School Board Confidential

For decades, school reform has underperformed. Reformers blamed various culprits, but school boards received remarkably little attention – until now. Through a strange set of circumstances, political scientist Robert Maranto won election to the school board overseeing the 10,000-student public school district his kids attended. He planned to use the norm of board unanimity to make the district hire an academic school superintendent. What could go wrong? Plenty! School Board Confidential chronicles his five years working under three superintendents, watching 17 sex scandals, two (hidden) financial scandals, four football coaches, four culture wars, 29 reforms du jour, one Title IX lawsuit, more sexism than expected, and endless training to discourage school board members from listening to teachers and parents or from holding superintendents accountable. Maranto learned why public schools resist academic rigor, even where unions are weak. He had some wins but ultimately realized that school choice offers a more promising path to academic improvement.