The IASB Web site is dedicated to the 6,000 Illinois men and women who donate their time and talents to the cause of excellence in local school governance.  This particular page is dedicated to school board members who were recently elected or appointed, as well as to those citizens who make themselves available as candidates for their school boards or who are considering such candidacy.  The materials here were selected to provide insight into the social and educational challenges facing school boards as well as some practical realities of school board service.

Readers also are invited to select reading material of interest from the following menu:

Copyright Notice
Your School Board + You
What is Education?
The Purpose of Public Education
Where the School Board Fits
Foundational Principles of School Governance
Roles of the Board and the Superintendent
Code of Conduct for School Board Members
How to Make School Board Work More Satisfying
Questions for Personal Consideration...and Some for Discussion
Continuing Your Education as a Board Member
About IASB...
IASB Home

Copyright Notice

All articles and publications in this file are copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards. IASB grants to school districts, school board candidates and other Internet users the right to download, print and reproduce the following materials provided that (a) the Illinois Association of School Boards is noted as publisher and copyright holder of the materials and (b) reproduced materials are disseminated without charge and not used for any commercial purpose.

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Your School Board + You

Click Here to find a copy of "Your School Board + You," an informative booklet aimed at school board candidates and other interested citizens. Topics include the roles of the school board and its individual members, as well as advice on how to work with your board and how to become a board candidate. Feel free to download, print and disseminate this booklet to community groups in your school district.

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What is Education?

That's what education means . . . to be able to do what you've never done before.--George Herbert Palmer

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. --B.F. Skinner

Education is the transmission of society. -- Ariel & Will Durant

America's future walks through the doors of our schools each day. -- May Jean LeTendre

Education has in America's whole history been the major hope for improving the individual and society. -- Gunnar Myrdal

Do not confine your children to your own learning . . . for they were born in another time. -- Hebrew Proverb

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The Purpose of Public Education

What is the Purpose of Public education? Why do we have public schools?  This simple question has prompted much debate over the years and maybe it is time for that debate to be held again -- not so much to come up with new or different answers but to help all of the owners of public schools understand the several reasons -- historic, cultural, economic -- why public schools are important.

Early settlers established schools for a simple religious reason -- children needed to be able to read the Bible.  Children attended school for a few years to attain the most rudimentary of skills in reading and writing before going to work on the farm or in a trade.

After the American Revolution, the founding fathers began to talk more about the value of universal education for all citizens - education into citizenship. They envisioned citizens, following face-to-face discussion, would understand and act on and for the common good.  So, not only understanding the principles of citizenship, but also developing the skills necessary to fully participate in the democracy, became important reasons for public schools.

As America grew and industries developed, generating new work skills and new kinds of knowledge, public education took on new meanings and roles.  Schools were called upon to prepare a workforce and to equip Americans to function in a larger, complex world.  Today, as the knowledge explosion continues, the demand for an educated workforce -- both for personal economic security and our collective economic prosperity -- causes us to overlook equally important reasons for public education.

In a 1934 study about the debate over developing the constitution in each state, Lee Garber found that four purposes consistently emerged:

1. Public education was necessary for the well-being of the state.
2. Public education was essential to the economic well-being of the state.
3. Public education would help rid the state of social evils such as crime and pauperism.
4. Public education was necessary for the well-being of the individual.

It is essential both to look ahead and to look at the past.  Though the purposes of American public education have been debated vigorously over the last two and a half centuries, we need to encourage that debate anew in each community, if for no other reason than to learn again the critical importance of public education.

In addition to seeking answers to the original question--What is the Purpose of Public education?--you may want to pursue these:

What does the individual student need from the schools?

What does the community -- including business and industry -- need from the schools?

What does the nation need from the schools?

How would Garber's four purposes be ordered today?

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Where the School Board Fits

The following article is reprinted with permission from Becoming a Better Board Member, copyrighted by the National School Boards Association.

Roots and Growth
of Schools, Boards

What forces produced the social entities we call school boards--so varied and yet united in one purpose: a good education for every American boy and girl?

The answer lies in our history, our continued thrust for representative government, and in the forces generated by a rapidly growing population living on a vast continent.

From the time the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, and for nearly 200 years thereafter, the people in the colonies and in the original states struggled to find ways to provide schooling for their children. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that a national public school system worthy of its name came into being. And it wasn't until just before the Civil War that we finally fashioned, if not perfected, a workable instrument for governing the schools--the school board.

But when--in which decade or, for that matter, in which generation--did the first school board sit down to conduct the first official business for its community?

No historian can answer that question. The spirit of local school control goes back to councils the Angles and the Saxons held in the clearings of their forests, and to the Mayflower Compact of 1620. The roots of local school control by laymen reach back to the town meetings of New England settlements, and to the resolve of the pioneers and householders (whether in Massachusetts or Ohio) to set up a school. They knew if they didn't no one else would.

We know that among the first concerns of New Englanders (after food, safety, and religion) was to set up a school. For young boys and girls, there were the Dame School, the English writing school, or the school of the three Rs. For older boys (only) who mastered their reading and writing, there came the grammar school and later, the Latin school. For generations, from 1642 onward, such schools were under control of the people's representatives. Town officials (selectmen) first took on the job of running the schools themselves. Later they named committees to do the job for them.

School committeemen had no easy time. Some colonists neither welcomed the schools nor rushed to their support--despite the laws enacted by the colonies encouraging or compelling school attendance.

Yet, school committeemen carried on with determination. First, they had to locate a place to hold classes. Then, they had to search high and low for an adult who could read and write and who was willing to become schoolmaster. Providing food and lodging for the schoolmaster, and keeping the schoolhouse in repair and heated, were also tasks assigned to school committees.

Most important was the school committee role of visitation. Several times a year, committee members visited the schoolmaster and his young scholars to examine copy books, hear the class repeat their letters and to admonish both teacher and pupils to be faithful to their tasks.

At times, committee members would bring the schoolmaster a new set of quills, ink in the form of powder, and "a little paper." When textbooks came into being (about 1750), the school committee decided which to buy and asked the town to provide the money.

"Examining" the schoolmasters, rewarding the competent and removing the inefficient ones, took much time of the early school committees. So did seeking out parents who failed to send their children to school.

For some 200 years then, school committees (and school boards) carried on roles of administration, supervision, testing, personnel evaluation, textbook adoption, plant maintenance, and community relations--all in embryo stages; and all without administrative help. They achieved their main point, however; to keep the schools close to the people and the people close to the schools. That was the way Americans wanted it.

So valued was the concept of lay school control that it spread from New England across the face of the country. It spawned an ever-growing number of school boards--too many, in fact, and thereby began a new phase of school board development.

When a settlement was small, whether in the East or West, one school and one school board were adequate. As settlements grew into villages, towns and cities, additional schools were needed and with each school came a school board. The people insisted on that.

The result was often chaotic. One town or township would often have six or more school boards. Chicago, Buffalo and Detroit, as examples, educated their children under supervision of a dozen or more boards within each jurisdiction.

They Changed
and Consolidated

Coordination was needed. Too many boards were too much of a good thing. City councils, county governments, and state departments of education began to consolidate the scattered boards within a town or city and placed the schools under one superintendent reporting to one board. The outlines of the present-day school board were at last visible.

The push of the American people toward the Pacific, the closing of the frontier, the growth of cities, the machine age, the explosion of knowledge, the coming of the nuclear era--none of these changed the people's determination to have as much as possible to say about their schools. True, the local school board now had to operate under guidelines set by higher levels of government, the state. Still, each community considered itself unique. Each felt competent to decide how to provide schooling for its children. Such were the forces that created the unique character of every school board.

The Future of Boards
Depends On You

During the past four or five decades, prophets have arisen who declared that school boards were not competent to run the schools of a modern complex society. They predicted the early death of the school board. They argued that public education was so big, so intricate an enterprise, it must be run by specialists and super-managers. They sneered at the ability of ordinary men and women to provide leadership or direction for today's schools.

The prophets come and go, but the school board remains. Even the mind-boggling problems of this century or the next are not likely to push out the school board from the American educational scene.

The school board's survival, however, demands a price. It is an investment by individual board members in new knowledge, sharper leadership skills, and a clearer understanding of local school control and of how laymen and professionals can work together.

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Roles of the Board and the Superintendent

The School Board should:

• Govern the School District
• Continue to shape with the community a mutual understanding of the purposes of the school district
• Communicate the goals and monitor the performance of the district
• Select the superintendent
• Oversee basic legal and ethical standards and responsibilities
• Analyze its own performance

The Superintendent should:

• Serve as Chief Executive Officer
• Recommend applicants for appointment to the school staff and promote a strong staff development program
• Interpret needs and make recommendations to improve education
• Implement board decisions and policies
• Manage the fiscal and administrative operations of the school district

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How to Make School Board Work More Satisfying

The following article by G. R. Glaub is reprinted with permission from Illinois School Board Journal and is copyrighted by the Illinois Association of School Boards.

There are many different ways that school boards and school board members can make their work more satisfying---or less satisfying. Some of the ways relate to the board's perception of its role. Some of them relate to communications.

Satisfactory experience appears to spring from a sense of accomplishment. It's great to be part of something worthwhile.

Unsatisfactory experience appears to spring from either bitter controversies or inordinate demands on the board member's time.

Here are just a few of the things you and your board can do to increase your sense of accomplishment and reduce the demands on your time:

1. Don't sweat the little things. Not much about schools is really little, of course, but some things are much more important than others. School boards that get bogged down in small matters, or in the details of big matters, have less time to deal with the major issues--such as, what is this district trying to accomplish and where are we going? Not only do small matters consume large amounts of time when you add them all up, they can distract the board from its really satisfying leadership role. Encourage your board to set priorities.
   
   
2. Use the talents of other people. You have a staff of both professionals and support people. Chances are your staff can do more and do it better without you looking over their shoulders (assuming they know what the board as a whole wants them to do). You also have a community out there. Just because your curriculum committee needs a lay person on it, you don't have to be the one--unless you really want to spend the time. Other citizens enjoy the opportunity to do something worthwhile.
   
   
   Conserve board member time and energy for the leadership and communications functions of the board--studying issues, setting goals and broad policies, monitoring progress and results--functions that no one else can perform.

   
   A side benefit of using other people's talents: You will improve the morale of teachers and administrators, generate community involvement and support, and generally make your schools even better than they are.
   

3. Don't set yourself up as a complaint department. Dealing with the problems and complaints of parents, students, employees and other citizens is an important facet of any public institution. It shouldn't be left to chance and need not be handled on an ad hoc basis by members of the school board. Yet some board members, by personally following up on the problems of constituents, send a message of willingness to still other constituents. Handling complaints can become a full time job for you if you let it.
   

   See that your school district has procedures in place for constructively dealing with problems and complaints. And your school board, by policy, should hold the administration responsible for seeing that the procedure works and hold all employees responsible for dealing fairly and courteously with everyone.
   

4. Externalize the tough issues. In other words, operate more openly. Learn to view problems not as board problems or school problems, but as community problems. It isn't your fault that enrollment has declined or that school revenue is inadequate or that kids turn to drugs as a substitute for parental support. These problems and most all others should be shared with parents and the community at large.

   Yet, some boards appear to deal with community problems in a vacuum, almost surreptitiously, as though they are ashamed to talk about the problem. Or as though the board must produce all of the solutions by itself. The result: the board's solution becomes the target of community wrath (e.g., close a school, raise taxes, introduce sex education).

   School board work can be immensely more rewarding when the board defines the problems and needs and lets the community help produce the solutions.

   Service on a school board, like teaching, ought to be among the most satisfying of all activities. Whether it is or not depends to a large extent on the school board itself.
   

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Questions ....
...... for Personal Consideration

• What do I hope to accomplish for the DISTRICT?
• What is my role as a local board member?
• Will I work as hard at becoming an effective board member as I am at getting elected?
• Am I an advocate for public education?
• What might I learn from board service?

..... and some for local discussion

• Who benefits from public education?  Who are the owners?  Who are the customers?
• What issues regarding the future should your district begin to face?
• What leadership roles should local boards take?

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Continuing Your Education as a Board Member

Newly-elected school board members can continue their orientation to School Board service by . . .

• Asking other members of the board and the superintendent about local issues and practices,

• Attending the IASB Annual Conference each year in November,

• Perusing each issue of Illinois School Board Journal and other publications edited for boards of education,

• Participating in IASB workshops, some of which are designed especially for new board members.
  

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About the Illinois Association of School Boards. . .

The Illinois Association of School Boards is a voluntary organization of local boards of education dedicated to strengthening local citizen control of the public schools. Although not a part of state government, IASB is organized by member boards as an Illinois not-for-profit corporation under authority granted by Article 23 of the Illinois School Code.

The Association was launched in December, 1913 by a group of school board members at a meeting in Quincy, Illinois. Today, 95 percent of the school boards in Illinois hold active membership and support the Association through annual dues.

The Association's constitution provides that major policies be established by an annual Delegate Assembly and places governance in the hands of an elected Board of Directors. The Board of Directors, made up of officers and regional directors, employs an Executive Director and approves annual budgets to carry out the work of the Association through a staff housed in both Springfield and Lombard.

Programs designed to provide leadership, service, and advocacy for local school boards fall mainly into four broad categories:

Professional Development programs providing school board members with opportunities to increase their knowledge and skills;

Governmental Relations programs for representing the needs and views of member school boards in the legislature;

Direct Services that range from in-district consulting and evaluation to workshops, policy development, research and evaluation.

Information Services conveyed through periodicals and special publications designed to inform and educate.

The Illinois Association of School Boards also engages in a variety of governance, leadership and public relations activities, and is a federation member of the National School Boards Association.

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