The AP reports that Law­mak­ers are talk­ing about changes to State Board of Edu­ca­tion:

When Corkins was named, some law­mak­ers began talk­ing about pass­ing a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment allow­ing vot­ers to decide whether they want to abol­ish the elect­ed board.

“If there is a back­lash to this, it most like­ly will be ques­tion­ing anew whether the Board of Edu­ca­tion should be dis­band­ed and replaced by a sec­re­tary of edu­ca­tion named by the gov­er­nor and con­firmed by the Sen­ate,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Derek Schmidt, R‑Independence.

Sen­ate Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Jean Schodorf said it’s beyond “like­ly.”

“I promise you it will be back in the next ses­sion,” said Schodorf, R‑Wichita.

I’m not sure where I fall on this. Edu­ca­tion should­n’t be a polit­i­cal foot­ball. There needs to be con­ti­nu­ity at the state lev­el, and uni­for­mi­ty. Much as I don’t want Bob Corkins serv­ing as Com­mis­sion­er, I’d hate for him to get fired when the mod­er­ates take back con­trol. It’d fur­ther politi­cize an already over­ly polit­i­cal office.

Chang­ing the cur­rent sys­tem where vot­ers in each of ten dis­tricts get to pick Board mem­bers is not a bad idea, but how to do it is tricky. Should we take pow­er away from the cit­i­zens? Should we change the num­ber or shape of the districts? 

At a fed­er­al lev­el, things that are sup­posed to be non-par­ti­san have com­mis­sions appoint­ed by the exec­u­tive, con­firmed by con­gress, and with a bal­ance between the polit­i­cal par­ties. The last part would nev­er fly in Kansas.

Here’s one pos­si­ble option: The gov­er­nor appoints a Com­mis­sion­er of Edu­ca­tion as a cab­i­net offi­cer. The Board is appoint­ed to 4 year terms (renew­able some num­ber of times) by the gov­er­nor. The leg­is­la­ture advis­es and con­sents. Retain the 10 dis­tricts, appoint­ing each mem­ber accord­ing to dis­tricts, with some form of input from the leg­is­la­tors from the dis­trict. This would ensure a bal­ance on the Board rough­ly pro­por­tion­al to the views of the pub­lic, rep­re­sent­ed by local leg­is­la­tors and the elect­ed governor.

Anoth­er solu­tion would be to elim­i­nate the region­al vot­ing alto­geth­er. Just elect 10 peo­ple on a rotat­ing basis, or elect 5 and let the gov­er­nor appoint 5. Or increase the size of the dis­tricts and have them over­lap each oth­er. That would let each mem­ber rep­re­sent more of the pub­lic, bring­ing the Board clos­er to the statewide mean atti­tude, and every­one would have a Board of Ed. elec­tion every cycle.

What do peo­ple think?