Partisan Versus Nonpartisan School Board Elections

School boards are central to local education policy and governance in the United States. Given their localized nature, the methods of electing school boards vary widely. Most boards are elected on a nonpartisan basis—where candidate partisan affiliation does not appear on the ballot—but in some states, there has been a shift toward partisan elections. Our paper focuses on North Carolina, where a sizable fraction of districts has recently shifted to partisan elections. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that partisan elections affect the partisan, racial, and gender composition of boards. We then explore impacts beyond politics, testing for changes in school and student outcomes.