De-Tracking Shouldn't Be a Litmus Test

School board service is about more than just yes and no votes

photo via pixabay.com

East Penn combined the GP and CP tracks for high school English and social studies courses last December, arguing that doing so would enhance the school's equity efforts as well as make class scheduling more efficient.

I'm 100% supportive of both equity efforts AND administrative efficiency, but I didn't think the district made its case that either would benefit much from this change. And I couldn't help but wonder, along with many district teachers and parents, if throwing together so many kids with such different levels of experience, ability, and motivation was likely to help them-- particularly with so little time to retrain teachers and restructure courses. I was therefore disappointed that the board voted in favor of this change.

But arguing about this issue isn't actually the reason I'm writing today. Instead, I started with this past controversy to say something about how we might think about who represents us on the school board in the future. Because too often we focus too much on a single issue, leading us to ignore a whole host of other, bigger, concerns we also care about deeply.

You see, Josh Levinson is the current board president and he voted in favor of this "de-tracking." I disagree with him on this, but I still wholeheartedly support him, and the other pro-education candidates, as he runs for another term on the board. Let me share why:

Choosing who would best represent the interests of the community on the school board can seldom be reduced to any single educational issue. Instead, what matters is their overall approach to issues of education and community, not simply a tally of the number of times we might agree or disagree with them on any particular issues. Here's the four questions I ask myself of any school board candidate:

• Do they have a pragmatic, community-oriented approach? (Or are they pursuing an ideological agenda that comes from outside the community?)

• Do they bring a specific ax to grind about one particular issue? (Or do they come to their service with an open mind, understanding that the board has to address many issues each and every meeting?)

• Do they show they can think independently, and can evaluate evidence and data objectively for themselves? (Or do they reject evidence and data when it doesn't fit their pre-conceived ideas about the world or about our schools?)

• Are they honest, open, and direct with their point of view? (Or do they talk in circles and avoid answering questions concretely, or even lie to the community?)

I served with Josh Levinson when I was on the board. We agreed on most things, but disagreed on some things too. His vote in favor of de-tracking English and social studies classes wasn't the first vote on which I disagreed with him, and I suspect it won't be the last. But this will be true of all quality candidates.

And so the point here is larger than any one candidate. We can't possible expect to agree with any person on every single issue. We don't agree every time with our spouses, our kids, or our parents. So we certainly won't with our school board representatives.

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Some other fleeting thoughts on this:

For those that don't know, GP stands for "general preparatory" track and CP stands for "college preparatory" track.

And while I couldn't figure out how to fit it in above, it's probably worth noting that Jeff Jankowski voted against de-tracking but is running alongside Josh Levinson for re-election. It shows they understand that disagreement about something, even something important, doesn't mean they can't work together on the many more things they agree on.

Last but not least, the Washington Post recently covered in-depth how a similar de-tracking decision went in an Ohio district. The TL;DR summary? Results were mixed.