On the August 2nd general election ballot are races for school board in
district 2, 4, 6, and 8. I do not live in one of these district, have
heard little about the candidates and do not know any of them. This is different from the 2012 school board election in which there was forums and lots of money spend and lots of attention paid to the school board races. Why there is so little interest being paid to school board elections this election season I don't know; our schools are getting worse instead of better.
School
board races are important. Some people take the attitude that the only
people who should care about school board elections are people with
children in public schools. I strongly disagree. The quality of our
schools and how much of our tax dollars they spend affects us all. It
impacts home values, taxation, crime, incarceration rates and more. If I
lived in a district with a school board race, I would educate myself on
the candidates and vote in that election. The School Board spends the
bulk of Metro's tax money and most of our schools are low performing.
Nashville has a lot of good things going for it but the quality of our
schools is not one of them. While the population of Davidson County is
growing, school enrollment is shrinking. Apparently, parents are
enrolling their children in private schools or the population moving to
Nashville are skewed toward people people without children and those
with children are moving to surrounding counties instead of Nashville.
In selecting who I would vote for there are certain factors I would
consider. School board elections are non-partisan but if a candidate's
political affiliation can be determined, I would vote for a Republican
over a Democrat. If a candidates political ideology can be determined I
would prefer a conservative over a liberal. I would usually prefer an
educated candidate over a less educated candidate. There are
exceptionally capable people with only a high school education, of
course, but in general, if I had limited knowledge of the candidates and
other factors were equal, I would vote for the better educated person. I
would tend to vote for someone who calls for increased efficiency and
wise use of current resources over someone who calls for an increase in
the school budget. I would support someone who supports school choice
over someone who opposes charter schools.
There are some factors that would not sway me to vote for a particular
candidate and some that would be negative factors. Some candidates tout
as a qualification that they have children in public schools. That does
not carry weight with me. School budgets and school quality affect us
all. If a person has a child in private school that is not a reason to
vote against them, the way I see it. Everyone has to do what is best
for their family. The person with a child in private schools may be
better aware of just how bad our schools are and may be committed to
making them better. Also, being childless or single is not a negative
in my view. I want the kind of people who I would want to serve as
Board of Directors of a company. Being wise decision makers may not be
dependent on weather or not one is a parent.
Having been a teacher or married to a teacher or having teachers in one's
family is not necessarily a factor that would make me vote for someone.
The former teacher or person with teachers in their family may be
biased in favor of more spending. They may be less objective than
someone else. Getting the endorsement of the MNEA which is the teachers
union, or getting the endorsement of the SEIU would not be a
disqualifying factor but would make me less likely to vote for someone;
not more. If a candidate got a union endorsement then they are probably
committed to higher taxes and more school funding.
There are two candidates running for school board in district 8. District 8 is the district that includes Hillsboro, Antioch, McGavock and Pearl Cohn. I know neither of the candidates. There was a debate between the two candidate on July 19th but I did not attend it and have no news from the debate. The incumbent, Mary Pierce is not seeking reelection. Today The Tennessean ran an article profiling the candidates. You can read the article at this link. Another website called Rover provided a little more information on the candidates. From information gleamed from the Tennessean article and the candidate's websites and a couple other sources, here is what I know about the candidates.
![]() |
Adam Barese |
![]() |
Gini Pupo-Walker |
Top Stories
No comments:
Post a Comment