Keeping the School Board zipped up.
This local editorial is calling out the Warrensburg Board of Education for only allowing the President of the board to speak to the press or the public about school-related issues. If one is approached about their opinion on a certain matter they are instructed to say something along the lines of “No Comment.” Mahoney calls this an assault on first amendment rights. He states that even if one of the members has an opinion contrary to that of one of the other members they are advised to keep their mouth shut. He points out that there is no law against one of these members speaking out, as well as saying that the whole rule is unenforceable.
I like Mark Mahoney’s writing style. He is very direct and is not afraid to call people out and point out what other people won’t. I agree with what he is saying in this editorial as well. Why should the members of the board be silenced? Debate is healthy and it might point out problems and offer better options for problems within the system.
Boards should be invited in, not locked out.
In this editorial Mahoney explains that elected members of the school board are banned from going into classrooms and observing the educational process. He asks how this makes sense because the school board directly makes decisions about their children’s education and handle multimillion-dollar budgets that come from the taxpayers. If a school board member wants to see how the kids are being taught they should be able to, and this would help make the educational system much better.
This editorial wasn’t as much of a call out but more stating his opinion. He makes great points in both of the editorials that I’ve analyzed, and I feel like this second one is common sense. Why wouldn’t the people who administrate this stuff have all-out access to whatever they want within it? They make the decisions about how it’s ran so why wouldn’t they be able to go in and see if they need to make changes?
BLOG 