nwasianweekly.com
Dec. 16, 2006

Alan Sugiyama

Appointed School Board? Terrible idea

By Alan Sugiyama
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

As a former Seattle School Board member, I couldn’t help but read with interest the many articles and editorials that has appeared in our two daily newspapers concerning the need to appoint Seattle School Board members and to have former Mayor Norm Rice appointed as the new superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools. I don’t have any inside information about either of these issues; I just have the need to give you my observations on these two issues.

First of all, School Board members appointed by the mayor or anybody else for that matter is a bad idea. Who’s to say that the mayor, the business community or, heaven forbid, our two daily newspapers can pick “better people”? After all, two of the five current board members that people are questioning work for the mayor of Seattle. One of the board members whose praises are now being sung by the media was not endorsed by either of the daily newspapers when she ran for Seattle School Board last year. How quickly people change their minds about who’s good or bad.

The key factor in electing a School Board member and is that you get a vote, and if you don’t like the job he or she is doing, you can vote that person out four years later. Our political system and our country have been built on the promise that we will have representation of the people and for the people. Who would the “appointed” members represent? And if we didn’t like the job they were doing, how would we get rid of them?

Of all the elected positions we have in this country, School Board members must have the confidence of parents and community as a whole, and you don’t get that by appointing someone. You also hear that we can get “better people” to run for school boards if you drop the financial public disclosure requirement. What’s to hide? Candidates are asking us to trust them to make decisions for our most valuable resource, our children. So why would we trust them if they can’t fill out a simple disclosure form?

If people want to be secretive about their assets and can’t stand up to the rigors of a citywide election, I don’t want them representing me on a school board. We need to reject the silly notion that an appointed school board can do a better job than an elected board. It’s elitist and just wrong.

I have been asked at least 100 times: “What do you think about former Mayor Norm Rice being appointed superintendent of the Seattle schools?” I liked the idea at first, until I heard he wanted to be an interim superintendent for only one and a half years. There is absolutely no way that Rice or anybody else can make a difference in that short a time. Improving schools is a long-term and continuous process. Anything other than that is ridiculous and shows a total lack of understanding of the school district and school issues.

According to the newspapers, the mayor of Seattle put Rice’s name in without talking to the majority of the board members or including them in his ad hoc committee on education. When questioned why he didn’t talk to board members first, he said he couldn’t get in touch with all of them. In the eight years I was on the board, there was never a time that the mayor of Seattle could not reach at least a majority of School Board members within 24 hours. The School Board secretary always knows where the members are. The mayor and his advisers are seasoned veterans, and I find it hard to understand why they would release Rice’s name to the media. Perhaps they hoped that public opinion would force the board to accept his idea. This shows no respect at all to School Board members who, like it or not, were voted into office by the citizens of Seattle. School Board members have the authority to hire only one person, and that’s the superintendent. If anyone else wants to fulfill that function, they should run for the School Board. That’s what I did, and I had the chance to hire the late John Stanford.

Alan Sugiyama served on the Seattle School Board from 1989 to 1997. He is the executive director of the Center for Career Alternatives.

Send correspondence to:
Northwest Asian Weekly • P.O. Box 3468 • Seattle • WA  98114
Tel: 206.223.5559 •  Fax: 206.223.0626 • Email: info@nwasianweekly.com
Please bookmark this site: www.nwasianweekly.com.