Elected urban school board members are not accountable to the public, possess modest skills, are conflict-prone and politicized, and cannot work successfully with superintendents, concludes University of Memphis professor Tom Glass in a yet to be published report described by Jay Mathews at WashingtonPost.com. Glass, who has spent a career studying school district leadership, thinks mayors or governors ought to select school board members and thinks school boards ought to be independently evaluated, with ineffective board members removed. See "Playing Politics in Urban City Schools," by Jay Mathews, Washingtonpost.com, September 10, 2002
