>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Atherton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Michael> Robert P. Goldman wrote:
>> The result of these two processes, in my opinion, is that no one is
>> trying to present the details of the plan to the community or to
>> engage the community and convince us that they are making decisions in
>> the best interests of the population of the city. This seems like a
>> badly mis-functioning democracy.
Michael> When school board members are elected via blind party
Michael> loyalty rather than an evaluation of the candidates'
Michael> potential to improve educational quality, then democracy
Michael> is not functioning as well as it might. I think it will
Michael> be a long time coming before we see any real improvements
Michael> in the Minneapolis Public Schools.
I think that party-line voting is a symptom of an underlying problem,
not a problem in and of itself. The problem is that the School Board
is a bottom-of-the-ballot race, and people don't get enough
information to make decisions about it. Possibly many people don't
bother to collect the information that's available. Given that,
party-line voting is a completely rational thing to do. At worst,
you'll get a party hack, but at least you won't accidentally vote for
someone who thinks that teaching evolution should be made illegal, or
that everyone should be taught the wonders of Cuba's socialist
paradise.
Time to cut the voters some slack! We don't rail at people for making
a Consumer Reports-endorsed choice instead of exhaustively testing 20
microwave ovens, do we? People aren't perfectly rational decision
makers who can devote years to evaluating all the choices for every
vote. We have lives, and must take shortcuts.
The voters' decision-making is further hampered by the odd structure
of the School Board election (where all the board members are
at-large). It's all but impossible for the candidates to cover the
whole voting area in such a low-stakes contest, so they don't even
try. This makes it even harder to get the information you need to
make a good decision.
--
Robert P. Goldman
ECCO
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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