Determinants of policy-making orientation of school board members in Texas

Date

1995-05

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

Scholarly attention to the role of boards of education has been intermittent, fragmented, and generally more concerned with details of practice than policy. It has been only since the middle of the 20th century that research has been focused on the governance of schools.

From a normative perspective, school boards set policy and leave the daily management of the school district and individual schools to the professional administrators, teachers and staff Often times, however, school boards become involved in the administrative function as well as policy-making. The policy perspective that a school board assumes in exercising its legal responsibilities is referred to as its policy orientation.

Research indicates that the policy-making orientation of school boards is two-dimensional: professional and political. Although these two dimensions have dominated the limited amount of research in the area of school board decision-making, a priori reasoning, as well as insights gained from interviews with school board members, suggested that there may be, at least, a third dimension; i.e., personal judgment. A two-dimension construct of policy-making orientation may be limiting given the complexity of the decision-making process engaged in by school board members.

It is thought that the policy-making orientation of school board members is dependent upon specific demographic variables and may be situational based on the issues of curriculum, finance and personnel. Therefore, this study attempted to answer the following research question: Is the policy-making orientation of individual school board members dependent upon the demographic variables of age, gender, race, level of education, size of community, presently (or in the past) having children in the district from which they are elected, length of time served on the board, and method of election with respect to the policy issues of curriculum, finance, and personnel?

The data were collected using the "School Board Policy-Making Orientation Instrument" and were analyzed to determine if the policy-making orientation of Texas school board members was dependent upon the specified demographic variables. It was hypothesized that the policy-making orientation of Texas school board members was independent of the specified demographic variables with respect to the policy issues of curriculum, finance and personnel.

Independent variables were: age, gender, race, level of education, size of community, presently (or in the past) having children in the district from which they are elected, length of time served on the board and method of election. The dependent variable was policy-making orientation (professional, political, and personal judgment). A chi-square statistical procedure was used to analyze the data in order to test for independence. The study found that the policy-making orientation of school board members is independent of the demographic variables and is, indeed, situational, based upon curriculum, financial and personnel issues. Implications for further study include examining value variables including attitudes and beliefs about specific policy issues. It is recommended that the investigation of demographic variables be abandoned.

Description

Keywords

Public schools -- Texas, School management and organization -- Texas, School boards -- Texas

Citation