American School Boards – Abolish or Improve?
Public schools in the United States continue to be governed by appointed or elected school boards – except in cases of takeovers and charter schools that report directly to states. But some seem to be asking if school boards are relevant in today’s world. Often there is no mention of them in national conversation about school reform. Other times, there is prominent mention of them in the headlines because of bad governing skills and just plain bad behavior. And yet school boards continue to set policy, to hire and fire superintendents, and to manage huge amounts of taxpayer money. Can we really afford to ignore them? How can we insure effective school boards?
For starters, public schools belong to the public. The public either elects their school board members or elects a Mayor who appoints them. Either way, school boards represent their communities in the oversight of their schools. In this way, the local school board remains the heart of the democratic process and possibly the purest form of public service. Local communities should continue to have the right to govern their own schools – to lose that would be to lose public support for public schools.
School board members should spend time out in the community talking with parents and citizens about their dreams for their children and the kind of schools they want. In spite of all the challenges facing schools today, school boards should try to deliver on those dreams. The first way to deliver is to make sure the right superintendent is in place. Then school boards must insure proper roles and let the superintendent run the school district. Micro-managing should not be tolerated by either other board members or by the community. School boards can create a culture among themselves that doesn’t tolerate inappropriate behavior by individual members. School board members have to understand that regardless of their individual professional expertise, their role is to oversee the superintendent, whose role it is to run the day-to-day operations.
It is true that school board members come with varying degrees of knowledge about education issues. But they can do their homework in order to stay abreast of policy, legal, and financial issues, while relying on professional educators for their opinions and recommendations. They should also take advantage of state and national school board training hours and should get more than the minimum legal requirements. They should communicate effectively with the superintendent, the public, and each other. They should set measurable goals for staff and then hold them accountable for those goals. They should take public input on policy and listen to the community – then try to reach consensus on what best serves the schools.
School board members must be the prime advocates for public education in their communities. They should speak to Rotary Clubs, homeowner associations, civic clubs, and other groups to explain the challenges, issues, and accomplishments of public schools – all the while challenging them to support public education. They must continually remind citizens about the benefits of quality public schools – a better workforce, a stronger economy, more appreciation for the arts and humanities, better citizens and voters, and a community that draws people to want to live there.
School boards should respect each other even while disagreeing, because after all – the same process put each of them in that position. They may be individuals with different opinions, but they should wrestle the issues and come together for the sake of students, teachers, and schools. Shame on people who serve on school boards for all the wrong reasons and who make it all about their personal agenda. But while some school boards’ antics make us shudder and are enough to make us sometimes want to abolish school boards, I have seen no system I would want to replace them with. The solution is to work towards school boards that represent the best of our communities and who will be champions for America’s children and her noble plan to provide quality public education.
Time for a disclaimer now … I was a school board member for nine years in an urban/suburban school district in Texas that had 35,000 students, changing demographics, shrinking financial resources, and increased state and federal accountability measures that were often in conflict with each other Sound like disaster? It wasn’t, and the reason it wasn’t is the recipe given here for an effective school board. My fellow school board members learned our lessons together. This is not a simple recipe, and it takes time, commitment, and an unwavering belief that all children deserve a quality public education.
Leaving school boards out of the education reform conversation is not a good idea. They still govern our schools districts and should be fully engaged in the education reform dialogue. Citizens should make sure they have school boards that reflect the quality they want to see in their schools – even if it means they offer themselves to serve on their school board!
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