On Friday, June 17, 2005, at 07:11 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
While there may be legitimate concerns about Dr. Peebles performance,
as
well as about the manner in which the Minneapolis School Board (MSB) is
evaluating her, these matters suggest that there should be ways to
evaluate the
overall performance of the MSB beyond voting members off the board.
I think annual review is part of Peebles' contract agreement. It is the
legitimate role of the school board to evaluate the superintendent's
performance. An annual review is a good idea. Next time there will be
more to base the evaluation on.
What the press did, who talked or why they talked are not matters
sufficient to call either for voting the school board members off (by
electing new ones) or deciding the school board has to be evaluated too.
This does not mean simply getting the MSB to do what particular
stakeholders
want it to do; it means establishing criteria, with MSB
participation, by
which members of the public can periodically assess the board's
policies,
practices, and results.
Polls of voters typically tell us how politicians are doing. Little or
no polling is done on lower offices, and there is no other way to
effectively evaluate elected bodies' performance that can take the
place of polling.
Highly performing elected officials get voted out and poorly performing
elected officials get re-elected long beyond when they should leave.
The voting booth is not the great leveler we sometimes imagine.
Imperfect as it is, it is what we have. The public, freely choosing,
makes the call.
Watchdog organizations and groups sometimes rate performance, but their
ratings can be challenged or as is more typical, ignored.
There is no reason to believe a small group of citizens, no matter how
representative, will be believed wholly in a political environment,
particularly when their findings are adverse to a popular elected
official. Thus a partial acceptance is the best we can hope for.
In addition to the MSB, there are many other public bodies that should
provide the public with evaluation criteria and ways to conduct such
assessments.
In order to make the best use of these evaluations, public boards
also should
be provided with effective and ongoing capacity-building opportunities
related to evaluation findings that can assist them in improving
their vital and
difficult public service.
The Minneapolis Library Board did engage a consultant to discuss
concerns at the staff and board levels and the board went through a
process to identify concerns and set standards for behavior. The staff
are queried every two years on a range of areas that rates environment,
conditions, issues, and other matters. This gives the Library Board
vital feedback as it moves through the annual business and issues or
episodes. However, without the power to remove an elected official from
office, neither the staff nor members of the public have any standing
to make evaluative criteria translate to action when the criteria
reveals very poor performance.
I wholeheartedly agree that there should be standards and regular
engagement by the Library Board to look at itself in a way that helps
reveal how performance can be improved. And it is worth thinking about
if the various interests that endorse candidates also rated their
performance later, what effect might that have?
Imperfect as it is, nothing yet tried seems to work as well as the
power of the voter in the booth. That is the ultimate arbiter of the
untested and untried as well as barnacle-laden veterans of many a
political season.
Best,
Laura
Laura Waterman Wittstock
Candidate for Minneapolis Library Board of Trustees
DFL and Labor endorsed
Minneapolis, MN
612-387-4915
www.laurawatermanwittstock.com
http://laurawatermanwittstock.blogspot.com/
Wittstock for Library Committee
913 19th Avenue SE, Mpls, 55414
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