School Boards, the Community, and School Desegregation

Abstract

Local boards of education, or school boards, empowered to assume fiscal and administrative responsibility for local school districts, are legal arms of the state. Whereas they vary in the manner in which they discharge their responsibilities, they generally appoint a school superintendent to implement policy and to manage local school districts. In areas regarding teacher and administrator hiring, curriculum and educational programs, extracurricular activities, school staffing practices, community involvement, and the like, school board policies have a profound effect on overall educational quality. Another area of board policy, one that perhaps has had a more visible influence on the quality of education in local schools while simultaneously stimulating community reaction, concerns school desegregation. Because of its importance to educational quality, school desegregation functions as the lens through which the responsiveness of school boards to community desires is examined. To address these issues, this article first presents a general description of school boards. This description is followed by a review of criticisms of school boards, as well as a brief analysis