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Last week, the results of a comprehensive national survey of school boards - the first in nearly a decade - were released. They painted a picture of both the demographics of those serving on school boards and the structure of those boards. Among the findings: nearly three-fourths of school board members have a bachelor’s degree and 94.5% of them were elected to their posts.

But it is what we learned about the beliefs of school board members that has gotten the most attention – and with good reason. Over the past ten years, those beliefs seem to have shifted quite a bit.

Back in 2002 (the last time a similar study was conducted), school board members were consumed with what has been dubbed the “killer B’s” – buses, buildings, books, budgets, bonds and such. Today, they are more concerned with student achievement, evidenced in part by the fact they are more likely to cite that achievement as a key consideration in evaluating their superintendent.

Two other trends in board member beliefs that this report called attention to:

• School board members would like to see student success defined by more than reading and math scores.
• Overall, school board members express little faith in market-oriented school improvement strategies involving pay or school choice, or in popular remedies like class size reduction. They believe that professional development, better and more frequent use of assessment data and improved school leadership are the most promising strategies to boost achievement.

While I was pleased to see these findings, I personally was not surprised by them. I think these beliefs extend way beyond school board members and are shared by educators at all levels (teachers, principals, superintendents and more). 

What I was surprised about with this report was its publishers. There were three: the Iowa School Boards Foundation, the National School Boards Association (NSBA, an organization that represents state associations of school boards and their member districts - and a member of the Learning First Alliance), and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank whose president has said, “The local school board, especially the elected kind, is an anachronism and an outrage…We need to steel ourselves to put this dysfunctional arrangement out of its misery…”

NSBA and the Fordham Institute are often pitted against each other in media battles designed for high ratings - battles that are not necessarily conducive to sustainable school improvement. To be sure, these organizations take different positions on a number of issues, reflecting their differing core beliefs. Even here, they had very different perspectives on what the results of this survey meant. For example, the foreward penned by Fordham (each of the three publishers wrote one) expressed dismay that board members did not place a greater importance on charter schools and nontraditional teacher preparation in improving student learning, while NSBA’s praised their beliefs that schools can be improved through professional development and assessment.  

But the point is that these groups reached across the aisle. They came together to learn together, and while they ultimately differed in their interpretation of what they found, my guess is that the process itself was valuable and increased mutual understanding and respect. And hopefully, this collaboration is the start of a new trend, in education and in our broader society.