{"id":194888,"date":"2026-05-17T13:09:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/194888\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T13:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:09:24","slug":"pennsylvania-should-mandate-nonpartisan-school-board-elections-letter-letters-to-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/194888\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania should mandate nonpartisan school board elections [letter] | Letters To The Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shirley Hershey Showalter is right in her May 2 LNP | LancasterOnline column <a href=\"https:\/\/lancasteronline.com\/opinion\/columnists\/as-warwick-book-dispute-demonstrates-we-need-to-bring-back-nonpartisan-school-boards-column\/article_24951312-5f55-4162-8f96-c01a1b324dab.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u201cAs Warwick book dispute demonstrates, we need to bring back nonpartisan school boards.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Partisan school board governance has eroded the public nature of public education. But this will not be fixed by appeals to civility. It requires structural change.<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania should mandate nonpartisan school board elections.<\/p>\n<p>Partisan ballots distort the role from the start. They reward candidates who mobilize a base, not those prepared to steward a community. Once elected, the logic follows: \u201cOur community\u201d becomes those who agree with me, and governance becomes delivery to a faction. That is how we end up debating isolated passages in books while larger responsibilities \u2014 student learning, fiscal stability, teacher retention \u2014 slip out of focus.<\/p>\n<p>This is not a failure of individuals. It is a failure of design.<\/p>\n<p>After decades in education in Lancaster County, I have seen that strong systems depend on clear roles: Boards set direction and ensure accountability; educators do the teaching. When boards cross that line, trust erodes, talent leaves and schools become battlegrounds instead of places of learning.<\/p>\n<p>Nonpartisan elections would not eliminate disagreement, but they would change incentives. Candidates would need to appeal broadly, govern with judgment and serve the whole \u2014 not a political slice.<\/p>\n<p>The General Assembly should act now. Restore school boards to their proper role as stewards of the public good, not instruments of partisan conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Neuville<\/p>\n<p>East Earl<\/p>\n<p>\n                Success! An email has been sent to  with a link to confirm list signup.\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                Error! There was an error processing your request.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shirley Hershey Showalter is right in her May 2 LNP | LancasterOnline column \u201cAs Warwick book dispute demonstrates,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[902,86664,28,30,29,17057,30817],"class_list":["post-194888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-elections","tag-partisanship","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-school-board","tag-warwick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}