And in some states, even that level of input is threatened. In 1994, states such as Missouri, Montana and Oregon tried to give exclusive authority to the public to decide tax rates but were defeated through establishment opposition. School boards have shown some creativity in budget matters. They have discovered that the private sector often provides more service for the money. By contracting out to the private sector for everything from busing to food services to maintenance, districts have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars while receiving a more cost-efficient, superior delivery of services.
School boards can make big differences in states with charter schools.
In many cases, they must approve charter proposals first. Some boards are hostile to charter schools because they are not controlled by school boards. In an effort to avoid such problems, Colorado's leaders set a good example with a message they sent to school board members. Persuasively, they suggested that members would be prudent to help with the charter movement rather than stand in its way. The National School Boards Association represents local boards' interests on a federal level and has approximately 95,000 individual school board members from over 15,000 districts.