Rural school boards and their governance structures

¶ … evolution of perception of the role of school members over the past 2 centuries or so and how the analyses of these perceptions also changed over time. This discussion is followed by an examination of the antecedents of tension for school board members in general and for rural schools board members in particular in the United States and how these tensions have been described and reported in the relevant literature. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning the evolution of perceptions of school board member roles and sources of tension for school board members concludes the chapter.

Evolving Perceptions of School Board Member Roles

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the literature concerning perceptions of school board members and their roles generally included an overview of the historical origins and development of the role of school board members, with some researchers beginning their analyses as early as the 1600s, but most report that the origins of what can be generally regarded as the modern school board emerged during the late 19th century (McCloud & McKenzie, 1993). For example, van Alfen and Schmidt (2007) reported that, "School boards have managed the affairs of local American education since 1642. The legacy of these boards is a public school system serving urban and rural youth across the nation, the only system in the world that seeks to provide all of a nation's children with an appropriate education" (p. 12). These points were also made by Asen, Gurke, Conners, Solomon and Gumm (2013) who advised that, "Even as federal mandates increasingly have shaped primary and secondary education in the United States, important policy decisions affecting the daily environment of a school are still made at the state and local levels" (p. 33). Notwithstanding the myriad educational directives from the states and federal governments, it is the school board members themselves that serve as the local element of education policy making (Asen et al., 2013). Based on this disparity in school board decision making authority, it is not possible to determine how or whether federal mandates will be implemented in a given school district in a standardized and consistent fashion. In this regard, Asen and his associates added that, "Local policy makers may or may not regard research as salient for district issues, and their understanding of what constitutes research or how it may inform local issues may differ from the purposes articulated by federal policy makers" (2013, p. 35).

The literature during the 1980s and 1990s also began focusing on the inevitable conflicts that result from stakeholders with different interests and views about the purpose of education and how best to deliver it. In some cases, researchers cite the growing tendency for school boards to pursue transparency in their operations, to promote open communications and to clearly define their respective roles in the process (McCloud & McKenzie, 1994). During this period, though, school boards faced longstanding traditions and history that worked against these progressive educational strategies (McCloud & McKenzie, 1994).

While the relevant literature during this period also suggest that it would be disingenuous to make any generalized statements concerning the relationship between the country's 15,000-plus school boards and its schools, Kirst (1994) emphasized that, "Certain trends that are pointing to a refocusing of [school board] roles (p. 380). A fundamental constraint to the research during the 1990s was the overwhelming number of school boards (15,000+) and number of school board members (nearly one hundred thousand) combined with inadequate technologies to evaluate how their respective roles were being refocused and reshaped as the new millennia approached. Indeed, during the 1980s and early 1990s, Kirst reported that, "The research base is confined to the study of a single case, a few comparative cases, or some nonrepresentative sample chosen for a particular purpose" (1994, p. 381). Moreover, in a number of studies, the research during the 1980s and early 1990s was limited to reviews of the secondary data (which was frequently repeated from study to study), empirical observations and anecdotal accounts from the field, thereby limiting the validity and restricting the generalizability of the findings (Neuman, 2003).

There were other constraints to the studies concerning school boards and their constituent members during the 1980s. For example, the research methodologies that were used in the few studies of school board members in general and rural school board members in particular that were conducted during this period in American education were largely limited to self-assessments and various types of surveys with just the rare full-scale assessment being used (Kirst, 1994). For example, the research conducted by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) for the period 1987 through 1990 of 226 rural and small towns, suburban and urban schools board was an isolated example of a study that involved a large number of school boards (Kirst, 1994).

In sum, the relevant research during the 1980s and early 1990s was focused primarily on urban and large city regions of the country, due in large part to media accounts of failing schools and rising violence in the classrooms (Kirst, 1994). Not surprisingly, this singular focus on larger cities and suburban regions left a major gap in the body of knowledge concerning rural school boards and their members. In this regard, Kirst emphasizes that, "Horror stories dominated the media, and special attention was paid to conflict and operational failures. As a result, we know the least about the most common type of school board -- the board of small districts" (1994, p. 383).

A few authorities during the 1990s examined the origins of schools board in the United States and how increasingly scarce resources have introduced tensions between boards and other stakeholders. For instance, a rare study concerning the origins of boards of small rural school districts was the subject of a study by Theobald (1995) who reports that there is primary evidence consisting of rural board members statements during the late 19th century and early 20th century "to the effect that their intentions were always to save the district money, whether this meant hiring the cheapest teacher, buying the cheapest blackboard, crayons, or books, or repairing the schoolhouse only when it was necessary to keep it standing" (p. 37).

Notwithstanding this focus on cost savings at every turn, there was a corresponding effort to ensure that all available resources were used to their maximum advantage to provide high quality educational services. For instance, Theobald adds that, "There are other glimpses of real devotion to the benefits of formal schooling. Most often these came in the form of petitions presented to the board asking to extend the school term one more month or, as one clerk wrote, 'to have as much School as the money in the District would pay for'" (1995, p. 37). Despite this emphasis on spending all available money (which was scarce by definition) wisely, the literature shows that early rural schools boards remained concerned with producing students that were capable of earning a living in the agricultural environment in which they lived. In this regard, Theobald emphasizes that, "What is culturally difficult for us to imagine now is that parents in the 19th- and early-20th-century rural Midwest generally wanted no more from the schooling provided for their children than [to] prepare them for productive lives in the immediate community" (p. 37).

By the fin de siecle, progressive reforms in urban regions of the country had improved the quality and quantity of educational services being offered young learners, but the situation in most rural areas of the country remained tied to these community-oriented ideals of the purpose of education, thereby restricting opportunities to the rural school districts of the country (Theobald, 1995). Although this may appear short-sighted from a modern perspective, school board members of the era, many of whom were also farmers, simply established curriculum policies they knew were congruent with the needs of their own communities rather than larger cities where major industries required a different skill set. As Theobald pointed out, "But more and better schooling in the rural Midwest brought no visible signs of enhanced opportunity. For the farmers who served on local boards of education, opportunity lay in the land, not away from it" (1995, p. 38).

In many cases, this pedagogical philosophy was not only accurate, it was eerily so in some instances where young people flocking to the big cities not only failed to achieve their professional goals, they became vulnerable to all the vices that are available in these cosmopolitan venues as well. Consequently, young people from rural regions of the country needed the "four Rs" and little more for the purposes of their future on the farm. Therefore, these early rural school boards were making pragmatic decisions about difficult issues with the best interests of their students in mind notwithstanding modern views about the appropriateness of their decisions to the contrary. In this regard, Theobald points out that, "From our present perspective, we have trouble comprehending how parents could prefer for their children a minimal education and life on the land to high school, college, and the chance to become a doctor, lawyer, or successful city business person" (1995, p. 97). The reality of the situation, though, was that opportunities in the local rural communities demanded a far different skill set that the industries of the larger cities (Theobald, 1995).

In sum, the type of education that rural school boards wanted to provide their students depended on their perspectives of what their society needed from the schools (Theobald, 1995). As a result, modern observers must recognize what challenges were faced by these early school boards and how and why their policies emerged in the fashion they did (Theobald, 1995). As Theobald emphasizes, "Rural Midwest society was marked by various intolerances, the end result of which -- when successfully applied to outsiders -- left a small community of like- minded owners and tillers of the soil. That rural schools came to reflect these prejudices should not be surprising" (1995, p. 97).

Other researchers have focused on the significant educational reforms that took place during the period 1900 through 1920 and their effect on school board roles and operations in their studies of school boards. In fact, some authorities maintain that by the 1900s, urban school boards experienced some fundamental changes in their structure that would have implications for their rural counterparts. For instance, Kirst reports that, "Around 1900 a decentralized, ward-based committee system for administering the public schools provided the opportunities for a nationwide reform movement" (1994, p. 380). One of the most significant trends identified by Kirst that would have an effect on rural school boards was the growth in the constituency of urban school boards. For example, Kirst reported that, "While there were great variations, 16 of 28 cities with populations over 100,000 at the turn of the century had boards of 20 members or more" (1994, p. 380).

The evolution of school boards experienced another series of reforms during the 1910s that would have implications for rural school boards. For example, Kirst reported that, "By 1910 the conventional wisdom had evolved among the schoolmen and the leading business and professional men who spearheaded the reforms" (1994, p. 380). The conventional wisdom of the day that shaped school board member thinking included many of the same changes that were taking place in the business world, including centralizing and professionalizing services, adopting and sustaining a nonpolitical perspective, and generally using modern business principles to facilitate the delivery of educational services. As Kirst pointed out, "The watchwords of reform became centralization, expertise, professionalization, nonpolitical control, and efficiency" (1994, p. 380).

Moreover, it was also during this period in the evolution of school boards that efforts were made to divest boards from influence of a few elite members of the business and political community on the educational process. According to Kirst, "The governance structure needed to be revised so that school boards would be small, elected at large, and purged of all connections with political parties and officials of general government, such as mayors and councilmen" (1994, p. 380). These trends would have special implications for rural school boards. In this regard, Kirst advised that, "These reform concepts spread rapidly from large cities to small, in part through the efforts of the National Education Association, which at the time was dominated by school administrators" (1994, p. 381).

Following the end of World War II, Davies (2011) reports that school boards increasingly assumed the role of facilitating collaboration between the disparate educational resources in their communities. Reiterating a common theme that also emerged from the relevant literature, Davies (2011) likewise emphasized that many of these resources, including some of the roles traditionally played by school boards, were no longer appropriate in a changing educational environment. In this regard, Davies reported that, "Times have changed, and so should the ways in which systems boards do that work. Many of these boards (or agencies) were created in the 1950s and 60s, when the U.S. faced the great challenge of rapidly building capacity to accommodate large numbers of students" (2011, p. 44).

Like many other educational authorities writing on school boards in the United States, Davies (2011) resorts to describing the evolution of school board roles by drawing on the secondary literature concerning the educational reforms that were reshaping the American landscape during the second half of the 20th century. For instance, Davies (2011) cited the impact of the GI Bill in refocusing high schools throughout the country in helping young people prepare for college and the role of school boards in influencing these changes. In addition, like a number of other authorities, Marino (2011) concluded that school boards remain central in helping identify ways to improve curricular offerings in ways that are congruent with the needs of real-world businesses today.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a growing effort to consolidate what was known about school boards across the country. One example of this trend was a national study of school superintendents that was conducted in an effort to identify the main issues that were involved with negotiations between education boards and teacher organizations:

1. The composition of the board's negotiating team,

2. The role of the superintendent,

3. The advantages and disadvantages of having board members participate in negotiations;

4. The situations which occur as a result of having board members negotiate,

5. The relationships, if any, between these factors and the size of the district,

6. Whether teachers have gone on strike, and,

7. The experience of the superintendent (Sharp, 2002, p. 31).

Another finding to emerge from the Sharp (2002) study was that during the period from the 1970s through the 1990s, school superintendents were required to devote increasing amounts of time to collective bargaining issues. In addition, Sharp describes the evolution of the role of school superintendent during the second half of the 20th century: "The superintendents' national organization suggested in 1961 that the role should be an independent third party, and in 1968, said that the superintendent should be a consultant for both groups" (2002, p. 31).

By the last decades of the 20th century, other educational authorities were recommending that school superintendents should serve in a transactional capacity rather than identify with the board of education or teachers; other authorities have recommended that school superintendents should serve as a source of information, facilitate the clarification of divisive issues, and generally serve as an educational resource for both groups (Sharp, 2002). This diversity of views is reflective of the general themes that emerged in the relevant literature during this period in American educational history concerning the proper role of school board members and superintendents, with some roles representing the antithesis of others. For instance, Sharp (2002) noted that when the role of superintendent involves negotiating on behalf of the board of education, it makes superintendents "adversaries of the professional staff," an outcome that inevitably adversely affects their effectiveness in curriculum leadership roles and makes them "the bad guy" in an adversarial role (p. 31).

Just two studies to date, though, have investigated the proper role of the superintendent in general and none with respect to rural settings in particular (Sharp, 2002). On a final note, Sharp noted that any duality in the role of superintendent will inevitably result in suboptimal and potentially even damaging performance. For instance, Sharp (2002) concluded that, "The NEA reduces the superintendent to the go-between; the AASA sees the superintendent in a 'dual' role; the National School Boards Association (NSBA) regards superintendents as a 'channel or interpreter.' None of these roles are dynamic and they will result in destroying the effectiveness of the superintendent with his own staff, with the community, and ultimately with the school board" (p. 52).

Researchers such as Newton and Sackney (2005) have also examined the structure and group knowledge of school boards using a number of research methodologies, including conversation analysis, surveys, observation, and the Critical Decision Method (CDM). Based on their findings, Newton and Sackney (2005) determined that school boards are increasingly influenced by group communication patterns in ways that also influence their political and structural environments. In sum, Newton and Sackney (2005) concluded that, "Most importantly, the results suggests that the affective, axiological, and cognitive dimensions of group knowledge are not discrete, but interact with each other within the processes of knowledge transformation and knowledge transfer" (p. 434). In other words, school board members not only have a wider range of resources available to them for decision making purposes, they are taking advantage of these resources to facilitate their roles with other educational stakeholders (Newton & Sackney, 2005).

Most recently, the literature concerning the proper role of school boards and superintendents has focused on accountability and identifying best practices for both urban and rural boards. For instance, van Alfen & Schmidt (2007) reported that, "Local boards, especially in rural areas are still the natural leaders of education. Local school boards have lost the overall vision of their governance role; roles [should] be redefined and local district governance [should] undergo significant change" (p. 13). Other authorities, though, maintained that "school boards be eliminated altogether, and that school governance be conducted by individual schools and their patron" (van Alfen & Schmidt, 2007, p. 13). Although most authorities do not go to this extreme (some Canadian provinces have eliminated their school boards as discussed further below), many observers agree that the future will be challenging for rural school boards (van Alfen & Schmidt, 2007).

According to Johnson and Plambeck (2014), some school boards are challenged by a paucity of effective leadership. Citing the complexity of the position, Johnson and Plambeck (2014) emphasize that school board members are confronted with management problems that demand an innovative solution. In response to this growing need, Johnson and Plambeck noted that many school boards have opted for an alternative structural approach that includes co-chairs for boards of education. In this regard, Johnson and Plambeck advised that, "The board chair who can effectively manage all of these issues in today's fast-paced world is becoming a rarity -- which makes this the perfect time to investigate alternative, nontraditional leadership structures that will help a school deliver on its mission in this challenging environment, including the cochair model" (2014, p. 92). This alternative, though, will be unlikely to succeed to its fullest if the board members do not accept both co-chairs equally (Johnson & Plambeck, 2014).

The more recent literature concerning school board members and their proper role in a modern democracy likewise emphasizes the complexity of the school board position and the challenges that many school boards in the U.S. face today with a view towards strengthening accountability for school performance. According to Berry and Howell (2009), "Whatever the task, the basic purpose of all school board activities is to facilitate the day-to-day functioning of schools. If board members do their jobs well, schools should do a better job of educating students" (p. 66). There is also a general consensus among the nation's school board members that one of the most important tasks they have to fulfill is ensuring that the students in their districts are actually learning (Berry & Howell, 2009). Although financial issues remain at the top of the concern list for U.S. school board members, student academic achievement ranks a close second (Berry & Howell, 2009).

These priorities are not surprising given that school board members are increasingly being held accountable for the performance of their schools (Berry & Howell, 2009). In this regard, Berry and Howell emphasized that, "The idea is that voters will replace incumbents with new members when performance is poor and support incumbents over challengers when performance is strong. Indeed, there are very few other ways in which district officials can be held accountable for school performance" (2009, p. 67). There is a need for increased accountability for school board members, Berry and Howell argued, because there are currently no federal legislative provisions, including the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), to assign accountability for failing schools.

Although school board elections provide an opportunity for the general public to cast their votes for better schools by voting for school board members that reflect their views, many observers question whether American taxpayers have the wherewithal to improve their school systems in this fashion (Berry & Howell, 2009). In this regard, Berry and Howell concluded that, "As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement" (2009, p. 67). Taken together, it is clear that school board members in the United States are faced with some serious challenges in helping their schools improve the quality of the educational services they deliver, and it is little wonder that tension characterizes many of the relationships with other educational stakeholders, and these issues are discussed further below.

Tensions between School Board Members and Other Stakeholders

The public school system in the United States has been the focus of a growing amount of attention since a Nation at Risk was published in 1983 (Herbert & Beardsley, 2001). Since that time, a number of researchers have identified a wide range of educational issues that detract from the quality of the nation's schools (Peterson & West, 2003). Beyond these issues, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 signed into law by President George W. Bush ended what he termed "the soft bigotry of low expectations" (cited in Peterson & West, 2003, p. 19). Pursuant to the provisions of the NCLB, the federal government has become a major actor in effecting positive changes in the nation's high stakes accountability initiative to improve school quality

(Peterson & West, 2003).

As a result of the NCLB, the U.S. Department of Education has initiated regular student testing and started holding schools accountable for their performance (Rodriguez, 2007). These trends have not been limited to urban school districts, but have rather extended into the nation's rural school districts as well, and rural schools are being subjected to increased scrutiny as a result (Nachtigal, 1992). As Post and Stamach (1999) pointed out, "With student performance data made public, the plight of some rural schools intensifies, and rural consolidation resurfaces as the flash point of an enduring social tension" (1999, p. 106).

The literature concerning the proper role of school board members, superintendents and other stakeholders has also increasingly focused on the tensions that result between competition for scarce taxpayer resources as well as fundamental differences in pedagogical philosophies concerning the optimal approaches to delivering education services to a diverse student body.

For instance, a growing amount of attention has been focused on the performance of public schools as well as the role of school boards in effecting meaningful change. The purpose of a seminal study by Ferre, Chang and Lotven (1988) was to identify the most critical issues in managing and operating a rural school district as conceptualized by superintendents in southeastern Nebraska that were sources of tension for their school districts.

The Ferre et al. (1988) study was based on previous research that indicated rural school district superintendents held many of the same views concerning policy making and administration as their suburban and larger city counterparts. All told, 35 school superintendents took part in the Ferre et al. (1988) study, with school districts ranging in size from just 31 students to more than 2,100 students; more than 50% of the school districts in the study had fewer than 300 students. The rural school districts included in the study were considered to be representative of an agrarian lifestyle (Ferre et al., 1988).

The sources of tension identified by Ferre and his associates (1988) ranged from excessive bureaucratic tasks to federal and state intrusion in their school systems. According to Ferre et al., "The aging of rural areas, depressed economics, and the way people live are affecting the rural way of life. Of surprising importance was the lack of concern for declining enrollments" (1988, p. 34). The superintendents taking part in the Ferre et al. (1988) study reported that the districts' school boards were mostly concerned about the academic progress of the students in their districts and ensuring satisfactory progress was achieved was regarded as being at the top of the list by superintendents. In this regard, Ferre et al. noted that, "The development of adequate school programs and pupil progress was viewed by superintendents as one of their main goals in maintaining a smooth working relation with the school board" (1988, p. 34).

Although academic performance consistently ranked near the top of the tension lists, other issues as shown in Table 1 and depicted graphically in Figure 1 below were also cited as source of tension by the school superintendents participating in the Ferre et al. (1988) study. As Ferre et al. concluded, "The conflict between perceived role and actual concerns is putting a great deal of pressure on chief administrators today" (1988, p. 34).

Table 1

Ranking of questions in order of importance to rural school superintendents

Category

Ranking

Mean Rating

School finance

1

1.92

Regional economic conditions

2

4.44

State regulations

3

5.40

Salaries

4

5.65

Curriculum development

5

6.04

School board

6

6.14

Federal regulations

7

7.46

Facilities

8

7.61

Community pressures

9

7.86

School community relations

10

7.90

Coping with children having exceptional needs

11

7.96

Quality of faculty and staff

12

8.23

Social change

13

8.83

Enrollment patterns

14

9.57

Source: Based on table in Ferre et al., 1988, p. 35

Likewise, Hess (2002) cites financial difficulties and student academic achievement progress as being two ongoing sources of tension among school boards. In reality, though, some authorities have maintained that tension in school boards is an inevitable eventuality that must be taken into account when evaluating the effectiveness of a school board. For instance, McCoy (2012) suggested that, "There is a natural tension between a funding body and a spending body" (p. 1). This natural tension also extends to school boards and parents as well as the search for academic best practices continues (Vermette & Foote, 2001).

It is important to note, though, that tension between school boards and other stakeholders is as old as the institutions themselves. For example, McCloud and McKenzie (1994) reported that, "In the past, school board members were charged with administering all aspects of the schools. However, as city populations grew between 1820 and 1860, members of urban school boards were overwhelmed by the enormity of their task" (p. 386). In response to this need, during the 1840s, the role of school superintendent was created. The creation of the superintendent position has been the source of ongoing tension in the 170 years since. In this regard, McCloud and McKenzie also note that, "As a result, the office of the superintendent was created in the 1840s. From that day to this, there has been tension - and, often, strained relationships between the board that makes policy and the superintendent who implements it" (1994, p. 386).