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EDITORIAL
Our view: State school board has duty to bow to governor
Monday, April 21, 2008
What would be remarkable is if Susan Tave Zelman were not planning to quit her job.
The Columbus Dispatch reported last week that the embattled state superintendent is looking for a place to land and that a small group of state school board members are in private discussions with Gov. Ted Strickland about how to ease her out and choose a successor.
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The governor has been blunt that he doesn't have confidence in Ms. Zelman. In his State of the State speech this year, he said he wanted a cabinet member to be in charge of the state education department; he proposed demoting the state school board and Ms. Zelman to advisory posts. Then, in March, he publicly complained that Ms. Zelman is just a nuts-and-bolts person, not the "visionary" Ohio needs.
Some people think that Gov. Strickland did not consciously decide to attack Ms. Zelman that day. It's possible he spoke more freely than he intended. But the remarks caught people's eyes.
It's just not tolerable to have the governor and the head of K-12 education at war.
Even if Ms. Zelman doesn't think she's being treated fairly, she knows the situation. At her level, she's duty-bound to get out of the way if she doesn't have the governor's confidence, unless she thinks the governor is a threat to decent policy, which is a tough case to make.
Really, the only unresolved question is what's next, as in how is the next superintendent going to be chosen and to whom is he or she going to owe loyalty?
The state went through a similar row when Gov. Strickland decided he wanted Eric Fingerhut to be the chancellor of Ohio's colleges. The board of regents was in charge of that selection, and Mr. Fingerhut wasn't on its short list of candidates. The regents were not taking kindly to what some perceived as being dictated to.
In the end, though, they became as enamored of Mr. Fingerhut as the governor, and he was hired.
A year later, it's remarkable the things Mr. Fingerhut has been able to accomplish, pulling Ohio's colleges together, getting them to focus on specialties, establishing priorities and spelling out what initiatives will be financially supported and what will not.
Gov. Strickland is acutely motivated to see something as dramatic happen in primary and secondary education. He campaigned on a promise of fixing public schools in Ohio — specifically doing something about how they're funded. Here we are, 16 months into his term, and he has zippo influence over the bureaucracy that public schools report to and receive many of their marching orders from.
Mind you, the next state school superintendent is going to have a tougher job than Mr. Fingerhut's. Local school boards, all 600-plus of them, are harder to herd even than Ohio's colleges. And the constituencies that will have things to say — teachers' unions, charter schools, parents, seniors on fixed incomes — will be even more vocal than those who are invested in the direction of Ohio's colleges.
But Mr. Strickland is entitled to put forward his policies, and he shouldn't have to beg that his influence be respected at the education department, not if Ohio is to have a chance at dramatic progress. Yes, the elected state school board has its authority. And if it saw the governor as on the wrong track, it would have to stand up. But if wants to do the right thing, he has to be helped.
With the Fingerhut situation as a model, there's precedent for how the governor and a free-thinking, independent body can find common ground and act in the best interests of important institutions. That experience can — and must — be replicated.
