Study Critical Of School Boards' Effectiveness

The Baltimore Sun (2/18, Campbell) reports that a study published by the National School Boards Association, the Fordham Institute and the Iowa School Boards Foundation "paints a picture" of school boards "as hard working but tradition bound, resistant to many of the reforms being advocated to improve the nation's failing schools. This conclusion leads one of the report's contributors, Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, to call for 'putting this dysfunctional arrangement out of its existence and [moving] on to something that will work for children.'" According to the Sun, "Even US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called for overhauling a failed status quo by giving big-city mayors, rather than local school boards, control of their schools."