Should we abolish school boards?

Is it time to abolish school boards? If you’ve seen the recent news about protests turning violent at school board meetings, you’d no doubt wonder if there’s any value to them anymore. In early June, a literal brawl broke out at a school board meeting in Glendale, California, over the school board’s plan to pass a resolution proclaiming June as LGBTQ+ month. In New Haven, Connecticut, a disagreement over a new superintendent appointment led to personal attacks that escalated into an affray. In Fort Myers, Florida, anti-masking protesters attacked medical professionals who spoke at a school board meeting on the importance of COVID-19 safety measures. In Cottage Grove, Oregon, two security guards accosted a woman protesting in support of transgender students at a school board candidate forum. We are seeing the wounds of the “culture war.”

These fights garnered recent media attention. But school boards long have been the targets of criticism, often over test scores and student learning. The massive pandemic learning loss, documented by Tom Kane and Sean Reardon on the Education Recovery Scorecard website, illustrates the deep crisis public schools now find themselves in. Vladimir Kogan (2022) argues that the pandemic revealed school boards’ inability to respond to the needs of parents and children.

Prior to Kogan, Rick Hess (2010) placed the blame for school boards’ flaws on the political structure of the district. Both Hess and Kogan echo the critique from John Chubb and Terry Moe (1990) that pointed to school district bureaucracy and attempts at democracy as primary sources of school failure. Even if you disagree with them (which I do), the lack of progress school boards have made on improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps is alarming.