The Empire Strikes Back 

  	By BOB WARD  Editor of the Texas Journal

      A welcome development in recent years is the election 
of conservatives to the State Board of Education.   As 
elected officials, they have been promoting the interests of 
their constituents -- the parents and taxpayers.  
Accordingly, they have angered the liberal unions, bureau-
crats and advocacy groups who have their own ideas about 
education and don't welcome back talk from the riff-raff.   
These gentry are so used to having a monopoly on the board 
they think it's their entitlement and the presence of 
conservative voices an anomaly that needs correcting.    The 
corrections are in the works. Rep. Allen Place (D-Gatesville) 
has proposed a constitutional amendment to abolish the board. 
   No politician wants to be seen as muzzling the voters or 
disenfranchising the people so these attempts to muzzle the 
voters and disenfranchise the people are shrouded in vaporous 
rhetoric. For example, Place's amendment says:  "The 
constitutional amendment abolishing the State Board of 
Education," but this is how his aide, James Lampley describes 
it:  "Our proposal is to do away with them and return those 
powers and duties that they presently do to the local school 
board."  This, he said, will give the people more control 
over curriculum,textbook selection, spending. 
   Read the amendment again.  It doesn't mention local 
boards. No problem, says Lampley. The key is the commissioner 
of education. "After we transfer those powers and duties to 
him, he would then transfer those powers to the local school 
boards."  But the amendment doesn't mention the commissioner 
either.  Rep. Paul Sadler has a bill shifting nearly all the 
board's power to the commissioner but this doesn't mention 
local boards either.  In fact, there is no reason to expect 
that with the elected state board gone local boards will have 
any more power than now -- and they may have less with no one 
to check the commissioner.  
  And why does he say the amendment will "return" power to 
the locals? Until the state board was created in 1980, says 
Lampley, the locals had all that authority.  Well, he had the 
right decade but the wrong century.  The State Board  was 
created in 1886.  
   If the intent is more local power Place and Sadler can do 
that. But, as Lampley explains, "They would still get some 
direction from the top . . . some approval on a wide range of 
textbooks . . some range of approval of what you could spend 
your money on. . . . There would be broad, general guidelines 
that the commissioner could enforce."  Indeed. 
   Although there is no requirement the commissioner give 
authority to the locals, Lampley is sure he will because, "I 
wouldn't think he'd want to take on those duties himself."            
Lampley's faith in the humility of the commissioner is 
heartwarming, but parents, taxpayers and students are better 
served by keeping the one state education authority they 
elect.  Donna Muldrew, president of Texas Citizens Academic 
Network, is correct in noting there is no public outcry to 
abolish the board.