Democratic Dilemmas: Joint Work, Education Politics, and Community

Introduction

This book addresses a critical challenge facing America’s public schools: how to engage citizens in the process of educational improvement. In the current high-stakes accountability environment, schools and school districts are under enormous pressure to improve teaching and learning. Given limited fiscal, human, political, and organizational capacity, many administrators have come to realize that they cannot do the work of reform alone and have increasingly called for greater community “collaboration”—often launching parent involvement initiatives, public dialogues, and business-school partnerships . Moreover, there is widespread agreement among practitioners and researchers that community support and involvement matters to school and student improvement. Many studies have demonstrated that marshaling community resources and developing local civic capacity are necessary conditions for bringing about and sustaining systemic education reform and improved student achievement.1 What the field is lacking, however, is a detailed understanding of how to engage the community in systemwide improvement efforts and how to do it well. OVERVIEW OF TWO DISTRICT CASES: UNLOCKING A PUZZLE In this book, I hope to shed light on these issues by examining collaboration between educators and citizens in two K–8 school districts in Northern California . In the first district, Mid Valley,2 the superintendent and board president appointed a group of community leaders to participate in the Community Accountability Project (CAP), an initiative to improve systemwide education through enhanced community involvement. The design of this endeavor was a bifurcated process in which community leaders (the “Advisory ”) first met as a group over the course of a year to generate their own ideas; shared and discussed these ideas with the school board and central office; and 1 Introduction ultimately coconstructed action items. In the first year, community advisors met monthly with district staff to develop the goals and activities of CAP and decided upon four strategies to pursue jointly with the district, such as inventing new district and communitywide systems to support teachers. After three tense “study sessions” involving community members, the school board, and district leadership, no actions were taken on the proposed ideas. The investment of two years and more than $400,000 left participants and observers embittered by the experience. In the second district, Highland, one teacher, parent, principal, and student from each school met with local citizens, district administrators, and board members to develop long-range strategies to improve districtwide student achievement. Building on a ten-year history of strategic planning, the district convened a three-day, facilitated meeting of brainstorming, discussion , and priority setting that occurred in rotating small and large groups. Guided by professional facilitators and explicit norms of participation, the group ultimately agreed upon four key strategies: expanding time for teaching , learning, and planning; developing interventions for students; getting students ready for kindergarten; and K–12 articulation. Following the dissemination of this plan, the district organized “action teams” to assist in planning for implementation. Over time, the district implemented many of these jointly constructed ideas, and most participants left the experience feeling empowered and willing to participate again. In the end, these cases present an intriguing puzzle: Why did two districts with seemingly similar intentions and contexts—regional location, size, grade configurations, financial resources, long-tenured superintendents— achieve widely disparate results? The cases also raise fundamental questions about what constitutes and contributes to democratic success and failure. Although the second district was seemingly more successful in achieving an egalitarian and deliberative process, and realizing its goals, it nonetheless showed signs of democratic imperfection. By constraining conversations and precluding any talk related to particular interests, this district may have inadvertently silenced traditionally disenfranchised individuals. Conflicting cultural norms and language barriers may have further inhibited participation of these individuals. As such, the book also engages the following questions: Why is it that in the first district, smart people with good will and plenty of resources could not achieve results? What enabled leaders in the second district to mobilize the community and accomplish its goals? And was it really a success if certain stakeholders were denied a genuine voice? A large body of historical, theoretical, and empirical research helps illuminate and obscure these questions and issues. In this chapter, I briefly examine this broader context and then present a useful framework for understanding collaboration. I conclude with a brief background on the study itself and an overview of the remaining chapters in the book. DEMOCRATIC DILEMMAS 2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF SCHOOL-COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS Efforts to strengthen ties...