Who Actually Runs Your School District, Board, Superintendent or State

Every parent has had the experience. You have a real problem, say a reading program that is plainly not working, and you call the school. The school says that is a district decision. You call the district. The district says the board adopted it. You go to the board, which says the state requires it. You call the state, which says the federal grant has conditions. By Friday you have spoken to five offices, each of which has been pleasant, and none of which has the power to fix anything. It is a perfect circle, and the one thing everyone in it agrees on is that it is not their circle.

Folks, I do not think it is a conspiracy. I think it is something more American than that: it is a committee. Power over your local school is divided among at least four layers of government, and the division is deliberate, partly accidental and wholly confusing. The first step to changing a thing is knowing whose thing it is. So let me draw you the map.

Start with the Constitution, because the Constitution starts with the states

The word "education" does not appear in the Constitution. Nowhere. The federal government was given a list of enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8, and running local schools is not on the list. The Tenth Amendment says it directly: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So public education is, by default, a state function. Every state constitution has an education clause, and each state legislature creates school districts as its own subdivisions. A school district is not a sovereign body. It is a creature of the state, with whatever powers the state gives it. The Supreme Court observed in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) that the federal Constitution does not guarantee a right to education, and it left the school funding question to the states. That is why your state's school-finance fights are decided in your state capitol and state courts.

That fact explains almost everything about the confusion. The authority starts with the state. The state hands some of it to the district. The federal government, having no direct power, uses money to influence all of it. Four layers, then: the school board, the superintendent, the state, and the federal strings. Let's take them in order.

Layer one: the school board

The school board is the governing body of the district. In most American districts the board is elected by the voters, usually in nonpartisan races, often held at odd times when few people vote. That is a fact worth sitting with, because it means that a handful of voters in an off-year election decide who sets policy for thousands of children.

What a board legally decides varies by state, but the usual list is:

1. The budget and the property tax levy, where the state allows the district to levy one, or at least the proposed budget.
2. Hiring and firing the superintendent, which is the board's single most important job.
3. Policy. The board adopts the district's written policies on discipline, attendance, grading, library materials, health, technology, and a hundred other things.
4. Curriculum and instructional materials, usually by adopting textbooks and programs the superintendent recommends. Some states set a state list and the board chooses from it.
5. Contracts, including labor contracts with employee unions, vendor agreements and construction.
6. Hearing certain appeals, such as student expulsions or employee dismissals.

What a board does not do, in theory, is run the schools day to day. It sets policy and hires someone to carry it out. A board member who calls a principal to demand something is generally outside the lawful structure. Remember this one: the board is a body, not a person. An individual board member has no authority, only the board voting as a group in a public meeting.

Elected boards, appointed boards and mayoral control

Not every district elects its board. Some are appointed. Here are the main models.

• Elected board. The common model. Voters choose members, by district or at large.
• Appointed board. A mayor, county executive or other official appoints some or all members. Some large cities use this.
• Mayoral control. A related model in which the mayor effectively runs the district and appoints the person who leads it. New York City adopted mayoral control in 2002, when the state legislature replaced the old Board of Education with a department headed by a chancellor chosen by the mayor and a panel on which the mayor holds a majority of appointments. Chicago has used mayoral appointment of its board since 1995 under Illinois law, and the state has since provided for the board to become fully elected in stages.

The argument for mayoral control is accountability. If the schools fail, voters know whom to blame, and the mayor cannot say "the board did it." The argument against is that it moves the schools further from parents and puts them inside the larger politics of a city. Both arguments are serious, and I do not think a conservative has to agree with one or the other as a matter of principle. The conservative principle is closer: the decision-maker should be nearby, answerable, and easy to find. Test every model against that.

Layer two: the superintendent

The superintendent is the district's chief executive, hired by the board, usually on a multi-year contract. The contract is a public document. It specifies the salary, the term, the benefits, the performance goals if any, and often what happens if the board ends the contract early. In many places the buyout terms are the reason a failing superintendent stays: the board cannot afford to fire him, or it can, and does, and the district pays for it.

What the superintendent does:

1. Recommends the budget, the curriculum, the policies and the hires to the board.
2. Runs the central office, the principals and the district's daily operations.
3. Negotiates with the unions, within the limits the board sets.
4. Implements the board's policies, and decides how, which is where a great deal of real power sits.

Here is something that most parents do not realise. A board adopts a policy in a sentence. The superintendent writes the regulations and procedures that implement it, in pages. And the school-level reality, such as who gets a placement, how a rule is enforced or what a teacher actually does, is shaped by that implementation. Ask any teacher who has lived through a "board-mandated initiative": the board voted for a sentence, and the central office delivered a binder.

This is an important lesson for a citizen. A policy you dislike may have been adopted by the board, but it may also be the superintendent's implementation of something vaguer. The question to ask in public is: which document says this, who adopted it, and when? The answer tells you whether to go to the board or to the superintendent.

Layer three: the state

The state does more than most parents imagine. A typical state legislature and state education agency control:

• The school funding formula. How much money flows to each district, and how it is calculated. This is why your local property tax bill and your state's formula are tied.
• Graduation requirements and the standards for each subject. Many states set the learning standards that districts must teach.
• Statewide testing and accountability. The tests, the cut scores and the rating system for schools.
• Teacher certification. Who can be hired to teach.
• Charter school and school choice laws. Whether alternatives exist and how they are funded.
• The collective bargaining law. Whether public-school teachers can bargain collectively and what they can bargain over.
• Mandates. Everything from the number of days in the school year to rules about school safety and student discipline.

The structure usually has two parts: a state board of education, which in some states is elected and in others is appointed by the governor, and a state education agency, a department headed by a chief state school officer, who may be elected or appointed. The legislature writes the laws, the board sets rules under them, and the agency runs the programs and monitors compliance.

If your complaint is that a rule "comes from above the district," it is likely a state law or state board regulation. In that case your most effective voice is your state legislator, your state board member and the state agency, not the local board. The local board cannot repeal a state law. It can only decide how to comply.

Layer four: the federal strings

Now Washington. The federal government has no enumerated power over local schools, and yet its influence is real. It operates through two things: money and civil-rights law.

Money. Federal funds are a minority of school revenue, somewhere between eight and thirteen cents of each dollar depending on the year (check the National Center for Education Statistics for the current figure). But the money comes with conditions, because Congress can attach conditions to funds under its spending power, and the Supreme Court has allowed that as long as the conditions are clear and related to the purpose of the funds. The Court has also drawn a limit, which it applied in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012): Congress may not make the conditions so coercive that states have no real choice. The key federal programs are:

1. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Money for districts with high shares of low-income students, with requirements about testing, reporting and standards. Congress has rewritten the law several times, most recently as the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, which gave states more latitude than the previous version.
2. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). First enacted in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, and renamed IDEA in 1990, the law requires a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities, individualised education programs, and a process for parents to challenge decisions. Federal money covers only a share of the cost, and districts bear the rest, which is a standing complaint.
3. Civil-rights statutes, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which apply to any school that takes federal money. I trace how a few lines of Title IX became a thick rulebook in Title IX Began as 37 Words in 1972, Here Is How It Grew Into a Rulebook.

The federal Department of Education, created as a cabinet department in 1979, administers the programs and enforces the rules. The strings are why a district will say "we have to." It often means: we have to if we want the money.

I would also add a point about the law the federal government uses most: guidance. The Department of Education issues letters and guidance documents that are not law, but that districts treat as law because the department can investigate and threaten funds. How one such letter on discipline reached into classrooms is the story in The 2014 School Discipline Guidance and the Commission That Withdrew It.

The fifth force: the union contract

Where state law allows public employees to bargain, the district also operates under a collective bargaining agreement with its teachers' union and sometimes other unions. The contract can govern pay scales, seniority rules for layoffs and transfers, the length of the work day, class-size limits, evaluation procedures and the process for dismissing a teacher. It is a binding contract, and it can limit what the board and superintendent can do, whatever the board's policy says.

Many parents have never read the contract that governs their child's classroom. It is a public document, and I think every parent should read it, which is why I wrote What a Teachers Union Contract Says and Why Every Parent Should Read One. For the history of how bargaining reached public schools, and why even FDR had doubts about it for public employees, see How Teacher Unions Won the Right to Bargain, and What FDR Warned About.

The steelman, and the answer

The best defense of this layered structure runs like this. Education is too important for one level of government to control. Local boards know local needs; states ensure equity and a baseline of quality among districts of different wealth; the federal government protects the civil rights of children who might otherwise be ignored. Each layer checks the others.

There is truth in this, and the Founders understood the value of divided authority. But here is how I would answer.

1. A check is only a check if somebody can find it. Dividing power makes sense when each level has a defined job. It stops making sense when no level can be held responsible, which is what the circle of phone calls shows.
2. Federal conditions work against local control. The more a decision depends on federal money, the less it belongs to the board you elected. That is the opposite of the principle that the closest government should decide.
3. Equity is a reason for a state formula, not for national micromanagement. A state can equalise funding without telling a district which reading program to buy.
4. Transparency is the minimum. If power is to be divided, the division should be published, so a parent can see on one page who decides what.

The Founders drew the line in the structure of the Constitution: enumerated federal powers, reserved state powers, and the principle in the Tenth Amendment. They did not draw it so that nobody would be responsible. They drew it so that the responsible party would be close to the people and answerable to them. When you see a school decision that nobody will own, the structure has been bent.

Which office to call for which problem

A cheat sheet. This is general guidance, and the exact process varies by state and district.

What a citizen can do

• Find your board's website. Look for the meeting calendar, the agenda packets, the policy manual and the superintendent's contract.
• Attend a meeting and speak in public comment. Agendas are usually posted in advance. Keep it to the allotted time and to one clear request.
• Read the policy before you complain. Cite the policy number. It changes the conversation.
• Learn the election calendar. Many board elections are held in odd years or off dates. Know when yours is.
• Think about running. The board seat is the lowest rung of public office and one of the most influential.

For a related practical step, see How to Request Records From Your School District and Actually Get Them, which shows how to get the documents behind a decision.

The case in brief

1. Education is not in the enumerated powers of the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment it is a state function, and school districts are creatures of the state.
2. Power is split among the elected school board, which sets policy and hires the superintendent, the superintendent, who writes the regulations and runs the district, the state, which sets funding and standards, and the federal government, which acts through money and civil-rights law.
3. Mayoral control, as in New York City since 2002 and Chicago since 1995, trades distance from parents for a single point of accountability.
4. Union contracts and federal strings, under Title I, IDEA and civil-rights statutes, limit what an elected board can do, and a parent should read the documents.
5. Divided power is only a safeguard if the public can find who is responsible, so ask for the document, the adopter and the date.

What you can do: look up your school board's next meeting, read the agenda packet for the policy that bothers you, and sign up for public comment.