Once again, Ted and Mary Ann vote against the wishes of their constituents in favor of whatever the governor wants. How could they possibly be against the people who live in the district and send their children to schools in the district having a say in who represents them on the school board? What possible logic could be behind that thinking? None - no logic and no thinking.

Come on people this is as bad as announcing that the white house is going to add a Priest, a Rabbi and a minister torun the Welfare Depart,ment. Has America sunk this low to beging to imitate the idiot in the white house

Two issues with this story: 1. sending a bill to committee is not the end of the road. it is the very beginning. hundreds and hundreds of bills die in committee before getting a vote in the house or senate. This bill is in its earliest stages and being introduced surely does not assure passage. I believe this topic has been in cmte in previous sessions. 2. the governor doesn't select the board members, he appoints them. In Anne Arundel County, they are selected by the School Board Nominating Commission, a panel of educators and parents who interview/vet the candidates, then send up to the governor for appointment. They usually send two candidates. They are non-partisan and the last person O'Malley (D) appointed was a Republican from Severna Park. The only time the commission's choice was not selected was when Ehrlich (R) stepped outside the process to appoint Vic Bernson (R), an attorney in the Bush White House. The reasoning against (not saying I am for or against, just saying the reason) electing a Board of Ed is that in places where it is an elected position, people just use it as a stepping stone to higher office. The commission hopefully selects someone with an interest in educational issues.

In this state only 4 counties have fully governor appointed school boards - Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Baltimore City & Wicomico County! 4 of 24! 18 counties have fully elected school boards - 2 have hybrid. 20 of 24 counties in this state have majority elected school boards. 94.5% of all school boards in the country are elected or partially elected. Of those that are appointed; the appointed boards are only for “large, urban (and often troubled) school districts. It is highly unusual for a suburban and rural jurisdiction with a good school system (like Anne Arundel County) to have an appointed school board.” from the National School Board Association.

You may also be curious to know, Baltimore County has similar legislation to bring an elected or hybrid school board to Baltimore County Public Schools. Their charge is led by the Democrats in Baltimore County, with bipartisan support. This issue knows NO party lines! Politics does not belong in our schools, PERIOD! It is easy to look at AACPS on a macro level and think why fix what isn’t broken; however, when you talk to the teachers, principals, parents and even students; the front lines – who are living and breathing the decisions that are being made- WE HEAR AND SEE JUST HOW BROKEN THEY ARE! The only way to ENACT change in our school board is through elected, accountable reprsentation.

You may also be curious to know, Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent, Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO (Superintendent) are the HIGHEST paid superintendents in the State - all appointed school boards! Montgomery County & PG County are the 2 largest school systems in the state (fully elected school boards) - yet their superintendents make less - at $250,000 each.

While I disagree with the tone of an earlier commenter, suggesting that an appointed school board is better, the earlier comments about the possibility of this dying in another committee are spot on. If you believe in democracy, if you want to see this bill pass, if you want our children to have a better school board that reflects the values of ALL the citizens of Anne Arundel County, I encourage you to email Speaker Busch and ask him to let this bill get to the House floor for a vote. Email him at: michael.busch@house.state.md.us

Wow Julie! You go girl. Glad you are on the same side I am. Our school board and the superintendent are so tight with one another you'd think they were cut from the same mold. To use another analogy, it's like the fox watching the hen house. Now they also have complete control of the Citizen's Advisory Committee.

Beware of another piece of legislation coming down the pike....the counties will be given authority to raise taxes - for the school board - by exceeding the tax cap on our property taxes. This is our state legislators giving some of the counties (Anne Arundel included in this) permission to step over a county mandated tax cap that's been in place for over 20 years. In other words the county council will not have to dirty their hands by raising our taxes in order to fund the Governor's initiative that the counties take over funding the teacher's pensions.

The only way the citizens of AACO will have control of their schools and the tax money collected to run them is to have a 100% elected school board. It is absurd to have the Governor appoint a member who is nominated by from a School Board Nominating Commission. All members should be elected and accountable to the citizens of the County. This way if they do something we don't like we can replace them at the next election. They should not be accountable, in any way to the Governor, County Executive or the Superintendent. They alone are responsible for the education of the children and their accountability must be to the parents and citizens. The Superintendent works for them, not the other way around.

Agree with your assessment, Jim Davis. Additionally the school board should have taxing authority, thereby making them completely accountable to the citizens. That's also the only way to keep the accountability factor away from the county executive and the county council. Disassociation.

Again, thank you Patch for covering this topic. The school system in any county is about 50% of the entire budget for that county. For Anne Arundel, this means our all appointed board solicits and controls about $950 million of our tax dollars. For those that contend that appointed boards are less political - attend one of ours, next one Wed March 21st, 7 pm at the Riva offices or on Comcast ch 96 or Verizon ch 36. Politics is part of any body that touches public monies. Thank you Julie for all your hard work too...with more to come.

I think it is FANTASTIC that there are so many people replying to this blog. That means people are paying attention to what is going on. If we leave it up to O'Malley Miller & Busch, the Md. Gazette and the Sun Paper, we'd never know what was going on, cause they don't want us to know. Keep up the good work people.

Jim Davis - I have to tell you that the selection of our school board is not part of the county charter but the Annotated Code of Maryland - every county is included in this charter. The tax cap is proposed to be lifted by the legislators only because the governor wants to push the funding of pensions onto the counties because he hasn't funded them since he's been in office. I'll tell you that the bill is in the tens of millions for the first year and more in the second year.

Hey Joselyn P-M, what the @#%! Are you doing. How can you NOT support this?

I see what you are saying, I think I'm for a hybrid board. I've seen what happens (in NC) when you have an all elected board. The board hijacked the schools and turned back the clock. They changed the standard of school back to segregation. We the people need to have a voice, and strong voice, but sometimes we need to be kicked over the ideological hump of our own prejudice. A hybrid board would hopefully give a more diverse group that will lead us to a better tomorrow. I know that's a bit sunshine and butterflies but we have to think that those people who are trying to run the schools have the best for the schools/students at heart. I know I'm deluding myself but if we expect the worse then we get the worst.

While I respect the concerns about educating all our children equally and placing them all on equal footing, I don't agree with the slippery slope argument that an elected school board can "turn back the clock," especially in a State like Maryland. Maryland is not North Carolina.

I also have a hard time agreeing that a school board with no accountability to the electorate is an acceptable way of managing public education.

Eighteen (18) out of twenty-four (24) jurisdictions in Maryland have an elected school board. This includes, but is not limmited to Montgomery County and Prince George's County. Anne Arundel is in the minority when it comes to providing a democratically elected School Board.

Further, there are ways to make sure that, even in elected government, that all voices can be represented. It includes a combination of districting and at-large members.

Ultimately, the current system of selecting School Board members by an appointed committee of insiders goes against the fundamental values of a representative democracy. Frankly, since the School Board is allocated a significant portion of our tax dollars for its operating and capital budgets, the system in place is akin to taxation without representation.

We, the people of Anne Arundel County, deserve better.

Just to make you all aware - HB367 was Amended to a Hybrid School Board Bill - The Amended version is what was passed on Friday by the Delegation. The Amended Version calls for 3 Governor appointed members, 5 elected members (1 from each legislative district) & 1 student. The Amended Version of the Bill has not been posted to the General Assembly website yet.

A majority of the members will be elected to the school board!

I emailed Mr. Moynihan the Amended Bill language that I received from Del. Schuh. Hopefully it can be posted to this article. Also, WBAL TV covered this on the news Friday night! http://www.wbaltv.com/news/30648850/detail.html

Thanks, Julie. I looked at the original bill on the website and was confused. The amended bill sounds like a great start. However, it still needs to get out of committee. I would encourage anyone who supports an elected School Board to forward this article to your friends and neighbors, as well as County political organizations. Speaker Busch and Delegate Sheila Hixson (Chair of Ways and Means) need to hear that the community supports this bill to keep it from dying in committee.

The only way the citizens will have any say with the School Board is to have them elected. As has been pointed out they control half the AACO budget and under the present rules are accountable only to the Governor. However to really gain control of the schools we need to have a change in the structure of the Board itself. Having the Superintendent, who is an employee of the Board, and hired by them, occupy both the executive and treasurer positions makes it hard for the general members to control operations, budget and plans.

http://www.aacps.org/aacps/boe/board/newpolicy/Sections/section_200/policy201.01.pdf

Now that HB367 is going back to Ways and Means, it will be reviewed by the Education Subcommittee, of which AA Del. Ron George is on. We all need to contact the chair of this group, Del. Anne Kaiser from Mo Co, to encourage a favorable vote on it. There is only 4 wks left in session, and we don’t want it to die. Del. Kaiser’s contact info is: anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us, #410-841-3036.

Julie...thanks for the update. My note below:

Delegate Kaiser

I am a resident of Anne Arundel County and have been following progress on this bill. I believe the current method of Governor appointment for our county Board of Education minimizes my representation as a taxpayer in my county. I support the concept of the ‘Hybrid’ board and believe it to be a step forward. Please help by making sure this bill makes it out of the subcommittee and gets a chance before all Delegates!

Sincerely
Steve Anstett
Severna Park

Julie-

My thanks as well. For what it is worth, I forwarded the link to this article to a number of political organizations in Anne Arundel County, both Democrat, Republican and even Green. Personally, I believe this is a bipartisan issue that everyone can support.

If anyone has contacts with any community groups, please forward this information along and encourage them to email their delegates and senators,Speaker Busch, and Dels. Hixson and Kaiser ASAP!

Please email michael.busch@house.state.md.us and anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us, to allow the Hybrid School Board proposal HB 367 to come to a vote in the House of Delegates. For too long has the School Board been unaccountable, please give AA County taxpayers the representation that is fairly ours.

Today, this very afternoon - Speaker Busch informed the House that NO LOCAL BILLS will move forward from Committees until he sees how people will vote on the Governor’s Budget Bill next week!!

Thus HB367 & others, along with all 24 other county’s bills are being held hostage!

That’s the update…we’re in a holding pattern…continued emails to Del. Kaiser and Speaker Busch…that’s all I can say at this point.

In addition to contacting Speaker Busch and Delegate Kaiser, I urge everyone to keep the momentum going on this issue. Anytime you see an article in the local media having anything to do about the school board and one of its nonsensical policies, respond. Write a letter to the editor why we need an elected school board. If House Bill 367 fails this term, then we need to keep the public educated so there is a better chance next year.