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Every now and then, Kendall Wallace renews his personal campaign to replace the elected school committee with an appointed board, as he did in his Saturday Chat on June 8th.  I have never heard a compelling argument from Mr. Wallace in favor of this change and remain unconvinced by his latest concern, which seems to be that there may not be enough candidates for the job in the upcoming election.  So far, none of the incumbents have bowed out and there are two challengers, so his fears seem unfounded.  If a seat opens up, it is likely that other contenders might join the race.   However, my reasons for being against this idea are as follows:

•  This has been tried in very few places and the results are inconclusive.
•  The cities who have gone to an appointed school committee (Boston is one) all have ’strong mayor’ governments; thus the mayor is responsible to the voters.  Since Lowell does not have this system, who would do the appointing and to whom would they be accountable?
• Given the perception in Lowell up until recently that board appointments are all about who you know and to whom you are related, it seems wrong to put the schools in the position where patronage could take precedence over student needs.
• Who will speak out for the schools if the board members all owe their positions to someone at city hall? The elected school committee puts the interests of the schools first, which is their job. 
• School committee members are visible in the community and accessible to parents, because they are elected officials; an appointed board would have less incentive to be connected and available to the people they serve.
• Finally, democracy seems to be an acceptable way to appoint our city council, why not the school committee which has responsibility for 15,000 school children, 23 schools and $136 million dollars?