Due to the changes in elections to November, the 2012 Candidates Guide will not be available (or necessary) until most likely late Spring.

NEW!! The Bee Eater chronicles the extraordinary life and work of the dynamic and controversial school reformer Michelle Rhee. While the book reveals Rhee's remarkable accomplishments, it also explores many of the fundamental problems in our current education system, the unpredictable politics of leadership — and her shortcomings. When Michelle Rhee first arrived in Washington, she found a school district that had been so dysfunctional for so long that many had given up. Guided by the principles of outstanding leadership, strict accountability, and the power of effective teaching, Rhee was determined to turn around the Washington, D.C. schools. Her encounters with community politics and her battles with central office bureaucrats and teachers' unions were so extraordinary that her efforts were featured in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and a lengthy PBS series. The Bee Eater holds the promise of educational excellence for today's students and for tomorrow's school reformers.

NEW!! Writer Steven Brill’s 2008 New Yorker article on New York City’s so-called “rubber rooms,” where incompetent teachers spent their time, earning a salary while waiting for their cases to be decided, sparked a firestorm of debate over the role of teachers unions in education. The book that grew from that article, Class Warfare, has set off yet another round in the education reform rhetoric battle, with unions again being portrayed as barriers to change. You will be all too familiar with the book’s main story of the push for charter schools from the Obama administration on down and disappointed that the school board role is all but ignored.

Provides guidelines for ethical relationships, essential to the successful operation of an educational system. This document presumes a relationship between boards of education, administrators, and community which promotes trust, open and honest communication, credibility and educational purpose.

Veteran school board member, Richard E. Mayer, takes a humorous but substantive approach to the serious relationship between school administrators and board members. While the overwhelming majority of school board members have good motives, even people who mean well can make bad moves. This book shows how to prevent good intentions from creating bad outcomes. Each chapter presents a negative school board scenario, offers alternatives, and provides win-win solutions. Key features include 28 brief case studies, lessons learned for board members and lessons learned for administrators

SALE!!! This easy-to-read book offers research based suggestions for improving high schools. A must read for anyone embarking on the journey of improving our schools!

NEW!! Educators and policymakers talk about leveling the playing field -- closing the gap among children who have so many advantages and those who have so few. Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California, proposes a radical notion that all children deserve what is good enough for your own child. Further, he advocates for what he calls “smart politics of the heart” -- five policy changes that would transform the lives of children in the U.S. Those changes are: strong support for parents; high-quality early education; linking schools and communities to improve what both offer children; giving all youngsters access to a caring and stable adult mentor; and providing kids a nest egg to help pay for college or kick-start a career. And for those of you wincing at the money this would cost, Kirp provides a cost-analysis that shows it’s not that expensive.

Welcome to the MASB E-Store! This is the place to shop for all your MASB-approved apparel and gear. Even if you've never shopped on the Web before, you'll find this site easy to use and convenient. Click on "More Info" to be redirected to the site.

The tenth edition of the Open Meetings Guide has been updated to inform school officials of the latest legal developments involving the OMA. Since 2004 (the year when the Open Meetings Guide was last updated), there have been a number of court cases that have provided new interpretations of the OMA's requirements. These cases address issues relating to committee meetings, illegal meetings, and recovering attorney fees for OMA violations. Additionally, this new edition includes a more in-depth review of the legal parameters of administering public comment at board meetings.

You spoke, we listened. When we asked secretaries what their preferred gift was, the majority voted for the coffee tumbler. The coffee tumbler is imprinted with a 2012 calendar, making it easy to reference important upcoming dates at your fingertips. The double-walled plastic mug ensures your beverage won’t “sweat,” and the lightweight mug is easy to toss in a bag or purse for portability between home and meetings—perfect for on-the-go board members. In addition to the practical calendar, the mug is imprinted with the School Boards LeadStrong logo.

2011 Annual Fall Conference Speaker Book! Schools Cannot Do It Alone tells of Jamie Vollmer’s extraordinary journey through the land of public education. Once a harsh critic, he has become an award-winning advocate and trusted partner of America's public schools. His encounters with blueberries, bell curves, and smelly eighth graders lead him to two critical discoveries. First, we have a systems problem, not a people problem. We must change the system to get the graduates we need. Second, we cannot touch the system without touching the culture of the surrounding town; everything that goes on inside a school is tied to local attitudes, values, traditions, and beliefs. Drawing on his work in hundreds of districts, Jamie offers teachers, administrators, board members, and their allies a practical program to secure the understanding, trust, permission, and support they need to change the system and increase student success.

NEW!! A handbook for Michigan's newly elected school trustees. It answers the most frequently asked questions novices to the board table have about policy, communications, meeting agendas and much more.