Research has clearly demonstrated that public school boards can - and do - play a significant role in their district's student achievement.
The Lighthouse Project, a project using more than 10 years of data conducted by the Iowa Association of School Boards and the Iowa Education Foundation, studied whether school boards made a difference in student learning and strived to define the role of a school board in student achievement. It found that school boards in high achieving districts are significantly different than school boards in low achieving districts in what they believe, what they know and what they do.
The project identified five leadership roles for school boards in improving student achievement. All KSBA training modules are designed with these five roles in mind.