School Boards and School Districts

Public education in the United States is primarily a state and local responsibility. Every state constitution provides for public schools, and most states delegate their operation to local school districts. The Census Bureau counted about 12,500 independent school districts in 2022, plus about 1,500 school systems run by cities, counties, or states, down from more than 117,000 districts in 1940 after decades of consolidation. Hawaii operates a single statewide district.

Most school districts are governed by elected boards, usually in nonpartisan elections, that hire and oversee a superintendent, adopt budgets, set policies, approve curricula within state standards, and negotiate with teachers' unions. A few big-city systems have been placed under mayoral control, as in New York, while Chicago began moving from an appointed to an elected board in 2024. Funding comes roughly equally from state aid and local revenue, mainly property taxes, with federal funds providing about a tenth, which has made school finance a long-running source of litigation over unequal resources.

In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in 1973, the Supreme Court held that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee equal school funding, shifting such challenges to state courts, many of which have ordered reforms under state education clauses. School boards became political flashpoints after 2020 over pandemic closures and masks, curriculum, library books, and policies on gender identity, with contested races and recall efforts across the country. Supporters of local control say it lets communities shape their schools, while critics say it entrenches inequality between rich and poor districts.