ABSTRACT
Should school boards be in charge of schools? School boards serve as sites for local democracy, but their power has been under siege for over half a century. This study provides results from an original survey in order to assess who Americans want in charge of their schools. Given that the strength of school boards is supposed to be their ability to facilitate local democracy, this study also includes a survey experiment in which participants are randomly assigned short clips of different types of school board meetings to view. The meetings differ in style – one with no stakeholder participation, one with stakeholder participation but no response from the board, and one with participation and board response or what I consider to be public deliberation. The results suggest that school boards are the preferred option, and preferences for school board governance grows stronger once participants are exposed to school board meetings where there is public deliberation. This effect is equally as strong amongst people of color and individuals from low-income households. This study supports the notion that school boards are a crucial part of local democracy in the US.
Jonathan Collins (2021) Should School Boards Be in Charge? The Effects of Exposure to Participatory and Deliberative School Board Meetings, Peabody Journal of Education, DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2021.1943239