Even though public school districts are structured with the expectation of responsive governance, most school boards are not particularly responsive to their constituents. School boards from politically contentious districts tend to be more responsive, but they have even less success challenging the dominance of the superintendent than do less responsive school boards. To make schools truly responsive, some means will have to be found to offset the dominance that results from the specialized knowledge and expertise of the superintendent. There is some evidence that schools are gradually becoming more politicized and less isolated from their constituents, but it is doubtful that the educational content or achievements of "responsive" schools would differ markedly from unresponsive schools. Even so, as long as people are committed to maintaining the trappings of democracy in education, the realities of democracy should be achieved; school boards should either govern or be abolished. (Author/JG)