A few weeks ago, Nebraska’s state senator John Murante announced that he would like to dissolve the Nebraska State Board of Education. Currently in Nebraska, this is how our Department of Education works: The State Board of Education is in charge of the Department of Education. [The state board is an elected eight-member group of people (one representing each district) and their job description entails running the Department of Education, hiring the Education Commissioner, and developing and setting state standards in education.] The board seats are non-partisan and last four years. The main reason for the board is to represent Nebraska’s vast and broad population. This is done by each district sending a local elected voice to the State Board of Education. Each board member represents a region that has multiple school districts within it.

If Murante’s resolution (LR285CA) gets passed, the governor of Nebraska will be taking the role and responsibilities of the board. This means individual school districts would no longer have local voices representing them at the state level.
Murante’s reasoning behind the resolution is that the board has had multiple disagreements with the legislature in the past, mostly involving Common Core standards, and he believes that with the governor in charge it will eliminate any political discrepancies, and the governor will approach it with a strictly “business-like” approach.

I disagree. Having disagreements and discussions in legislation involving citizens is the very premise of democracy.

The senator also believes that the board is “out of touch” with the state of Nebraska. What I don’t understand is how a board full of elected members representing each district could be more “out of touch” than one person who would not have the same diversity and concerns of all the people in Nebraska.

We elect a new governor once every four years. Does this new resolution mean that the standards of our education system would be affiliated with
the political views of our governor? Would that mean our education system would shift every four years? That sounds like an unnecessary mess. Since the Board of Education is elected through non-partisan votes, but governors are not, the current system would have a better chance of fair representation of district views.

At this point in time, Nebraska is one of five states in the U.S. that does not use Common Core curriculum, alongside Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and Virginia. Common Core is basically a set of national standards that students are required to meet at the end of each grade level. Nebraska follows a different system; if you remember having to take the NeSA test, that’s what I’m referring to. There are multiple advantages and disadvantages of using Common Core. Advantages include that all 50 states would be aligned in terms of their standards of learning. There are multiple possibilities of why Nebraska has not yet adopted the Common Core. This could be that state law requires the Department of Education to work with state educators to develop a statewide curriculum. Another reason could be that a lot of time was invested in developing the NeSA exam for them to completely dissolve it and switch to an entirely new course of study.

The overall idea is that by having the governor take over the roles and responsibilities of the State Board of Education, there would be fewer arguments and disagreements. While this would appear to make things move in a smooth and less disruptive manner, it also removes the very concept of democracy from our education process. Democracy is based upon discussion, debate, and compromise all in the best interests of the constituents. If we take away that ability and put all the decision making power into one person’s control, there will be a risk of many constituents no longer having accurate representation.