School Board Election Structure and Democratic Representation

Allen, Angela; Plank, David N.

doi:10.1177/0895904805276144

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…They knew that on-cycle elections would drastically increase voter participation in their elections and that the composition of the electorate would be altered as a result. The same has been true in other states that have considered changes to school board election timing (e.g., Allen and Plank 2005). Therefore, I suspect that school trustees likely anticipated the effect of on-cycle election timing for the importance of teachers in electionseven before the first on-cycle election was held.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 84%

The Election Timing Effect: Evidence from a Policy Intervention in Texas

Anzia¹

2012

QJPS

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Recent studies have argued that the low voter turnout that accompanies off-cycle elections could create an advantage for interest groups. However, the endogeneity of election timing makes it difficult to estimate its causal effect on political outcomes. In this paper, I examine the effects of a 2006 Texas law that forced approximately 20 percent of the state"s school districts to move their elections to the same day as national elections. Using matching as well as district fixed effects regression, I estimate the causal effect of the switch to on-cycle election timing on average district teacher salary, since teachers and their unions tend to be the dominant interest group in school board elections. I find that school districts that were forced to switch to on-cycle elections responded by granting significantly lower salary raises to teachers, supporting the hypothesis that school trustees were less responsive to the dominant interest group after the switch.* Thank you to

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Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 84%

The Election Timing Effect: Evidence from a Policy Intervention in Texas

Anzia¹

2012

QJPS

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“…Scholars have criticized school boards as not being effective vehicles for democratic participation (e.g. Allen and Plank 2005;Berry and Howell 2005;Finn and Keegan 2004;Hess 2002;Hess and Leal 2005;Maeroff 2010). Overall, the public deliberations examined in my study mirror McDermott's earlier study, where board members generally framed public participation as being about support for board moves rather than contributing to policy formation and decision-making (1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pushing back: How one school board publicly deliberated state-level teacher personnel policies

Frasier

2020

SN Soc Sci

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This case study examines how one urban school board publicly discussed teacher personnel policies that interacted with local teaching workforce interests. Not much is known about how school boards interact with state level policies as they grapple with issues of local implementation. I analyzed archived recordings of school board meetings and documents covering a fiscal year (July-June) in an urban school system in North Carolina. Throughout the course of the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the school board deliberations took a tone of pushing back on state-level teacher and staffing policies. I tracked the types of evidence and problem-framing used by board members during deliberations about teacher personnel policy at public board meetings. The board most often used broad appeals, example, and data (restricted to numerical/statistical) in their deliberations. The problem was usually framed as one of economics. I provide some possibilities as to why the board relied on these evidence types and problem frames and suggest future avenues of research to better understand how school boards interact with state level policies.

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“…Interest groups, acting on behalf of collective interests (), seek to advance their goals by exerting influence via manipulation of election parameters (e.g., election timing and issue awareness). Turnout in local elections is notoriously low, particularly when elections are nonconcurrent with national or state political elections (; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). With low turnout in special elections, targeted voters mobilized by special interest groups may constitute a disproportionate share of total voters and therefore influence election outcomes.…”

Section: Voter Turnout and Bond Outcomes In School Bond Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Voter Turnout Influence School Bond Elections?

Gong

Rogers

2014

Southern Economic Journal

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This article investigates the role of voter turnout in school bond election outcomes. It is widely believed that turnout is negatively related to bond approval rates. Conclusions from previous empirical research, however, may be misleading because many sociodemographic factors and election parameters that influence bond support are also likely to influence voter turnout decisions. To account for the endogeneity of turnout, we employ an instrumental variable approach. We find that the persistent part of voter turnout plays a negligible role in explaining bond approval shares conditioned on election timing, past voting behavior, and district characteristics. Using first-difference models, change in turnout has a negative and significant influence on change in approval share and probability of bond success. Our results support previous research and suggest that targeted voter mobilization strategies have the potential to influence school bond outcomes.

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School Board Election Structure and Democratic Representation

Cited by 25 publications

References 11 publications

The Election Timing Effect: Evidence from a Policy Intervention in Texas

The Election Timing Effect: Evidence from a Policy Intervention in Texas

Pushing back: How one school board publicly deliberated state-level teacher personnel policies

Does Voter Turnout Influence School Bond Elections?

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