Public K-12 education in the United States is distinctively a local affair: school districts are governed by local boards of education, composed of lay members typically elected in non-partisan elections. These boards have decision-making power over hundreds of billions of public dollars and oversee complex agencies that, in addition to preparing…

In post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, control of the public schools was wrested from the seven-member Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB). Unheard-of academic gains followed the city's switch to a near-universal charter-school system, yet returning to failure always felt as close as the next hurricane. Give OPSB power again, people said, and the…

Some of the most dramatic gains in urban education have come from school districts using what is known as a "portfolio strategy." Under this approach, districts negotiate performance agreements with public schools--traditional, charter, and hybrid models. The arrangement affords school leaders substantial autonomy to handcraft their…

When the Cleveland, Ohio, school board had to make radical cuts in its budget last spring, it was forced to eliminate 540 teaching jobs. There wasn't a whole lot of mystery about "which" teachers among Cleveland's 3,500-member teaching force would be the ones to lose their jobs. The state's hard-and-fast seniority rule--last hired, first…

In school districts across the nation, voters elect fellow citizens to their local school boards and charge them with the core tasks of district management--hiring administrators, writing budgets, negotiating teacher contracts, and determining standards and curriculum among them. Whatever the task, the basic purpose of all school board activities…

Considerable attention has been paid to the most blatant barriers that public charter schools face. By lobbying against good charter legislation and fair funding, financing anti-charter studies and propaganda, filing lawsuits, and engaging the public battle of ideas, teacher unions and other charter opponents openly wage what might be called an…

With the due date for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) right around the corner, "Education Next" thought it apt to probe the lessons learned in the five years since the act's passage. This article presents an e-mail interview with Sandy Kress, a lawyer and former school board member who, as a domestic policy advisor in…

This article reports that special interest groups opposed to charter schools and high-stakes testing have hijacked Massachusetts's once-independent board of education and stand poised to water down the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests and the accountability system they support. President Barack Obama and Massachusetts…

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has laid down a bold challenge to the city's troubled public school system: improve or see your students migrate to the city's growing roster of impressive charter schools. This is no idle threat. In the 2006-2007 academic year, the mayor oversaw 16 charter schools serving 3,870 students. Peterson is currently the…

With reports that some of the nation's finest universities have been handing out A's like lollipops at Halloween, the lowering of standards in higher education has become a hot topic. But grading standards in primary and secondary education have received remarkably less attention. There are two major questions related to grading standards. First,…

School boards, who have been regarded as the keystone that links public education to ordinary citizens, are normally elected. However, these elections are usually low-turnout, low-interest affairs in which the vast majority of ordinary citizens play no role at all. In school board elections, the incentives of the teacher unions are strong and…

According to Joe A. Stone of the University of Oregon, average students do better in classrooms with unionized teachers, but less able and more able students do not. While this particular assumption lacks empirical clarity, many administrators and school board members feel that it would be much easier to reform public education if teacher unions…

Early 20th century Progressive reformers established elected school boards as a means of shielding public school systems from the politics and patronage of corrupt city governments. Citizens, rather than political dons or their favored appointees, would govern the community's schools with the community's interests at heart. Today, however, elected…

Four decades after collective bargaining came to public education, school boards and the superintendents they hire still routinely blame teacher unions for causing massive inefficiencies, stifling innovation, and preventing change designed to promote student learning. "Our hands are tied," school boards commonly complain when school…

Discusses burgeoning charter-school movement in Arizona and its effect on public schools. Asserts evidence gathered through surveys and interviews suggests competition incrementally improves education for all students. Identifies ways in which schools hit hardest by competition react and refutes critics' claims regarding school choice. Discusses…