This page contains PDF tables with results for the school board member survey administered from October 2024 to January 2025. We provide two sets of tables:
Results tables: No enrollment weights
These are designed to give equal weight to every public school district, regardless of the number of students enrolled in that district. These results are appropriate for generalizing about school districts or board members.1 For example, using these tables, one could say, “X% of school board members are female” or “X% of school districts experienced a lot of conflict over COVID-19 masking policies.”
Results tables: Enrollment weights
These are designed to give equal weight to every public school student. These results are appropriate for generalizing about the settings in which public school students are educated. For example, using these tables, one could say, “The average student is represented by a board that is X% female” or “X% of students are enrolled in districts that experienced a lot of conflict over COVID-19 masking policies.”
The tables contain results disaggregated by characteristics of the respondents’ school districts and characteristics of the respondents themselves.
We disaggregate by these district or community characteristics:
- Locale type (e.g., rural or city)
- Political leaning of local community
- Student enrollment
- Share of student enrollment that is white
We disaggregate by these individual board member characteristics (only in tables without enrollment weights):
- Parent/guardian of child in district
- Current/past teacher
- Political orientation
- Gender
- Race/ethnicity
Details about the weights and variables are available in the methodological appendix. A written summary of results, with charts, is available here.
Authors
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Acknowledgements and disclosures
The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings is grateful for the support of the Spencer Foundation.
The research reported in this report was made possible by a grant from the Spencer Foundation (#202300189). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.
Brookings is committed to quality, independence, and impact in all of its work. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment, and the analysis and recommendations are solely determined by the scholars.
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Footnotes
- To generalize about board members, we must assume that the size of a school board (number of members) is not correlated with the responses to a particular item.
The Brookings Institution is committed to quality, independence, and impact.
We are supported by a diverse array of funders. In line with our values and policies, each Brookings publication represents the sole views of its author(s).
