BoardBuzz was encouraged by a story we got today. This tidbit from the Daily Citizen in Georgia shows just how important school board governance is.
BoardBuzz knows just how important school boards are, how much they can impact student achievement, and as the article notes, “They set the schools’ vision, establish policy and hire the superintendent. And in some cases, they oversee multimillion-dollar budgets.” But the article also pointed out, “In the past decade, at least one-fifth of all school boards in Georgia have had problems, according to Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED — the organization that accredits more than 90 percent of the school systems in Georgia.”
So the question became, what to do?
The state board in April asked the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and AdvancED to launch a 90-day task force to research national best practices in school board governance.Our task on the Commission for School Board Excellence was to study the best-performing school boards in the nation — and figure out what they had in common.
We held meetings around the state to collect research and data. We talked to national and state experts, including the National School Boards Association, the Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA) and the Georgia Superintendents Association (GSA), and incorporated many of their recommendations in our report. We read the best case studies and looked for the common themes.
And what came out of the meetings is a really solid set of recommendations that will strengthen school boards all across Georgia, and maybe even serve as a model for school boards all over the country.
“If Georgia can adopt most of these suggestions for change, the state will be a model for the nation in school board governance,” Elgart noted.The final recommendations are directed at improving board elections, qualifications and training so that boards do not get to a point where state intervention is necessary. We do not recommend that the State Board of Education have authority to intervene in a local system unless all local attempts to save the failing system have been exhausted. Even in such cases, the state board, as the entity of last resort, should have only temporary authority to stabilize the system until new local board elections can be held.
The recommendations include:
Creating uniform conflict-of-interest and ethics policies.
Clarifying the roles of board members and the superintendent.
Requiring school board candidates to meet minimum qualifications to run and receive capacity-building training once elected.
Creating nonpartisan elections.
Limiting boards to no more than seven members.
And perhaps the icing on this cake?
This is important work. Good school board governance has a direct impact on pupil performance and graduation success — and in the new economy, 80 percent of jobs will require a two-year technical or four-year college degree. Education is the root of all economic growth, and as business leaders, we must do everything possible to ensure Georgia’s children are ready to compete in the global economy.
You can read the whole article and learn about the recommendations by clicking here. Our hats are off to GSBA for being such an integral part of this effort.
