As bad an idea as merging of the two state education boards was last year – something done at the behest of General Assembly-passed legislation – will the new board’s decision to create two new governing councils over K-12 and higher education be an effective fix to the initial mistake?
The board seems to be fighting a rear guard action against the legislature, which was blaming the two boards of education for the state’s unemployment woes when it voted to create one board to oversee all public education.
But while there is no question that elementary, secondary and post-secondary education should be doing a better job of training the workforce of today and tomorrow, the dynamics of educating children cannot be seen through the same lens as facilitating college-level learning, or vice-versa. So perhaps in the long run this new arrangement is a step in the right direction.
At this point, however, the only thing for certain is that this new plan will cost taxpayers more than the current situation. •