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The elected school board in SF has been the subject of much discussion lately as it has made several controversial decisions (renaming schools & lack of planning to re-open schools). This is an issue of public accountability. Is the school board accountable for its decisions? 1/
I have heard two proposals for increasing school board accountability: 1) Make board members appointed rather than elected; 2) Elect school board members by district-based elections rather than citywide at-large elections. 2/
Locally elected school boards are a staple of US democracy but there's little evidence that voters are able to hold boards accountable & voter turnout is generally very low. Hochschild suggests voter attention can spike during controversies, only rarely.3/ https://scholar.harvard.edu/jlhochschild/publications/what-school-boards-can-and-cannot-or-will-not-accomplish
What effect would district elections have? Research by @CarolynAbott & Magazinnik suggests that district elections would increase/alter the racial-ethnic diversity of the school board. This is important! Reportedly, Asian-Americans in SF are particularly under-represented. 4/
However, I have not seen much evidence that district-based school board elections would make the board more responsive to public concerns and increase public accountability compared to at-large citywide elections. 5/
Many advocates for mayoral control (which would include BOS appointees too) argue that an appointed board would be more accountable to elected leaders who are much more closely attuned to public concerns. 6/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2013/03/22/56934/mayoral-governance-and-student-achievement/
I am persuaded by the theory that responsiveness increases with an appointed board compared to an elected one. Inconsistent public attentiveness to school boards suggests that elected school boards will be more responsive to the concerns of entrenched interests (eg unions) 7/
Research by @jcelestelay @mdtyburski supports the argument, finding that in mayoral control cities there is a positive relationship between voter support for incumbent mayors and changes in school test scores. 8/ https://www.academia.edu/download/55230743/Published_Version.pdf
I also suspect that an appointed board (by mayor and BOS) will also do a good job of representing the city's racial and ethnic diversity, as well as geographic and social-class / occupational diversity. 9/
But, let's be clear: these proposals are long-term solutions, at best. Based on @hknightsf reporting, many are frustrated now by the SF School Board's lack of responsiveness to current public concerns. How might that change? 10/
One way to increase the accountability of the current SF school board is to expand the scope of political conflict. For instance, in 2018 current Board President Gabriela López was endorsed by Supervisors Ronen and Haney. Do they support her leadership of the board? 11/
Bottom line: the best way to get short-term responsiveness from the SF school board is to make its current decisions a salient issue in the future elections of higher-level leaders such as Haney and Ronen. 12/
