A Survey of America’s School Board Members
By Jon Valant, Rachel M. Perera, and Nicolas Zerbino, Brookings
For as long as they have existed, America’s local school boards have navigated conflicts, hard decisions, and moments of intense public scrutiny. Disagreements over budgets, curriculum, and school boundaries are not new, nor are contentious school board meetings. Among the nation’s most accessible political institutions, America’s school boards are designed for debate and disagreement.
Yet, over the last few years, something has changed. Disputes over pandemic-related school closures and masking policies put school boards in the national spotlight. Clashes between board members and protesters went viral. Media reports across the country showed boards struggling not only with the aftermath of COVID-19 but a host of hot-button issues involving race, gender, and sexuality. School boards became major battlegrounds for America’s culture wars.
In this context, we risk losing sight of the people who serve on these boards: the individuals who, in most cases, run for local offices to do work that can be difficult and thankless.
Therefore, we sought to document board members’ perspectives of this important period for school boards by conducting a nationally representative survey. We received responses from 1,002 local school board members across the country. …
... Read the full report here: A Survey of America’s School Board Members
Reprinted and excerpted with permission from the Brookings Institution. Jon Valant is Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and Senior Fellow - Governance Studies, Herman and George R. Brown Chair in Education Studies; Rachel M. Perera is Fellow - Governance Studies, Brown Center on Education Policy, Robert and Virginia Hartley Chair in Governance Studies; Nicolas Zerbino is a Research Associate in the Brown Center on Education Policy, all at the Brookings Institution.