A survey of local school trustees in Ontario attempted to assess how influential such trustees feel as educational policymakers. (WM)

The experience of one school board in suburban Chicago emphasizes the importance of meticulous recordkeeping by boards in making discretionary expenditures and the need for full and public disclosure when citizens ask questions about school expenditures. (WM)

Describes how the Des Moines Board of Education engaged in six seminars to consider in detail and without time pressure policy formation matters. (JF)

The National Governors Association, which largely took a pass on the debate over the No Child Left Behind Act as it was being crafted six years ago, released recommendations for its renewal that aim to preserve the federal role in holding states accountable for student learning, while seeking greater flexibility in several key areas. Under the…

California's approximately 500 continuation high schools are estimated to serve more than 115,000 California high school students each year--a number that approaches almost 10 percent of all high school students and as many as one of every seven high school seniors. Continuation schools are, however, more racially and ethnically concentrated than…

At the request of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) undertook this analysis of the teacher policies in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). A coalition of civil rights groups were also involved in this project, including Parent Organization Network, Families in Schools, Alliance for a…

Information about the role and responsibilities of school board members is presented in this seminar summary report. Five topics emerged from participant discussions as warranting further examination, which include the necessity of school boards, their training, their evaluation, their role in participatory decision-making, and their role in…

The Illinois Junior College Board's role, standards, and guidelines, and those of the Illinois public junior colleges are outlined in three parts. The first (Philosophy, Roles, Relationships) deals with the role of the state board and its relationships to local boards and other state boards. The state board provides leadership in various…

The views of 33 superintendents in South Texas were obtained concerning the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act through a Likert-format survey. Results were that superintendents perceived NCLB as having limited, at best, impact in encouraging the development of more educational services; opening more communication between the district and parents;…

Representative democracy relies on the informed trust of the citizens. School board members serve their communities at a crucial place, governing large sums of money and the future of the community's children. Without the informed trust of the citizens, this enterprise will fail. Trust may be lost directly, or through inattention to detail. One of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among New York State school board member attitudes toward components of school board governance and their sense of effectiveness in high and low math academic achievement districts in New York State. The study examined board members' perceptions of their actual practices in policy…

In the midst of growing controversy over the limits of student expression on the Internet, a federal trial court in Pennsylvania addressed the extent to which education officials can restrict the ability of student teachers and, by extension, teachers and other school employees, to exercise their rights to free speech on Internet social networking…

Condensed from "The School Administrator, (November 1968), 11-12.

At the National School Board Convention in Philadelphia, boardmen were told: control and leadership of the public schools are heading back where they belong -- in the hands of local boards of education throughout the nation. (EA)