By George H. McShan
8/3/04 - I am proud of the fact that NSBA has taken a proactive role in serving state school boards associations by providing an opportunity for school board members to access online learning resources.
Effective school board governance depends on board members who understand their roles and public education issues. One of the most valuable services state associations can offer board members is high-quality training programs, thus empowering them to govern well.
By bringing the strength of the NSBA Federation to each state's training efforts and by using the power of Web-based learning, the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) is providing board members with more training at less cost - and delivering it more conveniently.
The OLC is a wonderful example of collaboration. It is a model of what can be accomplished when state associations work together with one another and NSBA.
Through the consortium, states are sharing their curricula, providing training electronically to board members, and seeing the benefits of working cooperatively and using a new medium to reach their memberships.
The 30 state associations participating in the OLC are taking advantage of the power of critical mass. By sharing costs, expertise, and revenues, each association is able to collaborate with others to deliver valuable online learning activities to a wider audience. Everyone wins, including local board members, who have access to a richer selection of learning opportunities.
The OLC is a "model of collaboration," says James B. Crow, executive director of the Texas Association of School Boards, which has been a part of the consortium since it was created three years ago.
"The consortium represents how NSBA and the state associations can work together to best serve their members, in this case by providing them with comprehensive and high-quality training," Crow says. "Many training courses are easily transferred from one state to another with small modifications, which prevents the duplication of development efforts."
How it works
NSBA creates the infrastructure, and each state association in the OLC hosts and manages an online campus and provides the curriculum and marketing. States can develop their own courses or use courses developed by other states.
During the 2003-04 fiscal year, there have been 339 registrations for courses offered through the OLC.
Through the collaboration with NSBA, state associations can make online learning available to their members without the burden of providing administrative and technical support.
Revenue from course registrations is divided among the state association that developed the course, the state association that adopted the course and brings the learner to the "classroom," and NSBA, which provides the infrastructure.
Give and take
Trainers from participating states share in course development, and through the network of consortium members, each state's curricula can reach a nationwide audience. It can take 50 to 150 hours to develop a new online course, but with a national training base of 95,000 board members, the courses are accessed over and over, and those hours pay off much sooner.
It is also easier for the developing state to recoup its costs when it is able to access board members across the country.
By adopting other states' training courses, each association is able to expand its educational offerings at little additional cost. With minimal time and investment of funds, each association can give better service to its members, delivering high-quality training in a wider range of topics.
States are no longer limited in their training offerings by small staffs or restricted time.
Courses currently available for exchange cover such topics as superintendent evaluation, board member roles, team building, and parliamentary procedure.
A review committee must approve all courses before they become part of the OLC, and some of the courses yield professional development credits in states with school board member certification programs.
"With the OLC, states have found a real way to collaborate across state lines, because they are looking at each other's curriculum," says Rachel Kliewer, manager of the OLC at NSBA. "In reviewing and selecting which courses to offer, states have a chance to consider such questions as: Are we different from other states in how we approach these topics? Are we training our members the same way? What do we think is important for board members to know?"
The future of training
Online learning is the next wave in board member training. A new generation of board members expects the level of convenience afforded by electronic learning. The degree of board member interest in online training will soon catch up to the high degree of interest we already see among students and administrators.
Through online learning, board members can obtain training without travel expense and without disrupting their busy schedules.
School board members have a variety of occupations, and whether they are farmers or physicians, CEOs or office workers, the OLC gives them access to training whenever it's most convenient. As a result, they will have more time to fulfill their quest for public service.
An online "classroom" also enables board members to get training when they need it, instead of waiting for a scheduled conference. For example, a board member can learn about superintendent evaluation in the month in which he or she is performing that task, rather than waiting two months for a workshop, when the information is no longer timely.
Board members will increasingly access Web-based training. The question is whether their membership association will be able to provide it.
Through the OLC, states can provide high-quality training through this new medium as participation in online learning increases. As more online courses are offered, more board members will embrace this learning method.
Overcoming obstacles
The OLC allows each state to overcome the three challenges of offering online training: cost, lack of readiness to use technology, and construction and maintenance of the necessary technical infrastructure.
The more state associations that get involved in the program, the lower the cost for all involved. Participation in the OLC continues to expand. During the annual meeting of Federation Member trainers in Portland, Ore., Kliewer conducted a half-day training session for 28 state association staff members.
Every state in the consortium gets the benefit of delivering a useful service to members without appreciable cost. For example, it takes the Texas association about 10 hours to set up a course developed by the Iowa association, but it would take up to 150 hours to develop the same course from scratch.
Achieving our mission
Bringing more training opportunities to board members - and giving them the chance to learn in the same way as the students and staff in their district's schools - directly achieves NSBA's first goal: "Every school board will lead its community in preparing all students to succeed in a rapidly changing global society."
The power of the Federation is realized when states work together on projects like the OLC. The work of the consortium perfectly illustrates NSBA's role as a broker of coordinated efforts among the state associations.
By leveraging one another's knowledge and resources, we create better-informed school boards, which means more effective local governance of schools, stronger advocacy, and, therefore, improved education for all of our children.