Isn't also your experience that the professional superintendent (equivalent to a city or a county manager, I guess, though usually paid better) exercises an inordinate amount of raw power, using a kind of apparently passive control over the chair and the agenda? Team him or her up with a board attorney and the pressure to adhere to "best practices," etc. etc., ad infinitum, and any resemblance to democracy turns out to be less than skin deep.
It's terrifying, sometimes, to realize how institutional bureaucrats hide their tyranny behind a mask of democracy.
I guess we'd have to define "stupid" as deliberate, rather than accidental, ignorance.
delphi technique