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SBE State Governance Models

Effect of changing state education governance models.

Several states have changed their governance models in hopes of improving student achievement. But the data clearly show that it is extremely unlikely that such changes will yield any benefit. Indeed, states often switch systems back and forth without results. This result is also not surprising, and implies that individuals working together can get good results in any system. There are some high-performing and some low-performing states under any governance system, as can be seen in the following figure. Indeed, changing state governance systems will not help, and will probably hurt by delaying ongoing efforts.

There are some high-performing and some low-performing states under each governance system.

Table 1 shows three components of the current governance system in New Mexico:

Table 1. New Mexico State Governance System

•Legislature and Governor:

–Control all education spending

–Define governing statutes (~350 pages)

•State Board of Education (SBE)

–Develops regulations to implement statutes (~700 pages)

–Enforces the state’s school code

–Hires State Superintendent

•State Superintendent and Dept. of Education (SDE)

–Implements statutes and regulations

In New Mexico, many people are recommending that concentrating more education control in the hands of the governor will increase accountability and student performance. Although details have not been presented, the proposed models appear to resemble hierarchical corporate systems in which the governor has more direct power and authority. Corporate governance models did not prevent accounting fraud, stock collapse, or the recent bankruptcies of WorldCom, Enron, United Airlines, Tyco, Adelphia Communications, Global Crossing, ImClone, Kmart, Peregrine Systems, Rite Aid Corp. and many others. In 27 months, the nation’s corporate market value decreased by 5.7 trillion dollars. So, it appears that a corporate hierarchical governance approach does not guarantee any improvement, and may cause significant harm where progress is currently being made.

But the New Mexico State Board of Education has begun to move towards a more modern and democratic system that resembles Table 2 (excerpted from Education Commission of the States: Recent Changes in Public-Sector Governance, Jan. 1999):

Table 2. A New State Governance System

(what goes in here?)

(what goes in here?)