Systemic change: eliminate democracy

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Mar 21

RE: Public School Board needs systemic change.  By Kevin Gonci.  Op-ed piece in the Hamilton Spectator 17 Mar 21.  Pull quote: “We have a long way to go before students can feel safe and protected in our school system.”

There’s that word again: “systemic.”  To be clear, in the context of the article, “systemic” change amounts to constraining or eliminating democracy.

In all the bad examples offered in the article, they boil down to the trustees, not the system.  Trustees don't understand Roberts Rules of Order.  Trustees say impolitic things.  Trustees clash with commissioners who are supposed to police their conduct.  Let’s face it, the systemic change that would eliminate all these problems with trustees is to eliminate the trustee position altogether and let the bureaucrats run everything unsupervised.

Democracy is messy, and electing incompetent, self-serving people is always possible. But that’s on the people, the electors.  Presently, it’s not legally up to a self-selected few to decide that the people made the wrong choice, and then veto that choice in the middle of a term in the interests of some greater good, as they see it. (1) The electorate can’t be trusted to make the right choice, so why give them the chance of making a mistake?  Eliminating school boards is systemic change that fixes that problem.

Putting in supervision that keeps school board trustees from making mistakes is also undemocratic, systemic change that addresses the problem.

These are solutions for those who either lack patience or simply don’t believe in democratic choice.  Democratic selection confers moral authority on the representative, and if you are of a certain political philosophy, that moral authority can interfere with your political agenda.

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1. This line of reasoning will be very familiar to Trump supporters.