Urban school board members control school expenditures of nearly $70 billion and affect the lives of 12 million schoolchildren. They operate the largest systems of transportation, food service, and building facilities in their communities. At the same time, they are accountable to the community for decision making about policies, practices, textbooks, school boundaries, and student-teacher ratios. It is no surprise, then, that when schools fail, the school board is frequently a target of blame.

School boards have a unique place in this country's collective history and identity. The school board and the local school system it governs are testaments to our fundamental democratic beliefs. Public schools are entrusted with the future of our democracy, which depends on the education of all our children to become responsible citizens who will one day be willing and able to govern public institutions and serve as stewards of the public interest.

This is a tough time to be a school board member. Across the nation, Americans have proclaimed that education is their number one priority. Parents and others are concerned about how well schools are preparing children with the basic skills and higher- order thinking skills needed to succeed in school, at work, and in life. Employers are demanding that schools prepare students to contribute to workplaces where change is the only constant. Taxpayers are increasingly vigilant about the results of school spending. With rising frequency, ordinary Americans who are frustrated with the status quo are voting with their feet, signing on with alternative providers of education services. These and other issues challenge all school boards, but none more than urban school boards and those who serve on them.

Outside school walls, the socioeconomic factors in urban centers—poverty, racism, crime, violence, changing family structures, and stretched community resources—all have an impact on student achievement. These circumstances put urban children at risk of educational failure, schools at the center of interconnected social problems, and urban school board members on the front lines under extremely difficult conditions. There are some successful schools in urban school districts across the country, but these successes are hard won.

Academic performance in urban school districts lags far behind the performance in most suburban districts (Figure 1). Overcrowding in city schools is endemic, and school facilities are plagued by poor maintenance. In addition, urban schools' inability to attract and retain high-quality teachers credentialed in their subjects has resulted in a shortage of teachers for city schools that is twice that of the national average (Figure 2). High urban school superintendent turnover—now at about two-and-a-half years per assignment—is indicative of all-too-frequent tensions between elected and professional leadership, which can lead to district-wide crisis (Figure 3). And, while urban students often have greater needs, they typically receive fewer resources per child than their suburban counterparts (Figure 4).

With less money to spend, urban districts typically cannot keep up with the suburbs when it comes to resources, technology, teachers, or infrastructure. City schoolchildren have fewer books and computers, less access to the Internet, less-qualified teachers, and more decrepit classrooms, according to data from Education Trust and the U.S. Department of Education's Condition of Education 1998. In schools where more than 30 percent of the students are poor, 59 percent of teachers report that they lack sufficient books and other reading resources. Only 16 percent of teachers in more affluent schools report such shortages, Education Trust reports.

While most school board members are public-spirited volunteers, themselves often frustrated and struggling to find effective ways to meet their enormous responsibilities, in a few highly publicized instances, school boards have been found to be self- serving, self-interested, ineffective, and even corrupt. As a result, in many cities, school reform efforts have focused on limiting or eliminating the power and duties of school boards.