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A Cradle of Democracy

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Abstract

The nation’s public schools represent the ultimate expression of American democracy. They are operated by the people, for the people. They instill the knowledge and cultivate the attitudes of the next generation of Americans, serving 90 percent of the country’s school-age population. A local board of education is—in its ideal form—a group of citizen-volunteers who give unselfishly of themselves, usually without remuneration, to look after the affairs of the school system and, by extension, the community. Of all the institutions in the country with jurisdiction over large chunks of money and the ability to influence the nation’s future, boards of education are surely the most obscure and least understood.

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Notes

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© 2010 Gene I. Maeroff

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Maeroff, G.I. (2010). A Cradle of Democracy. In: School Boards in America. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117495_1

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