School Board should keep focus on improving education
By Bill Settlemyer
Last week, The Post and Courier delivered one of the most hard-hitting editorials I’ve seen on its pages in a long time.
The topic was the damage done by Arthur Ravenel’s behavior in April in his capacity as a member of the Charleston County School Board. Relying upon public documents posted on the paper’s Web site, the editorial made a strong case for Ravenel to issue a clear public apology for his unseemly confrontation with Superintendent Nancy McGinley and her staff.
The editorial also supported a revision to the school board’s code of ethics proposed by Gregg Meyers that could lead to the removal of a board member for failure to meet reasonable standards of civility. Finally, the question was posed as to whether Ravenel should consider resigning from the board.
I’ll start by adding a loud “Amen!” to the P&C’s stance and giving them credit for posting the official documents regarding Ravenel’s conduct for anyone to view online.
A long, sad story
Those who’ve lived in the region for a quarter-century, as I have, are familiar with the long, sad story of intimidation and micromanaging by Charleston County School Board members over many years. Newcomers need to understand the history and the implications for public education and the region’s economic development.
It’s pretty much accepted that the passage of federal civil rights legislation in the 1960s cost the Democratic Party dearly in the American South. Racism and discrimination don’t die easily, here or anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, some people are still fighting old battles and holding back progress in the South and in South Carolina.
White flight from this area’s public schools occurred decades ago, and much of the region’s elite (not all white, by the way) send their children to private schools. They have every right to do so, and to suggest that these parents’ decisions are simply, or even primarily, related to race would be totally unfair.
But an associated legacy of this shift is the history of the Charleston County School Board as a haven for enemies of public education. Some board members did everything they could to cripple the school district, including blocking all efforts to fund maintenance of the district’s physical facilities, letting them crumble and making the decline of the schools a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back then, micromanagement was the order of the day, with board members showing up at district offices to personally intervene in matters that belonged under the authority of the superintendent. One superintendent was bullied so mercilessly that he basically closed his door and stayed in his office until his four-year contract was up, at which point he left and retired.
A better day?
Things are better today, but the risk of backsliding is always present (you know, sort of like the risk that Iraq will return to chaos and violence). As with physicians, the first rule of conduct for school board members should be “do no harm,” and the second rule should be that they must be focused totally on working collaboratively with other board members and the superintendent to make our schools better.
Unfortunately, Ravenel’s behavior was a disturbing throwback to the “bad old days.” It is a credit to McGinley that she responded quickly, forcefully and professionally to his conduct.
Those of us who really care about public education know that we have a strong, highly qualified superintendent who wants to remain here but who easily could find a position elsewhere in a leading school district anywhere in the country.
The majority of the school board members have the right attitude about their roles and how they should conduct themselves as elected public servants. The best indicator of that is how rarely they make headlines. Successful school districts typically have boards that avoid controversy and support their superintendents. That’s what we need in Charleston County.
Last week, board member Brian Moody announced he would not run for another term and endorsed Chris Fraser to run for his position on the board. Moody has done a great job and Fraser would be a great replacement. I haven’t always agreed with every position taken by Moody and probably have different views on some issues of interest to Fraser, but that’s not the point. Having different views is OK as long as you conduct yourself responsibly as a board member and are truly committed to improving public education.
And in conclusion…
I’d like to close by returning to my comments about the racial roots of turmoil in the management and funding of public education in our region.
First, race is still a factor, and that’s the bad news. Second, things really are better than they were. We have some outstanding schools in Charleston County, such as the nationally recognized Academic Magnet High School. And although the area has some outstanding private schools, I’ve had more than a few parents tell me that they moved their children from a private school to a pubic school and found the public school to be the better choice academically and otherwise.
Forces are at work in this region and the state that are antagonistic to public education.
Those forces remain a barrier to progress and help explain why incomes in South Carolina are well below the national average.
But the good news is that enlightened civic and business leaders of all races from across the state continue to fight the good fight to educate all of our children and give them the opportunity to succeed in life.
With regard to the recent incident involving Ravenel’s conduct as a school board member, it’s clear that it would be in the community’s best interest for him to voluntarily resign, and for the board to enact Meyers’ proposed amendment to the board’s code of ethics.
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