Opponents of the Common Core education standards and their allies in the Missouri Legislature are looking to oust the State Board of Education - at the ballot box.
A handful of House resolutions considered at a hearing Monday night seek to put members of the state school board up for election. They are currently appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
"First of all, the parents want it," said one of the sponsors, Rep. Bryan Spencer, R-Wentzville. "Second of all, the teachers that I talk to want it. They feel the system has gone awry, and the voice of education is not being best served."
The witnesses who testified in favor of the plan tied the issue to what they say was an underhanded and opaque process of ratifying the Common Core standards. The standards were developed and approved by a national consortium of state education officials and adopted by Missouri's state board in 2010.
Already this session, a Senate hearing on the standards has drawn a line of testifiers out of the committee room and down a long Capitol hallway. Both opponents and supporters of the standards have made their voices heard.
After Monday's House hearing, Mary Byrne of Springfield said the standards were adopted "sight unseen and the substance is not the best ... we got that content because the process was wrong. There is evidence that the real goal is workforce planning not the general diffusion of knowledge to protect our rights and liberties."
But some lawmakers and education groups argue opening state school board members to popular election will politicize the critical policy-making body and could lead to "big money" individuals dabbling with board elections.
"It seems kind of hard to imagine that we would get a better outcome in terms of not having politics be a key driving force in the decisions that relate to the regulation of our schools if we leap out to having an elected board," said Otto Fajen of the Missouri NEA.
Rep. Gina Mitten, D-St. Louis, also highlighted concerns with state board candidates having to raise money for elections and said opponents of Common Core should seek legislative remedies rather than amend the Constitution.
"An amendment ... not only dilutes constitutional authority but subjects monied, partisan politics into the process," she said. "(Board members) already are accountable to voters."
Twelve other states share Missouri's model of a governor-appointed board that chooses the chief state school officer, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education. Another 20 states also have governor-appointed boards and either elected or governor-appointed education chiefs.
Eight states, including Kansas, Colorado, Texas and Nebraska have elected state school boards.
In Missouri, the state school board is responsible for accrediting school districts, creating teacher development programs, approving charter schools, and, according to the state Constitution, "... supervision of instruction in the public schools."
There are currently seven members on the state board, all men, and one vacancy. Board President Peter Herschend, a co-founder of Silver Dollar City in Branson, has served consecutive terms on the board since 1991.
Under the proposed amendment, board members would be elected from the state's eight congressional districts beginning in 2016 and would serve terms of four years and be limited to two terms.
"We need to be able to recall people who have been so authoritarian in their approach to public education," Byrne said.
Sen. Brian Nieves, R-Washington, has also filed legislation that would move the state school board into elections, but neither a bill nor a resolution he supports has received a public hearing on the Senate side.
On Tuesday, Senate Education Committee Chair David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, said electing state board members was not a high priority to him and wouldn't say whether he would give Nieves' legislation a hearing this session.
"I think we have a lot of issues that have to be addressed first - transfers, Common Core," he said. "The State Board of Education is a reflection of our state, I think the confirmation process works well. I think the status quo works."