Back in the 1970s, I went one evening to Hartley Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska. As associate superintendent, I was there to promote Individually Guided Education (IGE), an innovative organization plan the school was about to adopt. I told the parents at the meeting that IGE, which had been developed at the University of Wisconsin, was the ideal way to organize schools for individualized instruction. I explained the many advantages of the arrangement and assured them that this was not just another fad. IGE was here to stay.
I am still a fan of Individually Guided Education, a tested model of school organization. But I know that many of today's educators have never heard of it, and few of the schools that once proudly identified themselves as IGE still use the model. When I checked recently to find out what had happened at Hartley, principal Aletia Nissen told me the school has learning communities, but not the formal structure or the label of Individually Guided Education.
My focus is not IGE, but the way we educators relate to parents. For that, I offer myself as a bad example. Perhaps the Hartley staff had many other contacts with parents as they considered use of IGE. If so, I hope their communications were less one-sided than mine, because that might have made my self-assured presentation a bit more forgivable. Looking back, I suspect that many of the parents were mainly concerned about how the new arrangement would affect their own children.
A Different Style
Recently, I talked with a school principal who uses a different approach. Kaye Aucutt, principal of Windsor School in Cheney, Washington, says offhandedly that no matter how good something sounds, you cannot just do it. "You have to move slowly," she observes. "Plant the seed." Although she is troubled by the tendency of parents to see themselves as "customers who demand more and more," she tries to make her school inviting. For example, because she recognizes that a principal's office can be intimidating, she often goes out of her way to meet with parents someplace else. With a relaxed manner and a ready smile, she notes that her 24 years as a special education teacher were good preparation for working with anxious parents.
Like most communities, Cheney now has a few families who have opted to educate their children at home. The district responds by offering them access to school libraries and other services. When parents tell Kaye Aucutt (perhaps as a threat) that they are thinking about home schooling, she replies, "You certainly have that right. How can I help you?" Aucutt means it, and shows that she does.
Today's Challenge
I believe educators must reach out to parents and members of the public because, with the outcome-based education debacles and their aftermath, our most pressing need is to reestablish public support for the public schools. Yes, of course, the real challenge is to educate a new generation to shoulder the awesome responsibilities of running the world. And the interim challenge is to "restructure" the schools to offer such an education. But schools cannot meet either of those challenges without first doing a better job of connecting with parents and the public.
I came to that conclusion when I read the series of reports from Public Agenda, beginning with First Things First four years ago and concluding—for the time being, at least—with Reality Check, distributed on the Web in February. The Public Agenda reports, issued by a reputable organization, seem to show how out of touch educators are with typical views of parents and the public. It doesn't necessarily mean we are wrong and they are right; just that the two groups are shockingly far apart. (Just who "we" and "they" are is part of the puzzle; more on that later.)
Among other things, the reports show that Americans are "obsessed with the basics"; they can't understand why schools seemingly refuse to put "first things first" when everybody agrees basic skills are "absolutely essential." The reports provide evidence that most people are doubtful about practices—such as detracking, holistic reading and writing, and early use of calculators—that "experts" advocate. And they reveal a striking difference in what people mean by standards: While educator groups have been developing long lists of delicately-worded aspirations, ordinary people just think kids should not be promoted if they can't do the work at their current grade level.
People Are Confused
Troubled by the apparent public opposition to some of the reforms they had been promoting, officials at the Education Commission of the States (1996a), in collaboration with New American Schools, commissioned a telephone survey of their own. The results seem to show that "People want change, but disagree sharply over how much and what kind" (pp. 3-4). Parents and teachers professed support for basic reforms, including creating projects that connect studies to real-life situations, teaching students to work in groups, and using portfolios for assessment. Unfortunately, they were "hesitant to believe these excellent ideas for reform can become a reality."
A fascinating clue to parent skepticism is the finding that parents rely more on teachers than any other source for information about education—not necessarily their children's teachers but probably also teachers in their churches and clubs. The credibility gap, in other words, is not just between progressive educators and traditionalist parents, but between advocates of old ways and new, outside and inside the profession.
In response to these findings, the Education Commission of the States made seven plain-spoken recommendations (p. 26) which, while perhaps not surprising, deserve attention (see box on p. 28). In several recent meetings, I have asked educators to review these suggestions and indicate which one or two are most important to them. Although they accept the whole list, most think the items are already ordered roughly from most to least important. Apparently, I am not the only educator who sometimes forgets to "Listen to people first, talk later." And the second recommendation, "Expect to fail if you do not communicate well with teachers," is equally sound. Think of an innovative program that came and went (as many have done), and ask yourself whether the teachers who were supposed to implement the program were fully committed to it and received the necessary training and support. Probably not.
Yes, but...
I must acknowledge several limitations to the picture I have painted so far. First, one simply cannot generalize about American education as a whole, because schools vary so much. Some are superb, with strong parent and community support, while others have major problems. Big city schools tend to have bigger problems than others, including problems with community relationships.
Second, it would be grossly unfair to imply that all communication problems between parents and schools are educators' fault. For many reasons, people have become less trusting of nearly all institutions, but especially of governments at all levels. The estrangement of the public from public institutions is aggravated by the demands of life in a high-pressure society and by massive demographic changes (including a big drop in the proportion of people with children in school). Public schools are frequently the target of negative reports in the mainstream media, and some conservative groups gleefully exploit every instance they find of questionable actions by educators, regardless of how atypical they may be. And yes, some parents are ignorant, selfish, or unreasonable.
Also, educators have little control over many of the factors contributing to public unrest, especially the tendency for politicians to intervene in ways that often make matters worse. Tom Sergiovanni (1996), once an apostle of organization theory, now contends that organizations differ in their purposes and basic values. He thinks schools are not like businesses, but should be viewed as small communities more like families and churches, which are concerned as much with the quality of life of their members as with what they produce. He even condemns the current axiom that states should set standards while schools decide how to accomplish them. Instead, Sergiovanni argues that both the what and the how of student learning should be decided by teachers and parents at each school, because that is the essence of democratic community and because the give-and-take of such discussions is what produces understanding and trust.
Sergiovanni's plea for old-fashioned democracy leads him to reject a market approach to education, which, like standards, is popular with most governors (Education Commission of the States 1996b). While I am attracted to the argument that schools need to build community to counter the contemporary overemphasis on individuality, I think more choice is inevitable, even desirable. What sorts of choices parents should have, and under what circumstances, will have to be hammered out in each locality.
Political Impediments
Ignoring such concerns, governors and other state officials are busy making decisions that clearly should be made locally. California's flip-flop from one official way of teaching reading to another is a fascinating example of being wrong both ways. Texas Governor George Bush's current campaign to end "social promotion" is another example—but examples abound in almost every state. In fact, the standards movement has become a way for people to impose their educational preferences, liberal or conservative, on others (Lawton 1997, Lindsay 1997).
Unlike the self-assured politicians, educators know there are no easy answers to such long-standing issues as how to teach reading and what to do about students who don't learn well. Each politically inspired pre-emptive act makes it more difficult to engage people in constructive face-to-face discussion in their own communities. Unfortunately, whether we agree with Sergiovanni is not the issue; others will make the big policy decisions, and educators—though as a group we may help shape state policy—must play by the rules we are handed.
What Educators Can Do
Despite all this—or because of it—educators had better heed the Education Commission of the State's third recommendation, "Make involving parents and community a top priority." The Birmingham, Michigan, Public Schools, with a district community education office and a community organizer at every school, is an impressive example. Birmingham has stronger financial support than some school systems; districts strapped for cash would find it difficult to duplicate their extensive program—although officials say that after two decades, the program is now close to self-supporting. But another indication of their community awareness is the district's mission statement, which begins, "The mission of the Birmingham Public Schools is to create, in partnership with the community...." Yes.
Listen, Discuss, and Act: Recommendations from the Education Commission of the States
Listen to people first, talk later.
Expect to fail if you do not communicate well with teachers.
Make involving parents and the community a top priority.
Be clear about what it means to set high standards for all students, and what it will take to meet them.
Show how new ideas enhance, rather than replace, the old ones.
Educate parents about the choices available to them.
Help parents and other community members understand how students are assessed and what the results mean.
Source: Education Commission of the States (1996a), Listen, Discuss, and Act, pp. 15-17.
How to Listen
In many places public educators are already listening, using resources from four agencies. In 1996, Public Agenda and the Institute for Educational Leadership sponsored a series of town meetings in 10 communities. Following the town meeting in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, a representative group worked with Superintendent Robert Monson to develop a statement about the relationships between families, communities, and schools. The Board of Education held a second meeting to ask "Is this what you said?" and later adopted the statement as Board policy.
Both the Institute for Educational Leadership and Public Agenda are now offering assistance to school boards and community groups who want to hold "Public Conversations About the Public's Schools" locally (Danzberger and Friedman 1997). Their recommended process builds on the "choices" approach used by the Kettering Foundation in its National Issues Forums.
An opportune time for listening comes with a change in leadership. When Judy Margrath-Huge was named superintendent of Adams 12 in Colorado in 1994, she met with as many groups and individuals as possible in her first year on the job. Many new superintendents have a similar "entry plan," but Margrath-Huge knew it was especially important for her because she had been associate superintendent in Littleton, Colorado, where a newly-elected board had just canceled an ambitious reform program and asked the superintendent to resign.
Margrath-Huge spent her first year seeking out groups of all sorts, asking what they thought of the schools and what they wanted for their children. She reached out to a traditionalist parent considered a critic of past administrations, who invited her back to talk with other conservative parents, and who continues to offer constructive advice.
After four years, Margrath-Huge continues to schedule meetings with local businesspeople in their offices. "They're shocked," she told me, "when they find out I'm there not to ask them for money or supplies but just to get acquainted and hear what they have to say." Her purpose is simple but powerful: Make direct personal contact with as many people as possible—and assure them that the district is not "doing the latest thing" but is committed to teaching academic skills.
Educators in urban centers face challenges that can be overwhelming, but Larry Leverett, superintendent of the Plainfield, New Jersey, Public Schools, is convinced that improvement can come only with the support of parents and citizens. Because some residents have not developed the necessary skills to make public presentations, Leverett encourages them to take courses offered by a community advocacy group, where they learn to articulate their positions, write letters, and use a microphone. "I'm teaching them to fight me," he told me proudly. Asked why he would do that, he replied without missing a beat, "Because this is a mission, not a job."
Stories of what others have done, along with findings from a national research project, are in a recent report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (1998), which is making public engagement a major emphasis (see box, p. 30). Examples are valuable because they suggest possibilities to other interested educators. But the key to positive parent and community relations is not particular practices or organizational structures—it's the point of view they represent. Gerald Freitag, superintendent of Franklin, Wisconsin, says it succinctly: "They're their schools, not ours."
The subtle difference between what people do and why reminds me of the findings of the National Center on School Restructuring at the University of Wisconsin (Brandt 1995). After several years of intensive study of schools described as restructuring because they were using team teaching, cooperative learning, interdisciplinary curriculum, and so on, researchers found that students were learning more in some restructuring schools than in others. The apparent explanation: Some educators seemed to be using innovative practices for their own sake, while others began with a commitment to intellectual quality and chose those practices as tools to accomplish their purpose. Fred Newmann (1996) and his fellow researchers referred to what they were looking for as "authentic learning."
First Step: Get Real
Authenticity is what parents and community want, too. In a revealing series of research studies conducted a decade ago, Jane Lindle (1989) found that while educators thought parents expected them to be "professional and businesslike," parents and guardians actually wanted the opposite. Parents at all socioeconomic levels complained about teachers and principals being "patronizing" and "talking down to us." They liked those with a "personal touch." They wanted educators just to be real.
So, although public engagement requires planning and energy, it depends not so much on organizational design as on attitude and personal characteristics. It depends on the qualities I believe I saw in each of the educators I have mentioned, and numerous others I don't have space to write about. It takes honesty and humility, patience and kindness, openness and empathy. It takes authenticity.
