Associations Try To Be 'All Things to All People'

The National School Boards Association and its state affiliates have not exactly made names for themselves as reformers.

The associations view their jobs, first and foremost, as serving the interests of school boards. And if those interests do not always coincide with the interests of others in the education community, so be it.

"We are to school-board members what the bar association is to lawyers, what the medical association is to doctors, what the bankers' association is to bankers,'' says T.E. (Ted) Davidson, the executive director of the Iowa Association of School Boards. "We function as a trade...