Wisconsin’s constitutional offices were established so that the people of the state would be able to elect stewards of public records and elections, the treasury and education — as well as a chief executive and an attorney general.

The great thing about the Wisconsin approach was that it recognized the wisdom of spreading power around — and of making the powerful accountable.

Unfortunately, that wisdom has been sacrificed in a headlong rush to concentrate power in the office of the governor and shield all statewide officials from electoral accountability.

The attorney general retains real responsibilities.

But other statewide posts are in limbo.

So it is that the offices of secretary of state and state treasurer, while still elected, have almost no meaningful authority. Most of the responsibilities that were once vested in those offices are now carried out by unelected officials who rarely face political consequences for their actions. For instance, unlike most states, Wisconsin has handed the duties of the secretary of state over to the bumbling Government Accountability Board.

While Wisconsin needs a serious overseer of budgeting and the public debt — someone who could raise the alarm bell when governors and legislators veer into uncharted and economically unwise territory — the state treasurer is little more than a placeholder.

And the state superintendent of public instruction has, at best, ill-defined authority when it comes to education policy. The Department of Public Instruction still has a substantial staff. But it is so constrained in its role that the superintendent’s job is more that of a preacher on a bully pulpit than a real leader with regard to elementary, secondary and higher education.

Wisconsin schools have suffered as a result of not having a strong DPI and a powerful superintendent whom the voters can hold to account on questions about school funding, curriculum, achievement gaps and the integration of educational facilities into our communities.

It is with this in mind that legislators should debate Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposal to give the superintendent of public instruction more authority to turn around struggling schools. Doyle proposes to make it possible for the superintendent to direct local school boards to order curriculum changes in specific schools, and even order personnel changes, subject to collective bargaining.

The Legislature should approach these proposed changes warily.

Doyle is also trying to disempower the elected Milwaukee school board in a manner that is anti-democratic and is creating deep divisions in the state’s largest city. To the extent that his proposals with regard to DPI are schemes to achieve that end, legislators should refuse to play the game.

By the same token, it makes sense to give the state superintendent more authority to work with elected school boards when it comes to setting curriculum standards and strengthening school funding mechanisms — as does giving the state superintendent a bigger role as a statewide policymaker and agenda-setter on issues such as linking schools, day care centers and community centers.

There are delicate balances to be achieved here, but the ultimate goal of making the state superintendent’s job a more powerful one is worth pursuing.

And when DPI has been muscled up, legislators might want to turn their attention to strengthening the offices of state treasurer and secretary of state.

Then, when Wisconsinites elect constitutional officers — as they certainly should — they will not just be filling statewide positions. They will be influencing the direction of state government in a meaningful manner.

That, as Wisconsin’s founders so well understood, is how a democracy is supposed to operate.

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