Bad politics get in way of good educational policies

We all watched in horror last year as Clayton County became the second school system in the nation in 40 years to lose accreditation.

Hundreds of high school juniors and seniors faced the possibility that their high school diploma would not be accepted by their college of choice. Georgia got a black eye in the national media. And legally, the state was powerless to step in.

This year Georgia lawmakers had the power to change all that —- but didn’t.

At the request of the State Board of Education, dozens of business and community leaders formed the Commission for School Board Excellence and spent 10 months working on a common-sense bill to reform school board governance in Georgia.

Our recommendations were straightforward: require ethics and enhanced training for board members; clarify the roles and responsibilities of the board and superintendents; and allow temporary state intervention for failing school systems.

So many people devoted time, energy and effort to this legislation that in the end, there were no real disagreements. Gov. Sonny Perdue even introduced the bill as his own.

Unfortunately, this well-written, badly needed bill got caught up in politics.

Even though the bill was co-signed by Senate leaders, had already passed the full Senate, and had passed the House education committee, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Earl Ehrhart, refused to allow a House vote. Then the leadership did nothing to intervene.

Why?

Not because of any high-minded debate about the bill’s content, but simply a matter of horse-trading politics at its worst.

By allowing petty politics to interfere with the passage of practical, common-sense legislation to improve school board governance, we are sending the wrong message at the wrong time about how seriously we want public education reform.

In this case, “business as usual” fails to meet the minimum standards that Georgia’s residents should expect from the people we elect. If you don’t believe us, ask the kids in Clayton schools.

The real disappointment here is that “Georgia could have been a model state for the nation when it comes to providing standards and accountability for school boards,” according to Mark Elgart, head of the body that accredits 90 percent of Georgia’s public schools.

Instead, he warns, a growing number of Georgia’s public school systems will continue to struggle to improve student achievement because of under-performing school boards. And we already know that Georgia ranks 47th in the nation on SAT scores.

For the best interest of our children, this should have been a slam dunk. How long will we let bad politics and self-serving politicians get in the way of good policies?

> John Rice is vice chairman of GE and co-chair of the Commission for School Board Excellence.