INTRO TEXT gov. deval patrick’s selection of Ruth Kaplan, a Brookline School Committee member and longtime MCAS critic, as his first pick for a seat on the Massachusetts Board of Education was viewed by some as a wink and a nod to anti-MCAS activists determined to scrap the high-stakes test as a statewide high school graduation requirement. What the appointment unquestionably did represent was a victory for a state parent organization that lobbied for years to have a representative on the nine-member board.
In 2004, the Massachusetts State Parent Teacher Association won legislative approval of a measure designating a seat on the board for a member of the organization. The following year, however, when the group submitted three names for consideration, as called for in the law, then-Gov. Mitt Romney rejected them all.
“When I went to in to meet with his people, I got the real sense that that they didn’t want someone on the Board of Education who would disagree in any way with their education agenda,” says Ruth Provost, a former state representative from Sandwich who was one of the PTA nominees.
Romney said that all three appeared to be opponents of charter schools and MCAS, positions at odds with his own, and he asked the PTA to submit new names. The group refused.
Following Patrick’s election, the organization cast a wide net for nominees for the seat, says Ellie Goldberg, Massachusetts PTA’s vice president for legislation. Kaplan was actually not even a dues-paying member when she was nominated, but she has now joined the organization, says Goldberg.
The fact that Kaplan wasn’t a PTA member—or that none of the schools in Brookline is affiliated with the organization—is hardly surprising. With its new seat on the state board of education, the Massachusetts PTA, an affiliate of the 110-year-old national group, now wields a level of influence that far outpaces its membership reach.
According to 2000 statistics compiled by the Web site PTO Today, Massachusetts is among the states with the lowest proportion of schools—only about 5 percent—housing a PTA chapter. There are 119 local PTAs with 19,000 members in Massachusetts, a number down dramatically from the 1960s, when the organization boasted some 100,000 Bay State members.
The Education Reform Act of 1993 mandates local councils at all schools, and many also have independent parent-teacher organizations (PTOs) that support fundraising and other enrichment activities. But Goldberg says only PTAs provide a strong parent voice on broader policy issues, aided by the organization’s state and national research and advocacy capacity.
“The PTA is strong and clear on what works for kids,” she says, “representing political parent involvement, not ‘bake sale parent’ involvement.”
Allowing one organization with a distinct policymaking perspective to nominate the parent representative on the state board—never mind a group with such a small foothold in Massachusetts schools—doesn’t sit well with some. “I’m not a fan of constituency-based appointments,” says James Peyser, the former chairman of the Board of Education, who views naming particular organizations to furnish nominees as “inappropriate and unhelpful.”
“There are [nearly] 1 million students in Massachusetts, which means there are plenty of parents of school-age children to choose from,” says Peyser.
