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Race to the Top, NCLB and, Why My Mom Doesn’t Care

I live in a bubble and, if you are anything like me, you do too.

As education professionals, our world is filled with the challenges of complex policyissues, new best practices in curriculum and instruction, and the many acronyms thatcolor our conversations.

We have advanced degrees and years of experience working with these issues, and wehave a commensurate level of familiarity with them. And so do other people – ourcolleagues mainly – who are also in our bubbles. Inside the bubble, we toss aroundideas, acronyms, and educational concepts. Inside the bubble, we wax eloquently aboutsuch nuanced policy issues as the supplemental services provision of the No Child LeftBehind Act or what Race to the Top will mean for our longitudinal data systems.

The problem is that my mom doesn’t care.

My 74-year-old mother, like most other members of the public, is interested in education.She sees it as the critical determinant of her children’s and grandchildren’s happiness inlife and success in the work place. She reads two newspapers a day, watches thenightly news, and is on top of current events. She is interested in education, but she iscertainly not in the bubble.

And therein lies a problem.

As educational professionals, we too often do an inadequate job communicating with mymom. And if community engagement is on the positive side of the communicationscontinuum, we do a very poor job of engaging my mom in the challenges andopportunities of our schools.

My mom and others like her are important stakeholders for our schools. But many of thedistricts that I work with have upwards of 80% of their community members with little orno connection to the schools. A large part of that group is seniors.

Perhaps this lack of involvement is because when it comes to communicating to anyoneoutside our bubble, we tend to make one of two critical mistakes. First, we tend to usethe same language and methods of communication that we would use inside the bubble.

My mother is bright and patient, but she is not going to read a white paper or journalarticle: no way, no how. And like most others, my mother knows the No Child LeftBehind Act by name, but does not know what it means for our schools. Similarly, IDEAand Race to the Top are just more noise in the already-noisy education echo chamber.

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The second mistake that is too often made by education professionals is to assume thatcommunity members know nothing about education. This is worse because it seems tocommunity members that either you are hiding something from them or, just as bad,suggesting that they are not smart enough to understand.

After leading focus groups and conducting surveys over the years, I can tell you thatwhile community members often do not understand specific pieces of educational policy,they do understand educational concepts. For example, my research consistentlysuggests that community members want to make sure students have the knowledge andskills necessary for success in an increasingly competitive work life. You and I call that“21st Century Skills”. They call that a good education.

The key, then, is to find a common ground where you can communicate with communitymembers about education in a way that allows them to engage more deeply in theconversation.

Here are four criteria for communicating outside the bubble:

1. Don’t use acronyms outside the bubble. Ever. Instead, provide an explanation inthe simplest possible terms. Just like a good doctor, take the time to explain the issue ina way that everyone can understand. 2. Treat community members as bright and thoughtful people. I don’t understand mycar’s fuel injection system, not because I’m not smart enough to understand, butbecause I simply don’t care to learn. My mechanic understands this. 3. Don’t overwhelm community members with too much information, but allow themthe opportunity to ask questions or get more information if they want it. 4. Make your point and move on. Don’t make the mistake of debating the obvious.Communicating with the public is not a grad school seminar.

When you do find yourself outside the bubble and using acronyms like LEA, IDEA, AYPor SIP, remember these three letters: MOM.

--Joe Donovan is president of the Donovan Group LLC.