Lots has/will be written about the impact of local and national elections on schools, particularly the inevitable reauthorization somewhere down the road of the federal No Child Left Behind law, the inevitable resolution of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, the lifting of the cap on charter schools, etc.

But here is one question I found myself asking myself yesterday:

Why do we close our schools on Election Day? It's one thing if this decision is loosely rooted in old-school patronage and the need for teachers and school principals to work for the local party apparatus. I'm not sure if that is the history.

But if the reason we close our schools on ED is because we often use school buildings for balloting, isn't this whole idea backward? If politicians are as proud of public education as they claim (and I continue to be baffled why any politician would profess to be proud of a 50% graduation rate) wouldn't they view ED as a way to showcase the wonderful things happening in our schools for a public that is often locked out?

Or, if you're like me and you're not particularly proud of the conditions under which we make children and their teachers work, wouldn't this be a golden opportunity to show the public what we have on our hands? If kids are really learning in closets, shouldn't voters see that on ED? If there is no toilet paper, if there is mayhem in the hallways, if classrooms of kids are being taught by subs who only babysit, etc., shouldn't we allow the public to see this so we can finally put some political muscle behind doing something about it? Let the voters count the number of kids in their local classrooms for themselves and decide for themselves what is going on with class size.

Why not keep schools open on ED and showcase the reality of what we have on our hands - the good and the bad?