Why it matters... Editorial for the Orange County Register

By Gregory A. "Greg" Powers

Editorial on why the Orange County Board of Education race is important and why we should pay attention.

With only 2 weeks to go before the election here in Orange County, it is hard to tell that there is even an election to focus on. We always have our lively measure races to look at; the El Toro airport Measure W `Great Parks' issue and of course the inside politics Measure V race. But, what about some of the other contests?

There is another contest that is well under the radar yet has a significant impact on the entire education system throughout our great county. The Orange County Board of Education has two seats that are to be decided on March 5th and nary a soul appears to have any knowledge or insight as to how important these two seats are to our children's futures. The winners of these races will likely control well over a Billion dollars during their tenure.

The OC Board of Education is the major governing board over all 27 school districts in Orange County. The board trustees manage the Orange County Department of Education. The Department of Education is responsible for administering many of the mundane requirements such as the accounting, most legal services, teacher credentialing and licensing for all 27 local school districts. These may be the reason that no one appears to think much about this race.

When one looks past the mundane, there is much that is very important. The Board dictates much of the direction for teacher training throughout the county. In addition the board manages many of the grants that are made available to the school districts. If these are not important enough then there is the special education programs, the home schools, the community schools and all the kids who are in Juvenal Hall, Orangewood and the camps. In all, there are some 28,000 students directly affected and over a half million indirectly affected throughout the county.

Are these races important? You bet they are!

Last summer, when the county had to go through its redistricting as a result of the census count, the County Board of Supervisors adjusted the districts to properly reflect the population movements. As the OC Board of Education has always mirrored the supervisory districts, this should have been a real non-issue for the county school board. Well, with the design of the new supervisory districts, there were 3 trustees who would be now be competing for the same district.

With the power that the 20-year incumbent Board President exercised, she was able to gerrymander the districts so that all the incumbents would have their own new districts. This ensured that they would not have to compete against each other. Pure self-serving politics. Again, I ask, are these races important?

While the Board of Education is responsible for general oversight of the 27 districts, they also are responsible for a large student population. This includes the education and testing of the students under their direct care. The oversight of any child's education is critical. It appears that the district does not test or follow the growth of their `clients'. If there is no testing, then where is the accountability? If one were to look at the API scores for all the districts in the county, you would see that the county district has excused themselves from the results # because they do not test the children. Is this responsible oversight?

At the county level, the Rand Institute reports that the drop out rate is 21%. Is this acceptable? In addition, for county run schools there are over 3 times the administrators per student then at the local school districts. Again, I ask, are these races important?

Currently there is much comment about the quality of our children's education, whether the test scores accurately reflect the real quality of the education, whether we should wipe out the SAT's so that the kids are `more fairly' measured. All this is good discourse, but the balance of the argument is that the children are not being educated in California. The County Board President has not taken the required leadership to educate the children under her care.

In the south county district, this same 20-year incumbent is up for re-election. She has proven to identify herself as very liberal in her past; supporting Loretta Sanchez for example. In addition, while currently registered as a Republican, in her past life she was a self-described `flaming liberal' Democrat. She has been the president of the board multiple times and as she states in her candidate statement that she should be held accountable for the results of the board.

It is time to take a hard look at this `backwater' race and understand the reality that these trustee positions are important and that it does matter. Not only do our children's futures depend on good leadership, but we do to.

Please look at these races, review the facts that our educational system is failing our children and realize that we have clear choices in whether we continue with the status quo of declining scores and morals, or do we encourage new focused leadership. The choice is yours.