Selection of ed board faces review

Should Utah's 15-member State Board of Education be directly elected by citizens?

Should it keep its current hybrid form — two candidates appointed to the ballot in each district by the governor, then one elected by citizens?

Or should the board just be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, taking citizens out of the loop completely?

Certain board members, like board chairman Kim Burningham, have angered some leading Republicans by taking stands against laws passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

And now the non-partisan Constitution Review Commission will study how, or if, the governance of the board should be changed, with a report to the 2008 Legislature.

It may turn into an emotional fight, complete with strong personalities holding strong opinions, especially about private school vouchers.

"I don't like the current hybrid system" of electing the 15 State School Board members, House Speaker Greg Curtis says. "We should just have direct elections" — doing away with the current system where a commission screens applicants, passing on names to the governor, who picks two for each final district race. Voters then choose between those two.

At an event last spring, Curtis, R-Sandy, ended up sitting next to Kevin Worthen, the review commission's chairman and dean of the University of Utah Law School. Said Curtis: "We struck up a conversation about governance" of the State Board of Education, whose duties are generally described in the Utah Constitution.

How board members are elected is not in the Constitution; it just says that board members will be elected, not appointed. But review commission members said they may want to recommend whether board members are appointed — as is the State Board of Regents, which oversees public colleges and universities.

And while Constitution Review Commission members said their study will not be directly related to vouchers, a highly politically charged issue to be decided by voters Nov. 6, the commission members and legislators alike can hardly avoid the issue.

Burningham, a former moderate GOP House member, clearly has become a political lightning rod regarding vouchers. The education board chairman is involved in the anti-voucher charge — and at times been a face and voice for a political issue committee that's spending millions of dollars aimed at defeating the new law Nov. 6.

At the same time, GOP legislative leadership, including Curtis, formed an opposing political issue committee that's fighting to keep vouchers.