School boards are fighting for their survival. Almost everything that they do is subject to regulations handed down from city councils state boards of education legislatures and courts. As recent mayoral and state takeovers in such cities as Baltimore Chicago and New York make abundantly clear school boards that do not fulfill the expectations of other political players may be stripped of what few independent powers they still retain. Teachers unions exert growing influence over board decisionmaking processes. And with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act the federal government has aggressively inserted itself into matters of local education governance. Besieged is the first fulllength volume in many years to systematically examine the politics that surround school boards. A group of highly renowned scholars relying on both careful case studies and quantitative analyses examine how school boards fare when they interact with their political superiors teachers unions and the public. For the most part the picture that emerges is sobering while school boards perform certain administrative functions quite well the political pressures they face undermine their capacity to institute the wideranging school reforms that many voters and local leaders are currently demanding.