Trappings of Democracy

There has always been some ambiguity about whether school board trustees are elected to represent their constituents to the school board - or elected to represent the school board to their constituents. As Moira Macdonald points out in today’s Toronto Sun, the Ontario government’s new Bill 177 sets out to settle this issue. Although trustees will be allowed to bring their constituents’ concerns to the board, they will be bound to support every measure passed by the other trustees. Added to the bill’s prohibition of trustee interference in the day-to-day management of the school board, the effect is to render individual trustees powerless. The new bill codifies a reality that has existed for some time now - school board trustees serve to obscure the fact that students and parents are at the mercy of unelected education bureaucrats. Teachers would be at their mercy too, were it not for the teachers’ unions.

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