The Role of School Board Social Capital in District Governance: Effects on Financial and Academic Outcomes

Saatcioglu, Argun; Moore, Suzanne; Sargut, Gökçe; Bajaj, Aarti

doi:10.1080/15700760903511780

Cited by 29 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Recurrent themes in these surveys were: topics on the boards' agenda, connections inside and outside the board (e.g. Andrews and Brewer 2014;Saatcioglu et al 2011;Shelton 2010) and board composition (e.g. Hofman, Hofman, and Guldemond 1999;Meier and O'Toole 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are school boards and educational quality related? Results of an international literature review

2018

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School boards have a central position in educational governance. They have to guarantee quality, monitor results and intervene if needed. In this article we report the results of a systematic literature review meant to identify what school boards do to contribute to educational quality. After five steps of literature selection and refinement, our initial database of 4939 was reduced to 16 empirical articles. This shows that there is actually very little empirical research on the relation between boards and educational quality. Looking more closely at the 16 remaining studies, we notice differences in the reach, quality and applied methods. Moreover, the differences between boards are considerable when looking at board composition and the scope of their autonomy. Altogether, these differences make it difficult to come up with general findings on how boards can contribute to educational quality. Nevertheless, we also found promising large-scale studies that offer a better understanding of the complex nature of the effects that boards may have on educational quality. Furthermore, in almost all of the studies, educational quality is operationalised as students' test results, indicating a narrow perspective on educational quality.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hofman, Hofman, and Guldemond 1999;Meier and O'Toole 2004). Only two out of seven surveys were set up as longitudinal studies (Saatcioglu et al 2011;Shelton 2010). The study by Van de Grift and Houtveen (2006) also had a longitudinal character but did not draw on survey data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are school boards and educational quality related? Results of an international literature review

2018

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“…In particular, recruitment, selection, and appointment policies include strong provisions protecting against gender and racial biases. District governance is provided by a Policy-oriented board of trustees (Land, 2002), which forges strong internal bonds as a first priority, without neglecting the development of relationships with relevant external agencies and individuals (Saatcioglu, Moore, Sargut, & Bajaj, 2011). Productive working relationships are developed within the senior district leadership team, between school and district staffs, as well as with external stakeholders, including the local community and the government.…”

Section: Ministry Of Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education Research in the Canadian Context

Laitsch¹,

MacKinnon²,

Young³

et al. 2019

IJEPL

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This special issue of the International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership (IJEPL), Research in the Canadian Context, marks a significant milestone for the journal. Throughout our twelve-year history, we have sought to publish the best research in leadership, policy, and research use, allowing authors to decide the topics by dint of their research. While this model still serves as the foundation for IJEPL content, we decided to give researchers a chance to engage in deeper conversations by introducing special issues. In our first special issue, researchers discuss their work within the scope of education policy, leadership, and research use within the Canadian context. While many aspects of leadership, teaching, and learning can be seen as similar across contexts, there are also issues of particular concern within national, regional, provincial, or local spheres, particularly when looking at policy and system changes. The researchers featured in this issue provide an important look into education in Canada.PolicyIn the policy realm, Sue Winton and Lauren Jervis examine a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario, examining how discourses dominant in the province enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved for decades. Issues of access and equity play out within a neoliberal context focused on individualism, meritocracy, and the reduced funding of public services. While Winton and Jervis highlight the tension between policy goals and ideological contexts, Jean-Vianney Auclair considers the place of policy dialogues within governmental frames, and the challenge of engaging in broadly applicable work within vertically structured governmental agencies. One often-touted way to move beyondResearch useWithin the scope of research use, Sarah L. Patten examines how socioeconomic status (SES) is defined and measured in Canada, the challenges in defining SES, and potential solutions specific to the Canadian context. In looking at knowledge mobilization, Joelle Rodway considers how formal coaches and informal social networks nserve to connect research, policy, and practice in Ontario’s Child and Youth Mental Health program.LeadershipTurning to leadership, contributing researchers explored the challenges involved in staff development, administrator preparation, and student outcomes. Keith Walker and Benjamin Kutsyuruba explore how educational administrators can support early career teachers to increase retention, and the somewhat haphazard policies and supports in place across Canada to bring administrators and new teachers together. Gregory Rodney MacKinnon, David Young, Sophie Paish, and Sue LeBel look at how one program in Nova Scotia conceptualizes professional growth, instructional leadership, and administrative effectiveness and the emerging needs of administrators to respond to issues of poverty, socioemotional health, and mental health, while also building community. This complex environment may mean expanding leadership preparation to include a broader consideration of well-being and community. Finally, Victoria Handford and Kenneth Leithwood look at the role school leaders play in improving student achievement in British Columbia, and the school district characteristics associated with improving student achievement.Taken together, the research in this special issue touches on many of the challenges in policy development, application, and leadership practice, and the myriad ways that research can be used to address these challenges. We hope you enjoy this first special issue of IJEPL!

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“…This governing body corresponds to the school board in control of a set of schools: a ‘school district’ . The school district has been shown to have a direct effect on student and financial outcomes (Bidwell & Kasarda, ; Heinesen, ; Saatcioglu et al ., ), or an indirect effect on student outcomes through teacher absenteeism (Theobald, ) and management practices (De Witte & Schiltz, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This governing body corresponds to the school board in control of a set of schools: a 'school district'. 1 The school district has been shown to have a direct effect on student and financial outcomes (Bidwell & Kasarda, 1975;Heinesen, 2005;Saatcioglu et al, 2011), or an indirect effect on student outcomes through teacher absenteeism (Theobald, 1990) and management practices (De Witte & Schiltz, 2017). specifying the functional form of cost functions is required to obtain more robust estimates of the optimal district scale and its decisive determinants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating scale economies and the optimal size of school districts: A flexible form approach

Schiltz

Witte

2017

British Educational Res J

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This paper investigates estimation methods to model the relationship between school district size, costs per student and the organisation of school districts. We show that the assumptions on the functional form strongly affect the estimated scale economies and offer two possible solutions to allow for more flexibility in the estimation method. First, we introduce a model by adding higher‐degree district size polynomials, allowing for multiple optima. Second, we develop a Fourier cost function, innovative in the literature on scale economies in education. We then compare both models to classical approaches in the literature. We illustrate how a minor change in the estimation method can alter policy conclusions significantly using Flemish school district data. In doing so, we find sizeable potential cost savings from the consolidation of school districts, especially at the lower tail of the district–size distribution. The organisational transition from small to large school districts is characterised by an interval between two optima. Beyond an apparent slowdown in cost savings in medium‐sized school districts, cost savings from school district consolidation increase again, up to the optimal size of around 6,500 students. Beyond this optimum, school districts incur diseconomies of scale. The commonly used quadratic form (‘U’‐shaped cost function) overestimates scale economies, and fails to identify the interval between both optima.

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The Role of School Board Social Capital in District Governance: Effects on Financial and Academic Outcomes

Cited by 29 publications

References 67 publications

Are school boards and educational quality related? Results of an international literature review

Are school boards and educational quality related? Results of an international literature review

Education Research in the Canadian Context

Estimating scale economies and the optimal size of school districts: A flexible form approach

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