Although there is little quantitative evidence that governance structures affect student academic achievement, more people seem willing to experiment with altering those structures in the hope that the changes will stimulate educators and students to perform at a higher level. Much of the discussion of governance focuses on the sometimes rocky relationships among teachers, principals, superintendents, and school boards. The implication is that poor school performance won t be adequately addressed until these groups work together as a team. Some critics blame the system itself and call for systemic change, while others favor workarounds to the current system, such as vouchers, school-choice programs, and privatization. Superintendents, especially in urban districts, have taken more than their fair share of the blame for the weaknesses in current school governance systems.
School boards are the other traditional targets in the school governance blame game.
Urbanski favors the first option-keeping schools publicly operated and improving current governance structures. A few economically based strategies for changes in school governance have been proposed since the publication of the commission s report. Thus, all schools, public or private, would essentially become entrepreneurial enterprises. He claims that school boards have traditionally micromanaged the educational process, something that would spell doom for any manager in a business setting. Changing or improving the relationship between the superintendent and school board looms large in almost all proposals for different governance structures.