You'd never guess what today is. Unless you're an insider and already know, and would just as soon keep this editorial hidden at the breakfast table lest it encourage the Wrong Kind of People to vote.
Yes, it's Tuesday. And yes, it's September 16th. It's also World Ozone Day, or some such. And--we're not making this up--Collect Rocks Day. (What a wonderful world.)
But it's also, surprise, election day. Not capital-E Election Day, not the big one. This is that other election day. Yes, today's when a few voters will go to the polls in many school districts around the state to vote in school board races. Emphasis on a few.
Too many school boards tend to like it that way. The fewer people who vote, they figure, the better for incumbents. And also for any teachers' unions who might control them. If the public will just stay at home and keep out of this, the union bosses can quietly get their people to the polls and decide the elections. And why wouldn't the public stay at home? November is more'n a month away.
Some fliers sent, some phone calls discreetly made, may be enough to get The Right People to the polls. And the bosses of the teachers' unions will get their way without all that troublesome mess known as democracy.
But there's hope democracy may yet be revived in school elections. Early next year, when the Legislature meets again, it'll have yet another chance to stop this kind of manipulation--by requiring that school board elections be held on Election Day.
If voters can vote for president and governor and senator and congressman and mayor and state representative and dog catcher on the real Election Day, school districts should be able--indeed, they should be obliged--to elect the members of their school boards on that day, too.
Note to lawmakers: Let's change this soonest. Please. It's the right thing to do. Also the democratic thing.
Those who have followed the adventures--and misadventures--of Little Rock's school board will have acquired considerable respect for the incumbent up for re-election in Zone 5. Jody Carreiro has been a rock while others have been busy dashing themselves against the need to get the board in step with education reform, including the most promising one: finally, finally letting charter schools have a chance to improve the education of kids now stuck in failing schools.
Mr. Carreiro's opponent is something of an orator, but not about the need for real innovation--like school choice.
In Zone 1, another source of reason on the board--an all too rare sight--is asking to be re-elected, and needs to be.
This incumbent's name is Norma Jean Johnson, and she's opposed by a candidate who comes all too close to being just an echo of the worst kind of recalcitrance on the board, which in Little Rock has come to be personified by a rabble-rousing lawyer and demagogue who's made a career and fortune throwing stumbling blocks in the way of the school district's ever getting out of litigation and into something more constructive--like education.
Editorial on 09/16/2014