A conundrum that charter schools face when recruiting prestigious one percenty-types (celebrities, politicians, stockbrokers and lawyers) to serve on their governing boards is that, yes, this may open the school up to more charitable giving. But, people with outrageous fortunes sometimes came to them through outrageous means. When a school board member is hoisted on his own petard, to what extent should that reflect on the school? Old-fashioned school district school boards – however incompetent, corrupt or amateurish – have the benefit of being democratically elected by the people, and therefore, NOT OUR SCHOOL’S FAULT when they go to jail for their own idiocy.
In the era of charter schools, where governing boards are corporations appointed through insular networks of money and influence, things get tricker. Take the scary situation of Bronx Charter School for the Arts, an otherwise lovely and totally rare arts-centric (in this day of standardized math and English testing!) charter school, which had the relatively good fortune of securing “record producer, DJ, rapper and painter”, as well as Alicia Keys’ husband, Swizz Beatz, as a member of its school board.
Today, Swizz Beatz is facing federal scrutiny for his role as CEO of MegaUpload, the sacrificial lamb of Hollywood’s failed attempt to upend anti-piracy law through the “SOPA” and “Protect IP” bills that were so overwhelmingly rejected by popular opinion earlier this week. While this may be welcome news to Bob Dylan, at Bronx Arts where board-member Swizz Beatz accepted the CEO position at that now-controversial company as quickly as he accepted a seat on their governing board, everyone involved in the operation must be worried about guilt by association.
I don’t mean to damn MegaUpload. It seems like a fairly innocent pawn in the war between Hollywood and moviegoers who are tired of paying more for less. I don’t mean to damn Swizz Beatz, who seems like a relatively decent guy who was only supporting a decent charter school that tries to keep the arts front and center while most laws and funding streams emphasize student test results in math and English. I’m just saying that when you treat each individual charter school as a district unto itself, you’re going to embroil otherwise-decent schools into controversies in which they play no role. Take this fact, as a parting shot: in New Jersey, where 187 school board members have failed to complete criminal background checks, that statistic equates to only .2% of public school district members failing to live up their their obligations under the law. Charter schools? Nearly one in six charter school corporate school board members failed to follow the law. Quite the conundrum for anyone trying to support otherwise decent charter schools as they attempt to carry out their missions.