Elected vs. Appointed School Boards
Date
2011-05-24
Authors
Anderson, Jerrod F.
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Abstract
Educational governance has garnered attention recently in school reform literature. One main question is whether appointed school boards can improve education performance where elected school boards have failed to produce good outcomes. This is essentially a question of regulatory control. Economic theory suggests that how public officials and regulators are chosen will affect the outcomes within the regulated industry. Using demographic and school finance data from 1992 to 2008, I show that while there are some differences in resource allocation between school districts governed by boards with appointed members and those governed by wholly elected boards, these governance structures do not have an observable impact on education quality, as measured by the school district’s market share.
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Regulation, Education, Elected, Governance, Appointed, School boards