That wasn&#x27;t my experience at all.  Where I grew up the teachers union controlled the school board.  There really wasn&#x27;t any counterbalance - the union was willing to finance candidates and nobody else was, so at most you would have one or two outsiders on a board comprised of people who put the bureaucracy before the parents.  If your child was being treated badly you basically had no recourse unless enough other children were receiving the same treatment that it became a political issue.  I can&#x27;t remember a political issue that ever resulted in someone losing his job.  Most people just don&#x27;t care who&#x27;s on the school board because they don&#x27;t have kids in school.<p>The private schools were different because the parents knew each other.  If something bad was happening word spread quickly, and parents who were paying thousands of dollars to provide their kids a better experience than public schools would yank them in a heartbeat if it looked like their money was wasted.