Pre-Workshop Reading

Overview from Leadership Matters: Transforming
Urban School Boards

The need to refocus the role of the urban school board is at the heart of what has been learned from the Urban School Boards Initiative, a yearlong project of the National School Boards Foundation. The results of this project include recommendations to help urban school boards move away from battling the day- to-day fires, to transform themselves so they can dramatically improve the academic achievement of their students.

The National School Boards Foundation's Urban School Boards Initiative project is for urban school board members and about urban school board members. It is also a project by urban school board members, as it involved hundreds of board members in research and discussions throughout the project. The primary goal has been to provide a clear understanding of the issues, and, ultimately, to offer the tools and support urban school boards need to improve their effectiveness in leading their schools and communities. The Initiative focused on two fundamental questions: How can urban school boards improve student achievement?, and, How must urban school boards change to become more effective?

To address these questions, the project included a national public opinion poll, a roundtable meeting, and ongoing discussions with urban school board members across the country. Each step of the project was guided by a project Advisory Committee of urban school board members, administrators, consultants and others.

The recommendations outlined in this report are rooted in a common understanding that emerged among project participants, that to tackle the problems facing urban schools, school boards would have to commit themselves to:

1. No more business as usual.

To be effective leaders in these challenging times, urban school boards need to make changes in how they view and perform their role. The work of effective urban school board members can best be described as the work of team leaders.

2. Focus, focus, focus.

Decide what issues matter most, and zero in. The primary goal of urban school boards must be to increase the academic achievement of all students. Urban school boards must focus their attention and actions on important educational issues, delegating as much authority as possible for administrative and procedural details.

3. Do it now.

School boards need to take action and make these changes right away. The urgency of issues facing urban schools today, the increasingly frequent questions about urban school boards' role in effectively addressing these issues, and the belief that issues facing urban schools today will eventually face all schools, are what led the National School Boards Foundation to dedicate itself to addressing issues of urban school governance.

The National School Boards Foundation—established in 1995 to help school board members become catalysts for education change and agents for systemic reform of public schools—began its work by searching for data that would point to potential solutions. The search uncovered studies of various school reform initiatives and of public opinion about public schools, but none focused on school boards. Before launching programs or proposing new solutions, the National School Boards Foundation leadership was dedicated to listening to the public and to education reformers, and to taking a comprehensive look at possible strategies for strengthening urban school boards' ability to raise achievement.

The Research

The first component of the Urban School Boards Initiative was national public opinion research, conducted by the polling firm of Belden, Russonello & Stewart in Summer 1998. The objective was to identify and compare the views of urban school boards and urban publics about various aspects of school performance and about their views on the potential effectiveness of strategies to raise student achievement in urban school systems. The research team initially convened seven focus groups of urban residents in four cities to generate and refine the questions that would be used in the national survey of public opinion. Following the conclusion of the focus groups, researchers launched a national telephone poll of 100 randomly selected urban school board members in urban areas with populations of 100,000 or more, as well as 1,000 adults residing in the same urban areas.

The responses revealed that significant differences exist between the opinions of urban school board members and the opinions of the urban public regarding school performance and the performance of key players, the top concerns facing their urban communities, and the relative potential of various strategies for improvement.

For example, when the survey asked respondents to rate their local schools' success in fifteen specific areas, school board members consistently gave substantially higher ratings than did the urban public. The three areas with the most significant discrepancies between the perceptions of urban school board members and the public were how successful schools are in keeping violence and drugs out of schools, maintaining discipline, and preparing students for college.

Overall the urban public is much more critical of public schools and sees more potential for various strategies for improvement in all areas. In sum, the most important message from the research phase of the project is that there is a consistent, significant difference in perception between urban school board members and the urban public about:

The study identifies four areas of great potential for improving urban schools. These are:

The Roundtable

Next, the Initiative convened a roundtable meeting on September 28-29, 1998 of forty-five key practitioners and policymakers from urban school boards, state school boards associations, universities, and other organizations concerned with issues of public schooling. Participants engaged in animated and reflective dialogue about the challenges of public school governance and about the ability of school boards to effectively address the problems facing public schools.

The discussions were prefaced by a summary of the findings from the project's public opinion poll by researcher Nancy Belden and by comments about the survey results and the current situation in public schools, offered by Anthony Alvarado, Chancellor of Instruction for the San Diego City Schools; Anne Hallett, Executive Director of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform; and Kenneth Wong, Associate Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Chicago.

Participants in the day-and-a-half discussion considered the survey data and identified common leadership challenges and some of the strategies that can be used by urban school boards to raise academic achievement for all students. Participants also worked in smaller groups to focus in greater detail on how to strengthen schools' academic expectations, resources, and accountability; encourage parental involvement and community engagement; improve teacher quality; and create a positive learning environment—the strategies that were strongly supported by the public in the research phase of this project. The roundtable meeting concluded with discussions of reports on the strategies and tactics identified by the small groups during their time together.

Recommendations

The recommendations from the Urban School Boards Initiative project include observations, recommendations, and concrete actions informed by the project activities and by urban school board members across the country, especially those who are involved in the National School Boards Association's Council of Urban Boards of Education. Together, these data build a compelling case for urban school boards to transform themselves into real trustees of urban students' academic achievement. If urban school board members recast their role to become leaders of teams that focus clearly on what matters most—student learning—they can ensure that our nation's urban students have the education they deserve.

Education Week Commentary by Michael Preston about Leadership Matters.

Home | Background | Pre-Workshop Reading | Workshop Outline | Overheads | Handouts | Resources | Evaluation Form