Do school board actions and attitudes truly have the potential to directly impact student outcomes?  How does your perception of school leadership, comprehensive understanding of the needs of students and staff, and systematic use of data to inform board decisions impact how successful students are in your district?  How valuable can community engagement and a clearly defined line of communication between all layers of the school environment be in promoting success for your district’s graduates?

Consider this:

Most schools, especially those serving disadvantaged populations, require some degree of outside support (e.g. school board, university partnership, education-focused consultants, etc.) if they are going to be successful in improving instruction and student success.

School boards in both disadvantaged and advantaged areas that are reporting improvements in student performance are systematically engaged in collecting and analyzing data on a range of performance indicators.

School boards can only advocate for change and maintain a sense of urgency for educational reform if they are knowledgeable about the school context, work to increase community participation, and move beyond change “rhetoric” to defining values and goals that will actually be used to guide their decision-making. 

School boards who are restructuring professional development programs to better support the integration of new teachers, provide targeted and job-embedded support to all teachers, and develop principals as instructional leaders are consistently reporting improvement in student performance.

These are the findings of a summary report that analyzes more than 100 research reports and articles published on the topic of school boards’ roles in educational change published between 1995 and 2006.  The analysis was conducted by the Center for the Study of Learning and Performance in an attempt to draw empirical links between student achievement and school board involvement, and to identify school board/board member actions and attitudes that consistently contribute to school improvement.  While analysis of the studies failed to provide the desired empirical links, it did however provide “compelling evidence that school boards can play an important role in propelling and sustaining educational change and improving student outcomes, even for boards serving in disadvantaged communities” (CSLP/CEAP). 

The report highlights four themes that were mined from the eleven-years span of literature.  The themes show specific factors that contributed to school improvement accounting for differences across school entities.  These themes are:

1. Redefining and committing to school success
2. System-wide collection and use of data to inform decision-making
3. Investing in professional development
4. Developing effective communication between partners

These themes, supported by a variety of practices, policies, and school programs, were consistently identified as contributing to improved student outcomes and school successes.  The report is careful to point out, however, that the themes work best when implemented together as part of a comprehensive approach to school improvement.  “While implementing one or a few of these practices might be beneficial, there is considerably more power when they are implemented together” (CSLP/CEAP).

Redefining and Committing to Success

Of primary importance, suggests the CSLP/CEAP report, is a collective effort by the board to identify and create goals that support board/district priorities.  The literature analyzed for the report consistently showed a commitment among high-achieving and improving districts to working collectively to set goals related to long and short-term district priorities.  This commitment creates a focused understanding of district needs and requires the board to discuss and understand expectations related to district success and student achievement.  The report points out that as important to the process of setting goals itself is including stakeholders.  Community and staff engagement strategies help to broaden local definitions of success as well as the measures by which success is determined.  This expanded perspective on school governance creates a shared sense of responsibility among staff members and the community, and opens the door for more accessible avenues of communication both within and outside of the school as an organization. 

The report also looked at various measures by which districts and communities measure success.  Four main categories were identified.  These are (a) educational outcomes (e.g., student achievement, graduation rates, etc.); (b) educational processes (e.g., accessibility and use of instructional materials, use of technology, level of external funding); (c) educational participation (e.g., parental involvement, teacher retention, teacher advancement); and (d) educational attitudes (e.g., student/teacher/parent/principal satisfaction, number of complaints logged at the office).  The report suggests, “by defining success across these features, high-performing school boards [are] able to get a more complete picture of how they [are] progressing and where significant challenges exist” (CSLP/CEAP).

System-Wide Collection and Use of Data to Inform Decision-Making

One of the strongest conclusions offered in the report is the importance of use of data to inform board and district decisions.  CSLP/CEAP reports a strong majority of the synthesized findings from the most effective and improving school boards suggest use of data as a tool for monitoring results, making instructional and resource allocation decisions, targeting professional development efforts, and creating systems of accountability.  The report goes on to say that use of data should be considered as part of an overall board strategy for supporting educational change, as a “major theme among successful school districts was their focus on data-informed decision-making and how to develop the capacity for all stakeholders to use data and use it well” (CSLP/CEAP). 

The authors were unable to identify clear consensus on transferrable standards for how to collect, manage, analyze, or disseminate data.  Some school boards seek out assistance from outside sources, consultants, or contractors.  Some prefer to decide how to collect, use, and manage data internally.  And significant variations in effectiveness in use of data were noted, even among school boards that were strongly committed to its use.  The report also noted the need for a comprehensive and carefully constructed plan that is able to connect data collecting and reporting requirements with probable outcomes and effective training for professional staff.  Too often, “due to limited guidance and training for school level staff, a data collection plan that [is] not well designed, and the often inadequate availability of research evidence, school board efforts appeared to undermine the use of data among teachers and school principals rather than promote it” (CSLP/CEAP).

Investing in Professional Development

The idea of providing formative professional learning opportunities for teaching and administrative staff is not new among school districts.  Scholars, regulatory agencies including state departments of education, and school boards have long recognized the importance of providing professional staff members with learning experiences that are intended to improve and support teaching practice.  CSLP lists from its analysis of literature that “professional development was the predominant strategy associated with high-performing school boards who were building the instructional capacity of their schools.”

The report suggests that no one approach to professional development is the key to improving student achievement, but programs that are “intensive, on-going, focused on classroom instruction, and [that] include on-site coaching” are most likely to be successful in helping support professional improvement.  The importance of tailoring professional development to specific needs of the district as identified from collected data comes across quite clearly in the literature.  The report emphasizes a shift away from “one-shot” kinds of workshops or single day trainings in favor of a more comprehensive approach that offers on-site support of staff members, peer coaching, mentorship programs, learning communities, and job-embedded training.  Support for new teachers is identified as important.  However, the authors of the report note relatively little from the literature examined supports as much need for professional support for this population as one would imagine.  This is not intended to suggest that professional supports for new teachers are not needed: only that not enough research has been conducted in this relatively new area to be able to justify recommendations at this time. 

Professional development opportunities for school leaders including lead teachers and building-level administrators is also stressed as increasingly important, as more decentralized school management approaches become common in districts.

Developing Effective Communication Between Partners

Authors report a strong majority of the findings from their analysis indicate professionalism and effective communication as “critical” to school improvement and a commitment to accountability.  An ability to successfully mediate communication between various “groups” involved with teaching and learning seems to have a notable impact on how successful boards are in garnering support for improvement initiatives and various school-related goals.  Several authors (Land, 2002; Anderson, 2003) identified in the analysis indicate that boards should strive to improve communication and interaction with internal stakeholders (district staff), community members, and groups.  Improvement in two primary areas is suggested:

1. Effective external communication with teachers, unions, parents, media, community members, and the broader educational community; and
2. Effective internal communication that focuses on providing direction, receiving feedback, and conveying expectations to teachers, principals, students, and school staff

This article fell somewhat short of being able to provide workable suggestions for improving communication in these areas.  Suggestions including establishing partnerships with local colleges and universities are recommended, as well as with various educational associations.  But most of the literature comes up short of being able to give detailed guidance on how boards can bolster community engagement strategies. 

All in all however, this article does help bolster the at-times tenuously supported notion that school boards can have a direct role in supporting and improving student success.  To date, the oft-cited Iowa Lighthouse Study has stood as a sort of lone wolf in terms of evidence for a link in this area.  While impressive in that it highlights the actions and attitudes of school boards in high and low achieving districts with similar demographics, it is still a relatively singular evidentiary platform that can only be strengthened by CSLP’s multi-year documents review.