Articles in the Board governance category

NSBA joins state and local government groups to push for ESEA reauthorization

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) has signed on to a letter urging key members of Congress to pass a comprehensive reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) this year.

The Feb. 4 letter was coordinated by the National Governors Association (NGA) and was signed by nine groups representing state and city leaders and elected officials. It was sent to leaders of the House and Senate education committees.

The ESEA reauthorization “is truly ‘must pass’ legislation,” according to the letter. It notes that the current law is flawed and shifts too much control away from states and local governments and focuses on punishments rather than rewards.

The letter states: “Only a full reauthorization of ESEA can adequately address the challenges state and local governments face in education. Policymakers at the state, local, and school district level need a long-term resolution and solution to NCLB. As we struggle to reallocate scarce federal resources and face economic uncertainty, we need greater federal funding flexibility. Most of all, we need federal policies that authentically support state and local innovation so that every student will be prepared for college or careers.”

The coalition, which includes NGA, NSBA, the National Conference of State Legislatures, The Council of State Governments, National League of Cities, International City/County Managers Association, National Association of Counties, United States Conference of Mayors, and National Association of State Boards of Education, wrote two similar letters in 2012 pushing for an ESEA reauthorization.

 

 

Joetta Sack-Min|February 7th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, Educational Legislation, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Federal Advocacy, Legislative advocacy, Policy Formation|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

February ASBJ online now with features on technology, school board success

More and more people are using tablets and other handheld devices in their daily lives, so it’s not surprising that their use has spread into the classroom, as well. The February issue of American School Board Journal is online now, and our cover story on the Tablet Revolution gives examples of how districts are using the devices and how school boards are justifying the investment in the technology.

Also in February is the next in our series of school board success stories. This month’s Agents of Change features an Indiana school board that worked to overcome superintendent churn and siloed departments to become a top-rated system.

While you’re visting ASBJ.com, you can take our Adviser poll, like us on Facebook, and check out our topical anthologies, open to ASBJ subscribers.

Kathleen Vail|February 6th, 2013|Categories: American School Board Journal, Board governance, Educational Technology|Tags: |

School board success story: Improving graduation rates in Montana

Missoula County School Board Chair Toni Rehbein and Superintendent Alex Apostle.

Missoula County School Board Chair Toni Rehbein and Superintendent Alex Apostle.

January’s American School Board Journal (ASBJ) features the success story of the Missoula County Public School Board of Trustees’s goal of having 100 percent  of its students finish high school.

Examine how a superintendent, school board, and community leaders  in Missoula, Mont. banded together to identify the scope of the problem, develop strategies to improve the graduation rate, and then implemented a program that’s making a difference in student lives—and has inspired the Montana state government to start a similar program of its own.

This is a new feature for 2013 in  ASBJ  and each month an innovative school board success story will be profiled.

Alexis Rice|January 31st, 2013|Categories: American School Board Journal, Board governance, Governance, High Schools, Leadership, Student Achievement, Student Engagement|Tags: , , , |

School boards ask Congress to revamp regulatory process and prevent overreach

More than 700 school board members and state school boards association leaders are meeting with their members of Congress today and urging them to co-sponsor legislation, developed by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), to protect local school district governance from unnecessary and counter-productive federal intrusion from the U.S. Department of Education. The leaders took part in NSBA’s 40th annual Federal Relations Network Conference and spent the final day, January 29, lobbying on Capitol Hill.

The proposed legislation would ensure that the Department of Education’s actions are consistent with the specific intent of federal law and are educationally, operationally, and financially supportable at the local level. This would also establish several procedural steps that the agency would need to take prior to initiating regulations, rules, grant requirements, guidance documents, and other regulatory materials. The legislation is also designed to more broadly underscore the role of Congress as the federal policy-maker in education and through its representative function.

“In recent years, the U.S. Department of Education has engaged in a variety of activities to reshape the educational delivery system,” said Thomas J. Gentzel, NSBA’s Executive Director. “All too often these activities have impacted local school district policy and programs in ways that have been beyond the specific legislative intent. School board leaders are simply asking that local flexibility and decision-making not be eroded through regulatory actions.

The proposal also is intended to provide Congress and the public with better information regarding the local impact of Department of Education’s activities through annual reports.

“We must ensure that the decisions made at the federal level will best support the needs and goals of local school systems and the communities they serve,” said Gentzel. “Local school boards must have the ability to make on-the-ground decisions that serve the best interests of our school districts.”

 

 

 

Joetta Sack-Min|January 29th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, Educational Legislation, Federal Advocacy, Federal Programs, FRN Conference 2013, Governance, School Boards|Tags: , , |

Panel discusses research and relevancy of school boards

NSBA  brought its executive director and two researchers to debate the relevancy of school board governance on Monday at its Federal Relations Network (FRN) conference. For audience members, though, there was no question that school boards are not just relevant, but a much-needed democratic institution.

One big challenge is the public’s lack of understanding the role that school boards play, said Thomas J. Gentzel, NSBA’s new executive director. He emphasized that school board members hold official roles, not volunteer positions.

“We need to tell our stories about what the issues are,” he said.

Thomas Alsbury, professor of educational administration and supervision at Seattle Pacific University, has studied governance in other countries, most recently Taiwan. He said centralized control often leads to a less equitable education, fewer entrepreneurial programs, and overzealous focus on standardized test scores—a fact not lost on more than 600 members in the audience. Alsbury said some countries are looking to the U.S. for guidance in revamping their school governance structures.

“The local school board has it right—they understand what communities need,” said Alsbury, author of The Future of School Board Governance: Relevance and Revelation.

Cynthia G. Brown, vice president for education policy at the Washington-based think tank Center for American Progress, was more critical. “Are [school boards] still relevant? Maybe,” she said. “It’s up to you to decide whether you want to remain relevant.”

Brown, who has advocated for more equitable state school funding formulas, believes school boards must do more to ensure equitable funding, services, and opportunities for all students. To remain relevant, she advised attendees to focus on student achievement and closing achievement gaps by implementing a strong curriculum and strengthening the role of teachers.

“The reality is the quality of a student’s education is dictated by their zip code, where they live, and that’s not your fault,” she said. But Brown riled the crowd when she insinuated that school boards do not distribute funding equitably within their districts and that state officials should control budgets and finance.

Gentzel and Alsbury noted that giving up fiscal responsibilities would erode local control, as state officials would use the purse strings to control other programs.

Alsbury noted that other countries funnel most of their funding to top-performing students, who are also most likely to be represented on international assessments. “The least equitable are the countries that are getting the top scores” on TIMSS and other international assessments, Alsbury said.

 

Joetta Sack-Min|January 28th, 2013|Categories: Assessment, Board governance, Budgeting, Educational Research|Tags: , , , |

FRN meeting kicks off with rally to protect federal funds, promote school board governance

Participants in the National School Boards Association’s Federal Relations Network will focus on stopping planned budget cuts to federal K-12 programs, advocating for a bill to promote local school board governance, and pushing yet again to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

At the opening session the more than 700 attendees also learned about what NSBA leaders are calling the “New NSBA,” the organization’s plan to focus further on advocacy for school board governance and public education.

With Congress having “kicked the can” on dealing with the debt ceiling and sequestration’s across-the-board program cuts now slated to take effect around March 1, FRN attendees have come to Washington at an opportune time to influence members on Capitol Hill, said Michael A. Resnick, NSBA’s associate executive director for federal advocacy and public policy. The session served as the kick-off point for the annual FRN conference meeting, where attendees selected by their state associations spend two days being briefed on current topics and then lobby their members of Congress.

On sequestration, Resnick noted that after the deal reached to raise tax levels at the new year, federal programs will be subject to an across-the-board cut of 5.9 percent on March 1, and those cuts will continue for the next nine years. That means for every 5,000 students in a school district, those districts will lose about $250,000, or more if they receive Title I funds for disadvantaged populations.

But keep in mind K-12 programs make up less than one percent of the entire federal budget, and while cuts would be significant to school operations it would be miniscule to managing federal debt, Resnick said.

“When it comes to education we will not sacrifice the vehicle our children need to tackle the economic situation ahead,” he said. “A child does not get to re-do an inadequately funded third-grade education, or the years after.”

NSBA President C. Ed Massey emphasized that public education is being attacked by people who want to privatize systems for their own profit.

“I am so tired of hearing about the cost or expense of education,” Massey said. “Education is not a cost or expense—it is the greatest investment our public can make.”

NSBA has also proposed legislation that would seek to prevent the U.S. Department of Education from overreaching its authority. The proposed bill prohibits the Education Department, in the absence of specific legislation, from issuing a regulation or grant condition that would interfere with local governance, require the Education Department to go through a more rigorous process that would allow school boards and others to comment, and each year require an annual report to Congress on public education law.

Massey also introduced new NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel, who joined the organization in December. Massey noted that the NSBA Board of Directors undertook an exhaustive process to find a leader.

Gentzel spoke about the increased legislative advocacy of the new NSBA based on the phrase “from, with and through.” That means more legislation and other initiatives will come from NSBA, the organization will partner with other like-minded groups to promote legislation and other initiatives. Most importantly, he noted, NSBA will mount a strong defense against any proposal that would harm public education or school board governance.

“They’re going to have to come through us to get that done,” Gentzel said. Further, he added, “We are facing a critical moment right now in terms of public education.”

Resnick also noted that in spite of naysayers who use terms such as “failing schools,” data and test scores show that public school students are improving.

And while some naysayers criticize the institution of school boards, Resnick noted that local school board members, the vast majority of whom are elected to their jobs, have proven to be a far more effective governance structure than Congress, which continues to stall on dealing with the debt ceiling and budget cuts, favors continuing resolutions instead of new budgetary guidelines, and has not reauthorized ESEA in 11 years.

 

 

Joetta Sack-Min|January 27th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, Federal Advocacy, Federal Programs, FRN Conference 2013, Governance, Legislative advocacy, Policy Formation, Privatization, School Reform, State School Boards Associations|

School board associations help in times of crisis

Robert J. Rader, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE), was having lunch with a friend when he heard the news about Newtown.

“You feel it emotionally. You feel it physically,” Rader said Saturday at NSBA’s Leadership Conference’s Second General Session on serving your members in times of crisis. “That changed everything.”

Except, of course, the duty of CABE to do everything it could to support Newtown’s schools and its member districts across the state. School board members usually think that student achievement is their highest calling, Rader said. But crises like the one in Newtown remind us that securing the well-being of students is a prerequisite, the number one job.

The shootings happened on a Friday; by Saturday night, Rader and his staff had posted information for school board members on how to try to prevent such as tragedy, and how to deal with shootings and the aftermath.

Rader was joined in the Saturday session by Michael Waldrop, executive director of the Mississippi School Boards Association, and Lawrence Feinsod, executive director of the New Jersey School Boards Association.

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina is still very much in Waldrop’s mind. While New Orleans got the most attention, little Bay Saint Louis, on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, was “ground zero” for the storm, which pushed 12-foot tide surges as far as 12 miles inland.

“And when it went out to the Gulf of Mexico, it carried everything with it,” Waldrop said.

Throughout the region, homes and many schools were reduced to mere slabs. “How do we start school when we don’t even have buildings?” – that was the refrain of some superintendents.

The association responded by contacting makers of modular units, as well as tent venders, and distributed the information to all affected school districts so overwhelmed officials wouldn’t have to do that research themselves. The association opened a trust fund to buy relief supplies. A modest $150,000 was collected, but that money went far.

“We’re trying to set our office up. We need 20 computers,” one superintendent told Waldrop, and he said. ”The next day they had 20 computers.”

New Jersey sustained $37 billion in damage from Superstorm Sandy last fall. Even the school boards association had to close for five days because it was without power, Feinsod said. When it was up and running, he added, “we knew we had to do something, and we had to do it quickly.”

Over the course of 72 hours, Feinsod and his staff contacted all 586 school districts in the state, a mammoth undertaking that got results.

“One group reached out to us in this very complex state,” one school official told Feinsod. “And it was the school boards association.”

Lawrence Hardy|January 26th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, Crisis Management, Governance, Leadership Conference 2013, State School Boards Associations|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Speaker gives tips on creating a change-friendly culture

Jim Bearden is an authority on change. You might say he wrote the book on change, or at least a book: The Relentless Search for Better Ways. But last summer, when the popular speaker, consultant, and fitness buff heard these sobering words from his cardiologist, all those lofty ideas about accepting and embracing change were put to the test:

“I don’t like what I’m seeing” the doctor said.

Bearden’s artery was 80 percent clogged. He had open heart surgery, and was told by his doctor to become a vegan (“You know what a vegan means?” the native Texan said. “It means if it has a Momma or a face on it, you can’t eat it.”)

Bearden changed his diet, big-time, and did indeed become a vegan; but here’s the interesting thing: faced with similar life-threatening diagnosis and calls to change their lifestyles, he said, only 10 percent of patients would comply.

The same aversion to change is present when individuals get together –in businesses, associations, and other institutions, Bearden said at the opening general session of NSBA’s Leadership Conference Saturday. And it can be equally fatal. Faced with change, “some do what I call hunker down and hope,” Bearden said. But others “look for ways to win, regardless of the hands they’re dealt.”

It is these organizations that are successful.

Bearden outlined seven steps that create a change-friendly culture in an organization. First, ensure that others — your employees, for example — understand what you expect from them. And, if you run a state association, be sure you know what your members expect from you. That requires communication, not just selling your organization.

“It’s a whole lot more about asking and listening than pitching and hoping,” Bearden said.

Among the other steps: identify and eliminate barriers to the behavior you expect, model that behavior, measure performance using your expectations as standards, and honor effort and progress. The goal is to create an organization in which taking well-considered risks is embedded in the culture.

“To me, culture is to an association what attitude is to an individual,” Bearden said.

Risk-taking – change – means there will be setbacks, Bearden said. It comes with the territory.

“The choices you make regarding those setbacks count more.”

Lawrence Hardy|January 26th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, Governance, Leadership, Leadership Conference 2013, School Boards|Tags: |

Two federal meetings feature leadership and legislative advocacy for school boards

Over the next four days, School Board News Today will be covering the top events and sessions at NSBA’s annual Leadership Conference and its Federal Relations Network (FRN) Conference, held in Washington, D.C.

The NSBA Leadership Conference, held Jan. 26 to 27, is a two-day networking and professional development event designed to explore issues and opportunities related to state school board association leadership and management. The conference brings about 200 people to Washington, D.C., including the NSBA Board of Directors and state school boards association officers as identified by the executive director.

The annual FRN Conference, which runs from Jan. 27 to 29, brings more than 600 school board members, selected by their state associations, and state association staff to Washington to learn about the most current federal policies and issues that will impact their schools. This year, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) are scheduled to speak at the conference.

Participants will spend a day meeting with their representatives on Capitol Hill to further discuss federal issues and pending legislation and advocate for the needs of their school districts.

In addition, NSBA’s Council of Urban Boards of Education members will meet concurrently on important issues for urban schools.

Keep reading School Board News Today for highlights from these activities.

Kathleen Vail|January 26th, 2013|Categories: Board governance, CUBE, Federal Advocacy, Federal Programs, FRN Conference 2013, Governance, Leadership Conference 2013, Legislative advocacy, School Boards, State School Boards Associations, Urban Schools|Tags: , |

NSBA gives ideas for school boards to honor Digital Learning Day

What is your school district doing to celebrate Digital Learning Day on February 6?

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is a core partner in the event, which is designed to help showcase learning through technology, including successful instructional practices and effective use of technology in classrooms across the country.

“Digital Learning Day is an excellent opportunity for educators to organize student demonstrations for school board members and other community leaders so they can see how technology is used to support learning,” said NSBA’s Director of Educational Technology Ann Flynn. “Many of today’s 21st century classrooms are filled with digital tools that can engage and excite students, but may seem foreign to graduates of another era,” she added.

Even though the event is geared toward teachers and classroom instruction, there are several ways school board members can take advantage of the time to highlight their schools’ programs, Flynn said.

For instance, consider an open house invitation for the community and government leaders to see how digital tools are transforming education in classrooms firsthand. Or, have teachers and students give demonstrations of their projects at a school board meeting. Last year, several school boards across the country marked the day by hosting student presentations at their board meetings.

A school board also could issue its own proclamation in celebration of Digital Learning Day, Flynn added, to call attention to the important role these resources play in preparing students for the future and educate the community to build support for the district’s future technology initiatives.

Digital Learning Day, now in its second year, is a project of the Digital Learning Policy Center, a division of the Alliance for Excellent Education, which promotes the effective applications of technology in schools.

Also be sure to check out Flynn’s recent appearance on Comcast Newsmakers, where she discusses the potential of educational technology and student learning.

 

 

Joetta Sack-Min|January 23rd, 2013|Categories: 21st Century Skills, Board governance, Educational Technology, Online learning, Teachers, Technology Leadership Network|Tags: , , , , |
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