John Sibler, president of Boston University, has been trying to take over a public school system for a number of years. He twice tried in Boston and once in Lowell, but was rebuffed. Now Chelsea, the poorest district in Massachusetts, is willing to let BU run its public schools for ten years. 

A quick look at Chelsea's public schools - their lack of funds, high dropout and teenage pregnancy rates, low test scores - helps us understand why the Chelsea School Committee is ready to turn over its responsibility and powers to run the schools to John Silber and BU. But desperation and BU' s promises of money and relief shouldn't obscure major issues of law, public and education that this proposed takeover raises, not only in Chelsea but in the nation. 

Is such a turnover constitutional? Can an elected public body turn everything over to a private institution just like that? Has BU promised much more than any educational institution has a right (e.g., in 5 years, "average test scores will be dramatically above the statewide average ... the dropout rate will decline to well below 10% ... "etc.)? Will the school board really be able to exercise about the only power it would have, to terminate the takeover, if whatever private money BU raised leaves when BU does? I've dealt with these issues before. Now it's time to deal with some of the laws that BU demands be changed as a condition to help. 

There are a number of laws to make sure that people who have the power to spend public money or make public decisions don't do so in order to benefit themselves, their friends or a business or institution they're connected with. People running a school system sometimes also contract outside firms for products or services, such as books or fuel oil, garbage collection or legal help. But before these decisions are made, the school board has to invite competitive bids, hold public hearings and find out if making any of these decisions would financially benefit any school board members or any company or firm they have an interest in. School boards and other public bodies are therefore publicly accountable both for the performance of their public duties and for serving the public interest when they contract with others. 

As a condition of its helping the Chelsea school system, BU wants essentially to become its superintendent, school committee and contractor. BU wants no less than the "authority and responsibility for the management, supervision and oversight of the school system" including but not limited to the power "to apply for and seek funds in the name of and on behalf of the School Committee from any source ... " and to receive and spend those funds. BU would also be able to raise and spend funds "in its own name or on its own behalf' for activities BU thought were related to its Chelsea work. 

This proposal alone - and it's only part of the package - is enough to raise a constitutional controversy. But there's more. After proposing to take over virtually all of the powers and functions of the school committee (and other public officials and employees), BU seeks to be exempt from most of the publicinterest laws governing public bodies! (Don't we have enough corruption among individuals and both public and private institutions that are subject to the law?) Silber has repeatedly said that BU needs all this power because the school committee is so riddled with patronage it can't be trusted. BU presumably can be trusted, so much so that the laws that stimulate people and institutions to be trustworthy can, in its judgement and case, be put aside. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and BU is no exception. But ifBU's proposals go through, even without the exemptions from law, here's one small problem I can already anticipate: 

In a telephone conversation I had with Silber, he indicated that one major way BU would help the Chelsea school system would be by providing the retraining of many of its teachers and administrators. But now that Silber will be wearing two hats - that of the president of Boston University and the de facto boss of the Chelsea public school system - will it be long before the same questions will be asked of him as are usually asked of any other board member or superintendent of schools? 

"Mr. Silber, why should BU be the place where our staff is retrained? Were any other colleges and universities invited to submit proposals and bids? If not, why not? If others did, what made you think they couldn't do a better or equal job? Would your university benefit financially from any money you received to retrain Chelsea's personnel? Is it true that BU once had 350 freshmen in its School of Education and now has 45? How do we know that his project and the retraining of Chelsea staff aren't just a way of beefing up the enrollment at BU's School of Ed.? 

"If the retraining is mandatory and you are raising and spending public and private monies, in your name and in the name of the School Committee, for activities at BU, how is this different from a school board member or superintendent giving school business to his or her own law firm without competitive bids? If it's voluntary, how do we make sure that staff members who take courses at BU don't get preferential treatment in promotion and tenure in the Chelsea schools? Since you're doing the hiring, evaluating, and firing in the Chelsea schools, how do we make sure BU graduates don't get special treatment?" And that's just one small set of questions .... 

The issue is not whether Chelsea needs and should get help; it should. The issue is not whether the elected school committee has done a bad job and someone else can do it better. (Though if it had had what BU says it must have to do the job, maybe it would have done better.) It's not even whether BU could be of help, though I now have doubts. The issue is whether the price for that help must be throwing out all the rules of what constitutes fairness and good government - and a good part of the constitution and our democratic principles, to boot. 

Many school districts are receiving help from universities, foundations or unions, sometimes acting together. Nowhere have the conditions attached to such help been so outrageous. In return for "help," a desperate community is about to pay a price that threatens constitutional principles and democratic institutions. Can the nation afford the precedent?