Successful strategies for solving the many problems of urban schools will require multiple, diverse approaches. One that has been virtually overlooked in the latest waves of reforms is to reinforce and reinvigorate a fundamental democratic principle that underlies our public schools: that a locally based and locally chosen school board—with the necessary tools, support, and training—can be citizen-leaders at the vanguard of ensuring a quality education for all public school students.

This is not to say that school boards have been ignored in the search for solutions. Experiments are under way that fundamentally change the governance of urban schools. And although there is little evidence that charter schools, vouchers, privatization, and takeovers have turned school failure into success, inspired wholesale academic improvements, or offered lasting solutions for large numbers of students, these efforts are gaining steam across the country. But these approaches often supercede, rather than improve, the functioning of school boards.

A growing body of research on governance indicates that improving the effectiveness of hospital, college, and university boards produces institutions better able to fulfill their missions and that effective corporate governance can actually improve the bottom line. The National School Boards Foundation believes that improving urban school boards can have a similar beneficial effect on our public education system. It is this belief that led us to develop the Urban School Boards Initiative, a yearlong project of the National School Boards Foundation.

The following report reflects upon what we have learned through the Urban School Boards Initiative, which has included a national public opinion poll, a roundtable discussion with leading education leaders, and many discussions with urban school board members across the country. The report focuses on concrete strategies for improvement. It is designed to generate action around strategies that will help urban school boards become more effective in leading their districts to improve student achievement.

We hope the report will be used in three important ways.

• The report can guide individual school boards along their own paths of improvement. The questions included on the following pages are meant to help convene conversations among district leaders and support school board self- reflection that leads to changes in the way school boards operate. The survey questionnaire is available, along with an online version of this report at www.nsba.org/foundation so that communities around the country might replicate this research.
• The examples of a select handful of efforts currently under way across the country can serve as information and inspiration for school board members who want to increase their ability to improve urban education.
• National and state organizations concerned with urban education can use this document to develop their own action agendas, inform existing projects and training programs, and work with local school districts to implement the recommendations.

Terry Crane
Chairman