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The Purpose of School Boards The following article is reprinted with permission from Becoming a Better Board Member, copyright copy; National School Boards Association. Roots and Growth of Schools, Boards What forces produced the social entities we call school boards — so varied and yet united in one purpose: a good education for every American boy and girl? The answer lies in our history, our continued thrust for representative government, and in the forces generated by a rapidly growing population living on a vast continent. From the time the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, and for nearly 200 years thereafter, the people in the colonies and in the original states struggled to find ways to provide schooling for their children. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that a national public school system worthy of its name came into being. And it wasn't until just before the Civil War that we finally fashioned, if not perfected, a workable instrument for governing the schools — the school board. But when — in which decade or, for that matter, in which generation — did the first school board sit down to conduct the first official business for its community? No historian can answer that question. The spirit of local school control goes back to councils the Angles and the Saxons held in the clearings of their forests, and to the Mayflower Compact of 1620. The roots of local school control by laymen reach back to the town meetings of New England settlements, and to the resolve of the pioneers and householders (whether in Massachusetts or Ohio) to set up a school. They knew if they didn't no one else would. We know that among the first concerns of New Englanders (after food, safety, and religion) was to set up a school. For young boys and girls, there were the Dame School, the English writing school, or the school of the three Rs. For older boys (only) who mastered their reading and writing, there came the grammar school and later, the Latin school. For generations, from 1642 onward, such schools were under control of the people's representatives. Town officials (selectmen) first took on the job of running the schools themselves. Later they named committees to do the job for them. School committeemen had no easy time. Some colonists neither welcomed the schools nor rushed to their support — despite the laws enacted by the colonies encouraging or compelling school attendance. Yet, school committeemen carried on with determination. First, they had to locate a place to hold classes. Then, they had to search high and low for an adult who could read and write and who was willing to become schoolmaster. Providing food and lodging for the schoolmaster, and keeping the schoolhouse in repair and heated, were also tasks assigned to school committees. Most important was the school committee role of visitation. Several times a year, committee members visited the schoolmaster and his young scholars to examine copy books, hear the class repeat their letters and to admonish both teacher and pupils to be faithful to their tasks. At times, committee members would bring the schoolmaster a new set of quills, ink in the form of powder, and "a little paper." When textbooks came into being (about 1750), the school committee decided which to buy and asked the town to provide the money. "Examining" the schoolmasters, rewarding the competent and removing the inefficient ones, took much time of the early school committees. So did seeking out parents who failed to send their children to school. For some 200 years then, school committees (and school boards) carried on roles of administration, supervision, testing, personnel evaluation, textbook adoption, plant maintenance, and community relations--all in embryo stages; and all without administrative help. They achieved their main point, however; to keep the schools close to the people and the people close to the schools. That was the way Americans wanted it. So valued was the concept of lay school control that it spread from New England across the face of the country. It spawned an ever-growing number of school boards — too many, in fact, and thereby began a new phase of school board development. When a settlement was small, whether in the East or West, one school and one school board were adequate. As settlements grew into villages, towns and cities, additional schools were needed and with each school came a school board. The people insisted on that. The result was often chaotic. One town or township would often have six or more school boards. Chicago, Buffalo and Detroit, as examples, educated their children under supervision of a dozen or more boards within each jurisdiction. They Changed and Consolidated Coordination was needed. Too many boards were too much of a good thing. City councils, county governments, and state departments of education began to consolidate the scattered boards within a town or city and placed the schools under one superintendent reporting to one board. The outlines of the present-day school board were at last visible. The push of the American people toward the Pacific, the closing of the frontier, the growth of cities, the machine age, the explosion of knowledge, the coming of the nuclear era — none of these changed the people's determination to have as much as possible to say about their schools. True, the local school board now had to operate under guidelines set by higher levels of government, the state. Still, each community considered itself unique. Each felt competent to decide how to provide schooling for its children. Such were the forces that created the unique character of every school board. The Future of Boards Depends On You During the past four or five decades, prophets have arisen who declared that school boards were not competent to run the schools of a modern complex society. They predicted the early death of the school board. They argued that public education was so big, so intricate an enterprise, it must be run by specialists and super-managers. They sneered at the ability of ordinary men and women to provide leadership or direction for today's schools. The prophets come and go, but the school board remains. Even the mind-boggling problems of this century or the next are not likely to push out the school board from the American educational scene. The school board's survival, however, demands a price. It is an investment by individual board members in new knowledge, sharper leadership skills, and a clearer understanding of local school control and of how laymen and professionals can work together. |
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