NASHVILLE – Tennessee lawmakers rejected a bill this week that would have allowed school districts to make the local school superintendent an elected position.

The rejected law would have made it much easier for the Tennessee Education Association to manipulate local school districts through the election process.

Like teacher unions across the country, the TEA and its local affiliates are known to take advantage of low-turnout local school board elections by leveraging their members’ outsized influence at the polls to elect friendly board members.

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Those board members then typically hire a superintendent to run the day-to-day district operations.

That system already works to the advantage of teacher unions, but the rejected law would have allowed the TEA could to focus its resources on electing the superintendent – rather than a majority of school board members who choose the superintendent.

Since superintendents control the day-to-day operations of a school district, the TEA’s plan would have made it much easier for unions to control the direction and cash flow of their local schools.

KnoxNews.com reports similar measures were introduced in the past and voted down. Thankfully, members of Tennessee’s House Education Subcommittee kept that tradition alive this week when they shot the proposal down six to three.

“Stephen Smith, speaking for the (Tennessee Department of Education), said superintendents should be appointed on the basis of ability, ‘not limited to someone who happens to live in the district and is willing to run,’” the news site reports.

Smith told lawmakers accountability is “diffused” when both school board members and superintendents are elected.

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House Bill 417, sponsored by Rep. Kelly Keisling, would not have forced districts to elect a superintendent, rather it would have allowed counties with elected school superintendents prior to 1992 to hold a referendum to see if taxpayers want to go back to the old system.

Tennessee mandated in 1992 that all superintendents be appointed.

And it seems like it will stay that way, for now.

KnoxNews.com reports Sen. Frank Niceley opted to skip a scheduled state Senate committee vote on a companion bill after HB 417 crashed and burned.