Has the time come to abolish the State Board of Education? | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:  Andrew Dunn

Rarely has more attention been paid to education policy, here in North Carolina or around the country. It's worth spending some time on education governance, as well.

While policy outlines what and how schools should teach, governance outlines who gets to decide. Arguably, that's just as important — and in our state, it could use some work.

As it stands today, education governance in North Carolina is shared between three particular entities: a State Board of Education appointed by the governor, a Superintendent of Public Instruction elected statewide, and the General Assembly. 

They form a convoluted system that’s slow to change and not very responsive to the people of North Carolina.

We'll get into the nuts and bolts of why this is and why it matters in a minute. But the upshot is this: Under our current system, the people of North Carolina have little say in statewide education management. Voters can weigh in on the types of education laws they’d like to see — but have no real way to make sure they’re implemented properly.

Who's responsible for education in North Carolina

There have been minor tweaks along the way, but the main structure of education governance and policy has been relatively stable since the 1940s.

Local policy is set by county or city boards of education. All 100 counties have a school board, and so do 15 cities (like Chapel Hill, Mooresville, and Kannapolis). Under state law, these boards of education are responsible for:

• Operating individual schools and extracurricular activities

• Hiring and firing school teachers and personnel, including a district superintendent

• Creating a curriculum to meet the state's standard course of study for each grade level

• Implementing state laws regarding things like class sizes and school year calendars.

At the state level, though, the governance structure is more complicated. Three main entities have their hand in implementing education policy.

1) State Board of Education. The State Board of Education is made up of the lieutenant governor, state treasurer, and 11 people appointed by the governor. These board members serve eight-year terms, meaning it takes until the end of a governor’s second term until he or she can fully turn over the board.

The state board has the broadest general authority over education policy implementation, including the power to:

• Determine a "standard course of study" for each grade level

• Set content standards for each subject area

• Set graduation requirements

• Approve textbooks

North Carolina’s State Board of Education is required by the state constitution and dates back to 1868, when it was made up of only Council of State officials. The governor began appointing the majority of its members after a 1942 constitutional amendment.

2) Superintendent of Public Instruction. Every four years, the state of North Carolina elects a superintendent of public instruction, per the N.C. Constitution. The position also dates back to the 1868 constitution. The state superintendent is a member of the Council of State and leads the Department of Public Instruction. The superintendent is also the secretary and chief administrative officer of the State Board of Education.

Much like a local school district superintendent, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction presents reports and proposals to the State Board of Education. Other than that, though, there is very little statutory power in this position.

3) General Assembly. The state legislature has the highest authority when it comes to public education. The General Assembly can pass laws that the superintendent and State Board of Education have to implement. However, the General Assembly does not have the executive authority to implement its laws.

The problems with this form of governance

There are three main problems with the way North Carolina’s education governance is set up.

First, it vests a disproportionate amount of power in the State Board of Education, an unelected, unaccountable organization. Board members serve eight-year terms, meaning they will outlast any administration that appoints them. There’s no real way to hold board members accountable, even as a governor or legislature.

This is a big problem. Unlike most executive branch boards and commissions, the State Board of Education wields real power — and operates with a mind of its own.

Second, our education governance system discounts a statewide elected official, the Superintendent of Public Instruction. What is the point of going through the trouble of electing such a person if he or she has no real power? Why should an unelected board have this power instead?

And finally, the system of governance is designed to create pointless conflict between the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Functionally, the relationship between the state board and the superintendent is similar to that between local school boards and their superintendents. School boards set policy for their districts, and the superintendents are responsible for carrying them out.

But there's a key difference: Local school boards hire and fire their superintendents as they see fit. The state superintendent of public instruction is elected statewide. That creates an ongoing power struggle between constitutional offices, for no apparent reason.

Would House Bill 17 fix this?

A new bill that's close to a vote on the House floor seeks to fix these problems by making the State Board of Education elected directly by the people, rather than appointed by the governor. 

It's a fairly simple bill: If a constitutional amendment were to be approved by the people of North Carolina, State Board of Education members would be elected to four-year terms. The number of members would be equal to the number of U.S. House representatives the state is allotted, and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction would be the chair of the board.

This would be an improvement on the current method. It would make the State Board of Education directly accountable to the people of North Carolina, and take steps to right the relationship between the board and the superintendent.

However, it also creates other problems. Down-ballot races can already face issues with candidate quality. There’s no guarantee that voters will get enough information to make the right choices in these elections. It may be better to leave education accountability to higher-profile offices, where it’s easier for voters to make a clear choice.

Let's go further. Eliminate the State Board of Education.

So House Bill 17 likely doesn’t go far enough. I’m not convinced that the State Board of Education needs to remain intact at all, elected or otherwise.

State education boards have been around for so long that it’s hard to find any written rationale for why they’re important. In theory, a State Board of Education can insulate education policy from partisan politics and provide some stability from administration to administration.

In practice, though, these so-called benefits do not materialize. Education policy is inherently political; there’s no way to escape partisanship here, nor is there much reason to try. And “stable” can sometimes just be a nice way of saying “stuck in a rut.”

Implementing education policy feels much more like a core executive branch function best handled by a statewide elected official. Two better scenarios come to mind:

1. The governor directly appoints a cabinet-level education secretary, eliminating the Superintendent of Public Instruction

2. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is given much more latitude to implement education laws, putting the position on par with the state treasurer or secretary of state.

In both scenarios, a Board of Education could continue in a much more reduced role, perhaps more like the Board of Transportation’s relationship with the Department of Transportation. This would allow the public to still get a window into decision-making — the one big advantage the current system has.

Eliminating the State Board of Education would not be without precedent. Minnesota's legislature voted in 1998 to ax its education board through a bill signed by Republican Gov. Arne Carlson, transferring power to its state superintendent (a gubernatorial appointee). 

New Mexico did something similar in 2003, arguing that its state board of education was too large and cumbersome to effectively manage the school system. Empowering a cabinet-level superintendent to run the state education system "clearly sets public education as a priority ... while making the executive branch more directly responsible and accountable for the improved performance of our public schools," according to a legislative memo.

This seems right to me. In the long run, North Carolina is best served when the people who govern education policy are directly accountable to the people of the state. After more than 150 years, it seems like a State Board of Education isn’t the best way to handle it.