18-year-olds entitled to run for office

Leave it to Illinois school boards, already facing a plethora of serious problems, to see one where it doesn't exist. And worse, to squash the democratic process in the bargain.

Seems the Illinois Association of School Boards is terribly concerned that its members will be invaded by irresponsible 18-year-olds who want to be school board members. In response, the umbrella association is asking boards everywhere to back legislation that would ban 18-year-olds from serving on school boards where they attend school.

The association sees many evils in young people exercising their constitutional rights by running for elective office. They would be their teachers' or principal's boss. They would be privy to confidential disciplinary matters of fellow students or teachers.

All of that is true. Just as it is true that the law allows them to vote and run for office at 18 and that the same law mandates their registering for the draft at that age if they are male.

Schools operate under rules that define students as lesser citizens, often for understandable safety reasons, sometimes because it simply makes life easier for those running them. But 18 is the age of true citizenship, whether students are still in school or not, and reaching that milestone ought to entitle them to its rights and responsibilities.

Beyond that, the chances of an 18-year-old being elected are so slim and the conflicts so fleeting as to be hardly worth considering. If an 18-year-old can follow election law well enough to get on the ballot, run a solid campaign and convince a majority of voters of competence and maturity, we have little doubt they could also honor confidentiality agreements. And given most 18-year-olds are seniors, most conflicts would be temporary at best.

Beyond that, the conflict would certainly be no greater than a school board member having a spouse who teaches in the district or is an administrator in the district, an all-too-common phenomenon on most boards. And given school is all about young people, how would it hurt if they had a little real representation rather than that claimed vicariously by others?

The biggest conflict we can see is that most such self-motivated students might be going on to college, making attending meetings a challenge unless they attend school near home. But that would, no doubt, be one of the questions they'd have to answer satisfactorily during a campaign in order to be elected.

School districts in Illinois already face huge problems in areas of student achievement, fiscal stability and responsibility, adequate facilities and taxpayer unrest.

As part of their responsibility to educate young people to take their place in a democratic system, they should be urging young, motivated good citizens to participate, not defining such participation as yet another problem.