The SBNC is made up of a lot of likable, smart folks who demographically match the general population. I think they would make a good impression and help counter some of the negative coverage they have started to receive in the Capital. Over the last three years, the difficult and potentially controversial decisions about how to interpret the legislature’s intent in setting up the SBNC have been made, so it should be relatively smooth sailing going forward.

The SBNC Chair announced he would put together a manual of SBNC procedures that included not only the SBNC’s bylaws but also its practices, many of them based on a series of opinions issued by Maryland’s Attorney General.

About ten minutes before the end of the meeting I started to raise my hand, and I probably had my hand up for about five minutes, including about 30 seconds at the end where I waived it quite vigorously. The Chair decided to ignore me. Since the meeting announcement stated that the SBNC would accept “no public testimony,” this might seem reasonable. But I raised my hand not to submit testimony but to ask for clarification on several points of order, which under Robert’s Rules is a privileged type of motion. If I had been recognized by the Chair, this is what I would have asked:

1) The SBNC Secretary said she’d be posting a modified candidate application to the website. But she didn’t describe the nature of the modifications, and I don’t recall the SBNC ever discussing such modifications in public. Shouldn’t the SBNC discuss and vote in public on a modified candidate application?

2) The SBNC Chair mentioned that the SBNC would be holding an executive session to discuss an Attorney General opinion regarding School Board Member Pruski. What exemption under the Open Meetings Act would be used to hold the executive session?

"Serving on school board panel could cost you money," Capital, January 29, 2010

2010-01-29T23:26:00.000-05:00

In an editorial, the Capital reiterates some of the observations I made concerning the SBNC's January 25 meeting. The editorial starts:

It's no secret the legislative gurus who crafted the School Board Nominating Commission three years ago left out some details.

Little things, like how the commission that vets and nominates candidates for the county Board of Education would pay for a Web site and e-mail accounts for members, where it would meet, when it would take applications and how it would make decisions.

But now this dearth has reached a new low.

SBNC Update: Review of the SBNC's first meeting preparing for the 2010 electoral cycle

2010-01-27T11:56:00.001-05:00

On Monday, January 25 the SBNC met. Eight of the eleven SBNC commissioners showed up as well as six audience members, including myself, the Capital reporter, a school board member, and two potential candidates.

The first order of business was to approve the minutes from the last SBNC meeting on July 29, 2009.

Two board seats are open. One for district 30 and one for district 31.

Both school board incumbents have the ability to run for another term. The SBNC chair was told that Enrique Melendez (district 30) has decided not to run for a second term but Edward (“Ned”) Carey (district 31) has not made clear whether he will run for a third term. As a general rule, school board members can only serve two terms. But Carey was appointed as a result of the death of a school board member, so he is eligible for a third term. Carey is expected to run for a seat in the Maryland legislature this fall.

A third school board member, Victor Bernson (district 33), has also indicated he is considering running for a seat in the Maryland legislature this fall. But there has been no reason to expect that, even if he does, he would resign his school board seat in time for the SBNC to nominate replacements prior to the launch of the next school board on July 1, 2010.

One of the major topics of discussion was the Maryland Attorney General’s January 21, 2010 set of opinions on the laws the SBNC must follow. The law creating the SBNC was very vague, so the Maryland Attorney General (AG) has routinely been called on to provide guidance. Another set of opinions on additional issues may also be issued before this round of nominations is complete.

One opinion concerned whether Andrew Pruski (an at-large school board member) would be subject to a retention vote. He replaced Tricia Johnson, who left in the middle of her term to serve on the Anne Arundel County Council. The AG ruled that Pruski does indeed have to go before the voters for a retention vote in the November elections.

Also clarified was that retention votes will take place every two years, during both federal and state elections. The law creating the SBNC was not clear on this and some thought that the retention votes would only take place during state elections every four years.

This suggests that there may be as many as four school board retention votes this November, two for the two school board members selected last year, and two for the two school board members who will be selected this year.

The AG also ruled that Pruski was eligible to serve a third term starting in 2018 because his first term was a partial term. The law creating the SBNC was unclear on this point. It is now clear that if one wants to understand the law creating the SBNC one must consult related laws, such as the laws in Maryland concerning appointed school board members in other counties.

The AG also ruled that incumbent school board members don’t have to go through the SBNC nominating process to have their names forwarded to the governor; all incumbents eligible for an additional term will have their names forwarded to the governor. Until now, this interpretation of the law wasn’t clear, which is why Michael Leahy last year was forced to go through the nominating process. Under this interpretation of the law, one wonders what would have happened if the SBNC had not nominated Leahy. Since it did nominate Leahy, thus giving the governor an opportunity to select him, this is a moot point.

There is some awkwardness for the SBNC associated with this ruling. If incumbents don’t subject themselves to the SBNC nominating process, the SBNC does not have a basis to compare the incumbents with other candidates. The power of the SBNC is also undermined.

One of the most substantial discussions was how to do outreach to both recruit potential school board candidates and seek public feedback on the attributes sought in a school board member. The SBNC has no budget and must largely defer to others for outreach. It was suggested that the school board and AACPS communications (“PR”) office be solicited for help. One commissioner expressed concern that approaching school officials would represent a conflict of interest. Another commissioner suggested that Ms. Finney at Riva Road had a great rolodex and that she should be consulted. The same commissioner then added that representatives from the two political parties should also be consulted.

The plan proposed was to hold public field hearings in districts 30 and 31, the two districts that have school board seats open. It was decided that Commissioner Wayson, who was not present, would be consulted for public outreach in District 30, his district, and that Commissioner Davenport, who was present, would be consulted for public outreach in district 31. There was also a question about whether outreach would be necessary in Ned Carey’s district, if he did indeed decide to run for another term.

One of the most interesting questions not discussed was whether school board members and commissioners should represent their own districts or the interests of all students in Anne Arundel County. Traditionally, school board members have said they represent the interests of all the students in Anne Arundel County. But the structure of the SBNC and its actions over the last few years suggest a more conventional political mindset on local representation.

SBNC Chairman Greene stated that the SBNC had no budget and that this was a problem. He set up a P.O. Box in Annapolis at his own expense for SBNC correspondence and subsequently canceled it, forwarding SBNC mail to his house. Chairman Greene uses gmail, a free email service provided by Google, for SBNC business. This is useful because SBNC email is subject to Maryland’s Public Information Act, so it is desirable to have a clear separation of personal and official email. But the use of such nongovernmental communication services raises tricky questions about record retention and compliance with Maryland’s right-to-know laws. Currently, the school system’s PR office runs the AACPS website as a free service to the SBNC.

There was talk of creating a physical mailbox at AACPS and seeking email accounts for each commissioner through AACPS. But there was also concern that the SBNC should have an arm’s length relationship with AACPS and that other government agencies, notably Maryland’s Department of Education, might be a better source of free help. It was also proposed that SBNC move its meetings from the Community College to the school board meeting room at Riva Road, now that the school board has such state-of-the-art audio visual equipment and sophisticated technical support.

There seems to have been great reluctance to approach the Maryland General Assembly for any funding for SBNC expenses, perhaps because elected officials had promised that the SBNC wouldn’t cost the taxpayers any money. At this point, I think that’s a rather fanciful argument. An attorney from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services provides significant staff support to the SBNC, attending every SBNC meeting and serving as legal counsel and secretary. Many other government offices, including Maryland’s AG, the Community College, and AACPS, also provide some free staff support. My guess is that the series of legal opinions that have come out of the AG’s office cost many thousands of dollars in staff support.

It was decided to hold the next meeting of the SBNC at the Community College on February 23.

I would like to close with a prediction about the evolving politics concerning the SBNC should a Republican win the office of governor this coming November. The governor currently appoints the chair and five of the eleven members of the SBNC. He also gets to choose among the SBNC nominees. This gives him extraordinary power. As long as the Democrats hold both the legislature and the governor’s office, this is not a political problem, especially as the governor consults with local legislators in the selection of SBNC commissioners. However, should a Republican governor be elected, the politics would be completely different. I cannot conceive that a Democratic legislature would allow a Republican governor to have so much power over the selection of school board members. Thus, the Democrats would be forced to introduce legislation to change the current system for appointing SBNC members.

The political problem is that this would violate a basic principle of democratic theory called the “veil of ignorance.” According to this principle, one’s policy positions on democratic procedures should not be influenced by the individuals that hold particular office. This principle was lately given a lot of publicity in Massachusetts and considered a factor in the Republican victory in the recent election to replace the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat. In 2004, when U.S. Senator John Kerry, also from Massachusetts, was running for president and a Republican was governor of Massachusetts, there was a fear that if Kerry was elected president and the governor got to appoint his replacement, that he would appoint a Republican senator. The legislature thus voted to change the laws so a special election would replace Massachusetts senators who left office before their term was up. In 2009, when Senator Kennedy was dying, the politics were quite different. A Democrat was in the governor’s mansion and the Democrats desperately wanted a 60^th vote to pass health care legislation. Thus, the governor was once again granted the right to appoint an interim senator until a special election could be held. This self-serving inconsistency was widely noted in the press, and in the end appears to have backfired.

So here is my prediction: Should a Republican be perceived to have a good chance of winning the governor’s office in November, the Democrats will start positioning themselves to change the SBNC to weaken the governor’s role in the selection process. They won’t do anything to change the law until the outcome of the election is clear, but they will give themselves some political cover. The same goes for the Republicans. Until now, those who have spoken out publicly about the SBNC have been critical of it. But the current system could be good for Republicans if they hold the governor’s office. Thus, I’d expect a greater effort to say positive things about the SBNC.

None of this relates to the fact that the legislature rushed through the law creating the SBNC without clearly thinking about all the issues involved in creating a new electoral system. The result has been an extraordinary delegation of power to the SBNC and Maryland’s AG to figure out what the legislature really intended. Some of those interpretations will surely surprise the legislature. At some point, regardless of whether a Democrat retains the office of governor, the legislature is going to feel great pressure to amend and codify the increasingly complex and scattered set of rulings guiding the SBNC.

My own biggest complaint is that the SBNC’s structure, with five of eleven members appointed by private sector entities, violates the core democratic principle of one-person, one-vote—a type of violation that the U.S. Supreme Court and a variety of state supreme courts have previously ruled unconstitutional. To my knowledge, the last time the courts ruled against such an illegal electoral procedure in Maryland was in 1964, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Maryland’s system of apportioning legislative districts violated the one-person, one-vote principle (see my recent Baltimore Sun op-ed for more details on this event). This ruling was made at the height of the civil rights era, when discrimination against minorities was considered no longer acceptable. What is noteworthy is that for decades the legislature knew it was violating its own one-person, one-vote legal requirement and chose to ignore the violation because it was politically inconvenient to address it. If the legislature could for decades ignore that type of fundamental violation of the norms and laws of democracy, it certainly has the capacity to ignore the far more trivial and localized violation of democratic norms and laws embodied in the SBNC’s electoral structure.

School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) Update

2010-01-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

The first meeting of the School Board Nominating Commission of Anne Arundel County (SBNC) for the 2010 election cycle will take place on Monday, January 25, at 7:00 pm at Anne Arundel Community College, West Campus (Arnold) in CADE 219. This year the second term of school board member Ned Carey (district 31) expires. Carey was appointed in 2002, after another school board member died while in office. He was reappointed in 2005. Although school board members are generally only allowed to serve two terms, the special circumstances of his appointment apparently allow him to serve a third term. The first term of school board member Enrique Melendez (district 30) also expires. In addition, school board member Victor Bernson (district 33), whose terms expires next year, has been publicly exploring a candidacy for the Maryland Senate. The SBNC must nominate at least two candidates for each open school board member position, and the Governor must select one of the nominees by July 1, when new school board members take office. The agenda for the January 25 meeting only covers administrative matters and public testimony will not be allowed.

In front page story, Capital demonstrates how little it knows about the school board

2009-09-25T02:35:00.004-05:00

How many black school boards members are there on the AACPS board of education? According to a front page Capital story by Eric Hartley, the answer is one. The article seeks to defend the Capital's coverage of the Annapolis mayoral candidate, Zina Pierre, who was forced to withdraw from the election after winning the Democratic primary. Here is the relevant section:

Tillett said he hopes Pierre’s victory teaches local Democrats they can’t take black voters for granted.

“It’s lighted a fuse,” said Eugene Peterson, a Pierre supporter and the only black county school board member. “I don’t think Annapolis is ever going to be the same.”

The correct number is three. Since July 1, 2009, the AACPS Board of Education has had three black members, including the student member of the Board.

How many eyes reviewed this article before it was published? At least two: Hartley and a senior editor.

What does this slip up reveal? First, it undercuts a central point in Hartley’s article: that the Zina Pierre coverage is an aberration from the Capital’s pattern of rigorous investigative journalism. One way Hartley goes about this is by rebutting Tillet’s argument that race had something to do with the Zina Pierre coverage. Hartley argues that the Capital routinely does investigative journalism concerning political candidates:

Tillett felt compelled to argue that no other Annapolis candidate had faced such scrutiny from the press.

“Something’s different here. What could it be?” he asked sarcastically.

I’ve looked through many other candidates’ court histories. It’s part of the job. Just ask Sam Shropshire, who is white and had reporters cover his recent, still-pending criminal charges and even call his wife in Slovakia to ask about allegations of abuse in an old divorce case that Scott Daugherty of The Capital dug up.

There’s no evidence race had a thing to do with coverage of Pierre. But Tillett said, “You will not be able to convince a large segment of the community anything other than (that).”

The fact that Hartley didn’t know that the School Board has three rather than one black member indicates, at the least, that he and at least one senior editor (nothing gets published on the front page of the Capital without being reviewed by an editor) doesn’t pay much attention to school board candidates and politics. It could be argued that school board politics is not very important. But the facts speak otherwise. AACPS spends more than half the total County budget, and its budget is more than ten times the total budget of the City of Annapolis. Polls also indicate that the public cares hugely about the quality of K12 public education and what is going on in the schools.

It is also striking that this article, which is largely about local racial politics, would get wrong such an obvious racial fact. If either Hartley or his senior editor had watched a public school board meeting in the last four months or attended a school board candidates event (there have been at least a half dozen since last May, four of them televised), he could not possibly have made this journalistic error because the error would literally be staring him in the face.

I would suggest that this article is not an aberration but deeply reflective of the Capital’s coverage of the school system. It’s a pity that this revealing slip up had to come from Hartley, who has genuine journalistic instincts.

SBNC Update: Leahy and Pruski Nominated

2009-07-29T23:17:00.001-05:00

On the evenings of July 28 and July 29, the Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) met to seek a replacement for the seat vacated by former school board member Tricia Johnson. On July 14, the SBNC announced it would hold hearings to seek a replacement and announced a deadline eight days later, July 22, for candidates to submit their applications. Four candidates submitted applications. Three of them—Michael Leahy, Andrew Pruski, and Paul Rudolph—resubmitted applications they had submitted during the last SBNC application cycle. A fourth candidate—Janet Pogar—was new. On July 29, the SBNC voted to nominate to the Governor Michael Leahy and Andrew Pruski. Both won by a vote of 9-1. Eight votes are necessary to secure nomination. Commissioner Wayson, the eleventh commissioner, could not attend the meeting. Commissioner Kovelant also couldn’t attend but provided the SBNC Chair with his votes in a sealed envelope, which the Chair of the SBNC duly read and recorded at the appropriate time.

The format of the meeting on July 28 was that the SBNC discussed its procedures and then the candidates gave opening statements and the commissioners could then ask questions of them. The most important procedural question concerned clarifying the status of incumbent school board members. The question was: under the statute creating the SBNC, did incumbents have to go through the SBNC process to seek re-election? The feeling was that the Maryland Attorney General had already issued an affirmative opinion. But just to be sure that there was no ambiguity, the SBNC asked its counsel to draft a letter to the Maryland Attorney General seeking more explicit confirmation of this reading of the statute.

The most time consuming procedural issue concerned Commissioner Kovelant’s request to postpone the SBNC’s July 29 vote on candidates for a week so he could go back to his 300 stakeholders, present his impressions of the candidates, and get their feedback (Commissioner Kovelant represents the Anne Arundel County Association of Educational Leaders and said he felt obligated to do this). The SBNC tried hard to accommodate a delay but too many commissioners would be on vacation or otherwise busy, so it was decided to retain the original schedule.

I was intrigued by Commissioner Kovelant’s sense of obligation because judicial nominating commissions, which the SBNC was supposedly modeled after, generally specify that commissioners are to be independent; for example, lawyers appointed to serve as commissioners by the local bar association are nevertheless expected to act independently once appointed. This is central to the philosophy of “merit selection,” which underlies the use of judicial nominating commissions; the goal is to take politics out of the nominating process. My reading of the statute creating the SBNC actually corresponds to Commissioner Kovelant’s interpretation: that he has a duty to represent those who appointed him.

The candidates’ opening statements were remarkably brief, less than fifteen minutes in total, mostly because three of them had already gone through the process just months before and didn’t think an extended introduction was necessary. The commissioners’ comments were overwhelmingly directed to Janet Pogar, the only new candidate. At the end of the meeting, I raised my hand to ask a point of information and was told by the SBNC Chair that members of the public could not speak.

Before the July 29 meeting, I asked Elisabeth Hulette (the Capital reporter) and Tom Frank (an activist citizen) if they could recall an SBNC meeting where the public had been invited to comment and ask questions not about candidates or the desired attributes of candidates but about the SBNC process. Elisabeth Hulette has been to most of the meetings since the launch of the SBNC in 2007. Other than myself, Tom Frank has attended more meetings than any other member of the general public. Neither could recall such a meeting. As a result, Tom Frank went up to the Chair of the SBNC and requested open public comments at the end of the meeting. The Chair agreed to allow such comments.

The format of the meeting on July 29 provided an opportunity for members of the public to speak about the candidates. Five individuals spoke. Four individuals spoke in favor of Andrew Pruski. A fifth represented an organization that would not allow him to explicitly endorse a candidate. But he also seemed to be endorsing Andrew Pruski. None of the other candidates had people speak on their behalf. After this fairly brief testimony, the SBNC conducted a roll call vote on each of the four candidates. If my memory serves me correctly, those voting yeah and nay for Michael Leahy and Andrew Pruski had no change of votes between their last vote in May and this vote in July. I believe that Commissioner Mennuti was unique in voting yeah for all four candidates.

At the end of the meeting, I was the only member of the public to speak. I mentioned that neither Elisabeth Hulette, Tom Frank, nor myself could recall a meeting where the public had been invited to discuss procedural issues (as opposed to candidate related issues) and asked if the Chair could recall such a meeting. No such meeting was recalled.

I then recounted Commissioner Kovelant’s statement of the previous evening and asked the Chair whether he viewed the Governor or the citizens of District 33 (which he represents and of which I am one) as his stakeholder(s). He replied the citizens of District 33 and that he did indeed consult some of them.

I then asked Commissioner Owens, who represents the Anne Arundel County Association of PTAs, whether she consulted her members. She replied that it was impractical during the summer to do so and reminded me that my kids have attended schools that have PTOs, whose members she does not represent.

Lastly, I asked the Chair of the SBNC whether he retained copies of the legally required email or print notices he sent providing notice of SBNC meetings. By way of explanation, I noted that last year and this year I had filed complaints with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board concerning the absence of such notice (as well as other violations of Maryland’s right-to-know laws). Concerning the first complaint, the SBNC alleged it had sent legally timely notice to the Capital. However, the Capital was not able to find such notice and the Chair of the SBNC also could not provide it. The Open Meetings Compliance Board ruled that it couldn’t rule on my alleged violation because I did not provide definitive evidence of the lack of such notice.

On May 12, 2009, I filed the second complaint with the Compliance Board concerning lack of legally timely notice to another meeting. In a response to the Compliance Board in late June, the SBNC Chair again asserted that such timely notice had been sent. But again, no written proof was provided.

In response to my question, the SBNC Chair said the SBNC had no records retention policy and was not legally obliged to have one. Commissioner Tedesco observed that the Maryland Open Meetings Act places the burden of proof on citizens to prove a violation rather than on a public body to prove a violation had not occurred. To this I replied that the Open Meetings Act does not specify who shall bear the burden of proof. As a result, the Open Meetings Compliance Board makes such determinations on an informal, ad hoc basis. I also observed that if this interpretation of the law was correct, it indicated an incredible double standard. If a citizen asserted to the government that his tax form had been duly sent to the IRS but could provide no proof of mailing via the United States Postal Service, the government would dismiss this defense out-of-hand. More generally, the government places the burden of proof on citizens to prove that they filed legally required documents in a timely way. Why should a different standard apply to a public body such as the SBNC (which includes professional legal counsel and a distinguished panel of experts and government officials)?

I didn’t say this at the meeting, but I’ve said it many times elsewhere: I believe the SBNC serves a very important function. The person it nominates has a high probability of serving two terms of office and voting on more than $10 billion of AACPS expenditures during that tenure. If I as a citizen can preserve my own emails more than 30 days old (my gmail service is free and includes all my emails going back about a decade), why cannot the SBNC?

--Jim Snider

P.S. I filed my Maryland Open Meetings Act complaint on May 12, 2009. The SBNC took more than the legally specified 30 days to reply to it and now the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board says it is overwhelmed with work and thus wasn’t able to meet its own legally specified 30 day deadline. Nor, given its claimed crush of work, would it tell me when it would be able to get to it.

School Board Nominating Commission Update

2009-07-14T23:34:00.002-05:00

As you probably know by now, school board member Tricia Johnson has been appointed to the County Council, thus opening up a seat on the school board for a 4 year term. The School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) has announced in a press release that it will accept applications until July 22 (eight days from its announcement) and hold a single meeting on July 28 to interview candidates. The vote to select the candidates will take place the following day, July 29. No mention is made whether the July 28 meeting will be televised.

This is a tremendously truncated version of the selection process the SBNC used during its first two rounds of operation. The justification for this compression is the immediate need to fill a vacant seat. But why the rush? Even without the replacement for this at-large seat, the school board will have 8 members—the full size of the school board for many decades until its July 1, 2008 enlargement to 9 members.

My judgment is that selecting a school board member in such a rushed manner sets a bad precedent. Whoever is selected will have control of a $1 billion/year budget for four years—as long a term as a governor, county executive, county councilor, or delegate to the General Assembly. It’s too important a position to needlessly rush.

On the other hand, vacancies for other important offices have been picked relatively quickly. Consider the recent selections of Maryland senator and county councilor in Anne Arundel County. From Senator Janet Greenip’s retirement announcement to Councilman Ed Reilly’s selection as a replacement took only a few months; and from Councilman Reilly’s resignation to School Board member Tricia Johnson’s selection as a replacement took only a bit less time.

But there are four noteworthy differences. First, those officials represented geographic constituencies who would lose representation and thus valuable resources if they weren’t quickly replaced. In contrast, school board members are expected to represent the interests of all children regardless of geographic location.

Second, it may be impractical to hold a special election, thus necessitating that an appointment process be used; appointment processes by their nature are almost always faster than special elections. In contrast, no special process is required of the SBNC when a vacancy opens up; indeed, the law mandates that its basic nominating process be the same regardless of whether or not it is filling a vacancy.

Third, the viable candidates for those offices are typically well known by both the public and those who will do the selecting. Thus, there is relatively little information to gather. For example, Ed Reilly was County Council Chair and Tricia Johnson a long time school board member before being selected for their new positions. In contrast, school board candidates are typically less well known, so more public deliberation is necessary, unless the intent is to give insiders an advantage.

Fourth, those who do the selecting are usually elected officials themselves and thus directly accountable for their actions. In contrast, there is much less public accountability for SBNC officials. One reason for the SBNC to have a more deliberative selection process is so that the public has a chance to observe it and assess the extent to which it is functioning as its representative.

Nevertheless, my overall sense is that the rush won’t make much difference; the same set of candidates would probably win either way.

--Jim Snider

P.S. Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board has yet to respond to my May 12, 2009 complaint concerning the SBNC’s violations of Maryland’s right-to-know laws. The SBNC responded on Jun 29—ten days later than required by law. Last year the Open Meetings Compliance Board ruled against the SBNC on a related matter.

For related articles in the Capital, see:

Eric Hartley: Musical chairs leaves out voters, July 16, 2009

Panel to decide how to fill school board vacancy, July 16, 2009.

SBNC Update

2009-05-30T19:00:00.002-05:00

As many of you undoubtedly know by now, the Anne Arundel County School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) on May 27 nominated three candidates for the School Board. Ten candidates initially applied for the position, two dropped out, and several others only made a token attempt to compete for the position. Still, it was a large field. The biggest surprise was Kevin Jackson, who also applied last year for the nomination. He apparently learned from that experience and did a significantly better job this year. Still, I don’t believe that it’s going to be Kevin Jackson’s year this year. If he keeps at it and picks the right year, he is practically a shoe-in. Thus, after watching the entire process and weighing the political variables, I retain my initial judgment that the Governor will appoint Andrew Pruski. Incumbent Michael Leahy was the third nominee.

Note that political scientists often believe they can predict with a high degree of accuracy who the public will vote for even before the public has been exposed to the candidates for a position (e.g., if a political scientist knows the party makeup of a district, the incumbent’s party affiliation, and the condition of the relevant economy, he can predict with a high degree of accuracy who will win months before an election). Of course, we are often wrong. It is in that spirit that I have made this prediction.

Last year I filed a complaint with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board concerning Open Meetings Act violations by the SBNC. The Open Meetings Compliance Board ruled that the SBNC had in fact violated the Open Meetings Act in holding one meeting in secret and said it needed more information to assess whether adequate notice was given for a second meeting. In the attached letter, sent to the Open Meetings Compliance Board on May 12, 2009, I have responded to its request for more information and added numerous additional complaints about the SBNC’s Open Meetings Act and Public Information Act violations.

Note that there is no legal penalty in Maryland for violating the Open Meetings Act; the Open Meeting Compliance Board has no enforcement powers. The only real enforcement is the court of public opinion, which makes the Open Meetings Act a rather strange law. If the public doesn’t care, then for all practical purposes the law doesn’t exist. Note that no politician of sound mind is ever going to admit withholding material information from the public; that would be political suicide. But there is a difference between claiming openness and actually being open about providing controversial information.

Based on my experience, I wonder if we might be better off just abandoning the Open Meetings Act. Public officials would still need to go out of their way to suggest to the public that they are open, but I think the public might then be a little less gullible. The Public Information Act is a bit different because it does have an enforcement mechanism, albeit one totally impractical for most parents and especially anyone pursuing what political scientists call a “collective good.”

I suggest that the public would do well by trying to get their elected officials to take both the spirit and the letter of Maryland’s public right-to-know laws seriously. But I know from a lot of experience that this is unlikely to happen. The public thinks this issue is irrelevant to their pressing concerns. You can get the public out in force to complain about issues such as redistricting their school, building their school, or protecting their school’s programs. But to take any constructive steps to create meaningful and enforceable right-to-know laws, I’m not sure that it is possible without a major scandal involving secrecy. That is not the case here. We’re just talking about a lot of petty violations due to personal and political convenience.

I recently wrote a post on a related topic to the Obama administration, which has taken some extraordinary steps to open up the Federal government during its brief time in office. You might be interested in taking a look at this less for its content than for how the Executive Office of the President, working through the National Academy of Public Administration, has gone about soliciting public feedback. The website is completely open and the public can comment and vote posts up or down (but only for a brief comment period). In MyAACPS.net, I tried to create such a website this year. I conclude the school year by saying it was not a success. But this is clearly the future, and I’m confident that in the coming years we’ll be seeing a lot more of this type of information in Anne Arundel County. Eventually, someone will figure out a way to make it work.

As you know, I’ve been critical of the SBNC for violating the core democratic principle of one-person, one-vote (can you imagine allocating 40% of the seats in Congress to private interest groups?). But perhaps a more serious democratic problem is the decline of the press. The Washington Post has all but abandoned coverage of AACPS. The Baltimore Sun has reduced its news staff to a third of its former size, with a commensurate loss in the quantity and quality of AACPS coverage. The Capital has remained pretty much where it was—a typical small town paper with faux populism and a boosterish agenda. Unfortunately, Anne Arundel County is as big as some U.S. states. Overall, it’s not a pretty picture, and I suspect that the results will tell over the next few years. Paul Starr, in a recent article in The New Republic titled “Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption),” closed with this observation: “Newspapers have helped to control corrupt tendencies in both government and business. If we are to avoid a new era of corruption, we are going to have to summon that power in other ways.” For the sake of us all, I hope his worst fears aren’t realized.

Critique of the guest column published in the Capital expressing adulation for the SBNC

2009-05-27T13:31:00.006-05:00

Concerning the May 10 guest column in the Capital expressing adulation for the Anne Arundel County School Board Nominating Commission, I have never been able to figure out the Capital’s conflict of interest disclosure policy. Sometimes it discloses trivial, obvious conflicts. Other times it misses the big conflicts. Perhaps the explanation is that if you’re a big Capital advertiser, you’re exempt from basic conflict of interest disclosure.

Wouldn’t it have been relevant to point out that the Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, of which Bob Burdon is President, appoints one of the eleven School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) members? In other words, Burdon’s organization is a direct beneficiary of the new system.

As a bonus, it would also have been relevant to point out that Burdon is a registered lobbyist, and, as such, lives or dies based on the goodwill of the elected leaders who created the SBNC. Lobbyists like Burdon love to have representation on the SBNC because it provides access and goodwill among the movers and shakers that determine their lobbying success.

In regard to the content of Burdon’s argument, who can disagree with the attributes he seeks in a school board member? They are motherhood and apple pie. He devotes the bulk of his commentary to describing those traits. But the question he purports to address in his commentary is whether the SBNC is the best way to select for those traits. Yet he provides no argument in his commentary as to why the SBNC is the best means to select candidates with those universally agreed upon attributes. He simply asserts it and says trust me: “as one of the architects of the legislation that created the commission, I had these criteria in mind that I felt the commission process could evaluate better than the former convention process.”

But why should we? Burdon should have set his task in this commentary to make his argument directly. Instead, he develops a straw man argument and asks us to trust his good faith and judgment as a representative of a major local institution. Although I have been highly critical of the SBNC, it certainly is not without its merits. Burdon would have made a stronger case by presenting them.

SBNC Update

2009-04-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

The School Board Nominating Commission’s deadline for candidate applications to serve on the AACPS Board of Education was April 1. As you probably know by now, ten people applied for the position:

1. Shaun M. Brady of Davidsonville

2. Kevin L. Jackson of Edgewater

3. Michael G. Leahy of Severna Park

4. Michel S. Pawlowski of Edgewater

5. Peter A. Pervi of Millersville

6. Andrew C. Pruski of Gambrills

7. Paul Rudolph of Severna Park

8. Rhonda Simon of Annapolis

9. Joseph J. Thomas of Annapolis

10. Jessica S. Tickle of Churchton

Michael Leahy is the incumbent holder of the seat. Paul Rudolph is a former two-time school board member. Both Kevin Jackson and Paul Rudolph ran for a board seat last year, the SBNC’s first year of operation. My guess is that at least several of the candidates will drop out once they see the competiton and realize they have no chance of winning.

I’ve looked over the applications and observed which candidates show up at the SBNC meetings and how they interact with the SBNC commissioners. Based on that information and my general knowledge of school board politics, I’ve decided that Andrew Pruski is very likely to be not only nominated by the SBNC but also selected by the Governor. As for the mandatory second choice, my guess is it will be the incumbent Michael Leahy. But it could also be others, including Paul Rudolph, Joseph Thomas, Kevin Jackson, or Michel Pawlowski. The SBNC is not limited to nominating only two individuals, but it would undercut its power to nominate more than the minimum required by law. My guess is that it will not do so unless it can be confident which candidate the Governor will ultimately select.

During the last few months, the SBNC has launched an openness PR campaign. This consists of holding six field hearings throughout the County, four of which have already been held. I attended two of those hearings. At both, four people attended, including myself. At both, only one member of the public, other than myself or a reporter, spoke. The last hearing was over within fifteen minutes. I’ve been looking for the minutes of the hearings but so far none has been posted on the SBNC website.

How do the SNBC’s field hearings compare to the three hearings held by the old School Board Nominating Convention? Again, I’ve only attended two of the four SBNC field hearings and two are yet to come. But I think it’s fair to say that they are incomparably different. The School Board Nominating Convention hearings would attract more than 100 activist parents. The questions were directed to the candidates, addressed a wide range of issues, and were quite substantive. These field hearings, with the comments/questions addressed to the SBNC’s commissioners, are very different in tone and substance. The idea is that instead of the public asking questions of the candidates directly, they will tell the SBNC members what questions are important. This does not seem to be a format that can generate a comparable amount and quality of public participation.

Last week the Capital ran an editorial complaining that only nine candidates had applied for the open Board of Education position and speculating on the reasons for the low number of candidates. In my opinion, that was an awful editorial. First, nine (now ten) is a huge number of candidates for a position like this. Second, what counts is the quality, not the number, of candidates (the Capital wrote the editorial without knowing who the candidates were). Third, there are very serious issues of democratic accountability concerning the SBNC that the Capital is either oblivious to or has chosen to ignore. I have previously written in depth about those issues (see the posts below) and will not repeat them here. The question I have is: why would the Capital choose to criticize the SBNC for its strengths while ignoring it weaknesses?

My OpEd, "Public school systems should post compensation data online," published in the Washington Examiner

2009-03-18T22:27:00.001-05:00

My OpEd, "Need Teachers? Show Them the Money," published in the Washington Post

2009-02-08T22:20:00.002-05:00

School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) Update

2009-01-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

The School Board Nominating Commission of Anne Arundel County will hold field hearings “to solicit the public's opinion on education issues facing their specific district, the Commission's process and procedures, and qualities necessary for a successful Board of Education candidate.” Hearings will be held in each of the five legislative districts represented on the SBNC. The field hearing for District 30, the first in the sequence, will be held on January 28, 2009 at 7pm at Annapolis High School.

Below I suggest eleven questions you might want to ask the SBNC commissioners. Remember that AACPS is a billion dollar organization with almost half as many employees (about 10,000) as a Fortune 500 company like Google (about 22,000 last I checked) and representing a district (about 500,000 citizens) as large as some U.S. states. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect a high standard of democratic accountability.

1) The traditional ethic was that school board members represented all the kids in Anne Arundel County, not just those in their own district. This was reflected, for example, in the School Board Nominating Convention, where candidates spoke to the interests of the entire County. During the candidate public hearings last May, it was clear that at least several of the SBNC commissioners presented themselves as champions of their own district’s interests. The structure of the public hearings also reflects a focus on district interests. Yet the retention vote is countywide, not districtwide, and there has been a lot of rhetoric about not representing particularistic interests and representing all the kids in the County, with the example being set by the SNBC chair who nevertheless represents a particular district. Do the representatives of the five legislative districts see themselves as champions of their district interests (like most representatives) or the interests of all the kids?

2) Do the representatives of the five private interest groups see themselves as champions of those interests or the public’s interest? Presumably they will all say they see no conflict between their group’s and the public’s interest. If so, it is good democratic practice for them to make this claim and their reasons for making it on the public record.

3) It is also good democratic practice that representatives should provide public reasons for their actions. Will the SBNC members each commit to explaining on the public record why they voted for a particular candidate?

4) The members of the SBNC and members of the public appear to have a conflict of interest in recruiting school board candidates. The SBNC has demonstrated that it wants as many people as possible to apply for the school board, even if some of those candidates have no chance of being selected. Last year, for example, the SBNC was very proud when some 24 people applied as candidates (most soon dropped out when they discovered they had no chance of winning). Candidates, in contrast, don’t want to apply if they have no chance of winning. Will the SBNC as a whole and SBNC members in particular clearly state on the public record, and update each electoral cycle, what criteria they are looking for in school board members? One can assume, for example, that the SBNC looks for a mix of school board members by gender, ethnicity, and geography. Why not publicly state this? Judicial nominating commissions, for example, often have a clear and readily accessible public statement of the credentials they are looking for in a successful candidate.

5) Will the SBNC members representing legislative districts publicly disclose their relationship with the legislators in their district, including any financial transactions and campaign services provided?

6) Will all SBNC members commit to include in their public biographies the credentials that they believe make them qualified to serve as the public’s representatives on the SBNC? (Currently, some provide biographical credentials, albeit mostly shorter than they should be, while others do not.)

7) Will all SBNC members commit to publicly disclose any financial relationship they or their extended family have with the Anne Arundel County Public School Systems? This should include both current and retirement compensation.

8) Will the SBNC commit to treating its website as a public record (rather than a PR vehicle) with all the document integrity therein implied? Moreover, will it commit to posting all public documents at the same time that insiders on the SBNC get access to them? (This is a basic reference point used to judge the democratic quality of public record systems.)

9) Will the SBNC members commit to disclosing private meals and meetings with the candidates even if those meetings are not conducted as part of the officials business of the SBNC? Will the SBNC members take steps, such as the creation of ex parte disclosure rules, to discourage candidates’ private lobbying of the commissioners?

10) What type of questions should SBNC members ask of candidates during the public hearings and which commissioners should ask them? Some commissioners who were very talkative during the Commission’s private meetings asked no questions during the public candidate interviews last year. Very few of the commissioners who did speak asked candidates follow-up questions seeking proof of the candidate’s key claims about their credentials to serve on the school board. Such follow-up questions are standard practice in Congressional nomination hearings. Their absence at the SBNC hearings was striking.

11) Does the SBNC intend to make the public record of these district hearings public? Will that record be posted on the SBNC’s website? Will the SBNC place the public’s written statements in the public record and post them online?

Follow-up: Is the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) illegal?

2009-01-24T12:29:00.006-05:00

[Note: On January 24, 2009 this post was emailed to all elected officials representing Anne Arundel County in the Maryland legislature and in the Anne Arundel County Council]

Dear Anne Arundel County Elected Official:

On October 21, 2008 I sent you an e-mail presenting arguments why the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) may violate the law of democracy. Five Anne Arundel County delegates replied to my e-mail and two queried the Maryland Attorney General’s Office for a legal opinion. On January 8, 2009 that legal opinion, written by Sandra Brantley, Assistant Attorney General, was sent to one of the delegates, who in turn passed it on to me. Some of you may be interested in my take on that opinion.

On the surface, Ms. Brantley appears to argue that there is no merit to my concern about the SBNC’s legal status. A careful reading, however, suggests that she has significant doubts about her own case.

As a caveat, let me state upfront that I am not a lawyer and claim no authoritative legal expertise. My training is as a political scientist with a decent knowledge of democratic theory. Of course, there is often a wide chasm between commonly accepted norms of democratic theory and practice. Just think of the long history of slavery and civil rights abuses in the United States. Nevertheless, there is a strain of law beginning in the 1960s that has tried to reduce the previous chasm between democratic theory and law concerning the democratic principle of one-person, one-vote. That is the strain of law I believe is relevant in this case.

Here are some points worth noting about Ms. Brantley’s legal reply:

1) Prior to passage of the law creating the School Board Nominating Commission the Attorney General’s office gave the same opinion. This potentially creates a conflict of interest because to change the opinion now would be to admit a mistake. I cannot conceive what the Attorney General’s office, and especially the attorney who has been responsible for giving these opinions, would gain by admitting a mistake. I would also like to note that Ms. Brantley has represented the SBNC as her legal client. For example, when I previously sought to get some information from Ms. Brantley concerning a legal opinion she gave the SBNC, she replied that the correspondence was protected by the client-attorney privilege. As an analogy, a certain citizens group filed a complaint with the AACPS attorney arguing that AACPS was violating Maryland’s COMAR regulations (AACPS was illegally trying to increase the amount of time and resources devoted to tested subjects at the expense of untested subjects). The attorney replied that the citizens group’s argument had no legal merit. But when the citizens group later filed the same complaint with the Maryland State Board of Education, it won with a unanimous decision. The point is that attorneys in this type of situation have a clear conflict of interest.
2) Ms. Brantley’s legal strategy appears to be to change the subject rather than address the specific issues raised in the cases I cite. For example, it is irrelevant what Maryland statutory law may or may not be when Constitutional law is at issue. Similarly, the cases she cites, including Commission on Medical Discipline v. Stillman, McCurdy v. Jessup, and African-American Voting Rights Legal Defense Fund v. Missouri are irrelevant to the issues I raised because the law of democracy
treats general elections such as for school board and town council very differently than for judicial appointments and highly specialized elections such as Board of Medical Examiners. As an aside, I caution that in the general debate over the SBNC the analogy to Maryland’s judicial nominating process has been grossly abused. The Judicial Nominating Commission is created by executive order, not statute, and the Governor has the right to ignore its recommendations if he so chooses.
3) Although Ms. Brantley ostensibly is attempting to refute my arguments, a careful reading of the actual substance of her argument suggests otherwise. This is because she attempts to shift the focus of attention away from the legality of the SBNC to the legality of the retention vote. Her argument seems to be that the legality of the SBNC doesn’t matter as long as the retention vote follows one-person, one-vote. I do not dispute that the retention vote conforms to the principle of one-person, one-vote (although it may be offensive in terms of other democratic norms such as competitive elections). However, Ms. Brantley overlooks two facts that would undermine her argument. First, the retention vote comes AFTER the school board members appointed by the SBNC have already taken public office. Thus, the legal status of the retention vote is irrelevant to the legal status of the SBNC. Second, the law grants the SBNC a de facto veto power over the decisions of the voters in the retention vote. This is because the SBNC is under no obligation to choose a replacement in a timely matter; indeed, it could refuse to appoint a replacement until the term of the sitting school board members was over. The timing of seeking a replacement is left completely to the discretion of the SBNC.

In conclusion, I do not believe the Attorney General’s Office has made a compelling case for the SBNC’s legality. It’s quite possible that such an argument could yet be made. My point is only that it has yet to be made.

Note that whether you prefer an elected school board, an appointed school board, or any other public school governance system should be irrelevant to this case. The question is only whether the SBNC violates the law in addition to the democratic norm of one-person, one-vote.

Thank you for your interest in this matter.

--Jim Snider, Editor
MyAACPS.net (Version 2.0 will be available in early February)

P.S. I’d also encourage you to investigate the SBNC’s persistent violations of both the spirit and letter of Maryland’s right-to-know laws. Unfortunately, these laws are as unenforceable as the nanny tax and as obsolete as the Model T, so the games practiced by the SBNC illustrate that they are badly in need of reform. During his first day on the job, President Obama declared: “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.” This is hardly a controversial statement of values, but it would still be a good touchstone for the Anne Arundel County delegation to keep in mind when considering SBNC reforms.

SBNC and BOE TV Updates

2009-01-06T15:33:00.004-05:00

SBNC UPDATE

On January 12, 2009 at 7:00 pm, the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) will hold its third meeting of the coming appointment cycle for the AACPS Board of Education. The SBNC uses these low profile hearings to discuss critical procedural issues.

At the SBNC’s last meeting, it tentatively decided to decide what its nomination rules would be after candidates had submitted their applications. The specific rule concerned whether those who had been nominated during the previous round of nominations would have their names automatically forwarded to the Governor during the current round of nominations. I think there are good arguments that can be made for and against this particular type of multi-nomination system. But I cannot think of a single reason, consistent with widely accepted democratic norms, for allowing the SBNC to make this decision after it sees the pool of applicants. This is like changing the electoral rules after an election—a practice frequently done in political systems characterized as “electoral authoritarism” (many countries, such as Russia and Venezuela, have heads-I-win, tales-you-lose elections) and universally condemned by democratic theorists.

At the SBNC’s first meeting, it was suggested that the public hearings be conducted at schools scattered across the County. The tradeoff proposed was no TV coverage of the hearings in return for getting a larger and more diverse face-to-face audience. Although no final decision was made, it was striking that no one mentioned that such a tradeoff was unnecessary. The County has spent millions of dollars connecting every high school and middle school—and many libraries and elementary schools—to a gigabit Ethernet network. Internet feeds from this network, in turn, can be automatically fed into the public access TV channels (this, for example, is how the Anne Arundel Community College does it). Moreover, the SBNC’s discussion of this matter revealed no recognition of the importance, from the standpoint of democratic accountability, of having a high fidelity, easily accessible record of the candidate hearings. Currently, candidates can promise to the SBNC whatever sounds politically expedient at the moment, and there is virtually no public accountability because there is no readily accessible public record of their promises. Similarly, the SBNC commissioners can utterly fail during the Question & Answer period to do their due diligence—that is, failing to ask the most obvious follow-up questions—and know that they face no consequences for such behavior. The purpose of a public record, then, is to try to keep both the candidates and SBNC commissioners reasonably honest. At the SBNC’s second meeting (I was the only member of the public to speak at either the first or second meeting), I did try to make these points, especially about the technical feasibility of televising meetings outside Riva Road. But I wouldn’t count on my arguments making much of an impression.

In general, I would encourage all prospective candidates for the AACPS Board of Education to attend at least one of these preliminary hearings. So far, three have done so, and I think for good reason.

Board of Education TV Update

The completion of the Board of Education TV system has been postponed—once again. But the current expected completion date, January 20, 2009, is likely to be met. Too bad it comes a week after the public budget hearings—the most popular type of televised hearing in most school systems.

I wish people could have seen the October 2007 Board of Education public meeting that discussed and voted upon the proposed Board of Education TV system. It was held during the work day, and I counted only four members of the public in attendance, including myself and the Capital reporter. In light of subsequent events, these are the points that such a record could have revealed:

1) The false promises of the AACPS staff, including the 400% cost overrun, unmet completion deadlines, and inaccurate claims of urgency (the excuse used for rushing the TV proposal to a School Board vote without prior public discussion).
2) The failure of the School Board to do meaningful oversight, including due diligence before, during, and, as it turns out, after the hearing.
3) The failure of anyone to be held accountable for the above.

You can bet that the when the TV system is complete it will generate a self-congratulatory press release--one that will probably be run next to verbatim in the Capital.

Upcoming AACPS budget hearings

2008-12-14T10:35:00.001-05:00

Regarding the upcoming budget hearings (see AACPS press release below), will both the January 13 and January 15 hearings be televised on the Board of Education’s new $400,000 TV system? (Not to mention the millions of dollars spent on the complete AACPS telecommunications network.) In most school systems, budget hearings are the most popular regularly scheduled hearing of the year to watch on TV.

A related question is whether the Glen Burnie hearing will be televised. Past experience with the AACPS public relations personnel leads me to believe the answer will be “no.” Contrary to AACPS excuses, however, this really has little to do with technology. In Burlington, Vermont (where I once served as a school board member), we televised the Board of Education budget hearings wherever they were located.

Even if a school district cannot cover a hearing in real time, if it is already paying for TV staff (and AACPS has a princely TV operation), then it costs minimal money to set up a TV camera and televise the hearing. In rural towns in Vermont (with populations as small as a fiftieth the size of Anne Arundel County), it’s often community volunteers, including high school students and civic associations such as the League of Women Voters, who televise the public meetings and candidate debates—regardless of location. With the County’s $1 million public access TV studio in Glen Burnie, surely a volunteer could be found to televise the budget hearing at Glen Burnie High School.

Note that Anne Arundel County taxpayers have spent millions of dollars connecting the public schools to an ultra high speed broadband network (the backbone runs at 20 gigabytes per second and each high school and middle school gets at least 2.5 gigabit per second access; this is about a thousand times the broadband speeds most Anne Arundel County residents get at home from their local cable or telco provider). Moreover, this network can be connected into the cable system. Thus, even when the budget hearings are held at Glen Burnie High School, they should be accessible in real time to the entire community.

It would be a good contribution to local democracy, too, if a local civic organization would take responsibility for televising the upcoming public meetings of the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC). The members of the SBNC would be unlikely to shower that civic association with praise. But do local civic associations exist to flatter the powerful or provide a voice to the people?

Important News - FY2010 Budget Proposal delivered Wed, 12/17

SUPERINTENDENT KEVIN M. MAXWELL TO DELIVER FY2010 BUDGET PROPOSAL TO
BOARD OF EDUCATION

Board schedules budget hearings, workshop

The next meeting of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education will be
held on Wednesday, December 17, 2008, in the Board Room at the Parham
Building, 2644 Riva Road, Annapolis.

During the meeting, schools Superintendent Dr. Kevin M. Maxwell will
deliver his recommended Fiscal Year 2010 operating and capital budgets
to the Board of Education.

The Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. to vote to go into Executive Session,
during which time it will discuss confidential matters including, but
not limited to, legal advice, personnel, and negotiations. Executive
Session is closed to the public.

The general session of the meeting, which is open to the public, will
begin at 7:00 p.m.

A complete agenda will be posted on December 11, 2008, on the AACPS Web
site, www.aacps.org, in the Board Docs section under the Board of
Education tab.

BUDGET HEARINGS, WORKSHOP

The Board of Education has scheduled two public hearings and a public
workshop on Dr. Maxwell's budget recommendation. Public hearings
will be held on Tuesday, January 13, 2009, at Glen Burnie High School,
and Thursday, January 15, 2009, in the Board Room at the Parham Building
in Annapolis. Both hearings begin at 7:00 p.m. Those wishing to testify
can sign up beginning at 6:00 p.m. Testimony will be limited to three
minutes per person.

A public workshop on Dr. Maxwell's budget recommendation will be
held at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, in the Board Room at the
Parham Building. No public testimony will be taken at the workshop.

Electoral Authoritarianism

2008-11-23T22:19:00.001-05:00

[My letter-to-the-editor published in the Capital on November 19, 2008]

In its November 6, 2008 editorial interpreting the school board election results, the Capital concluded: “The results will inevitably be read as a thumbs-up for both the school board and the new method for picking its members.” Sure, school board boosters will argue that. But their democratic logic will be deeply flawed. All over the world today we see countries that fraudulently call themselves “democracies” because they have elections. Take Russia and Venezuela. Both have elections and both have elected leaders who won by huge margins. But are they democratic? Are they as popular as the Capital’s logic would suggest?

In addition to self-serving electoral systems, all these regimes have at least one other attribute in common with AACPS: weak civil societies. The only strong civic organization in AACPS politics today is the teachers’ union. The PTA barely even pretends to be anything more than a support organization for AACPS staff. The CACs, which were originally conceived of as a remedy for the PTAs civic shortcomings, have unfortunately become an arm of the AACPS PR apparatus. Is there a way out of this civic nightmare? One small but helpful step would be to dismantle at least part of the AACPS PR apparatus, including the subtle but effective staff gag rules and parental intimidation that now pervade AACPS.

AACPS faces an immense structural deficit. For the last five years it has been rolling in dough, with operating expenditures up 43.3% while student enrollments held steady. It is addicted to huge infusions of new cash, but instead of acknowledging its addiction all we’re getting out of Riva Road is a steady flow of Orwellian Doublespeak. Interpreting the recent school board elections as public satisfaction with the school board is the type of self-serving analysis we should expect out of Riva Road, not the Capital.

What's this about "lower costs for school construction"?

2008-10-31T19:50:00.002-05:00

In its editorial yesterday, “Ballot offers voters chance for input on school board,” the Capital repeats Tricia Johnson’s claim that she “lowered costs for school construction.” I’d love to know specifically what Tricia Johnson is referring to when she makes this claim. Ms. Johnson also featured this claim in her testimony before the SBNC on April 14, 2008, but there were no details provided to back up the claim. I hope she isn’t referring to the high profile Blue Ribbon Commission on School Construction costs. That document was a joke. I have an MBA from the Harvard Business School and worked as a senior research assistant writing cases for Harvard Business School and other business students. I cannot imagine giving a student even a “C” for the quality of the analysis represented in that report.

The report authors blamed the architects for the high cost of Anne Arundel County’s schools. The architects?!?! How politically convenient! Did anyone from the Capital ever read that report? Why did the county and school system never publicly release it? Were they embarrassed by the highly politicized questions the report authors asked and the infantile analysis that inevitably followed? Perhaps not, given the number of times Board of Education members have claimed credit for following the report’s recommendations.

What we now have in Anne Arundel County is incredibly high priced schools that look only a cut above prisons and will have outsized maintenance costs far into the future. Why is it okay for the Anne Arundel County Government and Community College to design good looking buildings while the schools have to look like prisons and use poor construction materials so the County taxpayers will think the Board of Education is fiscally prudent? Ditto for private K12 schools in Anne Arundel County, who still manage to build much better designed school buildings at lower cost. The best public school districts, in my experience, build school buildings that the community can be proud of.

Can anyone recall an oversight hearing that this school board has held on AACPS construction or maintenance costs? I cannot. But isn’t that one of the major functions of legislative bodies—to conduct oversight hearings on issues of overriding importance to the community? If Tricia Johnson or Teresa Birge want to address the County’s construction and maintenance problems, they can begin by conducting some oversight hearings and asking some tough questions (preferably televised with the Board of Education’s—get this—$400,000 boardroom TV studio). Do they have the intelligence to do so? Sure. Do they have the political will to do so? There is nothing in their track record that says “yes.”

--Jim Snider

P.S. I’m considering making a video clip and placing it on YouTube of Tricia Johnson’s claim before the SBNC that lowering construction costs was one of her prime achievements while serving on the Board of Education. But the really interesting part of her interchange with the SBNC was not her boast but the SBNC’s reply. None of the SBNC commissioners followed up with a question about how she accomplished this wondrous feat and what it indicates about her vision for the future of the physical spaces where our kids spend their days and our communities congregate. Clearly, for all the candidates’ talk about the importance of school construction and maintenance (both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Birge said that school construction would be one of their top three priorities as board members), it was not an issue the SBNC commissioners genuinely understood or cared about. And what about all the school board rhetoric during the last five years about the importance of construction and maintenance? During that period the school budget increased by more than 40% (with no increase in student enrollment) while maintenance expenditures (“maintenance of plant”) actually shrunk.

What would have been the most revealing question the SBNC commissioners could have asked to reveal the candidates’ true priorities as Board of Education members? Here is a go: “Ms. Johnson and Ms. Birge: Both of you in your testimony and applications have stated that one of your highest priorities is school construction costs. Last year Maryland State refused to give the Board of Education an extra $10 million for school construction because the Board of Education would not allocate an additional $40 million in matching funds. If you were faced with this decision again, would you spend the $40 million to get the $10 million? If so, what would you cut to raise the $40 million? It’s unlikely the candidates would have answered the question. But at least the question would have signaled that the SBNC was doing its job.

interesting article on televising school board meetings

2008-10-29T10:49:00.001-05:00

The Society of Professional Journalists published an excellent article on televising school board meetings. The article, It’s time for school boards to televise their meetings — and skip the lame excuses, helps explain why Anne Arundel County collects $1.6 million in PEG taxes every year, still doesn’t televise school board meetings, and will waste a lot of money on school-board-flattering-doodads when it eventually does get around to televising its meetings.

Is the SBNC illegal?

2008-10-21T20:11:00.007-05:00

[Note: On October 21, 2008, this post was emailed to all elected officials representing Anne Arundel County in the Maryland legislature and in the Anne Arundel County Council]

Dear Anne Arundel County Elected Official:

It has come to my attention that Anne Arundel County’s School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC), created during the Maryland General Assembly’s 2007 legislative session (see House Bill 1114), may violate the law of democracy as interpreted by the courts. This may help explain why the SBNC’s method of selecting school board members is unique and unprecedented among the more than 14,000 school board electoral systems in the U.S.

Three court cases, two by the U.S. Supreme Court and one by the Illinois Supreme Court, have held that the democratic law of one person, one vote must apply to school board elections. Does this law apply to the Anne Arundel County School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC), which does not follow one person, one vote because it delegates binding electoral authority to private interest groups? If so, the SBNC would violate the U.S. Constitution.

Clearly, if the SBNC only had advisory powers (like Maryland’s judicial nominating commissions), it would not violate the law. Nor would it violate the law if elected officials or duly appointed administrative officials directly appointed all its members. But neither of these two standard checks on the delegation of authority to an independent public body was included in the law creating the SBNC. (Note that I have been told the Maryland Attorney General classifies the SBNC as an “advisory” body. If so, I don’t know how that squares with the binding authority it is granted under statute. Perhaps the word “advisory” has multiple legal definitions.)

You might specifically want to investigate the legality of delegating four of the eleven votes on the SBNC to four membership-based private interest groups. As an analogy, consider the legal and public reaction if Congress allocated 40% of the presidential electors to member-elected representatives of business and union trade associations. Alternately, consider the reaction if Congress attempted to create a public body with binding veto authority over government appropriations—and then appointed the largest incumbent government contractors to serve on it. As for the other seven SBNC members, I don’t see a problem with the delegation of electoral authority to the six members appointed by elected officials and the one member appointed by the Anne Arundel Community College (an administrative agency). Note also that the SBNC adopted a supermajority rule giving the private interest groups veto power over the SBNC’s decisions.

It is possible that there are other provisions in the law creating the SBNC that may exempt it from the law upholding one person, one vote. For example, the fact that it is a nominating body rather than a general election body could provide it some legal protection. But it is an extraordinarily powerful nominating body: through strategic voting (nominating two individuals to the Governor, one of whom it knows the Governor will not select), it can exercise de facto, if not de jure, general election powers. Thus, it is a binding nominating body with general election like powers.

Historically, courts have been hesitant to rule on election law. But when the core principles of representative democracy have been at stake, the courts have made an exception.

With the first set of SBNC nominated and Governor approved school board members on the ballot for an up or down vote on November 4, 2008, now is an opportune time to ascertain the legality of the electoral powers delegated to the SBNC. Note that the school board members have been serving in office since July 1, 2008; if the November election had come before the school board members took office, the principle of one person, one vote would not have been violated.

Attached is a summary of the three court cases taken from Professor Richard Briffaultt’s law review article, “Who Rules at Home?: One Person/One Vote and Local Governments,” published in the University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 60, N. 2, Spring 1993. . Another source you might want to check is Samuel Issacharoff et al., The Law of Democracy, New York: Foundation Press, 2002 (see Section B of Chapter 3: The Reapportionment Revolution, pp. 185-208).

Introduction
The fundamental premise of federal voting rights law is that democratic government means government by consent of the governed. As the Supreme Court observed in Wesberry v Sanders, "[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live."

Avery v Midland County
Twenty-five years ago, in Avery v Midland County, the United States Supreme Court extended the one person/one vote requirement to local governments. Avery and subsequent decisions applying federal constitutional standards to local elections suggested a change in the legal status of local governments and appeared to signal a shift in the balance of federalism. Traditionally, local governments have been conceptualized as instrumentalities of the states. Questions of local government organization and structure were reserved to the plenary discretion of the states with little federal constitutional oversight. In contrast, Avery assumed that local governments are locally representative bodies, not simply arms of the states. Avery and its progeny, therefore, imposed new restrictions on state provisions for the organization of local governments.

Kramer v Union Free School District No. 15
In Kramer v Union Free School District No. 15, the Supreme Court again presumed that a local government's action has a community-wide impact. Kramer involved a New York law that limited the right to vote in school board elections to the owners or renters of taxable property in the school district and to the parents of children enrolled in the district's schools. The plaintiff was an otherwise eligible voter who had no children, lived with his parents, and neither owned nor leased taxable property.

Fumarolo v Chicago Board of Education
In Fumarolo v Chicago Board of Education, the Illinois Supreme Court… found that Kramer and Hadley continued to apply… when it invalidated the franchise and representation provisions of the Chicago School Reform Act. The Act provided for the creation of local school councils with a variety of powers for each of the grammar and high schools in the Chicago school system. Each council was to consist of ten members, with parents of children enrolled in the local school to elect six of their number, community residents to elect two residents, and local school teachers to elect two teachers. In invalidating the exclusion of non-parent residents from the electorate for most council seats, the Illinois Supreme Court determined that the councils' role in local education … mandated the application of strict scrutiny.

In defending the restricted franchise, the Chicago Board of Education contended that the local school councils were advisory rather than governing bodies. The Court determined that, although the district councils lacked the power to levy taxes or set basic educational policy for local schools, their functions were more than advisory, and the councils had considerable authority over local school operation.

The underlying reason the SBNC may violate the law of democracy is that it violates the core democratic principle of political equality (e.g., see Yale Professor Robert Dahl’s On Political Equality). However, the law of democracy only covers a small subset of good democratic practice; there are many undemocratic practices that are not illegal. Until the 1960s and the emergence of the civil rights movement, for example, the courts did not apply the Constitutional principle of one person, one vote to local government elections. Case law since the 1960s, however, indicates a very different court mindset. If elected officials pass laws violating the democratic principle of one person, one vote, the courts will not necessarily uphold those laws.

--Jim Snider, M.B.A., Ph.D.
Editor, MyAACPS.net

P.S. Please ask the School Board Nominating Commission to stop violating both the spirit and the letter of Maryland’s Open Meetings Act. In May 2008, Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board ruled that the SBNC violated the Open Meetings Act. The SBNC has nevertheless continued to violate the law and its own bylaws with impunity. If the Maryland General Assembly is not to convey the impression that it considers the Open Meetings Act a cruel joke inflicted on the public—a set of democratic values to be espoused in public but in practice ignored whenever they prove inconvenient—then it must investigate this pattern of abuse and take steps to ensure that the Open Meetings Act has credible penalties.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain
silent.” -- Thomas Jefferson.

Addendum Posted October 22, 2008
An additional legal argument has come to my attention since writing the above email. It turns out that the way the statute creating the SBNC was written, the SBNC has been granted veto power over the wishes of the electorate. That is, the SBNC has the power to ignore the results of a retention vote by simply indefinitely postponing its selection of a replacement. Here is the relevant statutory language.

(4) IF THE VOTERS REJECT THE RETENTION OF THE MEMBER, OR THE VOTE IS TIED: (I) THE POSITION SHALL BECOME VACANT 10 DAYS AFTER CERTIFICATION OF THE ELECTION RETURNS; AND (II) THE MEMBER SERVES UNTIL A SUCCESSOR IS APPOINTED AND QUALIFIES.

What this means in practice is that the five SBNC members appointed by private interest groups can veto the wishes of the electorate. In other words, not only has the SBNC been granted binding, general election like nominating powers, but it has also been granted veto power over the wishes of an electorate that embodies the democratic principle of one person, one vote.

A delegate to the Maryland General Assembly has forwarded a copy of the above e-mail to Maryland's Attorney General and requested a legal opinion.

Re: Capital article, "School board's TV debut delayed"

2008-10-06T10:11:00.001-05:00

In relation to the Capital’s article last week on TV coverage of Board of Education meetings, I’ve been asked “how is it possible that the budget for AACPS Board of Education meetings increased from $100,000 to $400,000 without any public discussion or vote?” Here is my attempt at an answer.

It’s my sense that the school system, much like the rest of County government, has decided to use PEG/iNet funds as a slush fund for non-PEG/iNet related expenditures. This is strictly against the law (and even the County’s PEG/iNet ordinance). But as far as I know, the Federal Communications Commission, which is supposed to administer and enforce the PEG/iNet laws, has no mechanism to do so . As long as AACPS provides a figleaf excuse for diverting PEG/iNet funds, it will face no penalty for doing so. If somebody else’s budget will pay for AACPS upgrading of electrical systems and the purchase of all sorts of neat toys, why not take advantage of it? Think of yourself as one of AACPS’s TV guys working under Don Cramer: the more high-tech toys you have, the more respected you will be within AACPS and the more competitive you will be when you look for other, non-AACPS TV work.

Do we really need BOE meeting coverage in high definition TV? Does AACPS really need an additional $400,000 TV studio at Riva Road in addition to the $250,000 studio they built a few years ago in the same building? And what about the $1 million dollar public access TV studio built in Glen Burnie a few years ago and linked via the iNet to Riva Road? With three state-of-the-art and grossly underutilized TV studios in the County, why are we building a fourth? With today’s robotic cameras, both editing equipment and camera operators could work remotely (a practice utilized by the best and most efficient government access TV operations).

In Vermont, the average town has less than 10,000 people, and the towns would cover public meetings in the early 1990s just fine with consumer grade video cameras. Someone would simply plug the video camera into the reverse feed cable socket, turn on the camera, and hit the on button. Sure, AACPS can afford to do it much more professionally—like a commercial TV studio. But $400,000+ for an anachronistic, citizen unfriendly, glitzy commercial broadcast TV style setup? Give me a break.

I televised one of the School Board Nominating Commission meetings with my simple Dell laptop (cost: $1,000), Microsoft OneNote program (cost: $44) and clip-on high resolution video camera (cost: $60). I sat in the front row of the meeting and simply pointed my lap, laptop, and camera at each speaker. Using Microsoft OneNote (a tool widely used by college students to record lectures), I was also able to index all the video, so I could immediately find any segment that was of interest to me. If the Commission had allowed me to plug the audio feed from the meeting into my laptop, I could have had crystal clear audio.

From my perspective, even video at a tiny fraction of my OneNote recording quality would have been more than adequate for purposes of our YouTube generation video users. What’s so terrible with YouTube quality video for talking heads? Did you find it so awful watching on YouTube the video of Katie Couric interviewing VP candidate Sarah Palin? If I have a choice between commercial broadcast HD quality and YouTube quality video, all other things being equal, I’d of course prefer HD quality. But what if that comes at the cost of conveniently posting video clips to the Countywide and local CACs? If it comes at the cost of much restricted video coverage, as the school board says it can only cover a fraction of its public meetings and none that don’t take place in the Riva Road boardroom? And what if it means that there is no money to integrate the written agendas with the video and provide other types of citizen friendly accessibility? And why do we have professional/broadcast quality images but not professional/broadcast quality access to those image? I cannot imagine a commercial TV studio today that doesn’t electronically index its video so producers cannot instantly call up and insert relevant video clips from prior programs into new programs; indeed, some TV shows now have more online than broadcast TV viewers. What are all those multipurpose servers in the County doing that they cannot use a small fraction of their capacity to empower the citizens?

Yeah, I like HD quality coverage with world class lighting and every vanity amenity (so those being filmed always know how they look on screen and can make adjustments to look the best possible). But AACPS is asking us to pay too high a price in lost accessibility (and democratic accountability) for those features.

I posted my critique of the Capital’s BOE TV coverage article on MyAACPS.net.

--Jim Snider

Re: Update on BOE TV Coverage Update

2008-09-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

Cathy,

Thank you for seeking clarification of my comments concerning coverage of County Council proceedings. First, I want to applaud the County Council for televising its meetings. And yes, the newspapers and website contain the schedule of the County Council meetings. My point was a different one. I am told that more than 50% of Americans now have some type of a Digital Video Recorder. In my case, I use a DVR from Tivo. But most Americans use a DVR provided by their cable, telco, or satellite TV provider. These DVRs are able to pick up programming information and not only display the information on their TV set but also use the information for convenient recording. As I understand it, the County Council does not provide this type of electronic information integrated with its broadcasts.

If the County Council made its proceedings available online—as do many towns and school districts one tenth the size of Anne Arundel County—such convenience would be less important because the information would be available on-demand. But the County Council doesn’t provide such assess to its proceedings, so convenient DVR recording is a second best alternative. If you want to look at a nearby jurisdiction with greatly superior coverage of its town council, I’d suggest checking out Takoma Park, MD. There the video, minutes, and agendas are integrated and available online.

Having noted how the County Council provides better meeting coverage than the school board, I would now, in the interest of fairness, like to note a way in which it does not. By the standards of the Google generation, the school board may provide awful online access to its meeting minutes, but at least the minutes are available online (via the AACPS BoardDocs system in pdf format). The last I checked, the same cannot be said of the County Council. If I want to find the minutes of the County Council, I must pay 25 cents a page to copy them and be the subject of gossip among the County Council administrators who do the copying and are naturally intensely curious why anyone would want such information. In other words, to find the complete record of how my County Councilor voted over a four year term, I must pay the County Council approximately $400 (this is an estimate I made several years ago based on the 25 cents a page photocopying cost). That might have been an acceptable system to access county council votes a generation ago. But for the generation in which we currently live (and for a County Council with a $16 million ten year PEG/iNET budget and every tech gadget under the sun), it’s inexcusable.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to raise these issues.

--Jim Snider

P.S. Cathy, please try out MyAACPS.net if you haven’t already done so.

Re: Update on BOE TV Coverage Update

Posted by: "CMVitale-County Council"

Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:58 am (PDT)

Jim,

The County Council meets the same day and the same time each month. The same channel as well. The website has that information, as does the newspapers. If you want to record us onto a dvd from your home, no problem. I do it every week, I don't know what the issue is that you said the county council has a bad practice of. Please clarify.

Cathleen M. Vitale

Update on TV Coverage of Board of Education public meetings

2008-09-26T13:40:00.002-05:00

At a Board of Education (BOE) meeting in October 2007, the BOE unveiled a proposal to spend more than $400,000 of taxpayer money on equipment to makeover the BOE meeting room for TV coverage. The BOE told the public there was no time to propose modifications to the plan for BOE TV coverage because an immediate vote was necessary on the plan if BOE TV coverage was to commence at the start of the coming school year in late August 2008. When the August 2008 deadline came and went without a pipsqueak from the BOE, an October deadline for BOE TV coverage was put forth. Now the word is that BOE TV coverage will not be instituted until after the BOE elections on November 4. The hope is to begin installing TV equipment in the BOE meeting room the week of Thanksgiving, with possible completion not until January 2009.

At the October 2007 meeting of the BOE, I suggested online access to BOE meeting TV coverage, including webcasting. I also asked for the integration of meeting agendas with the TV coverage (critical for online access to meeting coverage but less important for traditional TV coverage). The BOE replied it had no plans for such coverage.

Now I would like to suggest two very minor modifications to the current plan for BOE TV coverage. By “minor” I mean inexpensive and easy to implement. The first is for the BOE to provide programming information along with its broadcasts so that the broadcasts can be easily recorded by DVR. All non-local cable stations provide such programming data. Locally, the Anne Arundel Community College channel also provides such data. The County Council does not. This is a bad practice the School Board should not copy. The ability to easily record BOE TV coverage by DVR should be considered an essential function.

Second, the school board should switch to electronic voting with a real time feed displayed on the TV screen. Such voting systems are now ubiquitous and inexpensive. My kids in college regularly use this type of technology when the professors are seeking feedback from the students in class. And when I attend conferences in Washington, DC, I increasingly see this type of technology being used to solicit audience feedback.

--Jim Snider

P.S. Thanks to all those who volunteered to help MyAACPS.net at the Countywide CAC meeting last evening (September 25).

SBNC May Violate the Law of Democracy

2008-09-12T20:00:00.005-05:00

The School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) has widely been recognized as a travesty of democratic practice because it violates basic democratic norms of political equality, including one person, one vote. But until this summer it never dawned on me that it might also violate the U.S. Constitution and the series of Supreme Court cases beginning in the 1960s applying the democratic principle of one person, one vote to local elections, including school board elections.

What follows are excerpts from Professor Richard Briffaultt's law review article, "Who Rules at Home?: One Person/One Vote and Local Governments," published in the University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 60, N. 2, Spring 1993. Professor Briffaultt describes three key cases, two decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and one decided by the Illinois Supreme Court, that apply the law of one person, one vote to municipal and school board elections.

Avery v Midland County
Twenty-five years ago, in Avery v Midland County, the United States Supreme Court extended the one person/one vote requirement to local governments. Avery and subsequent decisions applying federal constitutional standards to local elections suggested a change in the legal status of local governments and appeared to signal a shift in the balance of federalism. Traditionally, local governments have been conceptualized as instrumentalities of the states. Questions of local government organization and structure were reserved to the plenary discretion of the states with little federal constitutional oversight. In contrast, Avery assumed that local governments are locally representative bodies, not simply arms of the states. Avery and its progeny, therefore, imposed new restrictions on state provisions for the organization of local governments.

Kramer v Union Free School District No. 15
In Kramer v Union Free School District No. 15, the Supreme Court again presumed that a local government's action has a community-wide impact. Kramer involved a New York law that limited the right to vote in school board elections to the owners or renters of taxable property in the school district and to the parents of children enrolled in the district's schools. The plaintiff was an otherwise eligible voter who had no children, lived with his parents, and neither owned nor leased taxable property.

Fumarolo v Chicago Board of Education
In Fumarolo v Chicago Board of Education, the Illinois Supreme Court… found that Kramer and Hadley continued to apply… when it invalidated the franchise and representation provisions of the Chicago School Reform Act. The Act provided for the creation of local school councils with a variety of powers for each of the grammar and high schools in the Chicago school system. Each council was to consist of ten members, with parents of children enrolled in the local school to elect six of their number, community residents to elect two residents, and local school teachers to elect two teachers. In invalidating the exclusion of non-parent residents from the electorate for most council seats, the Illinois Supreme Court determined that the councils' role in local education … mandated the application of strict scrutiny.

In defending the restricted franchise, the Chicago Board of Education contended that the local school councils were advisory rather than governing bodies. The Court determined that, although the district councils lacked the power to levy taxes or set basic educational policy for local schools, their functions were more than advisory, and the councils had considerable authority over local school operation.

Note that these cases do not hinge on whether an elected body approved a particular local electoral system. It would not matter, for example, whether the Maryland legislature unanimously approved a system of election that violated one person, one vote. For the courts, one person, one vote is a constitutional right that supersedes the right of legislatures to make laws.

Note also that these cases only indirectly apply to the structure of the SBNC. For example, the SBNC only has nominating powers, not general election powers. However, the SBNC is a very powerful nominating body because its recommendations are mandatory rather than advisory and because it only nominates two individuals to the Governor. If the SBNC acts strategically and nominates one individual who it knows the Governor will not appoint, then it has de facto general election powers.

Another question is whether the SBNC is an electoral body or an appointed/administrative body. As I read the case law above, it would be defined as an elected body with a restricted franchise, even though the SBNC is characterized in popular discourse as an appointed/administrative body (if all the members were appointed by elected officials, I would agree it was an appointed/administrative body, but by delegating membership in SBNC to the votes of special constituencies, it functions as an elected body).

Assuming that the SBNC does indeed violate the law, a simple solution would be to make its recommendations advisory rather than mandatory. But this would undercut the primary public rationale for the SBNC, which is that in the old School Board Nominating Convention process the Governor could override the preferences of the nominating body. Note that the recommendations of the judicial nominating commissions, a much cited precedent for the SBNC, are advisory only.

I am not a lawyer and have quite possibly overlooked some important considerations. This case may be especially tricky because, to the best of my knowledge, the school board electoral system in Anne Arundel County is unique and unprecedented in the United States (there are more than 14,000 school boards in the U.S., so this is saying a lot). Perhaps there is a legal reason why this is so. My hope is that there is at least one sharp legal mind out there who can shed some light on the applicability of this case law to the SBNC.

Note that even if the SBNC is violating the law, that doesn't necessarily mean much in the real world. For example, even after Maryland's Open Meetings Compliance Board found in May 2008 that the SBNC violated the Maryland's Open Meetings Act, there were no negative consequences. The press decided the story wasn't newsworthy (as a Baltimore Sun reporter told me, "this happens all the time, so it's not newsworthy"). When the Capital's Eric Hartley wrote about the SBNC's propensity to secrecy and the Capital's editorial board editorialized against it, neither even mentioned the SBNC's repeated violations of the law even though they were well aware of it. The general public also appears all but indifferent to Open Meeting violations.

Moreover, assuming that the SBNC does indeed violate the law of democracy (again, an assertion that is still speculative at this point), it's not clear to me who would have sufficient incentive to take the necessary steps to enforce the law. In the Fumarolo case above, for example, it was the school principals who brought the case because they were directly harmed by the law. What similar highly motivated constituency would do the same here? Not any existing parental organization that I know off. On the other hand, I can readily imagine some politicians or a political party getting a few good sound bites out of this. But concerted, effective action or a court challenge seems much less likely to me.

Additional Resources
An authoritative textbook on the law of democracy is Samuel Issacharoff et al., The Law of Democracy, New York: Foundation Press. I have the 2001 edition. See Section B of Chapter 3: The Reapportionment Revolution, pp. 185-208.

MyAACPS.net Launched

2008-09-08T19:57:00.004-05:00

Today marks the official launch of MyAACPS.net. MyAACPS.net offers a one stop source of education news about Anne Arundel County. It provides the following four services:

1) Get RSS feeds of articles on AACPS.

2) Search for articles by source, date, reader ranking, and unstructured text.

3) Comment on an article.

4) On a 1 to 5 start scale, recommend an article or comment to others to read.

Its primary intended audience is opinion leaders among AACPS parents. It is not intended for parents with only a casual interest in AACPS policies, practices, and politics.

I designed the website with the advice of the MyAACPS.net Advisory Board, including Paul Rudolph (Former Member and President, Anne Arundel County Board of Education), Tom Frank (Education Chair, Greater Crofton Council), Sam Georgiou (Former Chair, Countywide Citizens Advisory Committee), Steve Johnson (Former Chair, Annapolis Cluster Citizens Advisory Committee), and Pallas Snider (Former Member, Anne Arundel County Board of Education). Perhaps the closest precedent for MyAACPS.net is the national article rating service, Digg.com.

MyAACPS.net was created with volunteer effort and will need to be maintained by volunteer effort. Over the coming months, I’ll be looking for volunteers to take on a number of responsibilities, including posting links to articles to AACPS.net in a timely way (it takes about 30 seconds to post each article link to MyAACPS.net) and moderating comments for SPAM.

Currently, MyAACPS.net only includes major local newspaper coverage of AACPS (e.g., Capital, Baltimore Sun, and Washington Post). Eventually, I would also like it to include blog coverage of AACPS. This would allow AACPS bloggers to develop a reputation and build an audience. However, this enhancement of MyAACPS.net would depend on a number of factors, including the emergence of AACPS bloggers and volunteer commitment to maintain such an enhanced information service.

Please take a look at MyAACPS.net, subscribe to its RSS feed, read some articles and comments, post some of your own comments, and use the star rating system to recommend articles and comments to others. New information technology is creating all sorts of new opportunities to enhance democracy in general and empower Anne Arundel County parents in particular. I hope that MyAACPS.net helps to realize some of that promise.

--Jim Snider

P.S. I am on the agenda to introduce MyAACPS.net to the countywide CAC at the CAC’s Thursday, September 25 meeting. I hope those interested in volunteering to help maintain and enhance MyAACPS.net will attend that meeting and speak to me privately afterwards.

BOE TV Coverage Postponed until at least October; SBNC seeks to restrict video use for democratic accountability

2008-08-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Board of Education TV coverage has been postponed until at least October 2008, with a possibility that there will be no coverage at all this year because no contract for the job has yet been awarded.

Last October, AACPS held a last-minute hearing on an AACPS plan for Board TV coverage. When I suggested modifications to the plan at that hearing, the AACPS TV manager and Public Information Office chief told the Board it had to make an immediate decision on the AACPS Board TV plan if Board TV coverage was to begin when the school year started in August 2008.

After many months of delay (the original request for bid proposals was promised for November 2007 but didn’t come out until spring 2008, a delay AACPS blamed on the Leopold administration), bidding was finally scheduled for June 2008. Unfortunately, no company made a bid by the bidding deadline, although four companies attended the pre-bidding session. I am told that the reason that no company made a bid is that at the last moment AACPS decided to change the bidding specifications by adding some ill-defined electrical requirements. Given the uncertainty over the job requirements, the companies that attended the pre-bidding session decided not to bid. After that fiasco, the project was put out to bid again in July—this time with the last minute changes dropped. For reasons I don’t know, only one of the four companies decided to bid in this second round. Having only one bidder created a red flag for the County, the result of which is that it has not yet signed a contract with the bidder and may choose not to do so. An additional complication is that the original plan was to do the installation during the summer months when the Board meeting room was accessible. The contractor has now refused to commit to a project completion date for the job because AACPS won’t commit to a schedule when the Board meeting room will be available to do the necessary work.

In May 2008 I sent the following letter-to-the-editor to the Capital and Baltimore Sun. The Capital printed it in late June 2008. The letter deals with the larger problem of how AACPS has been budgeting its millions of dollars of PEG funds.

Seeking accountability for the millions of dollars spent on AACPS TV

Over the last five years, millions of tax dollars have gone to funding the school system’s TV operations, most visibly its cable educational access TV channel, including a state-of-the-art broadcast studio and extensive, high priced staff support. What have we gotten for all that money? It is time that there was a general accounting for these expenditures. Some of them have been funded out of a special information technology and PR slush fund generated from the PEG access TV fee (98 cents/month for every household subscribing to cable or FIOS TV; about $16 million over the life of the franchise agreement). The rest comes out of AACPS’s budget.

Consider the rushed, overpriced, and poorly conceived plan to provide school board meeting cable TV coverage starting in late August 2008. Such coverage was decades overdue (many school systems a small fraction of the size of AACPS have had such coverage since the 1970s), but rectifying that deficiency is not an excuse for AACPS’s gold-plated broadcast TV design while undelivering on inexpensive but essential democracy enhancing features such as webcasting, integrated agendas with video, and online access to the resulting records. In the age of YouTube, the school system should have done much better. If small school districts in Vermont one-twentieth the size of Anne Arundel County can afford to do this, why cannot Anne Arundel County? The PR oriented culture of the AACPS TV staff strikingly conflicts with the democracy enhancing goals behind the congressional and county council laws enabling PEG TV funding.

Unfortunately, the school system’s printed budget is essentially useless for gathering information about its TV and PR operations. (Perhaps those who design the budget format are embarrassed that this year the school system spent more on central administration PR than, say, student field trips). Gathering such information would require an oversight hearing with thoughtful, tough questions. That’s the type of hearing we’ve learned not to expect from our school board, but it still would be a pleasant surprise to see.

Lastly, I want to call your attention to a video usage policy announced by the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC). As you many know, SBNC televised its school board candidate hearings on Anne Arundel County public television. Subsequently, I asked to get a copy of the resulting video records, which I was entitled to do under Maryland’s Public Records Act. SBNC did not send me the copies within the 30 days required under the Public Records Act. But for public bodies in Maryland, such a delay is par for the course and thus hardly noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the notice that was sent to me prior and subsequent to the release of the copies. Here is the note:

These DVDs are provided to you as a courtesy and are intended for your personal use only. The School Board Nominating Commission does not authorize distribution or broadcast in any manner.

For any legal minds who might be reading this, I would be curious about your interpretation of this passage. I know of no passage in the Open Meetings Act or Public Records Act that would support the legality of such a clause. Indeed, I believe that such a clause is a clear violation of the intent of those two acts. Could such a clause be legally binding in any way?

Politically, the intent of this passage is much clearer. Public officials throughout the United States have sought to maintain as much control over public meeting video as they possibly can. AACPS is doing this with its planned board TV coverage, for example, by not making its video footage available over the Internet and requiring that all requests for video go through the school board’s office. This makes it much more costly for the public to access video records of public meetings and can be a very effective way to intimidate members of the public who are fearful of the repercussions of asking for potentially controversial information and won’t do so unless they can do so anonymously. I would be curious what members of this listserv think of such restrictions on public usage of public meeting video records. Do you think this is good or bad for AACPS’ democratic accountability?

--Jim Snider

School Board Nominating Commission: What does it take to win?

2008-06-18T11:34:00.006-05:00

Yesterday the Governor announced the appointment of Tricia Johnson and Teresa Birge to serve on the School Board. It has been about a month since I’ve posted anything on the School Board Nominating Commission. What have we learned in that time about the SBNC process?

Here are some facts that I think are interesting:

21 people originally applied to compete for the two open slots on the Board; by
the time the SBNC voted, only 13 were still in contention.

On May 5, 2008, the SBNC voted to require a supermajority for nomination to the school board. When they voted on the candidates on May 12, 2008, two candidates received a majority of votes but without receiving the two-thirds necessary for nomination. Rules do make a difference.

The SBNC said it would follow the precedent of the Judicial Nominating Commission (which appoints judges in Maryland) and only seek to vet the qualifications of school board candidates. Its behavior suggests otherwise. How else can one explain that Paul Rudolph was not vetted as qualified by the SBNC? After all, Paul was twice selected by the School Board Nominating Convention, was twice selected by the Governor to serve on the School Board, and was selected by his fellow school board members to serve as president of the School Board. The SBNC’s rejection of Tom Frank raises a similar question, as Tom was previously one of two candidates nominated by the School Board Nominating Convention.

It is hard to assess how much strategic voting there was among SBNC members (strategic voting occurs when someone doesn’t vote their sincere preferences). Strategic voting for a candidate would be least expected when the preliminary vote was 7-3 because with a two-thirds majority requirement the eighth vote becomes the swing vote and an insincere vote becomes costly. My overall impression is that
there was surprisingly little strategic voting, although in at least one case it was clearly evident.

The press and public demonstrated to the SBNC that it could willfully violate both the spirit and letter of the Open Meetings Act without paying a price.

The candidates who won had nothing critical to say of AACPS. Future candidates: take heed.

Based on these observations, here are some predictions for the future:

There will be continuing pressure within SBNC to drop the pretense of vetting
candidates and move to nominating just two candidates for each open position. In this way, the SBNC can maximize its power.

There will be continuing pressure within SBNC to drop its candidate-by-candidate voting and select a slate in the backroom, which it would then vote up-or-down in public. In this way, SBNC members can avoid public scrutiny and accountability for their actions.

Fewer serious candidates will apply for open seats. In the extreme case, when an
incumbent running for re-election has not alienated any powerful interest groups, no serious contenders will emerge.

Successful candidates will play the inside rather than outside game. Electoral politics generally encourages politicians to play the outside game; members of Congress, for example, routinely run for Congress by running against Congress; presidential candidates typically run for office by running against business-as-usual in Washington. This is not going to be a successful strategy for candidates running for the school board. No mavericks need apply.

The SBNC will ignore its own bylaws and the Open Meetings Act when it deems them to be a nuissance, and there will be no public penalty for doing so, as long as a violation is done reasonably discreetly and with due consideration to create conditions for plausible deniability. The SBNC will continue to publicly pronounce its fervent devotion to the norms of openness and accountability--while conducting as much business as it reasonably can through private email correspondence, which is exempt from the openness requirements of the Open Meetings Act.

To the extent that backroom politics dominate the school board selection process, this will remain unreported.

Capital Editorial on SBNC Process

2008-05-20T15:13:00.004-05:00

There are parts of this editorial I agree with, but I disagree with its skewed priorities. The part I agree with is that every SBNC member should be expected to explain why they voted for the winning candidates that they did. An important part of lawmaking is not just voting but explaining those votes for the public.

The part of the editorial I find objectionable is the argument that the SBNC should discuss the candidates' qualifications in public. This is not a requirement either in the letter or the spirit of the current Open Meetings Act. In some fantasy world, maybe this would be desirable. But it's unrealistic to expect, and I'm not sure it's desirable. What is more practical and useful for democratic accountability is to ensure that SBNC members explain their votes for the winning candidates. When SBNC members publicly state a set of candidate selection principles--e.g., that their goal is to merely vet candidates--and then act otherwise, that is the type of information the Capital should call out.

In terms of priorities, the Capital should have focused on the SBNC's violations of the Open Meetings Act and its own bylaws. Instead, the Capital made it clear that it doesn't really take these laws seriously, if only because their violation is so widespread that it would be unfair to pick on any public body for violating them. But if the Capital doesn't take the law seriously, why should the SBNC?

Even the best open meeting laws are not an adequate substitute for some genuine investigative reporting, which requires real work and putting the little guy's interests first. The real failure here was not with the SBNC but with the Capital for failing to do its journalistic job.

Publication: Capital
Date: May 20, 2008
Type: Editorial

The School Board Nominating Commission - the first to convene under a new law - has forwarded six names to the governor for his consideration for two school board slots.
Although the public knows who was chosen, it is been kept in the dark about why they were chosen. That's a troubling sign for a new public body.

The board decided to meet privately to discuss the candidates, then cast its votes in a public session. At least one commissioner, representing the teachers' union, also wanted the voting behind closed doors. Arguing against that, Commissioner Matthew Tedesco said the panel should be "as translucent as possible." Yet the panel decided to keep its discussions behind closed doors to avoid giving the nominees any discomfort.

Public bodies should be transparent. That's what the commissioners promised the public at their very first meeting. And isn't a robust discussion about future school board members the public's business?

A private meeting to discuss these nominations - on the ground that this is a personnel decision - may be within the letter of the law, but has nothing to do with the law's spirit.

If you apply for an influential public office, enduring a public discussion of your qualifications - and perhaps your temperament - isn't too much to ask. Would we want a county executive or County Council member chosen behind closed doors? Why should it be any different for a school board member who will have a major voice on our children's education?

A full and open discussion keeps the public informed and assures people that a public body isn't mired in cronyism or conflicts of interest.

Openness is not always convenient or easy, but it keeps public officials honest. We doubt legislators intended to drop a cloak of secrecy around this process when they created it last year.

Maryland Attorney General's Office Rules That School Board Nominating Commission Violated The Law

2008-05-12T13:14:00.002-05:00

Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board, a division of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, ruled that the School Board Nominating Commission violated the Open Meetings Act when it met in secret to choose its bylaws. Since there are no legal penalties for violating this law, the significance of the ruling is negligible. In theory, there could still be penalties in the court of public opinion for violating the Open Meetings Act, but since the School Board Nominating Commission is unelected and half isn’t even appointed, even this penalty is largely non-existent.

The School Board Nominating Commission’s strategy hasn’t been to deny that it violated the law but to throw up a smoke screen for the press, arguing that the Commission’s Chair was ignorant of the law. My analysis, however, is exactly the opposite: the Commission violated the law precisely because its members knew the law all-too-well. They knew that the likelihood of reporting a violation is rare, that even if found in violation the legal penalties are non-existent, that the political class doesn’t take violations seriously (like driving 65 mph in a 55 mph speed zone), and that even if the press reported on the subject, it would have no interest in getting at the truth and would report without challenge the Commission’s arguments asserting that there were valid extenuating circumstances. Weighing the downside risk of violating the Open Meetings Act with the great inconvenience, time delays, loss of power, and greater risk of controversy associated with discussing the bylaws/procedures in public, the decision was easy to make.

On another matter, on May 5 the School Board Nominating Commission made a major change to its procedural rules. It ruled that a supermajority, eight votes, would be needed to send a vote to the Governor. Previously, only a majority, six votes, was required to do this. In general, political scientists consider supermajority requirements to be highly undemocratic. But in the case of the School Board Nominating Commission, this is especially so because five of the eleven members are appointed by interest groups, not an elected official. It effectively gives private interest groups a veto on the Commission’s nominations. There was a reason that six of the eleven members of the Commission were appointed by elected officials: the politicians knew it would be too embarrassing to give majority control to private organizations. This rule now makes a mockery of even that minimal level of democratic control.

The stated purpose of the change was to reduce the power of the five delegates to the Commission appointed by the Governor. A closely related goal was to increase the power of the Commission in relation to the Governor, a position advocated in previous Commission meetings by the teachers (Tim Mennuti) and administrators (Bob Ferguson).

Also interesting is that this item wasn’t on the publicized agenda for the May 5 meeting. It’s yet another example of rushing through major policy decisions without time for thoughtful deliberation. The Founders of our country created a democratic process based on checks & balances. This served to slow down the legislative process and force the legislature to consider more points of view than it would otherwise have done. At the time, the Founders wanted to avoid the type of rushed, ill-considered legislation that helped lead to the defeat of Ancient Athens, the historical example of democracy that they knew best. This rushed, ill-considered legislation—which will surely someday be overturned once the public fully appreciates its stench—is a modern day illustration of what our Founders were so wary of. The system of notice and comment, the bedrock of the open meeting system, is supposed to provide a check on this type of behavior. In this case, that check failed.

Reflections on key developments concerning the School Board Nominating Commission since its March 25 public meeting

2008-04-13T14:47:00.003-05:00

The following comments concerning the School Board Nominating Commission (SBNC) commence with its March 25 meeting and end with its April 10 press release. These comments include actions taken by the SBNC and actions taken by the School Board and General Assembly with regard to the SBNC.

On Monday April 14 at 7:00 p.m., the SBNC will hold its first public hearing broadcast live on Anne Arundel County Government Television.

This may be my last report and analysis of the SBNC—at least for 2008. With the coming SBNC hearings being heavily promoted and televised, I feel I can now comfortably fade out of the picture. One exception is if a major and unpublicized procedural issue arises. Another exception is my series of complaints and the SBNC's responses to those complaints filed with the Maryland Open Meetings Act Compliance Board. I may be one of the few people who consider such procedural issues a big deal; my hope is that those appointed to interpret and enforce the Open Meetings Act will take their responsibilities seriously.

March 19—Public notice of March 25 SBNC public meeting

On March 20 the SBNC sent out a press release announcing its next public meeting, scheduled for March 25. The website lists the date of the press release as March 19. Since SBNC’s bylaws state that public notice is to be sent out ten days before a public meeting, SBNC’s notice violated its own bylaws

Shortly before its March 25 meeting and in response to my complaint filed with Maryland’s Open Meetings Compliance Board, the SBNC posted the minutes of its two meetings held on January 23 and January 30. Both meetings were held in secret and in violation of Maryland’s Open Meetings Act. Prior to this posting, I was unaware that in fact two meetings were held illegally. The only Open Meetings Act violation I had known about was the January 23^rd meeting. The website with the posted minutes makes no mention that the two meetings were held illegally.

March 25—SBNC public Meeting

On March 25, the SBNC held a public meeting to receive public testimony from three invited panelists on the proper role and desirable skills of school board members.

Other than a reporter from the Capital, I was the only audience member from Anne Arundel County present. In addition, there were three individuals from another County who were curious about the SBNC method of nominating school board candidates. Senator Simonaire’s aide also attended.

The panelists were Kitty Blumsack with the Maryland Association of Boards of Education; Penny Cantwell with CommerceFirst Bank of Annapolis; and Dr. Pamela Brown, Executive Director of Leadership Anne Arundel. The latter two were clearly chosen to serve, in part, as ambassadors from the business community. In a press release after the meeting, the SBNC summarized the testimony as follows: “Four overarching points were constants in all the testimony given to the Commission regarding what to look for when attracting, reviewing, and selecting potential Board members for appointment: a commitment to serve; an ability to listen to all sides; strong interpersonal and analytical skills; and a recognition that the proper role of Board members is to focus on policy making and strategic planning not school system operations.” Then it added a fifth point: “Another important recommendation from the panel related to remaining cognizant of the role that the business community can play in the strengthening of not only the Board of Education, but the school system itself.”

I don’t disagree that all the points in the summary were made by the witnesses. But there is one major theme that doesn’t appear in the summary. That theme is that the SBNC wants to appoint someone with business credentials who can credibly talk the talk of efficiency and accountability. The panelists emphatically stated--if abstractly and without relation to anything in particular--that the public wants board members who will use public resources efficiently. Members of the SBNC strongly echoed this theme—again abstractly--during the question and answer time.

My guess is that the SBNC will go out of its way to appoint one or more nominees who can be presented to the public as having business skills. This makes political sense. The school board is facing a huge structural deficit. The insiders know that a tsunami of pain is heading in the direction of parents. They also know that to get a tax increase passed to address the expected pain, it will be necessary to create the impression that the school board runs a tight ship. By the time budget reality finally begins to kick in with the public during May and June (after the County Council refuses to fully fund the school system’s structural deficit), picking someone with business credentials should be politically popular with just about everybody.

Do business people make better school board members? It’s hard to really answer this question because very few accomplished business people run for school board seats. And those who do run, win, and attempt to apply their business acumen often quit after one term, disillusioned with the difficulty of making any meaningful changes in the system. This doesn’t mean that a lot of business people don’t run and win, often on a platform including vague language of accountability and efficient use of taxpayer resources. But how do they actually perform once in office? Does all their rhetoric translate into meaningful action?

In my experience, having observed business people on school boards in many different communities, the answer is surprisingly “no.” People with business credentials who run for the school board are usually smart enough to recognize that the only political payoff is to talk like a business person, not act like one. If not, it usually doesn’t take them long to learn better.

So if business people rarely choose to use the skills for which they are lauded, does that make them bad school board members? The question, then, largely becomes one of motives. My guess is that business people are no more likely than other board members—and perhaps less so--to deep down in their bones really care about education. Many are on the board primarily to create visibility for themselves, either because it helps their business or political careers. For example, the last thing a community bank wants is to have one of its executives stir up controversy. If that executive is visible in the community in an uncontroversial authoritative way, then great, it’s good for business; the business person cum school board member becomes a rainmaker. Similarly, a business person using the school board to launch a political career will have no interest in stirring up any hornet nests. If a school maintenance department is incompetent, if public school construction costs twice as much as in the private sector (and results in ugly, factorylike buildings that endure for decades), and if making commitments creating a long-term structural deficit won’t create a political backlash during their term of office, their political philosophy is most likely to be “let sleeping dogs lie.” Why follow their business principles if the only result will be to stir up trouble that cannot help them achieve their true ambitions?

In America, we have created school boards constituted by lay people. The American public deeply mistrusts experts as democratic representatives because it understands that all the expertise in the world is of no use if the expert has no incentive to use his expertise to represent the public interest. That’s why a passionate, committed mom often makes a better school board member than a business person.

King Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, once faced a dispute between two women who each claimed the same baby as her own. To resolve the dispute, King Solomon ruled that he would cut the baby in half and give half to each woman. One of the women then immediately cried that she would give up the child. King Solomon knew that that was the person who truly cared about the child and therefore must be the true mother. School board members are like the moms; they all profess from morning to night that concern for the kids is all that drives them. In my experience, the school board business person is much more likely to be the fake mom.

Along these lines, I thought it was humorous when the head of the administrators’ union asked the three panelists: if business skills are important in a school board member, then shouldn’t we get rid of the student member of the board? This was funny because, when someone is a school board member negotiating with the administrators’ union, one doesn’t think of the administrators’ union, to put it mildly, as representing business values. I will be curious to see if the administrators’ union, during the SBNC’s public hearings, asks any hard nosed business questions of the school board candidates. If they did, I would be frankly shocked.

Quite surprisingly, the union leader’s question turned the tide of the discussion on business skills. All three panelists jumped to the defense of student members of the board, arguing that a good board is made up of people with a diverse set of skills and interests and that, in their experience, student members of the board made valuable contributions to school boards and often more so than their adult counterparts. More generally, the panelists reiterated that diverse skills, not just business skills, should be valued in a board.

Near the end of the meeting, SBNC’s Chair asked if there were any questions from the audience. I raised my hand and observed that the SBNC had violated its own bylaws when it sent out its notice for this meeting less than the 10 days required in its bylaws. I then asked how the SBNC would respond to this violation and if there was any penalty when the Chair violated the SBNC’s bylaws? The Chair responded that he simply does the best he can and there is no penalty when the bylaws are violated. I thought that, under the circumstances, this was a good answer. But it was alarming that not a single member of the SBNC said they were in any way upset by the violation and would try to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again.

My overall assessment, admittedly a cynical one, is that what the members of the SBNC got from this meeting is a set of vocabulary to describe how they should frame their final selection criteria. The words used at this hearing will be the types of words they will use to justify their final decisions to the public. But these words will mostly be make-believe; they will have little or no relationship to the negotiation of interests that will go on in the backrooms.

Corresponding to the make-believe aspect of the meeting, the elephant in the room during the discussion was the importance of political skills in a school board member. Nobody mentioned the importance of such skills. It never came up. But from my observations and from having read quite a bit about school board politics, political skills are essential in a school board member. There is an incredible amount of make-believe that goes along with being a successful school board member. Indeed, sometimes I think that, like the famous tale of the emperor’s clothes, the most important skill in a school board member is to regress to first grade math skills so as to avoid having to acknowledge the budget math self-evident even to simpletons. Perhaps in this deeper sense the political values reflected in this meeting, though never openly stated, reflected the true skills that go into becoming a successful school board member.

April 2—School Board Vote on HB1607 and Senate hearing on HB1607

On the morning of April 2, the school board voted unanimously (8-0) that the student member should be paid the same as the other members of the School Board. School Board member Mike Leahy then went to the same day Senate hearing on HB1607 and reported the result of the School Board’s vote. This apparently caused Anne Arundel County Delegation Chair Maryann Love and House Speaker Mike Busch to be furious. They were caught totally unprepared by both the School Board’s vote and Mike Leahy’s testimony reporting it. In the end, however, the School Board vote made no difference. On April 5, late in the night and only minutes before the end of the General Assembly’s session for 2008, the bill sailed through the Senate without amendments and ready for the Governor’s signature.

Why the hectic rush near the end of the session? One classic reason to rush last minute business is to make sure that opponents don’t have time to mobilize. In this case, however, there was an additional reason. The legislation setting up the SBNC had flaws that needed to be fixed. The SBNC needed official staff support, and the original version of the bill failed to provide that. Incumbent school board members also wanted to be paid as much as the school board members appointed under the new system. Thus, if the only practical choice was the bill as it existed or the status quo, the choice was easy. The bill was an improvement over the status quo with or without the provision to turn the student member of the board into a second class member of the Board. By waiting until the last possible moment, the option set was restricted to just two choices, and that rendered the School Board’s vote politically irrelevant. All this is Procedural Politics 101. But for those who don’t understand how the game is played, it can be useful to point out.

April 2 –Press release announcing 21 applicants for open seats

On April 2, the SBNC announced that 21 applicants had applied for the two contested seats open this year. Why the huge number? I think the key was the Capital article published a few days previously announcing that no one other than Tricia Johnson, a current board member, had either applied or publicly announced their candidacy for the two positions. Consider this comment by one of the 21 applicants, Roberta L . (Kitty) St. Romain, in response to the question why she was interested in serving on the School Board: “I am interested in serving on the Board because I was horrified to learn that there were no applicants for positions that have the potential to positively influence the community.”

In politics, potential candidates are very sensitive to who else is or might run for the same office. Candidates then decide whether they have a chance of winning and act accordingly. In the great majority of elections, promising candidates announce early and scare off potential rivals who decide they have no chance of winning. In this case, a very unusual political dynamic was set up where all those who were considering running decided it wasn’t in their self-interest to publicly announce their candidacy.

On the question of the electoral rights of incumbent school board members, there was a lot of confusion (including by me) about what procedures incumbent school board members would have to follow in seeking reappointment to the Board. The statute wasn’t clearly drafted and so the SBNC didn’t know how to interpret it. Thus, it solicited the opinion of Maryland’s Attorney General. The consensus now appears to be that incumbent school board members will have to go through the SBNC process just like any other candidate. This corresponds to the process used by the previous School Board Nominating Convention and has been revealed to be the intent of those who drafted the statute. This issue now appears to be finally resolved.

April 7—Press release with updated count of applicants

In this press release, the SBNC announced that the number of applicants it previously announced had been “misreported.” No explanation was given for how the number could have been misreported. The new total number was 19. Subsequently, the number has dropped to 18. If the SBNC follows a vetting voting procedure, I think there is a good chance that the number of applicants will stay high. Otherwise, I expect it to drop considerably before the final vote is taken. Candidates who know that it is very unlikely that they will win won’t want to embarrass themselves unnecessarily.

April 6—Letter to Open Meetings Compliance Board explaining SBNC’s violation of the Open Meetings Act

In a letter dated April 6, the SBNC’s Chair responded to my March 6 complaint about its violation of the Open Meetings Act at its January 23^rd meeting. According to the law, the SBNC had 30 days to respond (the SBNC took 31). In practice, the Open Meetings Compliance Board uses 30 days plus the time a particular correspondence is in the mail. The SBNC letter acknowledged that it violated the January 23^rd meeting but didn’t mention either the existence of a January 30^th meeting or that it also violated the law by holding that meeting in secret. When I filed my original complaint in mid-February, I did not know about the existence of the January 30 meeting.

The gist of the SBNC Chair’s excuse for violating the law was that he was ignorant of it at the time of the violation and lacked staff support. My guess is that all these excuses are primarily for PR purposes. According to my understanding, ignorance of the Open Meetings Act—even if it were true--is not a valid excuse for public officials who violate it. The Open Meetings Compliance Board has no enforcement powers, just the power to rule whether the law was, in fact, violated, which means that the only true enforcement power is the court of public opinion. Thus, SBNC doesn’t really care about what the Open Meetings Compliance Board rules; what it cares about is how that ruling might be framed in the press.

April 10— Press release with changes to public hearing format

In a press release dated April 10, the SBNC announced it would drop television coverage of the second phase of its public hearings. Faced with the choice of dropping the broadcast of embarrassing testimonials to the entire County or changing its pre-announced format for its second phase of public hearings, the SBNC has decided to do the former rather than the latter. I am frankly torn by this decision. On the one hand, I thought the format for the second phase of public hearings was subject to abuse (see my last post before the March 25 public meeting), with the greatest potential harm done if it was televised. On the other hand, television is one of the few meaningful ways to make the Commission democratically accountable. Televised debate formats that allow for audience give-and-take are very popular and informative (think of the CNN presidential debate with the Youtube questions and talking snowman).

My overall philosophy about the SBNC is that whether it is a poorly designed democratic institution or not doesn’t matter that much if it is exposed to enough sunlight. Sunlight will disinfect the SBNC’s undemocratic propensities. And I believe that TV coverage and accessible records could provide a good measure of that disinfectant. Thus, when TV coverage and record keeping is made impractical, the SBNC is weakened as a democratic institution.

The SBNC might argue publicly that cost was the reason for dropping TV coverage of the second phase of the public hearings. But I don't buy that because the TV infrastructure is already available in the County Council chamber, and coverage of public candidate debates is one of the highest and best uses of this infrastructure. In Vermont, where I originally came from, volunteers would televise such debates in political districts one fiftieth the size of Anne Arundel County. The broadcasts would then be preserved and become part of the public record.

The SBNC could yet change its mind. It could come out and say it was able to find the resources to cover the second phase of its hearings. But it’s my educated guess that this is not how it’s going to play out.

Conclusion

Despite all my criticisms—and perhaps in part because of them—the SBNC is off to a pretty good start. I believe it is struggling with its natural undemocratic tendencies and discovering that to preserve its good name it will not only have to spout democratic rhetoric but actually take steps to live up to it. I am frankly quite curious to find out whether this will, in fact, be the case.

School board wants equal pay for student

2008-04-03T09:23:00.000-05:00

Publication: Capital
Title: School board wants equal pay for student;Unanimous vote supports $6,000 paycheck for teen member
By: Elisabeth Hulette
Date: April 3, 2008

The county Board of Education agrees its one student member is equal to her adult counterparts and should be treated and paid equally. The members even voted yesterday - unanimously, 8-0 - to say so.

The vote was spurred by discussion of a state bill that gives adult board members their expected raise earlier than planned. But the bill also would keep the student member working for a lower salary than the adult board members.... (click title for full article)

Two school board openings, no candidates

2008-03-27T09:29:00.000-05:00

Publication: The Capital
Title: Two school board openings, no candidates; Tuesday deadline approaching
By: Erin Cox
Date: March 27, 2008

Wanted: school board members.

Must have ample free time, business acumen, public relations skills, no special-interest agenda and work well with others. Apply immediately. To repeat: immediately.

Less than a week remains before the application deadline for two spots on the county's Board of Education. Zero applications have been submitted.... (click on the title for the rest of the article)