Hammatt: poster boy for term limits

Noel Hammatt of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has become part of our local public schools’ problem for one, simple reason: He’s been there too long.

The LSU education instructor is approaching two decades of service to the community by serving on the school board. In fact, he was voted in because of a group of reform-minded community leaders who were sick of stagnancy in our public schools, and whose support carried Hammatt and the other fresh-thinking newcomers into office.

Since then, Hammatt has attended countless meetings, holding forth at that mic for untold hours, sharing his insights and opinions, working to make things better.

But today, Hammatt and fellow board member Bill Black are the only ones left from that class of newcomers. Certainly some pockets within the system have shown improvement, and certain magnet programs continue to shine. But many Baton Rouge families have continued to flee from public schools. The mobile among them move to outlying parishes, while the affluent choose private schools.

Meanwhile, many of the public schools—for which Hammatt and the school board are responsible—keep getting weaker. Multiple superintendents have come and gone during Hammatt’s tenure, numerous principals have been replaced and teachers continue to be held to ever-higher performance standards. About the only thing that has remained constant is Hammatt’s presence on the board.

School boards need to be held accountable over the long-term, which requires limiting the number of times someone can seek re-election.

Hammatt could be the finest, most visionary school board member of all time; it still wouldn’t change our position that it’s someone else’s turn.

Recently, after the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education stepped in to save yet another batch of failing Baton Rouge schools, Hammatt deftly used his public position to divert attention from the children who our schools are failing. BESE Superintendent Paul Pastorek was invited to address the statewide association for school boards. Rather than allowing the state’s school board members to hear him fully explain the state’s intentions and its thinking, Hammatt cut him off 10 minutes short, then renewed his criticism of Pastorek and BESE to rousing applause from his fellow association members.

A less jaded school board member may have chosen to listen to everything the state’s top education official had to say, rather than grabbing the microphone so he could speak yet again.

Men like Noel Hammatt deserve appreciation for their service and commitment, but they should not be entitled to what amounts to an endless turn at bat.

Term limits foster fresh ideas, and they encourage productive oversight because they attract new faces to the process who are less likely to be bitter or too self-important to realize they aren’t getting the job done.

Our governor, legislators, mayor and Metro Council members are all subject to term limits.

With Louisiana still trailing most of the nation in education, we can think of no group in more desperate need of energetic, solution-minded people with fresh ideas and fresh approaches than our local school boards.