Guest Post: 5 Reasons To Pay Attention to Local School Board Elections
September 17, 2024
This blog post contains information shared by the Center for American Progress.
A new set of resources from CAP outlines the importance of local school board elections, including highlighting five reasons why voters should pay attention:
- Every vote is incredibly powerful in local elections such as school board elections.
- School boards make important decisions about public schools.
- Representation matters, but school boards do not look like the communities they serve.
- School board elections are testing grounds for major social issues.
- High-quality inclusive schools strengthen communities.
In the new report titled 5 Reasons Why You Should Pay Attention to Your Local School Board Election, (and a related fact sheet), the authors analyze results for 2023 local school board elections in Virginia and found that over one-third were decided by fewer than 500 votes and over 80 percent were decided by fewer than 2,000 votes. To increase voter turnout in these elections, the authors recommend syncing local elections with presidential elections, the passage of federal and state-level voting rights legislation, and the use of more representative election systems.
You can read the full report here.
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