Judge: School governance 'unconstitutional'

Judge Robert Hobgood ruled Friday that Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson's authority to run the state schools bureaucracy cannot be transferred to an executive officer answerable to the State Board of Education without a Constitutional amendment approved by the state's voters. The current governance arrangement, he ruled, is unconstitutional.

The ruling in effect means that Bill Harrison, appointed to the State Board of Education by Gov. Bev Perdue and named its chief executive officer to run schools on a day to day basis, works for Atkinson now. Atkinson's job, among other things, will be to carry out the policy of the State Board of Education.

That may throw governance of schools into some disarray once again; the state will appeal Hobgood's ruling. And it leaves before the General Assembly a question that has been there for many years: If it wants to put accountability for public school performance closer to the governor's office, it will have to do so through a Constitutional amendment that the state's voters must approve.