By: Howard on 1/18/10


Chris,

There are very few deeds that I respect as much as those in which people are willing to put their money where their mouths are. On behalf of Rochester City School District students and parents, and the citizens of Rochester in general --- thank you for the commitment expressed above.

I can’t help but wonder if (after we collectively defeat Duffy’s attempted coup) --- you would you be willing to consider committing at least some of the “tens-of-thousands,” which I predict, in the end, will not be necessary to spend via a lawsuit --- toward organized efforts aimed at fundamentally reforming the local political system --- relative to moving away from partisan Rochester Board of Education elections, as well as perhaps pushing, for example, some of the other ideas that are discussed in the recent, profound City Newspaper article by Dr. William Cala, in which he complimented your co-publisher, Mr. Aaron Wicks regarding the latter’s recent, historical chronology of Duffy’s flip-flopping and “ducking and dodging” (to say the least) --- concerning the critical issue of mayoral control of the Rochester City School District?

Howard J. Eagle

By: tfb on 1/20/10
I have long been an advocate of nonpartisan board elections. I operated in such a system in the suburbs.

For a decade, from 1971 to 1981, the city elected board members by a nonpartisan system. We went to such a system for less than noble reasons. In 1971 Rochester was still a two party competitive city. In fact, Republicans had control of city council. But school integration issues were a divisive force in both parties, and the county chairs of both parties (William Dwyer and Bob Quigley) got together and got a bill out of Albany to go to nonpartisan elections.

By the 1980s, Democrats dominated the city safely enough to support a return to a partisan system. This was not our finest hour.

Non partisan elections were still hotly contested, and there was still the degree of factionalism that always comes with robust democracy. But you differences were about education, not things like which state legislator was not talking to another state legislator this week, or horse trading over a city council nomination.

Under nonpartisan elections, quality people, who would otherwise not have had a viable chance to be elected in a one party town
(Gary Smith comes to mind) had a chance to serve.

When nopartisan elections were done away with, the argument for that was that fewer people voted in such elections. It is true that nonpartisan school board candidates -- listed on the November ballot on a seperate line along the bottom of the ballot-- experienced some drop off from the partisan contests. But there was greater participation than in primaries, and as a practical matter, the primary IS the election in Rochester.

Revisiting this idea might reduce the dysfunction and irrelevacies that dominate school board politics now. The public schools are the most meaningful and urgently important level of local government to a large number of city residents, many of them impoverished, and otherwise without meaningful opportunity to shape the public policy of an institution so vital to them. Since abolishment of elected school boards has never proven to improve student performance, we might serve far better by moving away from bossism, and in the direction of more democracy, rather than the reverse.

Tom Brennan
Rochester NY