Econ Colloquium, Wednesday at 4:30

Have you ever wondered if school boards matter?  What the trade-off is between administrative expertise and the public will?   If so, it’s your lucky day…

What is the trade-off between representation and expertise?  The American school board is an iconic institution of representative, local government, but one that attracts very little attention.  Fewer than 10 percent of voters bother to meander to the polls for school board elections.  Yet school boards are in the center of high-stakes debates about the Common Core, academic achievement, property taxes, school finance, and teacher assessment.  Using a national survey of school board members and our own calculation of district-level student achievement, we describe whether school board members appear to have the capacity to govern — and how that capacity relates to a key policy output, students’ academic performance.

Wednesday, October 1, 4:30 p.m.

Steitz Hall 102