Local School Boards Must Act to Improve Student Outcomes
School and district administrators will blame the dismal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results released this week on the usual suspects, like COVID and lack of funding. The real culprit, however, is an intractable bureaucracy that wants local school board members to stay out of its way.
The National School Board Association (NSBA) states, “School boards have three responsibilities: develop the annual budget for the school system, set school policies, and hire and evaluate the superintendent.” School boards do those things, but their No. 1 responsibility – improving student outcomes – is glaringly absent from the NSBA list, and it’s no accident.
District administrators and state school board associations want students to succeed, but not if it means they must act differently. That’s why student outcomes won’t improve until adult behaviors change.
It’s up to local school board members to take charge and refocus their efforts so that improving student outcomes is the district’s purpose. However, building consensus and obtaining information is not easy with an entrenched bureaucracy that is resistant to change and protective of its own interests. The pervasiveness of these challenges prompted School Boards for Academic Excellence, Kansas Policy Institute, and the Kansas School Board Resource Center to publish 8 Things to Know about Running for School Board.
Regardless of what district press releases say, every school district in the nation is assuredly facing student achievement challenges that will persist if the school board does not, or isn’t allowed to, take the lead. The school board must set goals and guardrails that reflect the community’s vision and values. Board members must understand what the community expects students to know and be able to do in measurable terms; for example, “At least X% of students will be proficient in reading and math.”
That number will vary across the nation, but it will be much higher than today’s outcomes, with only 30% of 4th-graders in the United States reading proficiently and just 40% proficient in math (NAEP). Even in some of the nation’s highest-rated districts, proficiency is routinely below 60%. These unfortunate results mean many students will be unprepared for life after high school. Indeed, just 20% of the 2024 graduates who took the ACT were college-ready in English, Reading, Math, and Science.
State assessment scores often reflect much better outcomes, but as explained in 8 Things to Know about Running for School Board, this is usually because the state has low standards.
The school board’s focus must revolve around improving student outcomes, even when addressing controversial issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). DEI was introduced to board members on the premise of improved outcomes. DEI training was supposed to produce better learning environments, but that has not happened. Outcomes for Black students and other minority groups are lower in many cases, so board members should be saying, “Help me understand why we should continue diverting time and resources to something that isn’t producing the intended outcomes.”
Building a campaign around opposition to DEI and other controversial issues might fire up some supporters, but it will turn off some voters who would probably agree that improving student outcomes is the No. 1 challenge to address. Campaigning on anything except improving student outcomes is like saying, “I am running to resolve the fifth-greatest challenge facing our district.”
As Dripping Springs, Texas, school board member Olivia Barnard says, “We do not need activists or vigilantes on the dais. We need strong, smart, capable, well-intentioned professionals who are not afraid to ask hard questions, are not afraid to drive change, to challenge the status quo, and bring bold ideas that will improve student outcomes.”
