I occasionally come back to this them of the importance of politics and democracy for our schools. And I am back here, again.
I was taught by a grad school professor that politics is how we come to community (or national) decisions that are based on values, rather than on technical criteria. That different political systems give us different ways to make those decisions for communities. Perhaps I should have understand that that was the essential nature and purpose of politics before that, but that is when I did.
In this country, we use democracy as our political system. Sometimes, we even think of “democracy” and meaning whatever the American politician system is. (And I am ignoring the historically ignorant people who claim that we are republic and not a democracy, because they clearly have not read what the founders meant and wrote about each of those terms.)
So, what is the purpose of our democracy? That, why is democracy our system for political decision-making? I can think of four potential reasons.
Democratic accountability for our leaders. (i..e., the ability to kick out the bad ones)
Learning the will of the people. (i.e., doing what the people want)
Obtaining the consent of the governed by including them in decision-making. (i.e., decreasing resistance to governance)
Obtaining legitimacy for government. (i.e., simply a moral requirement)
My niece is taking a class at college this year on The Future of Our Democracy. I am not hopeful about the future of our democracy. Whatever the purpose of our democracy, I think that ti is being undermined.
These purposes require access to the ballot box, and that is being limited as it has not in decades. These purposes require that political leaders are honest about their positions, their opponents positions and the contents of the bills they support or oppose, but flat out lies about all of that seems to be at a high. These purposes require a willingness to recognize when you are in the minority and concessions to the majority that they get to win (and to rule) and we have clearly lost much of that.
I’ve been worried for a long time about this constitutional crisis that we are in that is undermining our government’s ability to govern. But the state — the future — of our democracy seems quite uncertain to me.
Which takes me to our schools. Too few people vote in school board elections. It is rarely clear what those votes really mean. Local school boards get too little attention just all all the time, but disproportionate attention for things that should not matter so much. Changing high school mascots gets more attention than budget cuts or new curricular directions.
I know that we need democratic oversight for our schools. And I often assume that we mostly have it.
But I have to wonder, do we? And what could possibly improve the situation?