State Board of Education members debate limited yet ‘influential’ role

New members of the Missouri State Board of Education discovered their powers to direct schools are more limited than they expected during a retreat last week.

The board spent Wednesday and Thursday talking about the powers it has -- and those it does not -- to impact a public education system they'd like to tweak.

"People around this table are accountable for change. I don't think people want the status quo for education," Brooks Miller, a board member from Sunshine Beach, said Wednesday. "That is why I get nervous when I think about how little authority we have but how much accountability we are subject to."