With the completion of a four-year process of review and development, ASCD has moved to increase opportunities for member participation in the organization.
Developments include a larger and more active Board of Directors, a more participatory process for developing and pursuing Association positions on important education questions, and more support for affiliate involvement in local issues.
Diane Berreth, ASCD's deputy executive director, who worked with the Panel on Governance and Member Participation and the implementation team that succeeded it, says the organization is challenged by the need to become "increasingly flexible" even as it grows rapidly.
The changes, which will be reported to the Board of Directors at the 1995 Annual Conference, come at a time when ASCD members are showing markedly increased concern over the central issues faced by educators today. A survey of member opinions, distributed in September, brought in more than 15,000 responses even before the deadline, more than twice the level from the previous year.
Berreth said the survey returned "the highest number and percentage of responses to any document that has been made available to the entire membership in recent years." The results will help shape Association priorities for the coming year.
- Members now respond to the issues survey to help develop Association priorities.
- Members participate in Town Meetings at the Annual Conference to help form responses to these issues.
- The newly enlarged Board of Directors—with some 275 members—adopts positions on the issues. These are few in number, so that ASCD can follow up, ensuring a significant multiyear impact.
For the first time last year, ASCD affiliates had an opportunity to respond to the issues survey as affiliates, besides submitting individual responses. That change accompanies an increase in ASCD training for affiliates in how to influence education policy in their regions. The Association has also launched a pilot program to award grants to affiliates for projects that involve nonaffiliate members.
In addition, the Association and its affiliates will now be required to develop diversity plans, to "support achieving desired levels of diversity," Berreth says. Guidelines for these plans recognize that "diversity" will mean different things to different affiliates, depending on local circumstances, but will include such areas as age, role, race and ethnicity, language, and so on.
Overall, the changes will help meet the goal of "maintaining the values that were always our strength but developing new structures for carrying them out," Berreth says.
