Education Standards' Work on School Board Policy
School boards have long been a form of government most accessible and under the control of local communities. Recent changes undermine local control.
The Legislature and the Minnesota School Boards Association (the "MSBA," of St. Peter, MN) have implemented and promoted changes that reduce direct democracy and public transparency in most school boards' operations and policymaking, throughout the State.
The purpose of these initiatives was precisely that reduction direct democracy and transparency--as well as to increase the power of the state Commissioner of Education over local school boards.
The public of the local community are increasingly being seen as a nuisance, rather than those from whom education officials must earn approval.
Education Standards of America is providing the facts and helping school districts realize and resist the undermining of direct democracy and transparency--as part of efforts to improve education.
The Model 600-Series Policy from the MSBA
A significant amount of the role of MSBA in these anti-democractic changes that run against or over the rights of local communities is manifest in the 600-series policies.
Is your school board considering amendment of its 600-series policies or has it recently amended them?
The details are often subtle textual differences, but include what amount to:
- denying non-parents rights to engage the board,
- reducing the openness of curriculum selection and policymaking,
- reducing rights to examine instructional materials and petition against problematic materials,
- reducing parental notice requirements with respect to controversial ideology (such as teaching that all people are merely on a gender spectrum, that there is not scientific thing of absolute male or female).
Read more about the MSBA model policy changes, here.
Fundamentally, districts making these changes respond that there is still democractic functioning, that appointees from the public to committees that operate in closed meetings is similar to the public being able to go to regular school board meetings and view or participate in decision-making.
Education Standards .