0.9 Moody, m. (september 2011). superintendent–board relations:  (Page 4/9)

[t]he state here, acting again as the servant of the Church, enacted a law and fixed a tradition which prevailed and grew in strength and effectiveness after State and Church had parted company. [F]or the first time among English-speaking people, there was an assertion of the right of the State to require communities to establish and maintain schools, under penalty if they refused to do so. It can be safely asserted, in light of later developments, that the two laws of 1642 and 1647 represent the foundations upon which our American state public-school systems have been built. (Cubberley, pp. 365-366)

In addition to Massachusetts, several of the original colonies were also very instrumental in shaping what was eventually to become a public system of common schools in America. Obviously, Massachusetts played a leading role in the establishment of the system of formal education during the formative years of the country; however, in the very year that the United States Constitution was ratified (1789), both New Hampshire and Massachusetts enacted a set of general school laws “which restated and legalized the school development of the preceding hundred and fifty years” (Cubberley, 1948, p. 524). The Massachusetts Law of 1789 became the first formal legislation in America to recognize the school district, and it also became the first law to give legal recognition to the school committee as an organization for the administration and supervision of the schools. Following the passage of the Massachusetts Law of 1789, school committees were appointed in most towns, and the authority of selectmen and ministers gradually declined (Cubberley; Norton, et al., 1996). The cumulative effect of the Massachusetts Law of 1789 was of immense proportion. It ultimately led to the conceptualization “of education as a function of the state [and it] also created a pattern of local education units [designed]to keep schools close to the people” (Knezevich, 1984, p. 165).

While education governance had evolved to become a fundamental function and responsibility of the state, it had as its very foundation a distinct pattern of local educational units which have indeed served to keep schools close to the people. Ironically, the very core elements of school governance originated due to local initiative in response to specific needs, rather than a well-developed master plan of governmental intervention. In fact, as was detailed above, legislative recognition of school committees [school boards]did not take place until the enactment of the Massachusetts Law of 1789, an incredible 150 years after the appearance of the first school committees (Cubberley, 1948; Konnert&Augenstein, 1990).

Within this historical perspective, it is important to note that the current configuration of school governance in America--incorporating a locally elected school board with a hired superintendent of schools, is a phenomenon unique to the United States. Additionally, according to Knezevich (1984) throughout most of our history, “[t]he basic organizational unit for the administration and operation of public education [has been]the local school district” and “[t]he design and development of a comprehensive system of public education is one of the major cultural achievements of the United States” (p. 165). It is noteworthy that the structure of public school governance described above has clearly endured the test of time. In fact, according to Goodman and Zimmerman (2000), “[f]or more than two centuries, the American public education system has thrived on local experimentation and avoided excessive centralization of power” (p. 2) to become as Hoyle et al., (1998) noted, “the dominant form of education operations” (p. 25).