The Status Quo

 By Gretchen Garrity

The Springfield School Board, in a 4-3 vote on Tuesday night, voted against publicly supporting a bill that aims to bring more local control to school districts. 

You read that right.

The News-Leader's Claudette Riley does a nice job outlining the issue here, although she should have referred to Dr. Mary Byrne by her professional credentials. Dr. Byrne, who is referenced in the article has nearly 40 years experience as an educator from K-12 and post-secondary education. She deserves to be referred to properly.

Senate Bill 814 is designed to give local school districts more control over testing, sharing of testing results, and accrediting agencies. The full bill is here.

According to the News-Leader, "...the state board will not accredit the districts and will only be allowed to use test results to satisfy the federal law that mandates testing in certain grades and subject areas on an annual basis." Sounds reasonable.

Sen. Jill Carter

 While Springfield school board members acknowledge that the system is broken, the status quo was preserved as the board declined to show support for SB 814 or invite its sponsor Sen. Jill Carter, and educator Dr. Mary Byrne to speak on its behalf.

Dr. Mary Byrne

Board member Dr. Maryam Muhammadkhani's move to have the bill publicly supported by the school board ultimately highlighted the status quo positions of the four members who voted against it: board member and current candidate Danielle Kincaid, board member and current candidate Scott Crise, and board members Judy Brunner and Shurita Thomas-Tate.

Both Kincaid and Crise have been endorsed by the self-described "non-partisan" political action committee United Springfield. Ironically, it was Muhammadkhani who noticed the partisan manner of the "non-partisan" candidates/board members as they refused to meet with Carter and Byrne. As quoted in the News-Leader, she said, "I feel that we came together tonight, not in good faith, because if we wanted to come together and really give this a chance, we would have agreed to hear from the senator, let her make a case for her bill."

Kincaid paid lip service to bipartisanship, but in the end she felt it more important to let the hired school lobbyist provide direction. "I don't support or not support this bill," she was quoted as saying.

Crise likewise noted, "Things could be added to [the bill] we don't agree with so let's just let our lobbyist do their job and support it through the platform rather than specifically support this bill."

The outcome is that the Springfield Board of Education declined to hear from the bill's sponsor and a seasoned educator about returning some local control to their school district. Instead, they decided to rely on a hired hand to do their thinking for them.

Status quo candidates.