The only thing with more legs than a millenium is opinions on education.

As we approach the next millenium, let’s consider that during the 1960s Pennsylvania consolidated from about 2,500 school districts into our current 501. And some folks think we still have too many. Few can agree how to proceed.

In the street, citizens agree that change is needed both locally and statewide. We just don’t agree on what those changes ought to be.

In the trenches, elected officials and trade associations swap barbs and lawsuits on issues such as alternative ways to certify teachers and administrators, school vouchers, and what to do with academically distressed schools.

We sense that the public is ready for a change from the Tired Harrisburg Approach — Pick & Bitch. No, that’s not a fast food place. It’s what everyone around here does when you move a flyspeck away from the established toward something new.

Think I’m exaggerating? Think I’m being negative? Look around and be honest. You see opposition to change everywhere. I’m just willing to say so out loud. If I had a dime for every business leader who whispered to me that the clock ticks away on our sustained economic recovery because we get distempered over change, I could buy at least the city, maybe the state. Last month’s front page instead of reading “How Conservative Is Harrisburg?” could easily have read “How Conservative Is Pennsylvania?”

To their credit, the PA School Board Association wrestles with a number of issues agreeing and disagreeing as their membership sees fit. Remember, their membership is the elected school board officials from across the state.

Tom Gentzel, assistant executive director of the PA School Board Association, was willing to speak on few issues.

He refers to Governor Tom Ridge’s apparent obsession with passing school vouchers as the “biggest unanswered question in town.” Gentzel says the governor’s plan “drives a huge wedge into his own caucus in the House,” Gentzel says. “There are a number of other proposals we think are worthy, but they are overshadowed.”

His association’s objection to school vouchers centers on the lack of accountability.

“Under vouchers, we’d be giving tax dollars to parents who, in turn, give those dollars to private schools who aren’t held to any standard,” he explains. Currently, private schools sign a “good faith” document with loose language on educational standards. “We think vouchers will ultimately lead to the public funding of two systems — one public, the other private,” Gentzel says.

MODE suggestion: Could it be that school vouchers is the horse Governor Ridge wants to ride to the Republican National Convention in Philly next year? He and his advisors may hope to use his position — and a state-level legislative victory — as leverage for placing his name on the ticket. The issue would have wide appeal across a number of seemingly balkanized Republican strongholds otherwise scratching each other’s eyes out over abortion and family values.

“The most stunning aspect of the Governor’s proposal for distressed schools is how low performance must drop before we intervene,” he observes. He notes that his association is concerned about several of the state’s schools, but thinks that steps ought to be taken sooner rather than later.

Does anyone else find it odd that a Republican Administration would sit bedside waiting for a school district to fall into a coma before calling in medics to regulate? Is that an example of “getting the government out your life”? Waiting until a public trust is near death and then rushing in to regulate the daylights out of the situation? I know that in our post-modern world everything is supposed to crumble into the nonsense of chaos, but why wait until the patient is inches away from bye-bye to act?

Surprising but true, especially following a surge of school violence, but Gentzel believes that “schools are probably the safest place many children go.” He feels that schools in general are far ahead of the General Assembly in dealing with the issue.

Alternative ways of certifying teachers has drawn the ire of the PA State Education Association. The organization recently sued the PA Dept of Education to throw out a proposal that would open school positions to professionals who would not have to meet current certification standards.

Gentzel says his association generally supports alternative routes to certification.

At a confab of school board directors from across the state, the issue was discussed at length. “We have gaps in physics, general science, and especially special education supervisors. We also need more assistant principals,” he points out. Gentzel explains that many assistant principals eventually, return to the classroom, keeping relatively high pay for less stress and administrative work.

Speaking of confabs, isn’t it a wonder that on an issue which provokes shrill cries and forecasts of doom, we have no collaborative public forum? Instead, we poke, we pick, and we bitch. This one sues that one. Parochial doesn’t mean a type of school in this debate; it refers to special interests.