Petitions are floating around Egremont and the other school district towns to have school committee members elected rather than appointed by the selectboards. Good or bad idea?

It's reported that the Egremont selectmen are in favor of electing school committee members. Their rationale is apparently based on what I'm told happened in Sheffield: Some or all the Sheffield-appointed committee members weren't in favor of backing out of the expense sharing arrangement, so the Sheffield selectboard replaced them with members who were in favor. That eventually led to the big increase in Egremont's share of the school budget.

But would electing school committee members be better? Shouldn't a town's committee members be doing what that town's selectboard wants? What happens if some group with its own particular agenda works hard and gets its own folks elected? That's happened in some midwest school districts that then voted to put creationism in the curriculum.

In New York, the school district is an entity, separate from the towns in the district, that has the power to govern, assess and tax. There it makes sense to have the school board members elected, and consequently beholden to all the voters in the district. But in Massachusetts, the school district isn't separate from its constituent towns, each of which has to separately vote on the school budget. So why shouldn't the school committee members represent their respective towns (and hence their respective selectboards)?

Sounds to me like this petition effort is a knee jerk response to Sheffield's unfortunate (for Egremont) action. Maybe we should all take a longer range look.

And the Egremont selectboard apparently doesn't see the irony in supporting election of school committee members within a year after supporting appointing, rather than electing, the board of assessors. You can get good people and you can get bad people on boards and committees. At least if they're appointed, it's easier to get rid of the bad ones. If you have the guts to do it.