Although research on Professionalism in state legislatures has been substantial Professionalism
Research has ignored legislative bodies in local government such as city council and school boards. Using detailed school district-level data and an original survey of school board member in 210 school districts in California, we develop measures to examine which characteristics of school districts are associated with greater professionalization. Consistent with findings in the state politics literature, We find that districts with greater resources and more heterogeneous environments Exhibit highter degrees of professionalism than other districts