However, research evidence is mixed on recent advances in achieving greater demographic representation and the extent to which representation influences board behaviors and policies.
While there have long been debates over the role of school boards in policy and decision-making, recent empirical research demonstrates that the public remains largely supportive of having school boards in charge of schools.
This relationship has key implications for enacting the school board’s vision and priorities and provides stability in senior district leadership.
These limitations have important implications for communities’ ability to influence board-level policy- and decision-making, particularly for historically marginalized groups.
In fact, the increasing nationalization of school board races has infused a significant amount of external funding into these previously local, low-dollar elections.
Although scholars have attempted to link school board governance practices and behaviors to student achievement outcomes, there is little empirical evidence that directly ties school boards to student achievement in part due to the methodological challenges of differentiating school board effects from the effects of other variables.
Although not explicitly provided for by the U.S. Constitution, all 50 state constitutions mandate the creation and maintenance of a public education system. State statutes, rules, and regulations then delegate a myriad of governing powers to the locally elected bodies that oversee K-12 public schools, often referred to as school boards. Debates about school boards are rooted in broader debates within the field of political science, particularly those around the goals and purpose of government in a representative democracy and the extent to which basic principles of democratic government are fulfilled (e.g., respect for human rights, free and fair elections, pluralism). Scholars have often grappled with differing interpretations of what representation means within institutions (e.g., increased numbers of women board members vs. policy changes due to increased demographic representation)1. They have also interrogated how elections are structured (e.g., elected at large vs. by district) and whether elected officials should purely represent their constituents’ beliefs or be trusted to act using their own judgement.2
Arguments in favor of traditionally conceptualized local school boards center around (1) the benefits of democratic representation and democratic accountability, which allow community members to potentially shape local policies and practices and express dissatisfaction with board members and their actions by exercising their preferences in local elections; (2) public access to local school board policymaking through civic participation in public board meetings and other community events that allow participants’ voices to be heard; and (3) local control, which allows school district governing bodies to set local policies and interpret and implement state and federal policy to meet the specific needs of their community.
Arguments against locally elected school boards primarily center on the mixed evidence regarding whether typical board electoral and governance structures actually allow diverse voices to gain power or be heard in board decision processes—in part due to low voter turnout, board meeting routines and procedures, and inherent inequities in who is able to run for and win school board seats. Due to electoral structures, school board members may prioritize decisions that yield short-term gains but are not sustainable in the long run or that focus on contentious issues to appeal to certain groups and undermine equitable learning opportunities. Over time, alternative forms of school governance have emerged (e.g., the portfolio management model) that transfer traditional board-level powers to school sites, aiming to provide increased site-level autonomy with boards primarily offering increased accountability and oversight, including the ability to close underperforming schools.3
Debates about school governance often come down to who has power, who has access to positions of power, and what types of power can be wielded over decision making. Much of the research summarized in this chapter examines power and voice among traditional, publicly elected school boards. However, it is important to note the substantial variation in the powers possessed by school boards across states, and many school boards have little power to enact major education policies or initiatives. Often, school boards work with district administrators to interpret the state and federal policies handed down to them. Additionally, intergovernmental relations between school boards and general-purpose governing bodies such as mayors, governors, and city or county governing bodies vary across states. For example, in Virginia, a school board must obtain consent from its city council or county commissioners in order to put a school bond issue on the ballot. In Michigan, state law prohibits a school board from going out for a bond for anything other than capital outlays (e.g., construction, facilities improvement, technology, school buses). Because U.S. public school governance structures are quite decentralized and state policies around intergovernmental relations in education policy-making vary, definitive claims about whether school boards “work” or “do not work” are challenging. Questions then become more about how well boards meet their legal requirements, establish shared goals, and effectively govern their districts while upholding democratic principles and engaging in respectful dialogue and evidence-based decision making.
In this chapter, we first summarize the key findings from contemporary research on school boards and note the understudied topics and policy considerations. Next, we provide a broad overview of public school board elections and discuss alternative school governance structures. Finally, we provide five sections of research and evidence related to school board demographics, public satisfaction with school boards, school board relations with in- and out-of-school stakeholders, school board elections, and school board effectiveness.
Understudied topics
Despite being a key site of educational policy making, school boards remain a significantly under-researched area. Relatively little is known about the inner workings of school boards, how they make decisions, and who those decisions ultimately benefit. Recent contentious board meetings and heightened attention to board-level policies regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates, book bans, and parental notification rules have increased the need for additional research focused on board–community relations, board member training and professional development, and the policies, structures, and systems that govern board members’ actions and behaviors. Additionally, the growth of charter schools has led to a related increase in school-level governance through self-appointed charter school boards. As there is relatively little research on charter school board governance, this is an area ripe for further study, particularly because charter school enrollment continues to increase.4
Policy considerations
School boards are intentionally designed to be hyperlocal governing entities that set policy and make decisions for local school districts. However, as national politics have become more local in communities across the U.S. (e.g., Moms for Liberty, the development of ethnic studies curricula and standards, continued debates on race, gender, and sexuality in schools), it has become increasingly evident that consistent state-level guidelines and policies related to how school boards should navigate community engagement are lacking, which offers a key opportunity for state-level policy development. In addition to increased state-level requirements for school board training and professional learning, several areas remain ripe for reform, including the structure of school board elections, their governing policies and procedures, and the representativeness (or not) of school boards.
In the U.S., K-12 public school board members are typically publicly elected; however, some states have enacted policies that allow either state or local government officials (e.g., governors, state education agency officials, mayors, city councils) to appoint some or all school board members. Scholars have claimed that school boards remain one of the policymaking arenas most accessible to the general public, with significant opportunities for maintaining local control.
There is high variation across states when it comes to school board elections and structures. Many states’ statutes and regulations require local boards of education to be composed of 5 members, with an exception for larger districts, which may be permitted to have more.5 In contrast, Idaho, Illinois, and Delaware, for example, mandate a specific number of school board members for all districts, regardless of size. Some states also require local school boards to include one or more student representatives, as well, and the student board members’ ability to vote on issues varies across these states. The majority of school board members serve in at-large seats, meaning that they represent their entire district. The terms for locally elected members also vary across states and locales—typically either 2, 4, or 6 year terms—and many state policies require staggered school board terms to ensure some continuity and prevent the turnover of an entire board in a single year.6 Some circumstances can lead to the removal of a publicly elected board and the establishment of an appointed board; these are typically related to low performance on the state’s school accountability system or situations of district financial distress.
In the common case in which school board members are publicly elected, states often have relatively minimal requirements for candidates running for a seat on the board. Some states require the individual to be a registered voter living within the district and of a specific age. Additionally, some state statutes make clear that anyone elected to office as a school board member must commit to completing certain training requirements and/or attending a particular percentage of all board meetings. Most school board elections are nonpartisan races, but some states either allow partisan school board elections (i.e., Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania) or provide candidates with the option of having their political affiliation listed on the ballot (i.e., Rhode Island, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia).7 Finally, if and how much school board members are compensated for their service varies across states and locales. For example, in Ohio and Mississippi, local school board members must determine if and how they will be paid, with a cap of $125 (OH) or $112 (MS) per meeting. Some large urban districts also provide a salary to their board members, such as in the Denver Public Schools, where board members can earn up to $33,000 per year (the maximum allowed under Colorado law), and in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where school board members receive an annual salary of $125,000 if they do not hold any other form of employment.
The primary role of the school board has traditionally been to develop and set district-level policies for the schools that they serve. Through responsibilities such as selecting and evaluating the district superintendent, approving the district budget, and reviewing district-wide curricula and programs, school boards are intentionally designed to provide vision and direction to the district. As elected officials, board members are often not traditionally trained educators or credentialed educational leaders. Rather, they are primarily volunteers with varying degrees of educational experience or relevant expertise. The generally voluntary, minimally compensated nature of board service, coupled with the extensive weekly time commitments, may also influence who has the time, capacity, and resources to serve in these roles.
There has been extensive debate on whether school districts should be run by elected school boards or governed through alternative governance forms, such as state takeover or mayoral control.8 In some larger cities, the mayor or governor has or can be granted authority to appoint some or all school board members, such as in Baltimore City, Buffalo, Chicago,9 Indianapolis, Jersey City, Miami-Dade County, New York City, Newark, Prince George’s County, and Rochester. Proponents of mayoral control contend that this governance approach offers coherence and alignment within a nonspecialized, general-purpose governance framework, minimizing the potential for a politically fragmented school board10 or a special-purpose governance framework that treats education separately from other public services. There is some limited correlational evidence that districts under mayoral control have improved student achievement metrics, but such progress varies across context, grade level, and subject matter.11 Some researchers have argued that characterizing school boards as “failing” due to persistent disparities in student achievement or a lack of responsiveness to community concerns does not adequately take into account the purpose of school boards and the constraints that govern their behaviors. Regardless, the vast majority of school boards remain locally elected.12
When digesting the empirical research around school boards, it is important to keep in mind that, within the U.S. system of federalism, states have significant discretion over the composition, structure, and responsibilities of K-12 public school boards—including the size of the board, eligibility, board election structures (e.g., partisan or nonpartisan, ward-based or at-large seats, on- or off-cycle elections), compensation, and term limits. As such, there are few studies of school boards that are national in scope. The geographic and sociopolitical contexts of each study may impact the generalizability of its findings to other districts and states.
Previous research has questioned the extent of school boards’ responsiveness to community concerns and suggested that structural factors (e.g., board size, election timing, organizational structure, demographics), board members’ personal beliefs and social identities, and the influence of special interest groups, can guide the decisions that they make.13 Empirical research provides inconsistent, and at times contradictory, evidence on the diversity of school board members. For example, the most recent data on demographic representation from the National School Boards Association shows that nationally, 78% of board members identified as White, a stark difference when compared to the public school population, in which only 48% of students identify as White.14 Yet research also shows that school boards are one of the bright spots in electoral politics in terms of demographic representation for women, as 46% of board members identify as women.15 Moreover, local school demographics have, over time, become more descriptively representative than most state governments: For example, women make up less than one-third of state legislators.16 Self-identified leaders of color comprise around 15% of today’s local school board members,17 and in large school districts, nearly one in every three school board members is a person of color,18 while only approximately one in ten state legislators are Black or Hispanic.19
Researchers have consistently confirmed that representation on school boards remains an entrenched issue worthy of further exploration. Using Latinx representation as an example, scholars have shown that this lack of representation is particularly important because prior research demonstrates that “representation does have an impact on the condition of Hispanics in a number of areas (Leal et. al., 2004; Ross, Rouse, & Bratton, 2010; Meier & Stewart, 1991)”.20 For example, quantitative analyses have found that districts that elected Latina board members spent substantially more on bilingual education than comparison districts without Latina representation.21 Prior research has also demonstrated increased expenditures on bilingual education programs when more Asian-American and Latinx members serve on the school board.22
Much of the literature on the potential impacts of demographic representation on school boards has come from several studies of California school boards. For example, researchers have found that increased Latino representation among school board members in California also increases the likelihood of hiring Latino administrators. However, this study did not find improved student outcomes for Latino students or English language learners in these districts.23 Another California study on racial representation and education spending found that increased Hispanic representation among board members led to increased investments in those schools with high proportions of marginalized students, ultimately positively impacting student achievement.24 However, a recent ethnographic case study of decision-making in a majority-Black school board outside of California documented the limitations of racial representation on school boards. Scholars found that board-level policies and routines limiting dialogue between the board and the community persisted despite the shared racial background between them.25
Researchers have also offered an important analysis of other demographic characteristics of school board candidates. In a quantitative analysis of school board candidates in over 600 Ohio school districts, researchers found that “school board members are more likely to come from wealthier, Whiter, and better educated neighborhoods than other neighborhoods in the same school district”.26 This finding has important implications for representation, as those candidates are more likely to have access to the resources required to run for office in what tend to be minimally contested elections (see “Shifts in School Board Elections and Politics” below for more discussion of turnout in school board elections).
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, political reformers concerned about the influence of corruption began to push for a reduction in school boards’ roles and responsibilities, ultimately leading to an expansion of the duties of district superintendents.27 This shift resulted in a governance model more closely aligned with corporate structures, i.e., the school board functions as a board of directors, with the district superintendent serving as a chief executive officer.28 Few, if any, communities require school board members to have specific educational or vocational backgrounds or certifications. This nominally allows for the greater inclusion and participation of community stakeholders with differing backgrounds in local school governance.29 Despite the greater federal and state presence in education policy,30 there is an extensive history of public support for school boards as the primary decision-making body for K-12 schools.31
Research has demonstrated the importance of opportunities for community members to participate in school governance and their correlation with the support shown for local boards. One quasi-experimental study exposed 2,186 participants to videos depicting school board meetings with differing levels of deliberation and community participation and uncovered key differences in preferences for control of schools across interest-holder groups (e.g., families, teachers, etc.) and demographic identifiers (e.g., race and socioeconomic status).32 Participants who preferred state control of schools were more likely to be non-White or non-parents, while those who preferred school boards were more likely to be parents, identifying as White, and with high trust in local elected officials. Despite these differences, at the conclusion of the experiment, participants by and large preferred local control of their schools, whether by a school board or by a school-based decision-making body, particularly if the school board offered opportunities for deliberation and community participation. These findings are aligned with other research that found racialized differences in opinions on state-level control of schools.
One nationally representative study of opinions on state takeovers of low-performing school districts found that while 70% of respondents support academic takeovers, Black respondents report lower levels of support (62%), potentially due to concerns over the loss of local power and autonomy in the majority-black communities that are often the sites of school takeovers. Despite such concerns, the authors found that even as a “plurality prefer that states play the greatest role in identifying (49%) and fixing (48%) failing schools, a large share of participants prefer that local governments play the largest role in both areas (38% and 37%, respectively).33
Drawing on a statewide representative survey of California registered voters during the height of school reopenings following the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found that 58% of voters believed that boards were generally effective, although those numbers dropped to 45% when voters rated them on their performance during the pandemic.34 Importantly, this research also found that a majority of voters (63%) supported school boards because of their ability to be responsive to community needs and ensure local control, yet the authors note key differences in perceptions of responsiveness (specifically during the pandemic) across income levels and racial identities. For instance, they observed that Black voters and lower income voters were more likely to give boards higher ratings for their responsiveness during the pandemic than White, Asian, and higher-income voters.
While school board members are certainly key leaders of the district, the task of managing and operating the district falls to the one employee that the board has the power to hire, evaluate, and remove: the superintendent. Some research explains that the relationship between school boards and superintendents can be fragile, often occurring in a “‘fishbowl’ of scrutiny from community members”.35 While this research specifically focuses on relationships between superintendents and board members in rural communities with multi-district superintendents, the public nature of board–superintendent relationships is common across organizational structures and contexts and often plays out at public school board meetings. In a nationally representative survey, superintendents cited school board relations as one of their top stressors and a top reason they were seeking other job opportunities.36 Another nationwide survey found that superintendents who feel valued and respected by their school boards are significantly less likely to be job seeking.37
Research suggests various relational patterns between superintendents and school boards: 1) role contestation, characterized by a strong-willed, independent board that co-opts some of the given responsibilities of the superintendent, 2) role confusion, whereby the board relies heavily on the superintendent to manage the operations of the district but remains somewhat confused about their own proper role, and 3) role collaboration, where the board and superintendent both recognize and understand their given roles in school governance and work together effectively to accomplish the board’s stated goals.38 Additional research and evidence on school board–superintendent relations are discussed in the AEFP Live Handbook chapter on superintendents.
A key task when serving as a school board member is navigating the various relationships between constituencies within and outside of the school community. Internal relationships that boards must navigate include among themselves and with the superintendent and district staff. External relationships include community interest holders such as families, civic organizations, businesses, municipal agencies, local taxpayers, and other local publicly elected officials. The extent to which board members engage with these constituencies is largely dependent on time and capacity, particularly with regard to the community interest holders, but is also dictated by policies aimed at promoting good governance practices and the sociopolitical contexts in which boards operate. Board members’ ability to pass funding bonds and other policies involving other municipal agencies (e.g., the city council, county commissions, tax assessment offices) can often depend on the strength of their relationships with these interest holders.
In some ways, school boards can be viewed as one of the most accessible outlets for community involvement in educational decision- and policymaking, especially when compared to federal- or state-level opportunities. Board meetings are generally open to the public, require advanced notice of major decisions and votes, and offer community members an opportunity to directly address their elected officials in a public forum. Yet, despite the nominally accessible nature of board meetings, according to a 2024 national poll, only 9% of Americans reported having attended their local school board meetings in the previous school year.39
Previous research has found that board meeting policies and procedures can be a significant barrier for community engagement, particularly for marginalized communities.40 In a qualitative analysis of school board meeting minutes, agendas, and recordings from a suburban district in the Southwestern U.S., researchers concluded that school board meetings can function as spaces for democratic deliberation and representative democracy. However, when Black parents attempted to engage in advocacy for their students in this space, the largely White school board used its rules and policies in an attempt to diminish their ability to speak, by “wield[ing] the rules in inconsistent ways that shifted over time, thereby maintaining whiteness as property”.41 Drawing on similar methods, scholars found a related pattern of racialized censorship in a large, urban, majority-Black school district, even as the school board in question was also majority Black.42 In a case study of one small, rural school board that underwent significant political upheaval in the wake of the Summer 2020 Black Lives Matter Movement, research uncovered a similar use of board rules and procedures that nominally promoted democratic principles of fairness, equality, and democratic debate while ultimately facilitating the silencing of the marginalized community members most at risk of being harmed by the proposed policies.43
Scholars have also examined the structures and policies governing school board elections (i.e., on- vs. off-cycle, at large vs. by district) and their influence on who is able to serve as a board member. Drawing on a quantitative analysis of reforms consolidating school election reforms with those of other elected offices or ballot initiatives in Michigan, scholars found that board races that were aligned with general municipal elections 1) resulted in greater overall voter turnout for board races and 2) may contribute to political stability within the board by reducing the volatility observed in previous low-turnout elections.44 This work builds on earlier scholarship that found that the timing of school board elections can have a significant impact on voter turnout (reviewed below), which is important, as many school board races are uncontested: A national survey of school board members found that 40% of board races are uncontested.45 However, a more recent, descriptive analysis of close to 4,000 school board elections across the U.S. found that since the COVID-19 pandemic, school board elections have been more likely to be contested and have had substantially higher voter turnout (80% higher in the early months of the pandemic and 27% higher between September 2020 and December 2022) than pre-pandemic elections.46
In an analysis of school board election data across 22 school districts in California, research demonstrated that on-cycle (even-numbered years) as opposed to off-cycle (odd-numbered years) elections resulted in significant differences in voter turnout (43.85% in even-numbered years vs. 20.79% in odd-numbered years).47 Relatedly, a quantitative analysis of tax and bond referendum data combined with voter turnout data across California, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin confirmed that election timing significantly influences voter turnout and also shapes the composition of the electorate.48 In particular, this study found that election timing had the largest effect on the share of voters who are elderly. This group votes at higher rates, so off-cycle elections increase their share to close to half of the electorate when turnout is lower. The authors explain that shifts in the composition of the electorate may have important implications for representation and educational governance, as the voters who are deciding on education policies may not be representative of the students and families directly impacted by these policies.
Relatedly, recent scholarship has documented a rise in outside funding in school board elections. The increasing nationalization of school board races has infused a significant amount of external funding into these previously hyperlocal, low-dollar races.49 Researchers have documented this trend through large scale analyses of campaign contributions in four complex school districts (Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; Denver, CO; Bridgeport, CT). Their findings detail the extent to which emergent national networks of donors have combined to influence local board elections and, in turn, local education policy.50 Some research shows that in previous school board races, a typical candidate might raise and spend less than $1,000 on their campaign in small districts and up to $25,000 in larger districts.51 Yet in the 2024 election for Chicago’s first popularly-elected school board, campaign spending rose to nearly $7 million, much of which was driven by interest groups (e.g., the Chicago Teachers Union) and super PACs.52
Recent scholarship has highlighted similar attempts by special interest groups to shape the candidate pool for school board elections.53 For example, one study documented the influence of philanthropic foundations and intermediary organizations in the 2017 Atlanta school board elections, where such entities provided sophisticated and coordinated efforts aimed at political organizing and policy advocacy in support of pro-charter school board candidates.54 Similarly, a quantitative analysis of 4,000 teachers’ union endorsements across California and Florida examined the influence of teachers’ unions on school board elections, finding that the union-backed candidate won their election 70% of the time. This study found that the union-endorsed school board candidates were likely to win across both politically conservative and liberal school districts, even in states without particularly strong labor protections or high levels of union membership.55 These studies collectively suggest that special interest groups, including unions, foundations, and political action committees, often form constellations of support (or opposition) for school board candidates that are aligned with their particular interests or worldviews and will likely continue to be a significant factor in who gets elected to serve as a board member.
Some research has sought to understand the relationship between school board behaviors, school board beliefs, policy actions, and even academic outcomes. Yet there are significant methodological challenges to isolating the board’s impact because board members are statutorily far removed from the day-to-day experiences of students within the schools that they serve, and a range of external factors exist outside of the board’s control.56 Recognizing the distance between the boardroom and the classroom, some districts have moved toward a portfolio management model that emphasizes the board’s oversight responsibilities and moves much of the decision-making process to school sites.57 Additional information can be found in the AEFP Live Handbook chapter on the portfolio management model.
Despite limitations on the ability to link school board practices to academic achievement, research has demonstrated that board members are highly attuned to issues of student outcomes and achievement. For example, one survey of 900 board members representing close to 400 school districts found that “among individual board members surveyed, three out of four considered improving student learning ‘extremely urgent’ or ‘very urgent,’ while almost 70% said the same about closing achievement gaps”.58 Yet, in the same survey, researchers found that close to 90% of board members cautioned against defining success solely on the basis of student achievement data. This cautionary note is important because while board impacts on student achievement may be worthy of further study, it is also important to consider that “...it is difficult to tease apart the direct and indirect effects of school boards on student achievement from the effects of other groups, such as the superintendent”.59
Despite these limitations on linking school board behaviors to increased student achievement, one causal study of school board elections in California found evidence that increased representation of racial minorities on school boards led to gains in student achievement for racially minoritized students even when the board did not become a majority-minority school board.60 While it remains difficult to link school board behaviors and student outcomes, there is some research that suggests boards can play an important role in establishing the conditions for student growth and wellbeing.61 For example, an analysis of 115 school board meetings found significant differences between board behaviors in districts with high and those with low levels of academic achievement.62 Using a systematic approach to virtually observe a random sample of school board meetings across 25 states, researchers found that districts categorized as low performing (by their respective state department of education) had board meetings that were often disorderly and less collegial and that focused less meeting time on student achievement than higher performing school districts. Based on their analysis, the researchers concluded that these board-level conditions could be detrimental to student achievement within these districts and suggested “more training is clearly needed, especially for low-performing districts’ school board members, if higher academic achievement outcomes are expected”. Relatedly, scholars have argued that “[board members] need to develop sufficient understanding, knowledge, and beliefs in order to create the conditions within the system which will ensure that the professional educators can grow in their educational expertise and generate productive change,”63 a task they must be able to complete without delving into micromanagement of school-level practices.
Wängnerud, L. 2009. Women in Parliaments: Descriptive and Substantive Representation. Annual Review of Political Science, 12(1): 51-69.↩︎
Reimer, N. 1967. The Representative: Trustee, Delegate, Partisan, Politico? D.C. Heath.↩︎
Marsh, J. A., Allbright, T. N., Brown, D. R., Bulkley, K. E., Strunk, K. O., & Harris, D. N. 2021. The Process and Politics of Educational Governance Change in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Denver. American Educational Research Journal, 58(1): 107-159.↩︎
Jacobs, D. & Veney, D. 2024. Do You Know Where the Children Are? A Five-Year Analysis of Public School Enrollment. National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.↩︎
Education Commission of the States. 2020. K-12 Governance: School Boards: What is the Required Composition and Selection of School Board Members? https://reports.ecs.org/comparisons/k-12-governance-school-boards-02.↩︎
Education Commission of the States. 2022. K-12 Governance Models. https://www.ecs.org/education-governance-dashboard-archive/.↩︎
Ballotpedia (n.d.) Party Labels in Alabama School Board Elections. https://ballotpedia.org/Party_labels_in_Alabama_school_board_elections#How_does_Alabama_compare_to_other_states?↩︎
White, R. S., Stitzlein, S., Abowitz, K. K., Gottlieb, D., & Schneider, J. 2023. Are Locally Elected School Boards Really Failing? A Work in Progress, with Multiple Purposes. Education Next, 23(1): 69-73.↩︎
While Chicago school board members have historically been appointed by the mayor, the city is currently transitioning to a hybrid elected/appointed school board that will assume office after the November 2024 election.↩︎
Hess, F. M. 2008. Looking for Leadership: Assessing the Case for Mayoral Control of Urban School Systems. American Journal of Education 114(3): 219-245.↩︎
Wong, K. K., & Shen, F. X. 2013. Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts Are Improving School and Student Performance. Center for American Progress.↩︎
Ballotpedia (n.d.) School Board. https://ballotpedia.org/School_board.↩︎
Alsbury, T. 2014. Hitting a Moving Target: How Politics Determines the Changing Roles of Superintendents and School Boards. In Handbook of Education Politics and Policy: 37-61. Routledge; Grissom, J. A. 2010. The determinants of conflict on governing boards in public organizations: The case of California school boards. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20(3): 601-627.↩︎
National School Boards Association. 2018. Today’s School Boards & Their Priorities for Tomorrow. https://cdn-files.nsba.org/s3fs-public/reports/K12_National_Survey.pdf↩︎
Sweet-Cushman, J. 2020. Where Does the Pipeline Get Leaky? The Progressive Ambition of School Board Members and Personal and Political Network Recruitment. Politics, Groups, and Identities.↩︎
Center for American Women and Politics. 2024. Women in State Legislatures 2024. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/levels-office/state-legislature/women-state-legislatures-2024↩︎
NSBA (2018).↩︎
Hess, F. M., & Meeks, O. 2010. School Boards Circa 2010: Governance in the Accountability Era. Thomas B. Fordham Institute.↩︎
National Association of Latino Elected Officials. 2017. Latino Elected Officials in America. https://naleo.org/at-a-glance/; Smith, C. 2021. Blacks in State Legislatures: A State-by-State Map. Governing Magazine. https://www.governing.com/now/blacks-in-state-legislatures-a-state-by-state-map.html; National Conference of State Legislatures. 2020. State Legislator Demographics. https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/state-legislator-demographics.↩︎
Benavides, A. D., & Medina, F. 2014. Representation and Hispanic School Boards in North Central Texas: Confirming a Lack of Representation. Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, 20(1): 4, 76.↩︎
Rocha, R. R., & Wrinkle, R. D. 2011. Gender, Ethnicity, and Support for Bilingual Education: Will Just Any Woman or Latino Do? A Contingent “No”. Policy Studies Journal, 39(2): 309-328.↩︎
Leal, D. L., & Hess, F. M. 2000. The Politics of Bilingual Education Expenditures in Urban School Districts. Social Science Quarterly: 1064-1072.↩︎
Fraga, L. R., & Elis, R. 2009. Interests and Representation: Ethnic Advocacy on California School Boards. Teachers College Record, 111(3): 659-682.↩︎
Fischer, B. 2023. No Spending Without Representation: School Boards and the Racial Gap in Education Finance. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 15(2): 198-235.↩︎
Daramola, E. J., Enoch-Stevens, T., Bridgeforth, J. C., & Nkansah-Amankra, A. 2024. “On a Risky Slope of Democracy”: Racialized Logics Embedded in Community–School Board Interactions. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 46(3): 506-533.↩︎
Bartanen, B., Grissom, J. A., Joshi, E., & Meredith, M. 2018. Mapping Inequalities in Local Political Representation: Evidence from Ohio School Boards. AERA Open, 4(4), 2332858418818074: 14.↩︎
Danzberger, J. P. 1992. School Boards: A Troubled American Institution. In Facing the Challenge: The Report of The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on School Governance. The Twentieth Century Fund.↩︎
Trujillo, T. M. 2013. The Disproportionate Erosion of Local Control: Urban School Boards, High-Stakes Accountability, and Democracy. Educational Policy, 27(2): 334-359.↩︎
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