Targeting Student Learning:
The School Board's Role as Policymaker

For many school districts, policymaking is a reactive process. Policies are developed in reaction to changes in state or federal laws or special interests raised by parents, teachers, students, or other district constituent groups. The end product is a complex set of policies that sometimes deal more with legal compliance and requirements rather than the local school board's vision, direction, and goals for student learning.

Targeting Student Learning - a policy project by the California School Boards Association, Illinois Association of School Boards, Maine School Boards Association, Pennsylvania School Boards Association, and Washington State School Directors' Association, and the latest publication in the National School Boards Association's The Key Work of School Boards Series - gathers advice and insight from school leaders across the country on how school boards and superintendents can:

• Understand the role of policy and the policymaking process
• Address critical policy topics, including: governance and planning; academic standards and assessment; curriculum; and parent/community engagement
• Assess and evaluate their existing policy
• Rework or develop new policies to help students learn more effectively while maintaining the board's other critical roles

The 300-page looseleaf notebook, accompanied by a CD that includes printable PDF files of the entire contents, may be purchased from the online bookstore of the National School Boards Association.

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