Schools

Kids who love reading have bigger brains, become happier and smarter teens

Larry Cuban - On the ever-changing agenda of reformers seeking to improve outcomes of U.S. schooling, how schools have been governed ranked in the middle and seldom rose to the top. Locally elected school boards, established in the early 19th century, became a democratic way for lay people, that is, taxpayers and parents, to make district policy and appoint superintendents who would efficiently manage fiscal affairs, teachers, and administrators. From time to time, reform efforts to abolish local school boards for their inefficiencies, bad decisions, and occasional corruption occurred in the early 20th century, after World War II and, most recently in the 1990s and early years of the 21st century (see here and here). While the number of school boards governing districts in the U.S. has decreased significantly from 100,000 a century ago, in 2024, there are 13,000-plus districts among which there are about one thousand in California, 300 in Kansas, and one in Hawaii). Locally elected school boards continue to make district policies and hire superintendents to run their schools.

Except for a few big city districts where severe criticism of elected school boards over lack of improved student test scores and graduation rates have come into play. Beginning in the early 1990s, a reform movement to have urban mayors run districts either by abolishing elected school boards or appointing majorities of its members has flourished. Where such governance changes occurred, mayors folded the district superintendent into their cabinets thus making the city's top official responsible for improving schools much as he or she governs the police, transportation, and sanitation departments. The reform push for mayoral control of big city schools has been largely motivated by making one person accountable to the electorate for improving students' academic performance.