What the P & C Should Ask Board Candidates

Good spread in the Post and Courier in Sunday's edition; however, many questions asked of candidates were either inappropriate or inane. [See 9 Candidates Vying for 5 Seats as well as pages 6A-7A of the print edition; questions and answers do not seem to be on line]

Question 1: What grade would you give current schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley? Why? Unless the candidate has a history with McGinley, it's better not to answer this one. The question is designed to identify McGinley supporters.

Question 2: What should the board's role be when it comes to the superintendent (i.e. would you support a more hands-on board that is involved in the district's day-to-day operations or a policy-setting body that would set overall agendas for the superintendent to implement)? This is not an either-or situation. Most candidates realized that the answer must be somewhere in the middle. Poor question.

Question 3: Should the School Board set specific expectations for the school district in terms of measurable objectives, . . .? If not, why? If so, can you give specifics on the expectations you would set. . .? Any specific objectives must be in an area that the district can't fiddle. For example, SAT scores can be raised by discouraging weaker students from taking the test; graduation rates can be raised by ensuring that students graduate by their raising earned grades or disappear down the memory hole or are shunted into district-created charter schools that are off the books. Only tests that can't be locked in a closet overnight are eligible for consideration. Poorly-worded question. Who's going to support non-measurable objectives?

Question 4: Would you support increased funding for schools (i.e. a tax raise)? Why/why not? Another poorly thought-out question. It should be, Should the state legislature vote to increase the state sales tax? Would you lobby for that? Do you think Charleston gets its fair share based on the present formula? Would you be willing to lobby in Columbia to change that formula?

Question 5:Do you think public education is adequately funded in Charleston County? If so, why? If not, what should happen? Hello, here is a function of the state legislature again. Question is inappropriate as worded.

Question 6: For the past few years, the school board has directed officials to scrutinize and improve 10-percent spending annually. Are there any areas that should be off-limits, and are there any areas that the board should be digging into more deeply? Please provide examples. Of course, the question is written as though the board wants to increase spending by 10 percent annually; what the interlocutor meant was that the board hopes that 10-percent of the spending in the area scrutinized could be eliminated! The notion that just part of the budget should be scrutinized is rubbish on the face of it. Would you want a teacher to grade a student based on 10 percent of that student's grades? The question should have been, Are you in favor of annual zero-based budgeting? Are you in favor of posting district expenditures on line? Do you favor the board's scrutinizing 100 percent of the budget every year?

Question 7: Would you support giving new charter schools space in school district buildings? Why/why not? The premise is invalid. Why would they need to be "new"? What possible reason would there be for not doing so? Is there any underutilized or vacant building that a charter school would not want to use?

Question 8: What is the district doing or not doing for charter schools that you would like to see change? Should have been worded, Should the district's policy of deliberately sabotaging non-district created (for relatives of board members) charter schools be reversed? Should the school district employ relatives of board members as administrators in its charter schools?

Question 9: Under what conditions would you support closing, consolidating or restructuring schools in Charleston? One assumes he/she means in the entire school district--poor wording again. The question covers too many possibilities: what is "restructuring schools" anyway? Is that adding a new wing? Making it into a charter school? More fuzzy thinking.

Question 10: Which school board candidates are you going to vote for in this election? Say what you mean! Who's on your team? Do you want the way the present school board does business to stay the same or do you want a change in its relationship with 75 Calhoun?

Let's add the questions that should have been asked:

11. Are you willing to reverse the unwritten policy of always building schools much larger than the ones being replaced? If not, are you willing to vote against neighborhood schools so that constituents know where you stand?

12. Are you satisfied with the transparency of CCSD's multimillion-dollar building program in its contract negotiations and expenditures?

13. Are you willing to adopt the policy that no one who has ever set foot upon a Broad Foundation campus will ever again be employed by CCSD?

14. Are you willing to adopt a discipline policy that holds principals accountable for enforcement? Perhaps a cell-phone to each teacher & policy that, every time a principal sends a misbehaving student back to class with no action, that principal will have 24 hours to justify his or her behavior to a committee created by the school board or be publicly humiliated.

15. Are you willing to investigate the burgeoning busing in CCSD that involves moving non-magnet or non-NCLB transfers out of their attendance zones? Are you ready to determine if the hours, not to speak of the dollars, spent busing these transfers can be justified?

Oh, yes. I'm confident there are more questions out there.