Abstract
Two models have dominated the study of school boards: a professional model which views educational governance as a primarily technical process, and a political model, which sees governance as a process of bargaining among the superintendent, board, and community. This study examines New Jersey school boards and investigates what factors affect whether boards operate according to the professional or political model and whether or not professional and political boards differ in their role in school district governance. It was found that a majority of boards adopt the professional orientation and that both contextual and political variables are related to board orientations. However, board orientations are only weakly related to district governance. The article concludes that the influence of school boards depends primarily on board acceptance of superintendents' claims of expertise in specific issue areas and secondarily on whether board behavior follows the professional or political model.
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