3 ms·

Just get rid of school boards altogether. Here in Canada we only have 5 ballot questions across our 3 elections: Federal representative Provincial representa

by Pxtl 5y ago

Just get rid of school boards altogether. Here in Canada we only have 5 ballot questions across our 3 elections: Federal representative Provincial representative Municipal representative Mayor School board trustee. The PM? Head of the party with the most seats. Same with provincial premiere. Judges, crown attorneys, controllers, senators, the governor general, etc? Those are all appointed by our elected representatives. A central ethos of Canadian governance is that our representatives are there to make decisions and bouncing questions to the public is a tool of last resort. With that on mind, why the hell do we have elected school boards? We have a provincial ministry that runs education. We have municipalities that manage land-use. Voters are basically flying blind in trustee elections. There are no debates, no media coverage, no political parties, just a list of names. If they don't happen by your doorstep, you don't get to know who these people are... And even if they do, you've only got their word to go on. Ax this anachronistic institution and let the education policy professionals within the state/provincial government and school boards do their jobs.

askvictor 5y ago
In Australia the only elections regarding school are for the parent representatives on school council, which is local to an individual school, and sets some amount of strategic direction, but overall, doesn't do a lot. Curriculum & testing decisions are made by politicians and bureaucrats at the state or federal level. We also don't elect judges, DAs, etc. We just elect politicians; they are ultimately responsible for making sure their respective public servants are doing the will of the people. You could argue the US system is more democratic, and yet most such systems in the US seem to be broken (from an outside perspective), while here they are not (there are certainly problems mind you). Any perspective how these things work in countries that have a well-regarded, high performing education system, like Finland (apart from having well-trained, highly regarded, and highly trained teachers with a large degree of autonomy)?

by Pxtl 5y ago

askvictor 5y ago

In Australia the only elections regarding school are for the parent representatives on school council, which is local to an individual school, and sets some amount of strategic direction, but overall, doesn't do a lot. Curriculum & testing decisions are made by politicians and bureaucrats at the state or federal level. We also don't elect judges, DAs, etc. We just elect politicians; they are ultimately responsible for making sure their respective public servants are doing the will of the people. You could argue the US system is more democratic, and yet most such systems in the US seem to be broken (from an outside perspective), while here they are not (there are certainly problems mind you). Any perspective how these things work in countries that have a well-regarded, high performing education system, like Finland (apart from having well-trained, highly regarded, and highly trained teachers with a large degree of autonomy)?