Nicholas Johnson (NJ):  Right.  The Tuesday right after Labor Day is the way to remember the day.  But of course you can vote by absentee or satellite stations as well. Check with the county auditor.

DM:  Nick, I don’t want to put you on the spot right off the bat, but why would you want to run for school board?  You’ve held presidential appointments in Washington.  You’ve clerked at the Supreme Court.  You travel the world teaching and consulting.  Why do you put yourself in the race for school board?

NJ:  Well, I was born and raised in Iowa City.  I love this town.  There are a lot of places I could live.  This is where I choose to live.  And I care about kids.  I care about the quality of life in this town.  And nothing is really more central to that than the quality of our educational system.  Not just for our children and students, but if we’re going to attract professionals to Iowa City one of the first questions they ask is, "What’s the quality of the school system here?" And we’ve had a lot of problems the last year or two.  The teachers tell me their morale has never been as low as it is now.  The parents feel like they’re being ignored by the Administration.  They feel that the School Board is not really independent, that the members are just rubber stamping what the Administration wants.  So we have some problems.  And I think we can resolve them.  But I believe in civic service. I served on the Broadband and Telecommunications Commission here in Iowa City as soon as I returned to town.

DM:  Well, Nick, let’s find out a little bit more about what you’ve been talking with people about, as you are going about running for School Board.  People are telling you what their concerns are.

NJ: Well, one of the things I’ve been doing, Derek, is reaching out to all segments of this community.  I don’t think the schools are limited even to parents.  I think the entire community is involved.  I’ve been talking to business leaders, community leaders, labor leaders, elected officials. I think everybody has a stake in the schools.  I think the schools interact with virtually every other institution in the community.  I think we need to take a very broad look at what we can do to make for the best possible education for our children.

DM:  Nick, I understand you’ve been talking to a lot of people since you decided to join the race for the School Board, and you’ve been gathering a lot of ideas, and you’ve been getting in touch with the issues that concern people.  Let’s start out by talking about the issues that people are concerned about with regard to the school district.

NJ: Well, I’m not sure we have enough time for all of them, Derek.  It really runs the gamut.  People are concerned about all day kindergarten, about cuts in music programs and foreign language, about the possibility of closing schools, about what happened to our alternative school, CEC, budget cuts that look like they’re coming again.  But mostly I think people are concerned about the process.  They want a sense of fairness.  They want to be able to understand what it is the Board is doing, why it is doing it.  They want to have access to the basic facts.  They want to have confidence that the decisions that are being made are the best decisions that can be made, and that they are being made after every interested party that’s affected by those decisions has an opportunity to participate.

DM:  What are some more of your specific ideas about how to improve the decision making process?

NJ:  Well, for one thing, I think the Board should use what I’m calling "Educational Impact Statements."  I think we need to know, with regard to every Board decision of consequence, what’s going to be the impact of the decision -- on the students, on the teachers, on the parents, on the broader community -- perhaps the police department, whatever -- the impact on the business community, and yes, even the impact on the Administration.

What kind of impact am I talking about?

I’m talking about financial impact.  And when I say financial impact I don’t just mean the cost or the savings to the School District.  What’s the cost to the parents or to the students?

What’s the impact in terms of quality of education?  That ought to be number one.

What’s the impact in terms of hassle and red tape for teachers or administrators or whatever?

What are all the ways in which decisions impact on all the segments of the community on which they impact?

I think we need to go through that checklist before we make decisions.

Secondly, I think we need to have proposed decisions up front so the Board explains what the issue is, what the options are, why it’s proposing to choose the one that it is.  Then have a comment period that’s long enough that people who care about it can become informed, get the facts, and comment.  Have the Board issue an opinion that states others' positions so forcefully and effectively that when they read it they say, "Yeah, they got it. They really heard us.  They understand our point of view."  The Board should explain its criteria, explain its decision, so that even though somebody thinks Board members came to the wrong conclusion, at least they feel that the Board members did it reasonably, they did it fairly, they did it analytically, and they used judgment and fairness in the way they went about it.

There are other things I’d like to do.

I think we need to have an ombudsperson within the School District. You may know this concept.  It’s somebody outside the chain of command to whom people can go with complaints when going through channels hasn’t provided the relief they that they wanted.

DM:  So, open up communication, open up information between the School Board, the School District Administration, and the public?

NJ:  Right.

DM:  And these principles I know are derived from your own knowledge of organizational structure, and you teach about public agencies, correct?

NJ:  Well, that’s right.  I’ve had some experience in Washington as Maritime Administrator, running a multibillion-dollar agency.   I know what those kinds of budgets are like.  I know what you mean by management information reporting systems, long range planning, planning evaluation review technique, budget management technique, zero-based budgeting.  All that is stuff that I’ve dealt with.  I think that’s a useful experience to have had.

I’ve also served on the Federal Communications Commission, which coincidentally was at that time also a seven-person body.  So I know something about what the limitations are, what the skills are one needs to work within a multi-person public board -- or in that case a commission  -- in supervising, overseeing, an agency that has a single executive as well.

DM:  Now you also received quite a few comments from constituents.

NJ:  It’s amazing.  People have sent in endorsement statements that are very heartening.

DM:  They said things like they "appreciate your frankness," that you are "shrewd and sensible," that "you care about people," that you’re "practical and creative" and have "common sense," that you’re "smart and honest."  "He wouldn’t be running if he didn’t think he could make things better."  How much did you have to pay people to say these things?

NJ:  [Laughing] Well, actually we didn’t pay them anything.  Those just came in voluntarily from people who sent in supporter forms. As a matter of fact, not only did we not pay them but almost all of those you read came in an envelope with a check made payable to the campaign.  So we’re doubly grateful to those folks.

DM:  If people are interested in your campaign and they’d like to volunteer or just know more, what can they do?

NJ:  We are trying to use in this campaign the technologies that we talk about using, in appropriate ways, within the K-12 educational system.

We have a Web page for the School Board campaign.  We have a voice message you can call and listen to.  We have something called fax-on-demand, where your fax machine can dial in and get a copy of our brochure and supporter form printed out on your fax machine. We have e-mail, of course.  Now we have this video.

So we’re trying to have the campaign itself serve an educational purpose in Iowa City about the appropriate uses of technology, getting the issues discussed.

And one of the things I really want to emphasize is the importance of voting, if I can say a word about that, Derek.

You know one of the primary purposes of public education in this country from the very beginning is training our children to be active and responsible civic participants, to be citizens, to participate in democracy.  And we need to set a good example for them.

The School Board election is the one election that has a direct impact on kids.  And do you realize in the last couple of School Board elections we’ve been lucky to get five percent of the people out to vote? Now, I’m running to win, of course.  Every one of the people running for School Board is running to win.  And I hope that people will vote for me.  I think they should vote for me.  But more important than that to me is that they vote. If they’re particularly fond of one of the other candidates then that has to be their choice.  But come out and vote.  Let’s set a good example for the children in this community.  Let’s see if we can’t at least double that five percent participation, so that only ninety percent of the voters stay home.

And take a student with you to the polls. Show them what voting is about.  Show them where the polling place is.  Many of the polls are in schools. Show them how you vote, how you mark the ballot.  Because the one thing we know is that the parents have a major role to play in the quality and quantity of education that their kids get. And one of the things that parents can do is to take children with them to the polls.

So I hope that we’ll at least double the rather small turnout we’ve had in the past and that many students in our school system will have had the experience of going to the polls with an adult and seeing what that’s all about.

DM:  And as you say, the election is on September 8th, the day after Labor Day.  Early voting is available at the Johnson County Auditor’s Office, at the Johnson County Administration Building. And I think Nick’s right, we all should vote and there’s plenty of opportunity.

I’ve been speaking with Nick Johnson, candidate for Iowa City School Board.  My name is Derek Maurer.  Thank you for joining us.

NJ:  Thank you, Derek.