Nine Reasons for Partisan School Board Elections in Utah

BACKGROUND - Federal judge Clark Waddoups ruled in 2014 that our current method of selecting candidates for the Utah Board of Education is unconstitutional. So, this year our House and Senate need to establish a better method. Although we have tried various methods of naming our state board of education, Utah has never tried electing school board members by the same trusted method we use to elect our governor, legislators, county commissioners and sheriffs. This method allows each neighborhood in the state to elect delegates to intensively evaluate each candidate and vote, in their party conventions, to select the best nominee for their party. These highly qualified and popular candidates then run in the general election. 

REASON 1- Our school boards do not reflect the ideology of our people. In one of the most politically conservative states in the country, our state and local school boards are moderate to liberal. If you doubt this, just try to find one board which has passed a resolution opposing Utah’s adoption of national common core English language and math standards. Or, find one board which does not advocate raising state taxes to fund education at a higher level.

Current school boards in Utah are dominated by Democrat-leaning members. I see that from the inside as a recent county school board member. The legislative voting report card of the Utah School Boards Association (USBA) plainly shows that Democrats support USBA’s preferred bills much more than conservative Republicans do. That will not happen when school board candidates are chosen by our party delegates.

This bill will give our public education system the benefit of a republic. That is the process by which citizens choose well qualified and well informed representatives to make important decisions for them. It is a republican process to elect our most trusted neighbors in party caucuses to vet our candidates in their conventions. 

Partisan elections will empower locally elected neighborhood delegates to choose school board candidates with the same values as the candidates they choose for other offices.  

REASON 2 – Utah voters are less informed about school board candidates and issues than about any other race, except, possibly, judicial retention and mosquito abatement districts. This is in spite of the fact that most people consider public education to be among the highest priorities for government attention. Just think how many times you have stood at the voting machine and said to yourself, as you near the end of the ballot, ”School Board? I have no idea who these people are or what they stand for!” 

Yet school districts control the spending of four times the tax money of county governments. The state board of education oversees 28% of state spending in addition to overseeing all school districts’ spending. That is a lot of control of government resources with very limited electoral oversight.

Thousands of well-informed locally elected delegates returning home from their nominating conventions will do a lot to inform their neighbors about school board candidates and issues while selecting better candidates for the ballot. Also party funds given to help the campaigns of party candidates will do a lot to better inform the voters at large about the important issues facing school board members.

REASON 3 – Advocates of non-partisan school board elections argue that we need to keep politics out of the schools.  Yet our state and local school board elections are already fraught with politically charged rhetoric. Only the party labels are missing. Current education insiders take advantage of their political organization and use our school infrastructure to lobby teachers, students and parents. However, those with different opinions have not even so much as a party organization to help them get their message out to voters. 

Some may worry that partisan elections will result in political indoctrination of our children in school. I would be naive to believe that would never happen, because it happens now with our current one-party system. Do you wonder why our children celebrate earth day and multi-culturalism while graduating with the belief that socialism is good, homosexual marriage is fine and big government can solve all our problems if we just give it enough money? I’ll tell you why. They are already being politically indoctrinated, but not with the principles of their parents. At least partisan school board elections will encourage the teaching of the principles of the majority. 

Politics (ideologies) are already present in our school board elections. Partisan elections will only level the playing field and give equal opportunity to competing voices. 

REASON 4 - Ever since George Washington advised Americans to avoid political parties, we have instinctively felt political parties are harmful. And why not? Of course we always fear and dislike the opposing parties. We are even disappointed with the positions of some in our own party.  On the surface we may think we do not like political parties, but deeper consideration reveals that our political system benefits from party organization and the information parties make available to voters. Government policy and candidate qualifications are highly complex matters which are difficult for typical voters to decide on. The platforms of principles which parties adopt help voters more easily decide which candidates they will support. 

Most legislators have heard requests from constituents for help correcting a problem which is really the responsibility of a local school board or even the state board. They surely have asked themselves why citizens come to them instead of addressing the more appropriate elected official? I think you’ll agree it is because elected school board members are not as well-known as legislators. But they should be and could be. If they were elected by the same robust process as legislators they would be as well-known and would be held as accountable as legislators.

Just as partisan elections produce well-screened, qualified and popular legislators, governors, sheriffs etc. who are held accountable to voters, so also would they produce similar board of education members. 

PARTISAN is not a four-letter word.

REASON 5 - For decades the Utah legislature and the state board of education have been at loggerheads over how to approach public education. The state board has blamed the legislature for micromanaging education and failing to adequately fund education. On the other hand the legislature has accused the state board of not implementing the real intent of some education legislation. This finger pointing and lack of trust has certainly obstructed the improvement Utah might otherwise have made in education. 

The best way to resolve this problem is to make the state board of education accountable to the same party delegates as the legislature is. When both are held to the same standard, they will more likely pursue the same goals and work together in synergy to provide outstanding public education.

REASON  6 – Some will argue that it is dangerous to let party delegates choose school board candidates in convention. This because public education establishment powers (teachers union, PTA and administrators) will become energized to influence caucus outcomes and begin also to influence current partisan elections like legislators and state executives. 

This cannot rationally happen. The forces of the education establishment represent less than 1% of the electorate. They have been working their hearts out for years attempting to influence our caucuses. They cannot possibly get more involved. They do not have more money to fund such an effort. The more active they try to become, the more clearly they reveal themselves for the progressives they are. The caucus attenders of Utah will not support more progressive delegates. 

This argument is a red herring.

REASON 7 – Some may argue that school districts are small enough that party involvement is unnecessary for candidates to get their message out to voters. I’ll grant that local school board elections may work as non-partisan elections in very small districts just as in smaller municipalities. But state school board districts are twice as large as state senate districts and many local school board districts are larger than House districts. There, more than ever, we need delegates to dig into candidate qualifications and principles for us so we have the best possible candidates to choose from in the general election.

Other states, such as Indiana, have conducted partisan local school board elections for decades. Their education systems are not corrupted or degraded by such elections even in the smallest school districts.

REASON 8 – It is extremely expensive to conduct a direct primary election campaign in a large voting district. State school board districts represent some 200,000 Utahns. In such large districts, communicating anything but a candidate name to that many voters is prohibitively costly to all but the wealthy elite. We should not adopt direct primary elections because voters should have the opportunity to elect any well-qualified candidate they support, not only members of the wealthy aristocracy or those whom they financially support.  Partisan elections are either far less expensive or they provide a broader base of financial support to candidates.

REASON 9 - Public schools always tell us that parental involvement in the education of children is essential to their success. I believe this is true. So consider the impact on parental involvement in education decision making when the following happen with partisan school board elections at state and local levels:

     - Every two years more than 8,000 state and county delegates from every corner of Utah take their responsibility seriously and carefully research the qualifications and principles of local and state school board candidates.

     - Delegates then gather in conventions and share ideas with each other about public education policies and results.

     - Then delegates return home where they discuss with their neighbors and family members what they learned and what they think about candidates and education issues.

     - Over a ten-year period, with many citizens taking their turn serving as party delegates, many more Utahns will have experience intensively vetting school board candidates.

This is a formula for substantially more informed voting in school board elections as well as more parental involvement in local schools.

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Why is my voice worth listening to? I just finished a four-year term as a member of the Davis School Board. 2015 will be my sixth legislative session serving as a full-time unpaid volunteer citizen lobbyist. I am also finishing my fourth year as an elected member of the Republican State Central Committee. I teach “The History of the Philosophy of Education” at George Wythe University in Salt Lake City. And finally, because I love our constitutional republic, I served over 21 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1997.