High Turnover With Low Accountability: Local School Board Elections in 16 States

We analyze the most comprehensive dataset on U.S. school board elections. We find that nearly half of races go uncontested and that incumbents are reelected more than 80% of the time when they run. Because many incumbents retire instead of running for another term, however, turnover is high (with 53% of incumbents replaced in a typical election cycle). School board turnover is also only weakly related to student learning rates. These dynamics—high turnover disconnected from school performance challenges—occur across both urban and non-urban districts, regardless of student demographics and local media environments. Together, these results suggest that local democracy produces high leadership churn and minimal incentives to improve student learning, two findings that can inform debates regarding the benefits and costs of local democratic governance.