On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus speaks with Brian Jacob and Vladimir Kogan about school board elections. Nat, Brian, and Vlad discuss how effective school board elections are at giving voters local democratic control, whether school board members are rewarded for good performance and punished for bad performance, the margin of victory in school board elections, who runs for school board, how incumbents perform in school board elections, the high rate of school board member turnover, paying school board members, state takeovers, how the pandemic affected school board elections, whether Moms for Liberty has been effective in winning school board elections, school governance, direct democracy, ESSER funding, NCLB, and more.

Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy and professor of economics at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Vladimir Kogan is a professor in the department of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

Show Notes:

How Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Influence School Board Elections? (forthcoming) by Brian Jacob

Democratic Accountability or an Electoral Turnstile? Turnover and Competition in Local School Board Elections (forthcoming) by Vladimir Kogan, Stephane Lavertu, and Zachary Peskowitz