6 Dec 2007, Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen
[This is an abstract of a paper given at the symposium School Board Research: Main Lines of Inquiry, in Des Moines, Iowa, September 14-15, 2007. The full paper is published in Relevancy and Revelation: The Future of School Board Governance, by Rowman and Littlefield, Spring 2008.]
Is an elected school board the best system of governance for America’s large, urban school systems? Can elected boards turn around chronic underperformance and manage budgetary crises? Or might another model of governance be more effective? Can mayoral appointed boards shed their historical stigma of patronage politics and bring about better teaching and learning for city students?
Most Americans don’t think the mayor should get involved, but this perception is starting to change rapidly. In 2006 and 2007 the Gallup poll asked Americans if they favored mayoral control. In 2006, only 29% were in favor, but in 2007 that number had jumped to 39%, with 42% of parents in favor. Such trends in public opinion, combined with increased interest from mayors, make this a frequently debated topic in today’s education policy circles.
In summer 2007, for instance, the issue was raised when Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2007 when Mayor Martin Chavez expressed a desire to play a role in the search for a new superintendent for the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). While members of the APS school board were open to listening, they and an editorial in the Albuquerque paper made clear that the mayor should have no direct role. The editorial expressed support for the separation of mayor and city school board: “the Albuquerque mayor is elected by the citizens of Albuquerque, not APS, whose constituents elect school board members to represent them in all school matters.”
In this paper we offer a contrasting view, arguing on the basis of recently completed empirical research that for many big city school districts, an Education Mayor may serve as a catalyst for district improvement (Wong, Shen, Anagnostopoulos, and Rutledge 2007). Our goal in this paper is to provide an introduction to, and evaluation of, the emerging trend of returning to mayoral appointed school boards to govern big city school systems. Following the high profile introduction of mayoral governance in Boston (1992) and Chicago (1995), cities such as Cleveland (1998) and New York (2002) have followed suit, and many others have explored the possibility of doing the same.