This piece analyzes how a school board's repeated 4-3 votes to keep its superintendent on paid leave, despite a state investigation clearing her of personal wrongdoing, reveals a governance pattern where personnel actions substitute for policy influence, a dynamic that arises when boards lack...
Continue reading →This piece analyzes how school boards that substitute line-item budget control for genuine policy oversight create accountability vacuums that erupt into public crises, as demonstrated by Blue Island District 130's custodial outsourcing debacle, where a board that approved a staffing shift...
Continue reading →The Denver Public Schools board-superintendent crisis is a structural governance pattern, not a one-off personality clash: when role boundaries are unclear, boards turn agenda-setting and executive sessions into tools for managing superintendent relationships, eroding trust and accountability....
When the education minister of Ontario places a school board under supervision, the intervention is no longer simply about fixing a broken board. It signals a redefinition of school board governance itself, from democratic representation to
The democratic theory is seductive: contested elections force candidates to sharpen their positions, put their records before voters, and earn a mandate that gives them standing to govern. But when it comes to school…