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.