Local control of schools by residents in the area around neighborhood schools provides the most effective model for fair and equitable representation, collaboration with parents, and a hands-on approach to meeting the education needs of a community. With the broad diversity among students in California today, a “heavy-handed” administrative approach is not necessarily the best approach in a diverse society. Neither is this style inherent in our country’s founding documents.

Uniform academic standards are best met in various districts by a democratic collaborative administrative model that uses assessment of the needs, formulation of an action plan, and achieves success through an evaluation process that provides data, using statistics for the conclusions of needs met.

Is it necessary or fair for the state superintendent to reach into the purview of a district superintendent and use heavy-handed measures to discipline local school board members or teachers for perceived grievances? Guidelines for good administrative practices include the concept that every member in the educational hierarchy is a stake-holder, and efforts to use a collaborative model and mediation methods is best to serve everyone involved.

Is it a good idea that a state superintendent decide alone as to whether a district curriculum is correct, and if it is being taught according to his or her criteria? Is it right that one person, the state superintendent, could have the right under state law to withhold up to 2/3 of a district’s education funding if he or she decided a district was out of compliance? This is what is offered as the guideline under AB606 “The Education Tsar Bill” 2006.

Withholding school funding could cripple school districts, shut them down, and force many children to be left at home without supervision. This bill would chill free speech in local school boards, deprive parents and community members of fair representation on the local level, and undermine the system of Democracy as formulated in the founding documents of our Republic.

Rights under the Constitution inherently provide for the concept of participation in all aspects of society, especially areas concerning one’s own family members in health, education, and welfare. Usurpation of rights of parents and local community members is a dangerous underlying thread in the formation of this bill.