State Superintendent of Education: elected or appointed?

I don’t have much of a problem with a Lieutenant Governor elected along with the Governor instead of being a separate ballot line, but I do think an appointed Superintendent of Education is a bad idea. (Both proposals just passed the House and are headed on to the state Senate.) One can assume (I guess) that most people who vote for a winning gubernatorial candidate wouldn’t mind if he/she were replaced by someone of the same party if incapacitated. But in many (recently most) elections, voters have picked a Superintendent of Ed who is from a different party than the governor and articulates a rather different vision for education. Maybe that makes government run less smoothly. But I think it also indicates that the voters are saying something important, something that should not be ignored. After all, the state superintendent does not run local schools on a day-to-day basis. He or she is concerned not just with pesky details about which the voters are uninformed, but with a wider vision for education in our state – something about which many voters know at least a little and have pretty strong opinions.

Thoughts? If you live in a state where the state superintendent of education (or equivalent position) is not an elected official, how’s it working out?

- KPE