The election of a progressive mayor who has said he wants to end mayoral control of New York City schools might seem like a bellwether.

The next largest school systems, Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County, have been run by elected boards for years. Chicago is transitioning to a fully elected board after decades under mayoral control.

But don鈥檛 .

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani hasn鈥檛 laid out clear plans, and his references to 鈥渃o-governance鈥� could mean a lot of things, including an ongoing role for the mayor.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, another progressive, supported a when she ran in 2021, but once she was in office.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has in support of union priorities.

And in Indianapolis, some community groups are in an increasingly fractured school system.

Many large cities have repeatedly overhauled their school governance of the previous model. Now a new set of existential threats 鈥� declining enrollment, looming school closures and layoffs, persistent academic challenges, and threats from the Trump administration 鈥� are reviving conversations about who can claim to exercise legitimate power over schools.

Who gets to make decisions on behalf of students and families feels particularly high stakes in this moment.

Yet there is little evidence that voters consistently prioritize student outcomes at the ballot box, whether they鈥檙e voting for mayors or school board members. Nor is there strong evidence that any particular system consistently delivers better results for students, better financial management, or more responsive leadership.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like getting dirty and changing clothes and expecting to smell good without taking a bath,鈥� said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what you鈥檙e doing when you change your governance structure.鈥�

School closures put focus on who makes decisions

Education reform policies such as expanding school choice, closing low-performing schools, and welcoming charter schools have been supported by both mayors and elected school boards, sometimes under threat of state takeover. Those changes have reshaped communities in complicated ways.

New schools proliferated, and students got more opportunities. At the same time, the connections between neighborhoods and schools have frayed, competition for students and funding is fiercer, and multiple entities are now responsible for school oversight. These new realities are testing old ways of running schools.

In Indianapolis, the mayor already authorizes charter schools independently from Indianapolis Public Schools, which is run by an elected board. than district-run schools. Legislation from earlier this year that would have failed, but a state-created advisory group, chaired by Mayor Joe Hogsett, is charged with figuring out how city schools should share buildings and transportation services.

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is also considering proposals that would in school governance, including appointing most or all of the board.

Historically, groups associated with education reform have . Yet the Mind Trust, an influential pro-charter nonprofit that supported an appointed board in the past, hasn鈥檛 taken a position yet. Several potential Indianapolis mayoral candidates for 2027 are charter skeptics and supporters of an elected board.

Cleveland, where , is grappling with similar challenges.

As in Indianapolis, a large share of the district鈥檚 school-age children attend charter or private schools after decades under the , and enrollment in district schools has plummeted. Supporters of mayoral control sometimes , but Mayor Justin Bibb鈥檚 is causing some community members to demand a greater voice.

reported an exchange at a recent community meeting between Bibb and teacher Sarah Hodge.

鈥淎re you gonna go with us on the plan to make sure that the voters are re-enfranchised to vote for their school board?鈥� Hodge said. Bibb responded that voters can seek a new system if they wish, but he has full confidence in his appointed board and in schools CEO Warren Morgan.

The ability to push ahead with a school closure plan is one of the benefits of mayoral control, said Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank. He contrasted Cleveland with Columbus, where the elected school board has moved more slowly in response to many of the same pressures.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e controversial, they鈥檙e hard to do, and it does take leadership,鈥� Churchill said. And there is still a democratic check on the process. People vote for the mayor, he said, and most people know who their mayor is 鈥� unlike their school board members.

Hodge has a very different view. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not bold to upset the entire city,鈥� she said in an interview.

She believes an elected school board would listen to parents and ultimately come up with a better plan for what she agrees are necessary closures.

Hodge is working with a small group of other teachers and activists to . But Ohio鈥檚 Republican trifecta state government is unlikely to go along willingly.

Hodge and other Cleveland activists have watched conservative groups like Moms for Liberty exert their influence on school boards. She wonders why people in Cleveland have fewer rights.

鈥淚f the people of Cleveland want to make an idiotic decision, that鈥檚 our right,鈥� she said. 鈥淪ince when do legislatures get to tell people, 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 get to vote. You鈥檙e too terrible to make decisions for yourself?鈥欌��

Voters often don鈥檛 care much about test scores

If mayoral control of schools is undemocratic, elected school boards raise their own questions about representation.

Most school board members are elected by small numbers of voters who don鈥檛 have children themselves and who aren鈥檛 . Once in office, they , surveys show.

Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University, said that鈥檚 because voters don鈥檛 give them any incentive to do so.

Voters in school board elections might care about home values, taxes, jobs, or 鈥渟ymbolic virtue signaling that they are [on] team red and team blue,鈥� Kogan said, before they care about how well schools are serving students.

School board elections are one of the few places parents can pull on the levers of power, said Keri Rodrigues, a Boston parent and president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. But they can turn out to be 鈥渄emocracy in name only.鈥�

It doesn鈥檛 have to be that way, said Scott Levy, author of 鈥淲hy School Boards Matter.鈥� Many school board members would benefit from more training, including on how to understand academic data and budgets.

鈥淚f you look at education reform efforts, you can find every permutation except investing in school boards,鈥� he said.

But if school boards don鈥檛 spend enough time on schooling, it鈥檚 not clear that mayors who do reap big benefits.

Kogan points to former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty. Public opinion polls at the time showed under his controversial appointed chancellor, Michelle Rhee. But he : that accompanied the overhaul of D.C. schools.

鈥淩eformers have a wrong theory of change about mayoral control,鈥� Kogan said. 鈥淭he idea is that mayors are more visible, and it鈥檚 easier to hold them accountable. That assumes that voters care about academics.鈥�

Progressive mayors want a role in schools

Fights over who gets to control schools often reflect racial and political divisions. Predominantly white business interests, Black- and Latino-led community groups, and teachers unions wrestle for influence. Republican legislatures try to control Democrat-led cities.

Mayoral control spread in the 1990s and 2000s as white flight and shrinking tax bases undermined school systems. Mayors, the thinking went, could elevate the importance of education, marshal resources, and insulate governance from the influence of teachers unions.

Some of these political assumptions have eroded as voters choose more left-leaning mayors.

In last year鈥檚 鈥� held amid a that 鈥� the mayor鈥檚 union-backed allies picked up only four of the 10 elected seats. But with 11 appointees on the 21-member board until 2027, Johnson still controls the school board.

During recent union contract negotiations, to hire more staff and cover a larger share of pension costs, which district leaders feared would be financially unsustainable. The , not the board, to .

Wu, Boston鈥檚 progressive mayor, became a firm believer in mayoral control once she was in office. During a , a caller reminded Wu that the idea of an elected school board 鈥済ot more votes than you.鈥�

Wu pointed to frequent superintendent turnover and the recent threat of state takeover to argue against the idea.

鈥淲e need to have a focus on stabilizing and getting our school facilities up to date and mental health supports and some of the academic changes that we鈥檙e making,鈥� Wu said.

Voters haven鈥檛 penalized Wu 鈥� she .

New York parents, community groups want more say

Mayoral control in New York City is up for renewal in 2026. If Mamdani goes to Albany and advocates for less authority, he鈥檒l be the first New York mayor to do so.

When Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, successfully lobbied for mayoral control in 2002, people were concerned not just about student achievement but basic safety. Some of the city鈥檚 local community boards, which ran 32 regional school districts, were corrupt or dysfunctional.

Bloomberg gained the sole ability to appoint the chancellor and the majority of the city鈥檚 school board. He adopted a that included charter school expansion and greater school accountability. Test scores and other metrics improved. New York City represented a 鈥渧ictory lap for mayoral control,鈥� said Collins, the Columbia professor.

But Bloomberg also introduced Lucy Calkins鈥� now-discredited . Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected on a public safety platform, 鈥� but the rollout . Now Mamdani, who ran on affordability, may give schools and teachers more autonomy.

鈥淭hat whiplash is a real problem,鈥� said Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent and member of the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. 鈥淪o much of the really deep-seated changes we think need to happen take more than two years or more than four years.鈥�

Mayoral control , with the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, expanding and exerting more independence.

Finding the right balance for an exceptionally large and complex school system may not be easy. The coalition is proposing a short extension of mayoral control 鈥� but with the mayor no longer appointing the majority of school panel members.

Greenberg hopes that policy experts can help the city design a system that allows for community control and a healthy central system that can do things at scale.

Low voter turnout in both mayoral and school board elections should be treated like a crisis, Collins said. A better system would allow for more meaningful participation, and not just at the ballot box.

Unless more people are engaged, Collins said, 鈥渢here鈥檚 going to be a small fraction of people who decide who serves, and the people who are serving are going to be disconnected from the true needs of the folks who are sending their kids to school.鈥�

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Johnson stood at the podium of the South Side鈥檚 Sweet Holy Spirit Church as he took questions about the abrupt resignation, just a few days prior, of all seven of his appointees to the local board of education. Flanked by a roster of supporters and aides, he introduced his choices to fill the departed members鈥� seats and once again pledged to bring progressive change to the fourth-largest school system in the United States.

It was a theme he鈥檇 sounded since nearly two years earlier, and one that helped transform him from a former educator and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union into in the country. For his allies, particularly the political powerhouse CTU, the consistency of the mayor鈥檚 messaging signaled his commitment to find more resources for Chicago Public Schools, even in the face of and vanishing pandemic relief funds.

But if the event was intended to calm the uproar that has swirled around the district鈥檚 leadership and finances since the beginning of the school year, it was destined to fall short. From its outset, the mayor was interrupted repeatedly by a group of hecklers protesting the replacement nominees. After some were removed, Johnson grew testy with reporters, objecting several times that their questions were 鈥渄isrespectful.鈥�

In , the mayor dismissed critics who have rejected his spending plans 鈥� including a proposal for the district to take out a $300 million loan to fund teacher pay increases and pension contributions 鈥� by comparing their arguments to those of Confederate leaders during the Civil War. 

Yet the number of those has only grown in the last few months. They now include the district鈥檚 CEO, Pedro Martinez, who of a short-term loan over the summer; the seven departed board members, who gave up their titles after Johnson to fire Martinez; and no fewer than 41 of Chicago鈥檚 50 aldermen, who signed sternly counseling against further borrowing and voicing concern about the sudden empowerment of 鈥渓ame-duck appointees鈥� over the remainder of the board鈥檚 term. Public opinion is no sunnier, with revealing that 60 percent of Johnson鈥檚 constituents disapprove of his leadership.

At the heart of the conflict rests an elemental question: Who will govern Chicago鈥檚 schools? Mayors have enjoyed the right to appoint and dismiss members of the school board for nearly three decades, and Johnson鈥檚 slate of replacements will be able to approve his agenda once they are seated. But the Illinois legislature recently mayoral control over the district, charging the city with establishing a popularly elected, 21-seat board by 2027. In November, voters will choose the first 10 elected members, with Johnson appointing 11, to a hybrid body that will preside over the transition.

The district will spend that interregnum attempting to balance its accounts, while also negotiating new contracts for teachers and principals and deciding the fate of scores of under-enrolled schools. Local K鈥�12 leaders foresee increasingly bitter disputes arising over the reach of the CTU, which now appears to hold most of the leverage over critical decisions. At the same time, their opponents increasingly question the legitimacy of a process that has seen one iteration of the school board precipitously leave office, and another be appointed in its place, just weeks before the election of a third set of candidates.  

Neither the mayor鈥檚 office nor the CTU responded to requests for comment from 麻豆精品.

Arne Duncan, who served as Chicago Public Schools CEO from 2001 to 2009 and, later, as the U.S. secretary of education, said he hoped both sides could compromise around the most pressing dilemmas facing students and educators. Now helping to lead in dangerous neighborhoods, he observed that the tension around K鈥�12 education could benefit from the type of de-escalation he often sees practiced between feuding gangs.

鈥淕uys who have shot at each other still find ways to put that aside and make peace for themselves and their kids,鈥� Duncan said. 鈥淚f they can do that every day, I hope our elected leaders can find the courage to, metaphorically, put down the gun and do the right thing.”

But Meredith Paige, the mother of two high schoolers and a leader of the advocacy group CPS Family Dyslexia Collaborative, said that to everyday Chicagoans, the feeling was one of 鈥渃haos.鈥�

“We might not see the impact on children for a couple of years, but on the ground, parents are saying, ‘What the [hell] is happening? The schools are falling apart, get me out of here.’鈥�

鈥楢 crisis of leadership鈥�

Families have an immediate opportunity to make their feelings known in November, when Chicago will hold its school board elections. 

The power to appoint members, who wield authority over the major policy choices in a district serving more than 320,000 students, has rested solely with the mayor since 1995. Throughout 2019, long-serving Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel happily used that prerogative to overhaul the school system, lifting academic standards and opening over 150 new schools. Academic achievement flourished in the aftermath, with showing that students in Chicago Public Schools made more academic progress than those in virtually any other district in the United States.

But the public came to sour on the fast pace of change, especially after Emanuel successfully pushed for the closure of 49 schools in 2013. Public polling, along with a series of held throughout the city, favored direct elections over the political appointment process. The Illinois legislature acknowledged that reality in 2021 by passing legislation to establish an elected board.

have filed to run for seats in the city鈥檚 10 newly created school board districts, with many grouping into two blocs: one backed largely by the Chicago Teachers Union and left-leaning community groups, the other favored by donors inclined toward education reform, including charter school supporters. Campaign donations across the 10 races $2.5 million, with charter-friendly groups for the bulk of spending thus far.

Against that messy backdrop, Mayor Johnson , who are expected to be seated later this month, to preside over the district until newly elected members take office in January. In the new year, they may be either re-appointed or again replaced by a new group of Johnson appointees. 

But in the meantime, they will be left with the critical decisions of whether to terminate the contract of CEO Martinez, who has served since 2021, and approve the mayor鈥檚 push to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to defray short-term expenses, including a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching employees of Chicago Public Schools.

Byron Sigcho-Lopez, one of the nine alderman who did not sign the open letter criticizing the previous board鈥檚 mass resignation, said he was untroubled by the move, noting that the school board鈥檚 current term has nearly expired and that its members had not chosen to run for any of the elected seats. 

“I don’t see any problem with the board leaving,鈥� Sigcho-Lopez said. 鈥淭his board had one more session left. I think they’re doing the responsible thing, and I thank them for their service.鈥�

But most other local office holders have objected strenuously both to the substance of Johnson鈥檚 plans and the lurching shifts in CPS governance. Democratic State Rep. Ann Williams 鈥� who that established a two-year interval of hybrid governance 鈥� said she was disturbed by the board鈥檚 unplanned turnover just weeks before Election Day. She added that she had been 鈥渋nundated鈥� with calls from worried constituents in her North Side district about what it might mean.

鈥淭his really flies in the face of what I was trying to do as sponsor of this bill in Springfield, which was to bring democracy to Chicago Public Schools,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 happened is a crisis of CPS leadership, and that’s how it’s being perceived by Chicagoans.鈥�

Daniel Anello is the CEO of , a nonprofit that receives support from Chicago鈥檚 business and philanthropic communities and advocates for more parental voice in education policy. He argued that the developments of the last few weeks more closely resembled Emanuel鈥檚 鈥渢op-down鈥� management style than the participatory democracy that voters hoped for in 2021.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e just saying, ‘Here’s the replacement board’ and claiming that it was a smooth transition going as intended,鈥� Anello said. 鈥淏ut then, why wasn’t the former board at the press conference? They just disappeared. It’s just not the inclusive promise of community engagement that this mayor ran on.鈥�

Showdown over pensions, debt

The district projects that it will of $505 million in the coming school year, stemming from a combination of normal operating expenses, increasing healthcare costs, and of federal ESSER funds that helped states weather pandemic-related shortfalls in revenue. The long-term picture has been further clouded by steadily decreasing student enrollment, by more than 80,000 students 鈥� or roughly one-fifth 鈥� since 2010.

The administration of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Johnson鈥檚 immediate predecessor, also transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in pension costs to CPS that had historically been underwritten by City Hall 鈥� a reflection, they argued, of the district鈥檚 new independence from mayoral control, which Lightfoot had opposed in 2021. While Martinez in May alongside CTU leaders to ask lawmakers for additional funding, the resulting increase to what had been requested. 

A source close to the district, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely about political matters, said the unsuccessful pitch to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats served as a wake-up call that the district would not be spared from retrenchment in the coming years.

鈥淚 think that the union thought, once Brandon got elected, that they’d be able to walk into Springfield and get whatever they wanted,鈥� the source said. 鈥淏ut there’s no money, especially after ESSER funds have expired.鈥�

In July, Martinez and the school board that aimed to close the deficit through a mixture of staff cuts and freezes to almost 250 jobs. In an unusual response, the mayor the fiscal direction laid out by his own hand-picked board, counter-offering that $300 million to cover its costs. Instead, the budget was authorized as written.

After that, the source remarked, the relationship between the mayor and district leadership 鈥渨ent south very quickly.鈥� The CTU, Johnson鈥檚 attack on the proposed cuts, of planning to close more schools. By mid-August, the mayor was widely thought to be preparing to fire his schools chief. 

In a statement, Martinez expressed optimism that some breathing room might be gained from the city鈥檚 special 鈥渢ax increment financing鈥� districts, which are funds designed to attract developers and employers. Using those resources, he argued, 鈥渨e can address these looming costs without cuts, without taking on expensive short-term debt, and without waiting for additional funding to materialize from the state.鈥�

But even if both sides can agree on a new source of spending, the district and the union are simultaneously engaged in a contentious negotiation over the terms of the next teacher contract. The , a non-partisan research group, has estimated that once the district pays out an expected series of teacher raises and assumes more pension debt from the city, its deficit . 

Karin Norington-Reaves for the elected seat in the city鈥檚 10th school board district. A critic of Mayor Johnson, she has pledged from the CTU. She warned that if Johnson鈥檚 newly appointed board resorted to accepting a 鈥減ayday loan,鈥� it would only bring more financing costs and could lead to the district鈥檚 bonds being downgraded. 

鈥淎nybody with any level of financial acumen understands that when you have debt, and you borrow, you create further debt,鈥� Norington-Reaves said. 鈥淚f you were an individual, that would tank your credit worthiness, and it’s no different for the school district.”

But Sigcho-Lopez, the alderman, countered that Chicago students鈥� learning needs were too great to countenance staffing reductions, especially given the still-significant trauma of COVID.

“To cut staffing in a time when these kids just survived a pandemic? We’ve got kids who are orphans, who need extra social workers,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don’t think teachers and social workers and librarians are where we should focus our energy.”

Tough decisions ahead for new board

The priorities of Johnson鈥檚 newly selected board members remain unclear for now. Any action taken against Martinez is likely to prove explosive to politicians and educators alike; in August, when his termination was first rumored, and assistant principals signed a letter opposing the idea.

Though Johnson retains the power to appoint more than half of the incoming members of the hybrid board, November鈥檚 election outcomes will also help determine the course taken over much of the remainder of his first term. If the CTU鈥檚 preferred candidates prevail in their contests, they will likely take it as an endorsement of the positions shared by both the union and the mayor. 

The expense and pugnacity of the campaigns have already proven discouraging to some who had welcomed the arrival of an elected board. Parent Meredith Paige said that a friend and fellow activist had explored a run, but she was quickly discouraged by the demands of the process 鈥� the number of signatures required to run was raised from a proposed 250 to 1,000, more than twice that required to run for the Chicago City Council 鈥� and abandoned the notion.

鈥淚t just came out how much the charter schools are pouring into these races, and how much CTU has spent,鈥� she lamented. 鈥淚t鈥檚 exactly how people worried it was going to go.”

Norington-Reaves, a longtime nonprofit director and former congressional candidate, sounded confident in her ability to win the support of voters but argued that the stakes for the election seem higher than they should be. A Chicago native, she said she and others had long resisted the temptation to decamp to higher-performing suburban districts, but that her daughter鈥檚 learning needs were ill-served in her hometown.

鈥淚 don’t want to have to leave my city, but I will, if that’s what I have to do for my child.鈥� Norington-Reaves concluded. 鈥淚 am tired of fighting what feels like an uphill battle for investment, for economic development, and for good education just to have it be undermined. It feels like [the mayor] is willing to give it all to CTU.”

Duncan, a former high-level college basketball player, drew a comparison between the district鈥檚 situation and that of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. , he said, that team dissolved not due to failures on the court, but rather to personality conflicts among the franchise鈥檚 leadership and players.

Like the Bulls, Duncan said, Chicago Public Schools had a record to be proud of 鈥� and protected.

“No one beat the Bulls, they just imploded because they didn’t realize that the whole was bigger than the sum of their parts. Twenty-five years later, Chicago’s never had a championship basketball team. You don’t recover from these kinds of things.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation and the Joyce Foundation provide financial support to Kids First Chicago and 麻豆精品.

Student representation on school boards is a growing national trend, and Washington state is a pioneer, with nearly half the 295 districts in the state 鈥� 鈥� including students on their boards. According to the, there are more than 500 student board members across 42 states representing more than 20 million students 鈥� a number projected to grow.

Often, these are non-voting members whose power comes from their ability to speak on the record and to influence peers to get involved in what鈥檚 happening at their schools. In rare cases, student representatives have a binding vote, such as in Maryland, where the state Supreme Court recently the constitutionality of having students under 18 serve as voting members.

Even in districts where students don鈥檛 have an official seat on their district board or on board advisory committees, they鈥檙e still showing up at meetings to make public comments and take part in important conversations.

This is a tremendous opportunity for school board members and district leaders to truly hear the perspectives of multifaceted, diverse students and to consider their experiences when making decisions that directly affect them.

During the past five years, I worked closely with school board directors across Washington state, and I observed many successful examples of districts where student representatives had a meaningful impact on policy. Here are some strategies and initiatives that all districts can employ.

First, there may be a tendency to appoint students who already hold leadership roles because they are known entities. It鈥檚 important to give the opportunity to all students announcing via social media, school apps, posters, QR codes and word of mouth that applications are open. A key part of this strategy is actively recruiting students with varied experiences and backgrounds and others who are not usually involved in school governance. Students themselves say this method is the most inclusive and leads to the most diversity of voices 鈥� something they greatly value.

Second, consider advisory voting 鈥� a simple process that many districts have been implementing recently that enables student representatives to voice the concerns, needs and viewpoints of the student body and submit a non-binding vote. After school board members have discussed an agenda item, the chair will ask the student representatives to offer an advisory vote 鈥� a chance to share their perspective with the rest of the board, for the record. Members can then consider that information when casting their votes. More and more boards are adopting this process, and the Washington State School Directors鈥� Association recently shared for districts earlier this year.

Third, engage students in real-world experiences. One Washington district assigned each student representative to analyze one section of a long-term strategic plan, break it down and clarify its implications for young people. They helped simplify the content and collected feedback from peers, which provided valuable insights for the board. In some districts, student representatives play a key role on superintendents鈥� advisory councils, which are designed to give district leaders feedback directly from students. Student board representatives will often lead these councils, helping to gather a wide array of perspectives and ideas and then bringing that information back to the board, where they can be considered in upcoming decisions.

Fourth, to sustain advances in student representation, schools and districts need to explicitly commit to providing opportunities for student voice. Whatever this looks like 鈥� board representation, surveys, focus groups, one-on-one conversations 鈥� districts should put it in writing so students know what to expect and can hold leaders accountable. One challenge in involving students is ensuring they feel their feedback has been taken seriously. When the issue of tokenization arises, it鈥檚 often because students weren鈥檛 acknowledged or no one responded to them, which makes them feel that they鈥檙e not seen, heard or valued. Usually, this is inadvertent. Making sure feedback and accountability measures are in place can head off this potential challenge.

Lastly, it鈥檚 not realistic to expect that two or three students on a school board can fully represent the perspective of every one of their peers across the district. But there are many ways to get more students involved. Districts can invite them onto advisory committees and topic-specific working groups. They can conduct polls and surveys and demonstrate how they used the results. They can hold leadership training workshops to prepare the next generation of student representatives.

Incorporating student voice into decision-making builds civic engagement and prepares students for the world that awaits them beyond high school. For student representatives on school boards, learning about governance, legislative processes and budgeting is priceless. But what such a program really does is ensure the health and vitality of the local school system and, by extension, the nation’s democracy.

In the closing stages of Florida鈥檚 gubernatorial race, opinion polling has generally offered happy news to Ron DeSantis. One recent survey showed the incumbent governor trouncing his rival by eight points, an impressive lead in a state that has become famous for its close finishes on Election Day.

There鈥檚 an odd catch, however: The poll didn鈥檛 test Gov. DeSantis against his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist. Instead, in a hypothetical Republican primary in Florida, both men鈥檚 home state. 

Those findings, released in late September and trumpeted in , offer a remarkable statement on DeSantis鈥檚 prospects for a second term, as well as the state of conservative politics in the Biden era. Even as the governor cruises to a likely reelection victory, his reception in the Republican presidential discussion has been warmer than the waters off Key West. 

DeSantis is ascending to rare altitudes for a first-term governor, akin to the sudden highs achieved by former Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan early in their tenures 鈥� or by less successful predecessors, such as Chris Christie and Scott Walker. And whatever his fate in future contests, one of the hallmarks of his ascent over the last two years has been a nonstop focus on the politics and policy of K-12 education.

From his early battles against mandatory COVID safety measures in schools to this year鈥檚 dramatic intervention in local school board races, the pugnacious conservative has embraced fights about what, and where, students learn. If he is known for nothing else in the VFW halls of Iowa and New Hampshire, DeSantis will always be cheered among conservative activists for his efforts to curb what he calls teacher indoctrination on controversial subjects like race, gender, and sexuality. In so doing, he has both locked Democrats into a battle over classroom instruction and redefined what it means to be an education governor in the 2020s.

Susan MacManus, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of South Florida, said that DeSantis had road-tested a political strategy 鈥� foregrounding K-12 schools as the preeminent front in the culture wars 鈥� that is already being emulated by Republican officeholders and candidates in deep-red territory. 

鈥淗e is an astute observer of what captures people’s attention,鈥� MacManus noted. 鈥淏ut the fact that he was able to pull it off in a state that has always been extremely competitive was instructive to Republican governors across the country.鈥�

The governor鈥檚 closing argument to voters relies heavily on his education record, with campaign ads specifically referencing his fight to reopen schools during the pandemic, prevent trans athletes from participating in girls鈥� athletic competitions, and even lift teacher pay. The package, said Democratic political consultant Matthew Isbell, seems designed to endear DeSantis to conservatives in a future contest with Trump while simultaneously charting a more temperate course for his upcoming contest back home. The path can be a tricky one to navigate.

鈥淗e is playing the game of, ‘How far to the right can I go?’鈥� Isbell said. 鈥淲ith every degree to the right he goes, he might lose a couple percentage points for reelection. He wants to tilt right enough to do well in a primary in 2024, but at the same time not cost himself his reelection.鈥�

Going 鈥榓ll the way to the bottom of the ballot鈥�

For more than two decades, Florida has been home to perhaps the most ambitious education reforms in the nation. 

The process began under Gov. Jeb Bush, who precipitated changes to public schooling at the state level that were no less bold than those championed by his older brother in the No Child Left Behind Act. Implementing a program that has the 鈥淔lorida Formula,鈥� Gov. Bush first established an A鈥揊 grading system for schools based on performance on state standardized tests. Third-graders who couldn鈥檛 demonstrate proficiency on a reading exam were to be retained for another year of literacy instruction. High schoolers were required to pass tests in English and math to gain a diploma.

Those changes were accompanied by a dizzying expansion of school choice options. Charter schools, first approved in 1996 under Bush鈥檚 Democratic predecessor, , or roughly 13 percent of all Florida K-12 students. And a sprawling system of both private school vouchers and 鈥渙pportunity scholarships鈥� provided to families has consistently grown as well, drawing yet more families from traditional public schools.

Under Bush and his Republican successors in office (no Democrat has won the governor鈥檚 mansion since 1994) new reforms have been proposed, enacted, defended, and expanded. Only irregularly have their progress been checked, as when then-Gov. Charlie Crist 鈥� who served one term as a Republican before leaving office, switching parties, and running for his old job as a Democrat 鈥� that would have tied teacher salaries to student performance. Multiple indicators of academic achievement, from standardized test scores to graduation rates to advanced course-taking, have all from the swath of changes to state education policy. According to , a data tool that adjusts NAEP scores according to student demographics, fourth graders in Florida achieve the best results in the country on both math and reading. Historically disadvantaged subgroups, such as Hispanic and low-income students, have routinely posted better scores than in other states.

DeSantis has not significantly wavered from the Florida Formula, but he has added a few ingredients of his own. Many Americans first encountered the outspoken governor through to reopen his state鈥檚 schools for in-person instruction early in the 2020-21 academic year. Later, while inveighing against a variety of pandemic-related restrictions on public activity, he . Such is his hostility toward COVID precautions that to remove their masks at a press conference earlier this year.

DeSantis also quickly gained a following on the Right for his eagerness to leap into the national debate over identity issues, including when he prohibiting trans women from competing in girls鈥� sporting events. But it was only later, after Republicans campaigned victoriously on education in that fall鈥檚 Virginia elections, that he truly found his voice in the education culture wars. By this March, he approved two new laws, the and the , that narrowed discussions of race and sexuality in K-12 settings. The subsequent rush of media attention, amid a nationwide furore over the alleged teaching of critical race theory, made DeSantis the man to watch in 2022 鈥� an echo of the coverage that made Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker a conservative darling in the wake of his 2011 clampdown on teachers鈥� rights to collectively bargain.

Isbell argued that the persistent focus on social controversies, which has sometimes cast teachers as a kind of fifth column inside classrooms, is changing the tenor of Florida鈥檚 education discourse. School choice and accountability remain high on the policy docket, as is demonstrated by the passage of recent legislation to and program; but where these innovations were once predicated on arguments about school quality, now they appealed to parents鈥� anxieties.

鈥淭he school choice issue has gone from, ‘The public schools are failing you,’ to, ‘The public schools are indoctrinating your children, and you need to get away from that,’鈥� Isbell remarked.

DeSantis鈥檚 detractors argue that the change in political winds, and particularly the new laws on instruction, have led . So many job vacancies exist in the state that the legislature to allow military veterans to step into teaching roles with no professional credentials. That upheaval exists even in spite of multiple raises to teacher salaries greenlit by the governor and his Republican allies. 

If the role of 鈥渆ducation governor鈥� was once a technocratic fixation, its successes measured in NAEP bumps and climbing statewide pre-K enrollments, DeSantis has embodied something different: a willingness to put schools at the heart of his political advocacy. The success of that strategy was made evident by the governor鈥檚 unusual decision to issue endorsements in 30 Florida school board races, which are nonpartisan. In elections this August, the majority of his preferred slate . 

Tiffany Justice, a Florida mother and co-founder of the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty, invited DeSantis to speak at her group鈥檚 national summit in July, to direct their children鈥檚 education. In an interview, she called his decision to wade into local politics 鈥渞isky鈥�; still, the success of the candidates he endorsed only burnished the governor鈥檚 influence 

“It’s not something that a governor has traditionally done, to go all the way to the bottom of the ballot,鈥� Justice said. 鈥淏ut he, more than anyone else, knows the power that school boards hold. And he saw that, even as he tried to protect constitutional freedoms in his state, these school board members were abdicating their authority to bureaucrats.”

The cost of the culture war

The contentious character of the statewide education debate comes as a disappointment to Nor铆n Dollard, an education policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute. 

A longtime specialist in family policy, Dollard said she regretted that this fall鈥檚 gubernatorial race hadn鈥檛 led to more discussion of the plight of poor students, particularly in a state where nearly they couldn鈥檛 put enough food on the table. On conservative-friendly grounds of workforce preparation and economic development, she added, the circumstances call for more state assistance to school districts. But K-12 funding mechanisms and early childhood education haven鈥檛 yet had their time in the sun.

鈥淭he business case can be made for investing in schools and young children 鈥� if you do that, you get more employed people who contribute to the economy,鈥� said Dollard. 鈥淭hat story isn’t told when you get into these vitriolic arguments over which is the best way to educate kids about gender and sexuality.”

If anything, Democrats have been happy to pick up the gauntlet that DeSantis threw this year. Crist and the state party followed the governor鈥檚 lead on school board endorsements, of their own candidates. The Democratic nominee has also directly attacked the Stop WOKE and Parental Rights in Education laws, unveiling a 鈥渇reedom to learn鈥� policy platform and vowing to make the state鈥檚 commissioner of education an elected office.

To top it off, Crist Karla Hern谩ndez-Mats, the head of Miami-Dade鈥檚 teacher鈥檚 union. The selection distilled an already-polarized debate 鈥� between committed education reformers and defenders of traditional public schools 鈥� even further. Isbell called it an understandable political calculation, though not without potential downsides.

鈥淪ometimes politicians fall into thinking that if they’re losing on an issue, they need to steer away from it 鈥� not talk about it, or adopt the right talking points,鈥� Isbell observed. 鈥淐rist and the Democrats have made the opposite decision, that they’re going to take a definitive stance and try to win the public argument on education. That’s a gamble, no doubt about it.鈥�

DeSantis and his supporters seem to welcome the clear battle lines. Combining poll results and expert race forecasts, the political site FiveThirtyEight has projected the incumbent as on November 8. A more partisan race, and particularly one in which DeSantis鈥檚 education agenda is pitted against a unionized teacher, could hold down his reelection margin somewhat. But veering toward the center would do little to bolster his national momentum.

And that momentum grows by the day, Justice said. 

鈥淚’ve had moms in Washington, in Oregon, in Michigan, in Illinois, in California say, ‘I wish Ron DeSantis was our governor.’ These are two-time Obama voters, people who voted for Newsom and Whitmer. Some of them have told me, ‘I cannot wait to vote to vote for Ron DeSantis for president.’ 鈥�

Correction: The text has been corrected to accurately reflect the opinion of Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice that school boards are shirking their responsibility to hold schools accountable.

The speaker is a mother of five in Wichita, and the is Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. A Democrat, Kelly was America鈥檚 first governor to order K-12 buildings closed in the spring of 2020. After winning a surprise victory in 2018, she is now one of the most endangered incumbents this fall, and 鈥� if the commercial is any indication 鈥� her record on schools will be the primary focus for her Republican opponent, state Attorney General Derek Schmidt. 

The newly aired attack is typical of battleground elections nationally. With a little over a month to go before the midterms, the issue of K-12 education has come to inhabit an unusual role: a rare point of intersection between national and local politics, as well as a deep faultline in competitive races. 

Both attention and acrimony have mounted continuously since the last national election, with angry cleavages over COVID-related school closures giving way to debates over curriculum, instruction and the rights of parents. And while the public focus has also been redirected by abortion and persistent inflation over the past few months, multiple surveys have shown growing dissatisfaction with schools and surprising parity between the parties on an issue that Democrats have traditionally dominated. 

Republicans have grabbed the initiative by directly addressing parents 鈥� both in campaign materials and policy prescriptions 鈥� and casting themselves as the defenders of families鈥� interests. In and , vulnerable Democratic governors stand accused of presiding over ideological indoctrination in classrooms and inept recovery from pandemic learning loss. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who stands to become House Speaker if his caucus enjoys a good night on November 8, a campaign agenda that includes a 鈥減arents bill of rights.鈥� Even campaigns for state superintendent, a position so obscure and technocratic that most states , the support of President Donald Trump and other conservative idols.

But the truly unexpected turn is only apparent further down the ballot. After decades flying under the radar of all except the most attentive voters, school board elections are suddenly attracting more attention and resources than at any time in recent political memory. New advocacy groups have materialized, left and right, to promote candidates and push more parents to get involved in school governance. And their efforts have been noticed by the fastest-rising politician in America: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made his own foray into local politics this summer by endorsing dozens of school board hopefuls around his state. The of his slate has only hastened DeSantis鈥檚 ascent as a potential challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Increasingly, the small-bore powers affecting individual schools and districts are playing out on a national stage.

Rebecca Jacobsen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, chronicled some of these trends about the growing influence of national politics on low-level elections. But that analysis, she noted, couldn鈥檛 foresee the post-COVID flowering of organizations devoted almost solely to capturing boards and changing policies from the ground up.

鈥淎s someone who has studied local education politics, what’s remarkable is the way that education is getting drawn into a highly polarized, partisan debate,鈥� Jacobsen said. 鈥淓ven debates that were more left/right before were not nearly as stark as they are now.鈥�

But Tiffany Justice said that the explosion of interest in local campaigns was, if anything, inevitable in light of the repeated crises and consternation surrounding schools since 2020. A co-founder of the Florida-based conservative group Moms for Liberty 鈥� perhaps the most notable new entrant in this midterm cycle 鈥� Justice said that K-12 would be a point of emphasis in elections up and down the ballot this November.

“There’s nothing more important in a parent’s life than their children, and nobody’s going to fight for anything like a parent is going to fight for their child,鈥� Justice argued. 鈥淚f I was running for office, and I wanted to win, having parents in your corner is a pretty smart move.”

Education in the culture wars

While school boards are the primary governing entity for virtually every school district in the United States, they have seldom been thrust into the national political discussion. The staid content of the average board meeting, generally ranging from budgetary goals to facilities management, wouldn鈥檛 quicken the pulse of most activists.

The most recent exception came in the 鈥�80s and 鈥�90s, when Christian conservatives amid debates about issues like school prayer and American history standards. In suburban areas like Loudoun County, Virginia, right-leaning members to end its mandate on sex education. , a prominent evangelical leader and GOP consultant, declared a preference for one thousand school board members over winning the presidency.

After notching some wins, the wave dissipated. It wasn鈥檛 until the early Biden area that Loudoun County 鈥� much more socially progressive after decades of demographic transformation 鈥� again saw a serious bout of public engagement in school governance, this time directed against the board鈥檚 policies on COVID, gifted education and school bathrooms. The perception of liberalism behind the district鈥檚 equity agenda figured heavily in last year鈥檚 race for governor, ultimately won by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 

Jon Valant, director of the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Brown Center on Education Policy, called the Youngkin win a proof point that statewide campaigns could turn on education issues. In the intervening period, however, action could only be taken at the local level, where thousands of board races across the nation offer a plethora of opportunities. The sheer number of seats being contested makes it difficult to follow trends in school board races (Valant called data collection on the subject 鈥渁 nightmare鈥�), but turnout in some districts 10 percent in past elections. , 40 percent of board members said they hadn鈥檛 faced any competition in their last election.

鈥淭hese are, relative to just about every other election we have, extremely low-information and low-turnout races,鈥� Valant said. 鈥淭hat means that they’re relatively easy to flip.鈥�

Activists have tested that theory over the last two years by forming political action committees and financing challengers; in some districts, as candidates this year than over the last two elections combined. And shake-ups have followed , where, among other organizations, a PAC sponsored largely by a Christian cellphone company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to capture board seats in multiple counties. 

Ryan Girdusky, an author and former Republican staffer, formed the group 1776 Project PAC in 2021 out of what he said was frustration over prolonged school closures during the pandemic and politically tinged lessons that he contends were common during the period of virtual instruction. While his initial hopes for the project were modest 鈥� its staff still consists of just four people, two working part-time 鈥� he said he was shocked by the response he has received from over 30,000 small-dollar donors. According to the campaign finance tracker , the PAC has raised over $2.5 million since last year. 

About 95 candidates backed by the 1776 Project have won their races out of , Girdusky said, arguing that its success on a relatively small budget was proof of education鈥檚 potency as a campaign issue.

鈥淭he thing is that the Right just gave up after a while and focused solely on school choice, and that was a mistake. I think education is a much more prevalent ‘culture war’ issue than a lot of other things that are talked about much more.鈥�

Parents and the pandemic

It will be difficult to measure the ultimate success of groups like the 1776 Project or Moms for Liberty (or even , a progressive organization that has sought to mobilize women in suburban districts to protest laws that ban the teaching of 鈥渄ivisive concepts鈥�). Presuming they make a noticeable dent in the races they target, fast-forming political movements are often just as quick to run out of oxygen and dissolve.

But at least for this cycle, state-level politics is fixated by the question of what happens inside schools.

The call for a national 鈥減arents鈥� bill of rights鈥� 鈥� first introduced in Congress , and written to mandate transparency around curriculum and safety in schools 鈥� has now been , a former Republican governor of Maine who is now running to win back his old job. Republicans in the state also aired an ad this spring criticizing the Maine Department of Education for promulgating lessons intended for kindergarten classrooms that included material on gender and sexual identities (the lessons were ).

In Wisconsin, where school board elections are officially non-partisan and campaign costs have typically run into the hundreds of dollars, the state GOP has to its county offices in a bid to grab more seats 鈥� more than three times as much as Democrats spent. Republicans in California have called 鈥淧arent Revolt,鈥� attempting to recruit more candidates to run in the roughly 2,500 board races this year. Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose reelection prospects look fairly secure in public polls, has nevertheless to advise lawmakers on education policy after her Republican opponent . 

But the figure who has most unmistakably bound himself to education politics this year has been DeSantis. After dominating national headlines earlier this year by fulminating against the teaching of critical race theory and gender identity, the Florida governor into school board races, endorsing 30 candidates for a variety of boards this summer. The move provoked an immediate reaction, as DeSantis鈥檚 Democratic rival, Charlie Crist, his own group of 鈥減ro-parent鈥� aspirants.

The dueling endorsements could hardly have worked out better for the Republican, as 24 of his favored candidates or performed well enough to proceed to later run-off ballots. In addition to boosting party enthusiasm and interest ahead of his November reelection bid (which political observers expect him to win handily), DeSantis demonstrated strong coattails in a crucial 2024 swing state. 

Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida, said that the political coup was made possible by the explosion of parental anger and suspicion over the last few years. Before COVID, she argued, there was 鈥渘o payoff鈥� to becoming involved with unpredictable, down-ballot races.

鈥淥bviously, if a race is very low-profile with voters, what’s the point of getting in the middle of it? But what the pandemic did was to focus voters’ attention on school board races,鈥� MacManus observed. 鈥淎ll of a sudden, it became relevant politically to get engaged in endorsing.鈥�

Michigan State鈥檚 Jacobsen said that the shift in focus toward state- and local-level education politics represents more than just a political opportunity; it also follows the recognition that, following years of an expanding federal role in overseeing K-12, most influence still resides in school communities themselves.

鈥淭hese national groups seem to be aware that you can’t just mandate from the top anymore. We tried that with No Child Left Behind, tried turning our attention to the national level and saying, ‘Let’s push a law through, and everybody will have to [reform schools].’ But the local level still has a great amount of power.鈥�

In , academics at the University of Rochester, the University of Colorado, and Duke University discovered that many winners of North Carolina school board races saw property values rise in their neighborhoods. The gains may have been generated by winners鈥� manipulation of attendance zones to sort whiter and higher-achieving students into nearby schools.

The findings also deliver an unmistakably partisan message: Board members registered as Republicans or independents yielded increases in home prices, while effects for Democratic winners were null. 

鈥淭he finding that non-Democratic 鈥� but not Democratic 鈥� school board members affect local school attributes in ways that raise home prices in their neighborhood鈥aises the question of self-interested, as opposed to public service-oriented, motivations for seeking office,鈥� the authors write.

The study鈥檚 design offers a somewhat dark perspective on the linkage between school quality and the cost of real estate, hinging on the often-controversial power of local education authorities to determine which schools in their district enroll which students. To derive a clear picture of board members鈥� potential unspoken agendas, it combines data from a host of sources and examines three phenomena at once.

First, the research team gathered a comprehensive set of election results from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, focusing on all school board races between 2006 and 2016. While the vast majority of those races were nonpartisan (as are most such races around the country) they were able to determine the partisanship of roughly two-thirds of all candidates by matching them to county-level voter registration rolls, which also provided identifying information on race, ethnicity, age, and home address.

Next they built an index of home values throughout North Carolina at the level of the Census block using records from ZTRAX, a database encompassing all home transactions in the state between 1995 and 2016. The inventory, maintained by the online real estate marketplace Zillow, tracked not just sales prices and addresses, but also design and construction details such as square footage, structural condition and number of bathrooms. 

The combined figures clearly showed that property values in winning, non-Democratic candidates鈥� neighborhoods rose by an average of 4.2 percent 鈥� compared with the neighborhoods of losing non-Democrats 鈥� in the four years following a school board election. By comparison, winning Democratic board members enjoyed no bump in prices relative to losing Democratic candidates. Among winners registered as Republicans, who made up roughly 80 percent of non-Democratic candidates, the effects were even larger: a 6.2 percent increase in home prices relative to Republican losers.

“It could totally be possible that board members are increasing house prices across the whole district because they’re doing great things for schools,鈥� said co-author John Singleton, a professor of economics at the University of Rochester. 鈥淲hat we’re showing in this paper, though, is that the distribution of those effects across neighborhoods is related to where school board members live. It’s about how the pie is being divided, and it looks like it’s being divided in a more equal fashion by Democratic candidates.”

Controversy over attendance zones

But what could explain the higher prices?

To answer that question, Singleton and his collaborators introduced a final set of facts: records from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, which included academic, residential, and demographic information on students and schools. Soon enough, they found that the schools serving the neighborhoods of winning non-Democrats seemed to improve in the years following their election to school boards.

Specifically, math and reading scores on the North Carolina standardized End-of-Grade Tests increased slightly for children enrolled in those schools between kindergarten and the eighth grade. At the same time, average years of teacher experience (a crude but intuitive measure of school quality) increased significantly, with the proportion of brand-new teachers dropping by 12.8 percent and the proportion of teachers with over a decade of experience increasing by 3.8 percent.

Singleton said that the marked increase in teacher experience could be linked to lower turnover. Whatever the cause, it would be one of the clearest signals to potential home buyers 鈥� along with climbing overall test scores 鈥� of elevated school quality, which would in turn push home values higher.

鈥淭hat’s something that’s potentially very visible to people who are deciding which neighborhood to live in and where to send their kids to school,鈥� Singleton said. 鈥淏ut it’s also going to be private information that’s not more widely known 鈥� it travels by word of mouth through social networks: ‘This school is good, they retain their teachers.’鈥�

But the perception of better academic performance seems to have more to do with changes in school composition than actual improvement. While overall standardized test performance in these schools trended upward, scores derived from teacher value-added 鈥� by economists to isolate exactly what schools contribute to student learning 鈥� remained flat. 

Instead, the ostensible academic growth may have been generated by changes in the schools students were assigned to. Those patterns in school assignment are substantially decided by board members, who may have a personal financial stake in having 鈥済ood schools鈥� (often, those that enroll more advantaged students who are most prepared to succeed academically) located near their own homes. 

The process of drawing and redrawing school attendance zones is typically highly controversial for that reason. In recent decades, some education analysts have advocated the intentional construction of attendance zones that cultivate more racial and socioeconomic diversity in classrooms. Efforts to put such plans into action have sometimes been stymied by changing election results 鈥� including in Wake County, North Carolina鈥檚 largest school district, where to an ambitious desegregation plan.

Singleton and his colleagues found that in the years after local non-Democrats won election to school boards, the schools serving their neighborhoods became 3.5 percent whiter relative to those serving the neighborhoods of non-Democratic election losers; enrollment of high-achieving students (those scoring higher on state exams than same-aged children the previous year) increased by 3.6 percent. No such changes were detected among schools serving the neighborhoods of winning Democrats.

The authors also revealed that, compared with results measured in the year before an election, average test scores markedly increased in the schools enrolling children who lived in the same Census block as a winning, non-Democratic school board candidate; in other words, local kids were being assigned to higher-performing schools after their neighbor became a board member.

Eric Brunner, an economist at the University of Connecticut, said that factors like test scores operated as clear signals in real estate markets because of the 鈥渧ery limited information鈥� that families can otherwise access. Previous research has shown that the school ratings included in sites like Zillow can lead directly to neighborhood segregation. 

鈥淲hat buyers are given by their realtors, and the research they do themselves, is typically the average test scores in different school zones,鈥� Brunner argued. 鈥淚f [board members] were able to adjust test scores within the boundaries of the school zone such that they went up on average 鈥� even though students weren’t smarter, and it was just due to sorting 鈥� then home values will go up. People think it’s a better product.”

鈥楴ormal people engaging in politics鈥�

Brunner noted that the study builds by Singleton and another co-author, economist Hugh McCartney, which found that Democratic school board members in North Carolina tended to reduce school segregation by shifting school assignments. The latest paper takes that insight 鈥渙ne step further,鈥� he said, by demonstrating the self-dealing that might follow from the massaging of attendance zones. 

He also took note of an interesting sub-finding of the newer study: The changes in school-level achievement and home values were driven not only by non-Democrats, but also by candidates elected on an at-large basis to represent an entire school district. 

At-large contests only made up about one-quarter of board races in North Carolina over the course of the study, but their structure could help explain its results, Brunner said. Marginal changes to school attendance zones would theoretically produce a small number of winners, but also some 鈥渓osers鈥�: those who live near a board member but see themselves as adversely impacted by school assignment changes.. Under new assignment patterns, such voters might see their own property values fall as their children are enrolled at relatively lower-achieving schools.

That kind of dissatisfaction would be a serious liability in a ward-based race, Brunner observed; but if the candidate was elected on an at-large basis, most of their voters would take no notice of minor assignment changes occurring in other parts of their school district.

鈥淚f you’re elected at large, you could do something that satisfies a very small, unique group of people without pissing off the other voters within your ward. You don’t need to be worried about satisfying the rest of your ward 鈥� you could satisfy a microcosm of it.”

Robert Maranto is a political scientist at the University of Arkansas鈥檚 Department of Education Reform. Between 2015 and 2020, he also held a seat on the Fayetteville School Board, which undertook several rounds of student redistricting during his tenure. Maranto noted that such policy changes were some of the most fraught he could remember, recollecting in an interview that certain constituents needed to be 鈥済randfathered in鈥� to attendance zones viewed as superior.

“When people buy a house, or sometimes even an apartment, they have the expectation that their kid will go to a certain school,鈥� Maranto said. 鈥淪o if you upend that expectation, it can be very controversial. Even if they鈥檙e redistricted to a brand-new school, people are usually not happy about that.鈥�

He added that the magnitude and direction of the effects measured by Singleton and his collaborators was 鈥渧ery plausible,鈥� but added that his own interpretation was 鈥渟omewhat less nefarious鈥� than what others might infer.

鈥淵our constituents either want or, more often, don’t want boundary changes,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t could be for elitist purposes 鈥� ‘We don’t want our kids going to school with those kids’ 鈥� but you鈥檙e representing that on the board. For me, it seems more like normal people engaging in politics.”

Singleton himself added that he would like to see similar research conducted in other states to reveal more about the connection between district leadership, school outcomes, and home prices. Though the findings from North Carolina were suggestive, he noted, the 鈥渧ery distinctive flavor鈥� of local politics 鈥� including a comparative abundance of private and charter schools, which could dilute the effects somewhat by partially de-linking home addresses from school assignment 鈥� meant that a similar experiment might yield different results elsewhere. 

Above all, he said, it was important to further explore the role of school boards as actors in a complex machinery of school governance because the difference between a good board and a bad one might be greater than is now understood.

鈥淚 think there’s mounting evidence that boards can be consequential players. And we’re just starting to learn more about the conditions under which these kinds of effects can arise.”

The political impact is increasingly seen in state and local elections, where school board members have faced a historic spate of recall attempts and gubernatorial candidates are familiarizing themselves with the tenets of critical race theory. But new research also suggests that adult disputes can have a measurable effect on how kids learn.

In a study of student test scores, a political scientist reveals damage to math achievement following high-profile controversies around cultural issues in school districts. Fairly modest on average, the effects resulting from debates specifically focused on race and evolution are somewhat larger, and they may result from the strain imposed on educators by enervating fights over competing values.

Study author Vlad Kogan, a professor at Ohio State University, informally referred to the phenomenon as the 鈥淟oudoun County effect鈥� 鈥� a reference that emerged last year in one of Virginia鈥檚 largest districts.

鈥淎lmost by definition, the more attention these [controversies] get, the less attention student learning receives,鈥� said Kogan. 鈥淲e could just be seeing the natural result of that: When adults are focused on other stuff, it’s the student learning that falls through the cracks.”

that Americans are, on balance, satisfied with the performance of their local schools since the beginning of the pandemic. But public discontentment has also repeatedly flared around issues like the inclusion of trans athletes in girls鈥� athletics, while experts have simultaneously documented steep learning loss resulting from COVID-related school closures.

The study, which has not yet undergone peer review, examines the outcomes of specific episodes featured in the , a publicly available inventory of culturally inflected disputes in K-12 schools. The database, maintained by the libertarian Cato Institute, details nearly 3,000 local controversies relating to 鈥渂asic rights, moral values, or individual identities.鈥� Those controversies appear in the Battle Map on the basis of local news coverage, and each case is grouped into one of nine broad categories, including sexuality, religion, race and ethnicity, and freedom of expression. 

To assess the academic impact of those incidents, Kogan relied on math and English test score data provided by the . A widely used research tool, SEDA allows comparisons between student performance in roughly 13,000 school districts around the country by indexing different state standardized test results to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. 

In all, Kogan gathered a sample of approximately 520 local controversies between 2010 and 2018, dropping from the sample any districts that saw more than one controversy over that span and any larger-scale controversies likely to affect all districts within a state. He then compared the trajectory of their academic performance before and after the high-profile battles against a group of control districts that did not experience similar uproars.

The results were mixed: Compared with the control group, school districts that experienced cultural controversies did not see a drop in English scores measured between the third and eighth grades. But math scores among those students did decline in the aftermath of such controversies by an average of .018 standard deviations. (A 鈥渟tandard deviation鈥� is the statistical unit most often used to measure effects in education research; an effect of that size would generally be considered small.)

In the context of the SEDA data 鈥� which finds that student math scores increase by an annual average .39 standard deviations between third and eighth grade 鈥� that relative downward movement accounts for about 5 percent of a full year鈥檚 growth in the subject.

Digging deeper into the results, Kogan also found that the overall math slippage following was driven overwhelmingly by cultural controversies in two of the nine Battle Map categories: race and human origins (including disagreements over the teaching of evolution versus intelligent design), for which the negative impact was three to four times larger. Students of different socioeconomic backgrounds were equally affected, meaning that the scale of local achievement gaps was unaltered by political fights.

Disquietingly, even if political attention dissipates, the apparent academic setbacks don鈥檛 disappear quickly. Math achievement still showed evidence of decline in the affected school districts even four years later. 

Serotkin said it was 鈥渁bsolutely true鈥� that his district had seen markedly higher attrition over the past two years, but argued that its cause couldn鈥檛 be known in an environment as chaotic as the pandemic.

鈥淚 have no idea whether that [turnover] is a result of the national political controversies that Loudoun has become a part of, or whether it’s just because of COVID.”

Dan Domenech, the longtime executive director of the American Association of School Superintendents, said that the most plausible cause for lower scores could simply be that a distracted local education establishment is necessarily a less effective one. Fractured goodwill and divided attention might lead to students getting the short end of the stick in terms of both oversight and learning resources.

“With functional school boards and administration, you can see that they’re providing teachers with the necessary materials 鈥� the technology, the books, the teacher training,鈥� he argued. 鈥淭he parallel to that on the negative side would be that if the board is in turmoil and involved in these culture wars, perhaps they’re not providing teachers with the resources that they need.”

Even so, Domenech pronounced himself skeptical of such a direct connection between controversy in school governance and results in the classroom. 

“From a political point of view, I’d love to be able to say, ‘Stop your fighting 鈥� you’re affecting kids鈥� learning.’ It would be great to be able to say that, but they’re going to ask, ‘Well, how’s that happening?’ And that’s a question I’d have a hard time answering.鈥�

Kogan conceded that the effects measured in the study are comparatively slight, but added that test scores themselves are only the clearest outward manifestation of how political strife affects teaching and learning.

鈥淭here’s probably other dimensions of the school environment that are really important to students but that we can’t measure through test scores. So in some ways, this is just the iceberg tip of the underlying dynamics in the districts. The fact that test scores are dropping in non-trivial amounts suggests that there are changes in how the districts are run that really filter down to the classroom level.鈥�

All three members facing votes 鈥� Alison Collins, Gabriela L贸pez and Faauuga Moliga 鈥� were unseated by margins exceeding 70 percent, with three-quarters of the electorate opting to remove L贸pez, who served as the board鈥檚 president. Each recalled member will be replaced by appointees selected by San Francisco Mayor London Breed. 

Tuesday鈥檚 results could serve as the high-water mark in a period of public dissatisfaction with school boards around the country. Parents demanding a return to in-person school have launched an unprecedented number of recall campaigns over the last year; in addition to complaints about school access and quality, many have been animated by the prospect of critical race theory practiced in classrooms, particularly in the last months of 2021. But the vast majority of those efforts have failed in the face of tough ballot requirements and low voter engagement. In San Francisco 鈥� one of America鈥檚 most liberal jurisdictions, where equity politics are broadly popular 鈥� recall proponents at last broke through.

Cyn Wang, a local parent who supported the recall as a board member of the , said in an email that she wasn鈥檛 surprised by the one-sided result.

鈥淭he voters spoke very clearly and loudly: We need our Board of Education to first and foremost focus on educating our kids.鈥�

The sweeping ouster was preceded by years of growing frustration directed at the board鈥檚 governance, with special ire reserved for some of its decisions during the pandemic. Along with several other large districts in California, schools in San Francisco remained shuttered until late in the 2020-21 school year, even as students in local private schools . Offered the services of a philanthropically funded reopening consultant in the summer of 2020, the . 

The prolonged experience with remote schooling was aggravated by the perception that district leadership was dabbling too frequently in equity politics at the expense of focusing on the task of reopening and improving the city鈥檚 struggling schools. The board spent months deliberating on a proposal to rename dozens of schools, some named for widely admired figures like Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere. 

In another episode, a set of New Deal-era murals at one high school were nearly painted over when board members decided that their depiction of Native Americans was racist. That effort was halted last year by , while the renaming campaign has been dogged by allegations that its processes did not adhere to open meetings laws. 

Rachel Norton, a former three-term board member and who once served as the body鈥檚 president, said in an email that the enthusiasm of parent groups supporting the recall was a key factor in its outcome.

鈥淚 think San Francisco sent a message 鈥� people were really angry about extended school closures and the perception that the board was paying attention to renaming and other issues that didn鈥檛 center students,鈥� Norton said. 鈥淥f the four remaining members of the board, I think some understand this anger and some don鈥檛.鈥�

Moliga thanked his supporters in early Wednesday morning, saying that his service on the board had been an honor and that 鈥渕any more fights鈥� lay ahead.

Looking forward, San Francisco鈥檚 political class will need to chart a new course for the district. Mayor Breed, who in November, will select replacement commissioners in the coming weeks. In its reconstituted form, the board must also select a candidate to replace Superintendent Vince Matthews, who retired last summer. And public demand grows for a thoroughgoing improvement effort to turn around schools, which have shown some of the widest achievement gaps in the country. 

Amanda Kahn Fried, another local recall supporter, said that Democrats beyond California鈥檚 borders should take a lesson from the fate that befell Collins, L贸pez, and Moliga.

鈥淚 hope national Democrats 鈥� and [Gov.] Gavin Newsom 鈥� see that parents in the bluest city in America are frustrated, and need our leaders to prioritize our children.鈥�