Table Of Content(cid:55)(cid:71)(cid:76)(cid:83)(cid:83)(cid:80)(cid:3)(cid:38)(cid:83)(cid:69)(cid:86)(cid:72)(cid:87)(cid:3)(cid:77)(cid:82)(cid:3)(cid:37)(cid:81)(cid:73)(cid:86)(cid:77)(cid:71)(cid:69)
Other Books by Gene I. Maeroff
Building Blocks (2006)
A Classroom of One (2003)
The Learning Connection (2001), editor, with Patrick M. Callan and Michael D. Usdan
Imaging Education (1998), editor
Altered Destinies (1998)
Scholarship Assessed (1997), with Charles E. Glassick and Mary Taylor Huber
Team Building for School Change (1993)
Sources of Inspiration (1992), editor
The School Smart Parent (1989)
The Empowerment of Teachers (1988)
School and College (1983)
Don’t Blame the Kids (1981)
The Guide to Suburban Public Schools (1975), with Leonard Buder
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Gene I. Maeroff
Palgrave
macmillan
school boards in america
Copyright © Gene I. Maeroff, 2010.
Softcoverreprintofthehardcover1stedtion2010 978-0-230-10758-8
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division
of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-230-10931-5 ISBN 978-0-230-11749-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230117495
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maeroff, Gene I.
School boards in America : a flawed exercise in democracy / Gene I. Maeroff.
p. cm.
1. School boards—United States. 2. School boards—Political aspects—United States.
3. Public schools—United States. 4. School board-superintendent relationships—
United States. 5. Education and state—United States. I. Title.
LB2831.M235 2010
379.1’5310973—dc22 2010019400
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: December 2010
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2011
To Joyce
My one and only
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Preface ix
1 A Cradle of Democracy 1
2 The School Board’s Impact on Student Learning 13
3 Expenditures: Huge and Uneven 31
4 Jobs, Jobs, Jobs 47
5 A School Board’s Key Employee: The Superintendent 65
6 Teachers: The Heart of the Enterprise 79
7 The Mirage of Local Control 95
8 The Special Burden of Special Education 109
9 The Inner Workings of School Boards 125
10 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the
Work of School Boards 137
11 Accepting Responsibility 151
12 Other Ways to Govern Schools 167
13 Do School Boards Have a Future? 187
Notes 201
Bibliography 213
Index 223
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When I began the research and writing specific to this book in late 2007, I was
on the cusp of declaring my candidacy for a seat on my local school board.
I had already spent decades observing and analyzing educational develop-
ments and events around the country. In so doing, though, I had probably
not given sufficient attention to the role of the board of education, an entity
that is easy to overlook. The possibility of running for a position on a school
board piqued my interest in doing this book, which seemed like a logical
follow-up to other books I have written about many aspects of education.
My work on the book reinforced my conviction that people ought to
know more about school boards. These bodies spend a lot of the public’s
money, provide millions of jobs, and most importantly, help shape the
future for young Americans. Yet school boards remain out of sight, garner-
ing attention primarily when the annual budget is set. My goal in this book,
as in most of my previous ones, is to reach both education professionals and
serious general readers.
I didn’t enter this endeavor with a plethora of preconceived notions about
school boards. Some critics would abolish them. Others would trim and nar-
row their responsibilities. Frankly, I’m not persuaded that elementary and
secondary education would be that much better if school boards didn’t exist.
This doesn’t mean that school boards could not do a better job of
governing the districts they serve, the legal function with which they are
charged. Regardless of background, almost all members come to school
boards as amateurs in school system governance. They learn on the job and
suffer from the shortcomings that plague novices in most endeavors. I use
the word “flawed” in the subtitle of this book advisedly. There are many
built-in obstacles that thwart school boards.
My time on a school board was invaluable to my work on the book,
which I offer neither as a memoir based on that experience nor as an exposé
of the board on which I served. This is not a book about the Edison, New
Jersey, board of education. However, I draw on my board experiences where
applicable to help illustrate some of my points. Authors do this all the
time. At no point, though, do I refer by name to any of my town’s board
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members, school employees, students, or anyone else associated with the
Edison public schools. Nor have I violated any confidences.
I was in touch by phone, email, or in person with dozens of people
throughout the country as I gathered and verified information. I quote
these sources extensively, and I have crafted anecdotes and formed impres-
sions based on what I learned. Virtually all the quotes in this book that
are not accompanied by citations are ones that I personally obtained. I
broadened the scope of the book through interviews with people in about
two dozen states.
The subject of my focus is, indeed, the American institution of the school
board. There are sufficient commonalities despite the differences to allow
for such an investigation. It is therefore possible to make statements and
offer observations that capture the ethos of school system governance
almost wherever in the country that it occurs.
For me, already familiar with the world of education, service on a school
board was unlike any other experience that I have had. It burdened me with
legal and fiduciary responsibilities. It put limits on what I could say publicly
about what I had learned. It thrust me—a person accustomed to interview-
ing others—into the role of interviewee for members of the media. It put
extensive demands on my time without any remuneration whatsoever. It
threw me into close and continuing contact with eight fellow board mem-
bers, most of whom—most of the time—were generally cordial despite dif-
ferences that arose. It exposed me to the world of politics and the infighting,
gossiping, and maneuvering that unfortunately insinuate themselves into
the work of what are supposedly nonpartisan positions on school boards.
Furthermore, when I was elected the board president in the spring of
2010, as I was nearing completion of this book, I got a new perspective on
school board service. It was a challenging time, when millions of dollars
had to be cut from our budget and an interim superintendent had to be
found quickly to replace an acting superintendent who did not get hired as
superintendent. It became clear that the expectations that the board presi-
dent must meet and the pressures under which he may find himself far
exceed what other members of the board face.
All in all, I was fortunate in winning election to the school board gov-
erning the fifth-largest district in the state, driven by both curiosity and
a sense of volunteerism. I certainly did not take on this mission to write
a book, but that was a happy outcome. It was a privilege to play some
small role in trying to enhance the learning of my neighbors’ children. The
future of every student who attends a public school is at stake in the work
of school boards, and there is perhaps no greater responsibility for which a
man or woman can volunteer. It might sound corny, but it’s true.
Gene I. Maeroff
Chapter 1
A Cradle of Democracy
The nation’s public schools represent the ultimate expression of American
democracy. They are operated by the people, for the people. They instill the
knowledge and cultivate the attitudes of the next generation of Americans, serv-
ing 90 percent of the country’s school-age population. A local board of education
is—in its ideal form—a group of citizen-volunteers who give unselfishly of them-
selves, usually without remuneration, to look after the affairs of the school system
and, by extension, the community. Of all the institutions in the country with juris-
diction over large chunks of money and the ability to influence the nation’s future,
boards of education are surely the most obscure and least understood.
Local control of schools is one of the shibboleths by which Americans iden-
tify themselves. It is a notion so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that few
Americans think about it anymore, according to Chester E. Finn Jr., who said “the
phrase rolls off the tongue without even engaging the mind.”1 The board of edu-
cation is the personification of that attribute, an entity supposedly representing
the best instincts of the public in wanting to provide for the well-being of the
next generation. “School districts are perhaps the most democratically controlled
agency of government,” Ronald W. Rebore wrote in a book intended to serve as a
handbook for school board members and a textbook for students of educational
administration.2
The local board of education is a distinguishing feature of public schooling
in the world’s most affluent society, holding sway over 13,862 separate districts
in the 50 states. Many other countries have national systems of education. Some
observers conclude that the school board, linked as it is to its locale, is a thread that
binds America’s democratic fabric. It is, after all, through a democratic process
that people generally choose the members of the board of education, and those
members, voting in meetings open to the public, govern the schools. Education
historian Carl F. Kaestle wrote that Americans’ commitment to local control of
schools is based partly on their idea that this makes the schools more responsive,
more democratic, and more efficient. Local and state control of education, he said,
connects to American “concepts of family and community,” while national power
“strikes many as foreign.”3
