Numerous adjectives could describe the process by which local school board members are appointed in Maryland.
"Quirky" comes to mind.
But many citizens of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert and St. Mary's counties might add "unfair," "unrepresentative," "undemocratic," even "oppressive."
Proposed legislation from all four subdivisions would switch school board selection from appointive to elective. Anne Arundel's delegation to the General Assembly held a hearing on the matter last week and got an earful, mostly in favor of an elected board.
If two of the four districts switch to elections, half of Maryland's 24 districts will be tuned to the vox populi in school board selection. They'll be in vast company. According to the National School Boards Association, 97 percent of the nation's 13,300 local school boards are elected.
But people who have been promoting elected boards for years know frustration. Maryland's selection process is peculiar. In the big suburban counties, local nominating conventions or caucuses send a short list to the governor, who isn't required to choose from it. In some of the smaller counties, party central committees send nominations to the governor.
State senators like Maryland's process, unique among the 50 states, because they manipulate appointments behind the scenes. The governor gets to mess around in local school politics. Gov. William Donald Schaefer, ever unpredictable, seemed to take pleasure in passing over names submitted by earnest nominating conventions.
Superintendents also like appointed boards. Boards of education, of course, do many things, but in recent years they have had two functions that attract a good deal of public attention: They redistrict schools, and they hire and fire superintendents. (Anne Arundel's board has had an additional function much in the limelight: investigating school sex scandals.)
Most superintendents figure the known enemy is better than the unknown one. Had Baltimore County had an elected board during the turmoil of 1993 and early 1994, the controversial Stuart Berger might well have been replaced. Dr. Berger's predecessor, Robert Y. Dubel, kept a tight rein on his boards and never experienced a significant uprising.
Maryland school boards are unusual in another respect: Unlike 76 percent of the nation's boards, they have no taxing authority. They negotiate labor contracts, for example, then have to wait to see whether their councils, commissions and county executives will put up the funds to cover the commitment.
Former Baltimore County Executive Dennis F. Rasmussen is among those who have proposed doing away with the fiction that school boards are politically independent -- and giving the appointive power to the county executive. A similar proposal in Anne Arundel was attacked by the teachers union president last week as the equivalent of "giving the [U.S.] president the power to appoint members of Congress."
Susan Buswell, a former Howard County board member who heads the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, said she is much more concerned about county executive appointment of school board members than about the gradual trend toward elected boards.
"Maryland board members already have less autonomy than most board members across the nation," she said. "If we give appointive power to county executives, we'll reduce our level of autonomy even more seriously. It will be hard to get talented, dedicated people to serve on school boards."
As usual, Baltimore is a special case. In 1898, the city removed the Board of School Commissioners from ward politics -- board members were elected by the City Council, one to each ward -- and gave appointive power to the mayor, where it has resided for 97 years.
For much of the century, the board has been independent, its work important. The commissioners, for example, desegregated city schools before the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision.
But in the past two decades, there has been a power shift. State Education Department reformers are demanding changes, while, at the other extreme, school principals have more authority. Meanwhile, both Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and his predecessor, Mr. Schaefer, have called the shots on the hiring of superintendents and sometimes on other issues as well.
Former Mayor Clarence H. Du Burns is among those who have noted that the Board of School Commissioners is becoming impotent. Mr. Burns proposed abolishing it. Mr. Schmoke has suggested making it advisory.
The question remains: Which is more effective, the appointed or the elected board? Naturally, there have been numerous studies. A fair reading suggests it's a wash.
"In 20-plus years of watching, I'd say the method of appointment isn't what makes the difference," said Ms. Buswell of the school boards association. "I've seen good appointed boards and bad appointed boards. I've seen good elected boards and bad elected boards. I've seen appointed boards that were very political -- and vice versa. People think changing the method of appointment will solve their problems, but that's not going to happen."
Tuition milestone near
The Johns Hopkins University is on the brink of the $20,000 tuition. Its trustees voted this month to raise undergraduate tuition $950, to $19,750.
St. Mary's College in Southern Maryland, a public college with its own governing board, is raising tuition $500, to $4,500.
According to the Maryland Higher Education Commission, St. Mary's enrolls fewer non-Maryland students than any other public four-year campus: 224. The University of Maryland College Park has the most: 10,350, about a third of its total enrollment.