"Improving School Board Effectiveness" offers a clarifying and essential look at the evolving role of school boards and how they contribute to efforts to improve student learning. It examines how board members can establish effective district priorities, and it explores those board policies and actions that result in shared, districtwide commitments to heightened student achievement. This book arises out of a critical need for a better understanding of school boards and the development of helpful tools and guidelines for school board members. At its heart is the notion of Balanced Governance, a principle that most generally "balances the authority of a superintendent to lead a school district with the necessary oversight of a locally engaged and knowledgeable board." "Improving School Board Effectiveness" is a helpful and practical book that will prove indispensable for school board members, school and district administrators, and everyone with a stake in school improvement and reform. Following a Foreword (Willard R. Daggett), the following contents are included: Part 1--Research Supporting a Balanced Governance Approach: Introduction: A Call for Balanced Governance (Thomas L. Alsbury); (1) Board Leadership That Matters Most: Lessons Learned from the Lighthouse Studies (Mary L. Delagardelle); (2) Transforming Beliefs into Action: Board and Superintendent Teams Working Together (Tom Shelton); (3) School Boards in Their Environment: Balancing Brokerage and Closure (Argun Saatcioglu); and (4) How Board Governance Practices Affect Student Achievement (Ivan J. Lorentzen and William P. McCaw). Part II--Putting Balanced Governance to Work: (5) What School Board Members Need to Know: Assessing Leadership (Mark Levine and Paul Van Buskirk); (6) Elements of School Board Success: A Comprehensive Board Assessment Tool for Systemic Improvement (Thomas L. Alsbury and Betsy Miller-Jones); (7) Assessing Individual Board Members: A Self-Assessment for Improved Board Performance (Thomas L. Alsbury); and (8) Superintendent Evaluation: An Opportunity to Strengthen Board Practice (Phil Gore and Larry Nyland). Part III--Putting it All Together: Balanced Governance in Action: (9) The Panasonic Foundation Experience: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned from Work with Urban School Boards (Andrew Gelber and Scott Thompson); (10) Learning the Work by Doing the Work: The Massachusetts District Governance Support Project (Dorothy Presser and Nancy Walser); and (11) Lighthouse School Boards: Effective Boards Making an Impact on Student Achievement (Nicholas D. Caruso Jr., Warren Logee, and Renee Sessler). Following a Conclusion: School Boards Matter for Student Achievement (Phil Gore), the following are included at the end of the book: Notes; Acknowledgments; About the Editors; About the Contributors; and Index.