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Knowledge of and Voting for School Board
Background
In more than 90 percent of the nation's public school districts, elected school boards serve as governing bodies and provide leadership in support of education. District school boards are often the smallest and most localized elected bodies of our country's governing structures. Unfortunately, the general public often overlooks its local school board activities and elections while paying more attention to state and national elected officials.
Elected by the public at large, school boards represent the education priorities of the community. For voters, knowledge of board member voting habits and their views on key educational issues, as well as opportunities to provide board members with input, are key elements to becoming informed about your school board and making sure the board is aware of your views on education. Involving parents, the general public, and community organizations in school board functions and elections can increase the effectiveness of school boards and hold them responsible for the public's concerns.
For this document, we've narrowed the topics we introduce about the public's Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards to those addressed by PEN's Civil Index Poll. This poll is based on a series of public forums and surveys carried out across the nation over a five year period. As a result of this effort, we have identified indicators or common qualities that encourage meaningful involvement in public education. As you read over the information in this series of support tools, carefully consider your community's situation.
How can you use the information and suggestions included in this material to help you build stronger civic involvement in education in your community?
PEN's Civic Index Indicators for Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards are:
Individuals monitor school board decisions and policies Individuals vote regularly in school board elections Individuals belong to an organization that regularly addresses the school board or discusses school board policies at its meetings
Using this Resource
As you explore the ideas presented in this material, you will find ways to improve voter participation in school board elections and increase board communication and interaction with the public. You will have an opportunity to:
Explore the issues related to knowledge of and voting for school board members Explore the local situations and issues that are currently affecting school boards and the public Plan for ways to use this information to support increased communication and interaction between your school board and community
Remember that by making use of this material, you have taken a first step in improving the public's Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards in efforts to support education. However, the most important thing in exploring new materials is in deciding how to use the materials. You can choose to study them as an individual or you can review them with others who are interested in this category.
Click here to download the Knowledge of and Voting for School Board worksheet to help you to work through the things you have learned. You can use this as a tool to take down your own thoughts or as a worksheet for group discussion.
Exploring and Organizing the Indicators
Each of the indicators for this category is unique, yet each also connects to the others. When communities are able to use activities to build connections across these indicators, they will increase the public's Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards. When citizens know more about board member viewpoints and decisions, they can use this knowledge to raise important educational issues with the board and other community members. To help discuss this category more fully, we've combined the indicators into three large topics.
Increase public participation in school board activities
School board meetings are often under-attended or seem to be controlled by a few vocal individuals or interest groups. School board members themselves are often doubtful of the public's desire to become involved and informed about education issues. In the high pressure situations common to school boards, it is often easier to make a decision than to reach out to the public and obtain their views before voting. Moreover, in our fast-paced society, members of the public often fail to make the effort to get involved in school board issues. In addition, meetings often conflict with school and community activities and members who typically have full-time jobs are not easily available for conversations with members of the general public.
Increasing public participation in school board activities begins with raising the level of citizen participation in elections and public meetings. It also means embracing individual diversity to include all income groups, ethnic and racial minorities, and parents and non-parents in school board activities. Developing ways to increase the public's participation in school board activities might be one of the most important benefits of citizen involvement. Encouraging interactions with school board members also can have an effect on your Civic Index score.
To improve public participation in school board activities, education leaders and communities should find ways to:
Establish relationships with individual board members
Just as with other elected officials at the city, state, and national level, school board officials need to hear from voters about their concerns and priorities. School board members also need people to serve as trusted information sources and community organizers to work out complicated education issues. Individuals and community groups should establish relationships with board members that result in action being taken to improve schools. Having ongoing and frequent interactions is very important to maintaining these relationships. When a wide range of citizens form these relationships, they can have an effect on your community's Civic Index score.
To build relationships with board members, citizens, parents, and community groups need to:
Strengthen networks between the school board, local leaders, and the community
In the early years of school boards, a "top down" and authoritative leadership style was usually the norm. Today, education decision-making is often a shared process among all those who have a stake in education: district superintendents, educators, parents, businesses, elected officials, city and county officials, advocacy groups, community organizations, policy makers, state and national education leaders, and others. Strengthening the networks between school boards and the greater education community is more important than ever before. From a school standpoint, this might be something such as a get-out-the-vote effort for a bond election to build or remodel schools facilities. From a public standpoint, it might be a greater understanding of the strategies that the school board and schools are using to make sure that every child receives a quality education. Networking activities will also improve your community's Civic Index score.
To strengthen the networks that include your local school board, individuals and communities need to:
Participate in activities such as discussion forums, town meetings, or other communication strategies that bring school board issues to the public's attention Bring a wide range of community resources together to improve education
When you plan and put strategies into action to increase the public's Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards, you can strengthen the decision-making and leadership ability of school boards and their members. You also can improve your school board's responsibility for improved student performance to include a broader, more informed voting public.
Overview of Research and Best Practices in this Field
Nationwide, 96 percent of all school districts have elected school boards that provide leadership, policy direction, and oversight for public education (Hess, 2002). In these districts, boards are commonly involved in activities that directly and indirectly affect the quality of student learning. They negotiate teacher contracts, approve budgets, address facilities issues, establish or change curriculums, set academic standards, choose textbooks, decide on funding sources, and hire superintendents (Berry & Howell, 2005).
Research also describes the typical board member. Most school boards are composed of five to eight elected members. Many board members are professionals, but few have a professional education background. Individual board members work, on average, 25 hours per month on board tasks, but only one-third of these individuals are paid for their efforts (Hess, 2002).
However, while these individuals control the education of all the children in a community, research and policy analysis on the way schools are run tells us that the public is uninvolved in keeping boards responsible for their decisions and actions. In fact, public participation has been described as disorganized and occasional.
A recent survey reports that over half the responders admit to not voting in school board elections, and 48 percent of parents could not name one member of their local school board. School board members themselves complain that school board meetings are generally unproductive since the few community members who attend usually advocate for narrow, self-interest topics, rather than school improvement for all students. Researchers also stated that other ways of connecting with the public (surveys, informal meetings, community forums, media coverage) are used far less than board meetings and hearings (Hess, 2002; Hess & Leal, 2005; Moe, 2005; Farkas, Foley, Duffett, Foleno, & Johnson, 2001).
In contrast, teacher unions are the one group that commonly interact with school boards. Research has documented that teacher unions are a consistent and motivated influence upon school board politics and elections. Well-organized at the local, state, and national level, teacher unions have the resources and experience to influence elections and board decisions (Hess, 2002; Hess & Leal, 2005; Moe, 2005).
Election experts believe that school boards are at an effectiveness crossroads for a number of reasons, with a lack of public involvement as one of the most pressing reasons (Finn & Keegan, 2004; Hess, 2007). There are specific strategies that researchers have found to be effective in helping school boards become more forceful educational leaders that can encourage broader public representation in education:
Foremost is building the support and involvement of a broader base of residents and community leaders (Hill, 2003; Hess, 2007). School board membership has been found to better reflect the diversity of the local community when board elections have higher voter turnout (Meier & Juenke, 2005). At-large, rather than ward-based elections, also seem to produce better participation of minorities on school boards where there are fewer Hispanic residents (Marshall, 2005). In cities with significant numbers of low-performing schools, mayoral takeovers have yielded important guidance for school district leadership (Hess, 2007). When school boards reformulate their goals and activities to focus on improving student performance and adopt basic principles of reform strategies such as working together, action planning, and evaluation, the results also have been positive (Hill, 2003).
While these findings do not offer universal advice for creating well-functioning school boards that embrace public involvement in their work, they do provide both food for thought and questions of importance:
How can we raise participation in school board elections? Are our current school boards structured in the most strategic way to encourage improved student performance? How can we get school boards to focus their attention on the most important factors in school improvement - student learning?
Key Issues
The information in this section is designed to provide an understanding of key issues that affect Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards. As stated in the first section, we have limited the key issues to those connected to the indicators. Communities working to increase the public's Knowledge of and Voting for School Boards should consider these important issues.
Key Issue 1: Public Participation in School Board Decision Making-What Can We Do to Increase Participation in School Board Decision Making?
One of the most common and difficult challenges facing school boards is the lack of public participation in their decision-making process. School boards and community groups alike are disappointed by the lack of public input in decisions, whether it is the lack of voter turnout, attending school board meetings, gathering comments from the public, or providing input to board members. To increase public involvement with school boards, community groups can provide meeting space, host events, provide opportunities for open discussion, share information with the public about school board actions as well as provide the school board members with feedback from the public on key issues, participate in get-out-the-vote efforts directed at school board elections, and provide information-sharing strategies.
Key Issue 2: Evolving Authority of School Boards-What School Board Structures Provide the Best Results?
Local control and authority over public education has been declining for more than a century. School boards, once the only oversight for public schools in local areas, are now responsible for making sure that schools and districts meet state and federal laws, regulations, and standards. State and federal funds for education make up, on average, 57 percent of school district budgets, and these funds give the state and federal agencies a say in what local schools do. Programs such as vouchers and charter schools have further lessened the authority of school boards.
Sometimes boards react to these changes by attempting to reinforce old power structures or by going around requirements. However, if communities and their school boards are to continue to have a meaningful role in local education policy, each group must assume new practices: wide-ranging cooperation with other policy makers at all levels of the education system and community advocacy groups. Rather than draw a line in the sand, they need to build creative solutions to address the needs of all students.
Different models of the way school districts can be run are being tested in a number of cities. For example, mayoral or state control of school board functions has occurred in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and the District of Columbia. Leadership reform also has been undertaken by elected school boards themselves, as can be seen by the Houston Independent School District's board, which elected trustees to oversee reforms in 1989. Results from these new approaches have been mixed, yet successful models do offer communities new strategies to consider.
Key Issue 3: Redirecting School Board Focus-How Do We Redirect Boards to Focus on Issues That Specifically Have an Effect on Student Performance?
When school boards were originally created, they controlled the distribution of funds for everything related to schools. It was their most important role. In today's era of public responsibility, federal and state laws determine how large portions of school budgets are spent. These laws have an effect on every part of schools, from the cafeteria to the classroom.
As schools move into an era of public responsibility, the role of boards has to change as well. The most current research on school improvement notes a number of key factors that affect student performance. However, the greatest of these, by far, is the focus of all efforts on one central issue - student learning. As school boards reorder their responsibilities and roles as educational leaders, the public has to hold the board publicly responsible for making decisions and creating policy that will address the learning needs of all students.
Once you've completed the Civic Index Poll in your community find out how you can improve your score in this category by visiting the Tips and Strategies section.
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