In Texas, the members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) are elected in a partisan election. One of the duties of the State Board of Education is overseeing the writing of curriculum standards for the various content areas. A call went out to educators across the state, asking for volunteers to write the standards. Committees were formed for…

Forty years ago--on May 9, 1968--the local school board in Brooklyn's black ghetto of Ocean Hill-Brownsville sent telegrams to 19 unionized educators, informing them that their employment in the district was terminated. Eighteen were white. One black teacher was mistakenly included on the list, but reinstated almost immediately after the error was…

The author discusses bringing her perspective as an early childhood educator and developmentalist to her policy-making position as a Board member of the Pasadena Unified School District. Noting that the higher education standards adopted in many states as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 have impacted kindergarten programs and…

The purpose of this essay is to examine and respond to Tom Glass's (2000) assertions about the dearth of women in the superintendency using the lenses of new data (from two large national studies) and analysis--an analysis that primarily focuses on women superintendents' and central office administrators' formal, experiential, and personal…

The purpose for this article is to explore the juxtaposition of legal expectations, conflicting community cultural values, and the role of the superintendent in these connected but often conflicting issues. The authors explore several issues through the lens of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, the "Equal Access Act," and the role of the…

Education reformers have long questioned whether school boards have become an anachronism. Pointing to promising efforts in Boston and New York City, some have argued for handing over control of school districts to mayors. A review of the research suggests that advocates overstate the evidence and underestimate the pitfalls, but, on balance,…

The "right" policies should differ for each board and should consist of lists of priorities for each year. The lists should grow directly from continuing diagnosis of the learning and living environment in each school district. (Author/IRT)

Leadership in schools matters today more than ever, since school leaders are faced with leading schools through an era of profound social change that has required fundamental rethinking of what schools do and how they do it. The challenges facing educational leadership have grown tremendously in recent years because of increased public…

Whether it is a small group who shows up at school board meetings to defend a program cut or a group of parents who, via website, blog, e-mail, phone calls, and visits, challenge a state legislature to provide funding for school library programs and resources, parents are the strongest advocates for school library programs, writes the President of…

School boards and other collectives have responsibilities for which they are accountable. If a collective group or school board is charged with irresponsibility, it may try to exonerate itself by offering an excuse. Acts by school boards and individual educational authorities must be considered carefully before responsibility can be determined.…

Learning the difference between board leaders and members who come to meetings just to vote is an important step toward leadership. Another way is to gauge one's fit on a hierarchy of leadership potential. Provides 13 questions to guide reflections on interactions with the other board members. (MLF)

Claims there are many styles of governance observable in schools and that these are a consequence of changes in schooling technology and in shifting demands from school environments. Asserts that an understanding of school governance and the place of collective bargaining within it requires sensitivity to the multiple mental models. (Author/MK)

This article presents an interview with Reggie Felton, director of federal relations of the Nation School Board Association (NSBA). Felton talks about the No Child Left Behind Act and the proposed changes of the NSBA. The coalition's major concern is the current accountability framework of NCLB that does not accurately or fairly assess student or…

A Christian school board member in the El Dorado Union High School District, Diamond Springs, California, states that mainstream Americans hold views similar to her own. Advocates instruction based on the Bible. (MLF)

Public dissatisfaction with school boards, which started building in the 1980s with the publication of "A Nation At Risk," is now evidenced by calls for national standards and accountability measures. This paper presents an overview of the changing school board and how some boards have reformed themselves. The paper discusses ways in which…