Friday Interview: State Board of Education’s Role Dissected | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this political post CJ Staff, who is a contributor to the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

JLF education expert documents conflict between board leader, lawmakers

    RALEIGH Decisions from the State Board of Education affect every taxpayer, parent, and school-age child in North Carolina. Dr. Terry Stoops, John Locke Foundation director of research and education studies, discussed the state board's impact during an interview with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)

    Martinez: What does the state board do?

    Stoops: The State Board of Education essentially sets the policy for how public schools operate. They, in large part, determine how the money is spent, and they have a large part in directing how the Department of Public Instruction goes about their research and the various tasks that they have. So they are basically in charge of a large portion of the education policy that we have in North Carolina.

    Martinez: Are they [board members] elected or appointed?

    Stoops: They're appointed by the governor. It's a 13-member board with 11 appointed members. Eight of them represent different parts of the state, and three are basically at-large appointments. And they are appointed for eight years, and usually they're reappointed very easily.

    Martinez: Is it a nonpartisan organization?

    Stoops: It's supposed to be, and it's supposed to be representative of everyone in North Carolina. But typically it represents the viewpoints of the governor. I mean, after all, the governor appoints the members of the State Board of Education, so he or she is going to appoint members of the State Board of Education that have a consistent ideology and will carry out what the governor believes is in the best interest of our public schools.

    Martinez: Its current chairman is Bill Harrison, and ... a lot of the work, like a lot of groups like this, goes on behind the scenes. And most of us really have no idea what they do or how they impact us. However, Bill Harrison has more of a public profile than some other people on this type of board, and recently he has had some pretty public disagreements with the Republican leadership in the General Assembly. What's going on?

    Stoops: Bill Harrison doesn't like the budget by the House and the Senate, both of which are controlled by Republicans. He believes that our public schools need more money, so he has urged the General Assembly to reinstate expired taxes or find any sort of source of revenue that will give our public schools even more money to operate.

    Martinez: How long will Mr. Harrison be in charge of the board?

    Stoops: Typically, the chairs of the State Board of Education are appointed by the governor for their specific term. So, for example, if Gov. [Beverly] Perdue were to go for a second term, Bill Harrison would probably be the chair of the board. But now that she has decided not to run, we'll most likely have a different chair of the State Board of Education appointed by whoever the next governor is.

    Martinez: That issue, Bill Harrison's role -- because his term is expired right now -- the question is will he be reappointed. The state Senate leader, Phil Berger, Republican of Rockingham County, has weighed in on that. What did Sen. Berger say?

    Stoops: He said that Gov. Perdue is a lame-duck governor, and as such, that they are not going to actually confirm any of her appointments to the State Board of Education. All the appointments to the board must be confirmed by the General Assembly, but, in most cases, the General Assembly just confirms whoever the governor appoints without a hearing or a vetting of any type. So in the past it has been a formality, but now the confirmation power of the General Assembly is actually at issue.

    Martinez: How is that going over with Chairman Bill Harrison?

    Stoops: He's not very happy, and a lot of the Democrats, of course, aren't happy that these appointments are not going to be seated on the state Board of Education. But just from a purely policy standpoint, it's not going to make any difference. The State Board of Education is going to do the exact same thing without these individuals being appointed as it would with these individuals appointed.
Martinez: Really? Why is that? ... So the board makeup would not be different, or the policies would not be different, based on who wins that election [for governor]?

    Stoops: They will be different, but they will take time in order for the majority of appointments to be from that governor, whoever is appointed, because of the staggered terms of the members of the State Board of Education.

    Martinez: And they're long-term appointments as well.

    Stoops: That's exactly right.

    Martinez: Let's talk a little bit more about the power of the State Board of Education. Tell me how it relates to the superintendant of public instruction, which is an elected statewide office, and also the Department of Public Instruction, which is a massive state agency.

    Stoops: According to the Constitution, the Department of Public Instruction's superintendent is the secretary to the State Board of Education, so the superintendent really doesn't have much of a role on the State Board of Education. Basically, what happens is the board sets policy and charges the superintendent and the Department of Public Instruction to carry out that policy. So in a lot of ways, the board uses the Department of Public Instruction as, sort of, their on-the-ground outfit, basically going forward and ensuring that the board policy they set for how the money is spent and various other policies are done.

    Martinez: Terry, you mentioned that the current chairman, Bill Harrison, is an advocate for more funding, greater funding, for North Carolina's public schools. Are there other policy disagreements that you have with the Board of Education? Because I know that you don't agree that more money is the answer. You have, many times, spoken with us about the fact that there's no direct relationship between spending more per pupil, as it relates to better outcomes. But what else do you disagree with him on?

    Stoops: There are a few things. Charter school policy is a big one. They set charter school policy virtually unilaterally, and that policy is usually to the detriment of charter schools and to the advantage of traditional public schools. And, unfortunately, charter schools are not in a position to challenge many of these regulations. The state board has regulatory authority to do these types of things, but they don't really level the playing field for charter schools when it comes to the regulations that they need to abide by.

    Martinez: Why not? I mean, what would be the problem with offering more choices, presuming, as many people do, that a one-size-fits-all system can't possibly meet the needs of every child, every parent, every family?

    Stoops: Strangely enough, even though charter schools are public schools, the Department of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education don't really treat them like public schools. Instead, they treat them like private schools that they have to fund. And this is really the problem, and this is why there has been so much regulation that the board has passed, to the detriment of charter schools, because they are basically protecting the traditional public schools, and doing so by trying to handicap our charter schools.

    Martinez: That's really curious because, as you said, a charter school is just another form of a public school. So what is the issue then?

    Stoops: The issue really is about protecting traditional public schools. And, of course, the board doesn't like the fact that the state and school systems have to give money to charter schools who take kids out of the system and educate them -- much better than the traditional public schools, by the way. So I think that's really the big issue, and, unfortunately, we have a Board of Education right now that looks to protect the status quo.
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