Superintendent races need an overhaul

With just a week remaining before the June 3 school superintendent elections, the campaigns are once again offering little that educators, parents or students can be proud of. This year, some of the fiercest disputes are unfolding within the same ideological camps rather than between rivals.

In Seoul, progressive candidates have long dominated superintendent elections, largely because of successful unification efforts. This year, however, disagreements over that process have spilled into the courts. Candidates have sought evidence-preservation orders, filed injunctions to block rivals from using the label "democratic progressive unity candidate" and exchanged lawsuits and countersuits.

The conservative camp has been no different. Although it selected a unity candidate early, one contender later challenged the process in court, arguing he had never agreed to the polling method used to choose the nominee. Another pursued a separate unification effort before entering the race independently. As a result, Seoul has eight candidates, the largest field among the nation’s 16 metropolitan and provincial education elections. Similar legal battles, accusations and mudslinging have surfaced elsewhere.

The irony is hard to miss. Candidates insist that education should remain politically neutral, yet superintendent elections continue to revolve around conservative and progressive alliances. Officially, candidates run without party affiliations or ballot numbers to preserve neutrality. In reality, ideological alignment remains the single most important factor in determining the outcome. Meanwhile, policy debate has largely vanished.

Working with a research team led by Kang Woo-chang, a professor of political science and international relations at Korea University, The Dong-A Ilbo analyzed 2,069 campaign pledges from 58 candidates across the country’s 16 superintendent races using artificial intelligence.

Most candidates proposed support centers to address declining academic performance and strengthen teacher authority. Many promised free smart devices or digital accounts to expand AI education. Some pledged cash-equivalent benefits ranging from 100,000 won to 1.2 million won. Others promised programs that would help students accumulate assets worth as much as 50 million won.

What stood out was not the ambition of the pledges but the lack of preparation behind them.

Repeated calls to campaign offices seeking policy materials often produced the same response: staff had been too preoccupied with unification negotiations to prepare them. Some campaigns admitted they had no policy booklet at all. Others submitted pledges identical to those used in the 2022 election, in some cases word for word.

Many voters enter the polling booth without knowing much about the candidates. Yet few elected positions carry greater influence. The nation’s 16 superintendents will oversee a combined education budget of 76 trillion won this year, manage personnel decisions affecting more than 610,000 education employees and shape the education of more than 5.5 million students.

One education official summed up the appeal of the office bluntly. “The job is more attractive than being a university president or even a cabinet minister because superintendents directly control personnel appointments, manage budgets and influence students’ lives,” the official said. “Wherever they go, they are treated with enormous respect. Who would not want that?”

The question for candidates is straightforward: while battling over unification formulas, how much time have they spent discussing the problems confronting schools?

In some grades and subjects, the proportion of students failing to meet basic academic standards has reached a record high. The number of high school dropouts is at its highest level in five years. Reports of school violence have also reached an all-time high.

Public education continues to struggle with attacks on teachers’ authority and a flood of malicious complaints from parents, making even field trips increasingly difficult to organize. At the same time, private education spending per student has climbed to a record level.

An election that spends more energy on factional disputes than on these challenges inevitably raises questions about whether taxpayers are getting value for their money. Candidates spent more than 66 billion won in the 2022 superintendent elections alone.

If these races continue to revolve around political maneuvering rather than education policy, calls for fundamental reform will only become harder to ignore.