By Nancy
I attended a school board meeting a couple years ago, along with dozens of parents, teachers, and students, when our school district was considering the elimination of all elementary school librarians. The seven board members appeared to listen thoughtfully. Everyone left the meeting that night with a sense that voices had been heard, and that school librarians were valued and would be saved. The board and the superintendent moved on to their closed door executive session.
You guessed it: librarians were eliminated.
More recently, our school board hosted a series of community meetings to gather input about a long list of potential budget cuts. These community meetings were well organized, well-attended, and resulted in a complex tally of votes that represented each special interest group's favorite line item. The process was completely transparent, and stakeholders felt great about their ability to contribute to the final budget decisions.
You are right again: in the end, the original prioritized budget list did not change.
In both cases, the school community realized that they actually had little influence on school district decisions. And huge questions came up: should seven community members, from all walks of life and usually having no training in education, be the final authority in our public schools? Should a 7-member board have the ultimate power to affect thousands of lives? Shouldn't education reform start with reforming the school board system?
Since the school reform movement came to our state (beginning mainly in 1993 with House Bill 1209) just about every potential change has been discussed. But conspicuously absent from this dialogue has been the idea that our School Board system might be due for updating as well. Years of district initiatives, contract negotiations, and program decisions made by a handful of people begs the question: shouldn't some board members have a background in classroom practice? When people complain that public schools are broken, do they realize that school boards make the final decisions, and might be one of the reasons why systemic change is so difficult?
In America, the school board system was designed to encourage civic participation and supports our democratic principles. Anyone can run and be elected to a school board. But individual motives, backgrounds, and special interests vary; it sometimes is the first step toward a political career. In most districts, this means that school board members must rely on their own memories and experiences in school, as well as a close relationship with the district superintendent, to influence their decisions. In some districts, this limitation can skew the program decisions that affect thousands of teachers, students, and families in the community.
I'd like to know how others feel about this. The current school board system could be a road block to substantive change. Perhaps districts should appoint one or two current classroom practitioners as a voting member of every school board. These members might be elected by, and represent, the district staff. Or, limit the power of school boards, and create a more democratic balance of power in district decisions. But I'm back to my original question: shouldn't education reform start with reforming the school board system?
Thank you Mark! We teachers need to keep pushing for the decision-making power you refer to, use the research, knowledge, and skills that we are accumulating. The global information highway as well as the higher expectations of the school reform movement make us even better equiped to make the best choices for our students. The board member that relies on the superintendent to make the decisions is turning everything over to an administrator that hasn’t been working inside today’s classroom for a few years. The super is just as biased in his way as a classroom teacher is…you need both perspectives. Does anyone have a superintendent that has actually asked for and assimilated input from their district teachers?
And if the bar for effective teaching is to “fulfill contracted obligations,” that’s a pretty low and horribly vague standard to set for effective teaching. I checked my contract. It says I am to arrive in the building at 7:10 and stay until 2:40, attend two evening events (Open House and Graduation), guarantees me a plan period, sick days, etc. Only three lines of our 70-page contract even discuss what is to be taught (on page 42) and even that gives the discretion to the teacher to determine what is appropriate to meet the district’s curriculum goals…which in practice are also established by teachers and then approved by the district (not created by the board…though they may rubber-stamp it).
I’m pretty sure that this language and our board’s influence is not why 97% of our kids pass the state standardized writing test and 94% pass the state reading test. As much as I find my board pleasant, well-informed and well-intending, I credit the teachers, not the board, for those achievements–and I know the school board in my district would agree.
Bob, here and in other comments you’ve posted, I notice a refrain of teachers needing to “do what the board wants” or “do what the administration says” not “do what they [the teachers] want to do.” I’m afraid that the better way to achieve student success is for the board/admin to define “what they want” (i.e. goal, outcome) and allow the teacher the freedom to get to know their learners and do not just “what they want” but also “what they know is best for their learners” in order to achieve those goals. I sense you’ve bumped up against some “rogue teachers” in your career and perhaps are giving the rest of us a little less credit as a result.
I don’t understand the consistent refrain against allowing teachers decision-making power. Sure, if a teacher is supposed to teach algebra and they choose to teach botany instead, that’s not acceptable. But, why can’t a teacher make an informed decision about the strategies, instruments, assessments, etc., which best meet their students’ needs in order to meet the district goals? I believe that teachers are fully capable of designing these outcomes and expectations–there is no magic force field through which one crosses (when becoming an administrator or board member) that imparts sudden and exclusive knowledge of what is best for students… knowledge otherwise ineffable to mere teachers. I think many teachers also know what is best for students…after all, they see the kid, not just the kid’s test scores, every day.
I’m curious to see that data. I somehow doubt the direct connection between a school board’s efficacy and test results. Perhaps there is a correlation, but I think causation would be tough to determine. If you have that data handy or linkable, please share.
Good post and comments about interesting beliefs, Nancy. Respectfully:
Yes, Mark, data exist about the influence boards have on student state minimum academic performance with test results reported at least annually. Boards have the authority to change those scores when they will it. Teachers have the contracted duty to do as their boards want, not as teachers want to do.
Kudos, Brian, for describing how many board members besides your friend work, including board chairs and committee chairs. At the same time, this strategy delegates unsupervised shadow authority to educators who are not elected nor responsible to the wishes of the school’s broader community. That’s called local control of public schools (as delegrated by each state). Recourse rests during elections or recalls of school board members.
Yes? 🙂
Your friend sounds like a gem. It does seem simple, to work toward electing the best board you can. But do you have that many people willing to run? What happens if events create a board that is not so wise? And even if they are a wonderful group, I come back to my same question: should any board have all that authority? Wouldn’t it be better to have some trained educators to provide a balance?
I have a friend who was first elected to our school board when he was 26 years old. He served for more than 25 years, and he told me he believed his primary job was to hire a good superintendent and stay out of the way. I think that is the correct philosophy; boards get into trouble when they begin to micromanage. Not everyone shares that idea of course, but there is a remedy when a director or board begins to cause problems: elect someone else. I like local control of our schools, and I believe there needs to be citizen oversight when public dollars are being spent. Democracy requires effort: if we don’t work for the board we want, we’ll get the one we deserve.
Teaching is such an all-consuming profession that I can’t imagine anyone doing it and still finding time to get out there and get informed about what teachers and students in other schools need. I have learned more about the schools in my district as a mom getting ready to send her daughter to kindergarten than I ever knew as a teacher married to a teacher. Before, I knew two schools. Now, by talking to parents, I feel like I know about many schools.
Are none of your school board members parents of public school children? Are none of them former teachers or graduates of the schools they now oversee? Maybe that needs to be a basic requirement.
I like your idea of having some sort of mix on the board. If we’re going to do that, what about having a student rep on the school board? Or having two slots for students, two for teachers (or recent teachers), two for parents, and two for those in the educational-support fields, like tutors or community activists?
While I think I teach with a great school board, I wonder if the lack of guidance means that some school districts have absolutely unqualified people deciding what happens in schools?
Kristin, of course teachers are influenced by their classrooms, but that is what I believe the school board is lacking: their perspective and an understanding of what they face on the front lines. What about my idea to require one or two current classroom teachers on the board? I’m looking for balance, and teachers also need a liaison to represent them when major district decisions are made.
Mark, that is a great question: how to find research that shows the impact of a school board on student learning? And your comment about the politics is pretty much what I was thinking. In more than one district, ask teachers who have been there to see unpopular initiatives pushed through by their administration, and you usually end up with a comment about how it was approved by the school board because they listened to and followed the administrator.
Oh Jeez, I mean Nancy, not Rena.
Elementary schools need librarians! My kindergarten daughter just checked out a book from her library, we read it last night, and she can’t get back in the library until Thursday!!!! I cannot get too wound up about the cut librarians issue.
The thing I like about school boards is that their members – at least in my district – are often intimately connected to public schools as graduates, parents or teachers, and want to act as a liason between the community and the government. And I don’t! I want to be in the classroom working with kids, and I want someone else to make those decisions and hold those meetings with 500 opinionated members of the teaching and tax-paying community in one airless room.
I think we need that liason. Forgive me, but I think teachers sometimes can’t see beyond our own classroom door. Put a district’s teachers in a room and ask them to make a budget, or decide on an assessment system and…can you see it? It would be like the worst staff meeting we ever sat in and it would never end.
Maybe, Rena, you have a particularly stagnant and out of touch school board? Maybe there’s a way to educate the community and get people to be willing to be on the school board who would be effective? Can anyone out there speak to what needs to happen for the right people to run for school board, and for the community to trust them with the schools?
I’m so glad you’ve brought this up… I think it is a piece of the puzzle conveniently forgotten. On one hand, regarding the library example above, one side of me wants to respond that the budget is such a complicated web that though they may have agreed with the visitors, there was simply not another feasible option. However, on the other hand, part of me wants to cry “there’s always a way!” It’s such a complicated mess, but I wonder if school boards don’t add to the complications, rather than alleviate them. A common complaint about the layers of administratia in a school district has to do with politics…in many cases, school board positions, decisions, initiatives, are highly politicized and sometimes based on allegiances and specific interests rather than a broader picture.
There seems to be a trend in education right now for quantifiable data to prove impact on student learning. I wonder if there is any data to support the premise that the time, energy, and related costs of having a school board actually results in a net gain in student learning.