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Introduction
Since the early 1980s, educational policy has increasingly been focused on improving student performance (Conley, 2003, Murphy, 1990). School governance in general, and school boards in particular, have often been viewed as either the means of implementing needed reforms or as roadblocks in their way (Boyd, 2003; Delagardelle, M.; 2008; Howell, 2005). Effective governance, it is believed, is necessary for school improvement, yet examples of good governance rarely garner as much attention as do issues such as board member misconduct, nepotism, and overall board corruption (Segal, 2004). This research project provides new insights into the best way to improve local school governance in an era of increasing state and national influence over educational policy and scrutiny of local educational practices (Boyd, 2003; Riede, 2004).
In considering the quality of local school governance, one is immediately confronted with examples of different types of school boards and board members (Tallerico, 1989) - some boards seem quite adept at carrying out their responsibilities, while others seem to have difficulty understanding their role and fulfilling their responsibilities as stewards of the local school district (Grady, 1998; Hill, 2003). It is within this second category (boards having difficulty) that one finds some of the most blatant examples of poor governance. The following quotations are meant to provide a sense of the breadth and depth of the problem:
* "One board member collected over $1 8,000 from a textbook publisher in meals, cash, and a white cashmere coat from her vendors; another got cameras, television equipment, and other items (Segal, 2004, p. 12S).
* A district employee complained that "the board member called her at home, threatened and yelled at her and demanded she return to work at 8:45pm on a Friday to retrieve some reports he had asked for earlier in the day" (Riede, 2004).
* When a board member "lobbied bis colleagues to promote a clearly unqualified person as principal, his only pitch was, 'Why can't you vote for him? He's my son in law'" (Segal, 2004; p. 34).
* "A Bronx grand jury examining all school districts in that borough concluded that fraud and political patronage were a "way of life" (Segal, 2004, p. 121).
While many board related problems never rise to the level depicted...