Mr. Burningham's Decree
I wondered if State School Board Chair Kim Burningham had his Board’s authority to boycott the Legislative Interim Education Committee. Apparently, he did not. Board member Dixie Allen wrote:
[T]he State Board took no official stance on appearing at the Interim meeting. In fact, we received Board Chair Burningham's letter about the same time as you. I, for one, asked for an explanation from Chair Burningham, which he gave to all Board members. His issues were defined as availability of someone from the state office and/or the Board, who had some clear understanding of the legal issues or non-issues surrounding the subject to be discussed. I trust that the reasons for not attending were as simple as timing.
After hearing the committee audio, I find myself very sorry that we were not involved in the discussion and believe that many of our Board would have been very supportive of such a discussion.
Odd and unfortunate.
[T]he State Board took no official stance on appearing at the Interim meeting. In fact, we received Board Chair Burningham's letter about the same time as you. I, for one, asked for an explanation from Chair Burningham, which he gave to all Board members. His issues were defined as availability of someone from the state office and/or the Board, who had some clear understanding of the legal issues or non-issues surrounding the subject to be discussed. I trust that the reasons for not attending were as simple as timing.
After hearing the committee audio, I find myself very sorry that we were not involved in the discussion and believe that many of our Board would have been very supportive of such a discussion.
Odd and unfortunate.
posted by steve u. at 6/28/2007
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28 Comments:
Well that is one opinion, but that is all it is.
Steve,
You hold yourself up as an advocate of open discussion and dialogue. But you seem to revel at any chance you can get to publicly criticize Kim Burningham.
I would think that if someone is publicly ridiculed they would be less likely to want to engage in dialogue, not more.
Steve,
Ridiculing or demeaning someone does nothing to move forward the dialogue or to ease tensions so that a solution will be found. Whether you agree with him or not, you're not going to win many flies with vinegar. You might as well try honey.
I don't see how what Steve wrote here is either ridiculing or demeaning to Burningham.
Burningham is an elected representative. As a citizen of Utah, I expect him to engage in a dialogue with the Legislature and work through this. Not showing up is an abdication of his responsibility--especially when it was also news to his collegues on the board.
I'm thanks for Steve for calling him on it.
Anons.,
This simply is accurate criticism. Kim is an elected official (as the one or two anons who posted from their UEN site clearly know). Whether for political advantage or simply to close down a dialogue he doesn't want to have, he acted in dictatorial fashion. How is it inappropriate to point out that the State School Board is not a board of one?
Steve,
This is Anon. 2. For your information, I posted my comment through the Utah Senate Site's link to your blog. Talk about Big Brother monitoring where the posted comments to your blog are coming from.
What's more, even if you are getting anonymous postings from UEN, it hardly makes those comments any less valid, especially if educators are the people you're trying to dialogue with. Instead of dismissing such comments outright, why don't you take your own advice and do some listening. Dialogue is a two-way street you know.
Big brother? Relax, it's call a site meter, and anyone can see mine at the bottom of the site.
I'm listening. Tell me what I didn't hear. You said I shouldn't criticize or ridicule Kim Burningham. I pointed out that he is an elected official, subject to criticism, and in this case deserving of criticism.
And so are you...
That's the problem. Where does criticism get you. Nowhere. It just makes people mad and want to turn away from the process. Instead of bringing people together, it alienates.
We disagree. In my opinion, public officials, including me, should be subject to criticism -- along with occassional praise and a lot of dialogue.
You're right that baseless criticism is ineffective. The post, though, simply points out that Kim did not have authority to speak for his board. It gives more context to an important story. (It is extremely rare -- never in my 7 years -- that a government official refuses to allow anyone from his agency to speak to the Legislature). All in all, the post is pretty benign stuff.
When it was pointed out on your blog that Rep. Hughes had kicked a woman out of the House voucher hearing for clapping, you commented that it was much more difficult to run a meeting then to criticize someone for doing it. Maybe you should give Kim Burningham similar consideration.
Talk about it? Forgive me for being a little bit irritated, but I've left email and phone messages with four legislators involved in the discussion. I tried to contact legislators both before and after the hearing. The only one I was able to speak with was the Senator unfortunate enough to answer when I called his cell phone.
I'm left to wonder whether you're only willing to discuss this issue when you can set the terms of the discussion. It's a bit harsh to say, but given the silence my private communication is met with, is there a different conclusion I should come to?
Dixie is correct--there was no collusion at the Board level w/ regard to not attending. I seriously considered going, but responsibilities at work prevented it. (Other related meetings, e.g. the joint mtg the previous week, had already put me behind on an important project.).
This all makes for some interesting politics indeed. Could it be that the improving relations we have seen over the last several years between the Board and the Legislature is seen by some as NOT a good thing? Could it be that all of this is designed to push us back to a time of more intense conflict ahead of what will surely be an attempt to strip the Board of authority?
Steve, I thought (read hoped) you were above all that.
It’s starting to sound shady.
-Put the Board on the agenda on short notice, knowing they only meet once a month and that they all have other full-time commitments.
-Ignore their private messages.
-Alert the media that the board can not send a representative.
-Then, when no Board members can make it, attack.
This is definitely a major step backward.
Tom,
I will call you this afternoon.
Tim,
There wasn't short notice. Board members and lots of representatives from the USOE are at every meeting, except for this one. You might not agree with my tone (I will re-examine that, and leave the skipped meeting issue alone from now on), but it is a fact that the skipped meeting was intentional. Trying to say otherwise is fiction.
Also, am I the only one who thinks Kim Burningham has some responsibilities as an elected official and experienced politician? The past few days I've been asking Gov. Huntsman and AG Shurtleff to take action on a different issue. No one seems to consider them to be victims. Why the difference?
I've had a chance to take some deep breaths, count to ten, and settle down a little bit. :)
For those who haven't followed the audio, there were USOE representatives there for the next agenda item. Personally, this is one issue that I'm not completely willing to have a USOE representative speak for me on. Based on prior conversations, I suspect there are nearly as many opinions on the issue of representation by the AG as there are Board members. His strong personal opinions not withstanding, Kim does make an effort to make sure the entire Board is represented on contentious issues. I don't do as good of job of that as I could/should. I'm a bit too contrarian by nature.
I look forward to your call. If you don't have my cell phone number, send me an email and I'll get it to you.
Okay,
I'll be critical of Burningham then. The guy has been around a long time. Sometimes long-time servants work together with others well because they love and serve the people.
Others become a light unto themselves and boycott meetings that they don't deign to attend. It doesn't matter how a public official feels about something, to spurn a public meeting out of spite is beneath the dignity of any elected official.
Representative Urquhart,
After sharing my response with you and others of the State Board, I have come to agree with you and Tom that if the message isn't offensive that perhaps your blog is of value to the general public. Thus I wanted to share my response here to your article.
Since you quoted my email to you and other members of the Educational Interim Committee - I felt that I should address my concern that you missed my message.
Since the leadership of the Educational Interim Committee was forced to change the agenda for their meeting, there was not time for the State Board to meet and address the agenda items, thus you heard from one member of the Board, who happens to be the Chair of our Board.
Another issue that complicated our involvement in the meeting is the lack of a clear common understanding, by some outspoken legislatures, as to where the State Board of Education falls in the political process. (This has been especially troublesome of late, in light of the legislature's attempts to determine educational policy, and the Attorney General dictating to the Board rather than counseling the Board.)
I truly believe that it would indeed be a step in the right direction to meet together to gain a common understanding of "who is in charge of what", that each and everyone of us should make decisions in regard to the best interests of education for all the students of our state and that we should trust each other -- given our respective roles to do the right thing.
Your Education Interim Committee meeting would have been a good start if the timing and respect for the State School Board were in place.
I believe for all of us to be successful in meeting the needs of the State, we must give up our partisan politics, involvement in areas where we gain personally or monetarily, and especially give up throwing "barbs" at each other to create a political spectacle -- in hopes that we could and should work together.
Thank you, Dixie, for your thoughtful post. The issue of legal representation obviously is something that we need to work through. But, when we look at the other, meatier issues we handle on a routine basis, I'm confident we'll figure it out.
It does make sense to come together to form some common understandings (and isolate our disagreements), (1) to remind ourselves that the State Board and the Legislature do mostly get along and (2) to do what is best for education in the State.
Thank you for your service. Though we might disagree on a few policies and approaches, I don't doubt for a second the passion and sincerity your bring to the job.
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