"Our findings challenge the belief that school boards are unimportant"
Who is saying that?
They're frightfully important.
Like towns, there are all levels of varying dynamics - there are strong school admins with rubber-stamp school boards; there are overwhelmingly powerful school boards making critical decisions for tens of thousands of students, and unfortunately, usually beyond culpability for the policies they inflict.
But I don't think anyone has suggested they're unimportant.
Many people worldwide may not realize how locally schools are run in the US; they are funded by property taxes, administered, and paid for at that level. Certainly there are some state funds but largely, it's a local town thing. They are very LOCAL things, making these boards - who control the purse strings - vitally important. They are locally elected. There are no qualifications other than basically be an adult, live there, and don't be a felon/sex offender.
For Minneapolis (as an example) they run a $55mn budget. With....no qualifications, remember. (This year, they're spending $85m so... yeah, like the federal government in that respect.)
They are - in my limited experience - politically awful experiences, with many tryhards feeling this is their "first step" into what will certainly be Mr Smith's brilliant political career, so they come from the very start with guns blazing over the stupidest issues. OTOH you have the mayor's nephew who ran just to get the old man off his back and easily coasted to victory because he's the only name anyone recognized, who truly doesn't give a FUCK about anything but how soon this stupid meeting can be over.
Here's an example - Robbinsdale, MN an inner-ring suburb, district of about 10k students - read it and weep: https://www.americanexperiment... - sadly, this is absolutely typical in tone, if not specifics. The district was about 25% "performing at grade level" for math, and about 40% for reading last year, I believe.
To the point of the article, "A fundamental challenge to understanding the importance of boards is the absence of data on the policy goals of board membersâ"i.e., their ideologies" - I don't understand why their ideologies are particularly important. No moreso than, say, the teachers' ideologies. Look at the Robbinsdale mess I linked - there's ideologies all OVER the damn place - but their lack of results and the impact on the kids is what matters.
Honestly, I don't care what school board members ideology IS; I'd love to see a cap prohibiting anyone who expressed ANY open ideology banned from the role.
