Well-Educated Trustee Selection

On Election Day, parents throughout Orange County have a huge responsibility to make wise choices in school board elections. The future direction of local public schools hangs in the balance. But the choices are actually pretty clear.

Some candidates advocate for children of all colors, backgrounds and abilities and genuinely support issues that better public education. Their children attend public schools and so they have a vested interest in making child-centered, nonpolitical decisions. Their endorsers are local community leaders. Their financial support comes primarily in small increments from broad-based local sources.

Others advocate for an agenda that is conceived and directed from outside the local school districts. They are excessively negative about public schools. Some home-school their children, demonstrating a lack of commitment to making the public school system successful. They support giving publicly funded vouchers for private school tuition and predict that if public schools survive the draining of funds from their budgets, they will be stronger. The office of trustee is nonpartisan, yet these candidates are endorsed by high-profile politicians.

Two years ago their strategy was to target the local teachers’ unions, telling us the election was about parents versus teachers. Parents throughout the county were appalled, rallied around their neighborhood teachers and soundly rejected the wrong characterization. This group, having learned its lesson well, depersonalized the same attack on teachers this year, using a bigger, faceless target, the National Education Assn. This year they tell us they love our local teachers.

The future for individual school districts where these candidates win board majorities is not an unknown. One need look no further than the tumultuous Orange Unified.

In this day and age when the candidate who raises the most money wins the election, concerned parents have to look much deeper than a candidate’s coffers and colorful literature when deciding who deserves their vote. Grass-roots groups of concerned parents can’t raise enough funds to match what is being poured into their district races from outside sources, nor should they try. The best response is the passion of mothers and fathers who will go to the polls and say, “Our schools are not for sale.”

MARCIA DESROSIERS

Lake Forest