LEARNING PRODUCTIVITY
Wingspread Journal, Summer 1997

REFORMERS UNITE FOR CHILDREN

by Jeanne Allen, Leslye A. Arsht, and Howard Fuller

Jeanne Allen is president of The Center for Education Reform in Washington, DC, Leslye Arsht is president of The Coalition for Goals 2000 in Washington, DC, and Howard Fuller is director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisc.

Focusing on enhancing learning productivity at all educational levels has led The Johnson Foundation away from discussions about schooling toward discussions about learning.

Nevertheless, we know that there are many brave souls throughout North America who are tackling the public school system head-on and trying to create something new. Unfortunately many of these efforts are met with strong opposition, all too often from the very teachers, students, and parents they are trying to assist.

In June 1997 a small band of revolutionaries gathered at Wingspread to try to sort out their need for creating community among themselves, their need to better understand the public that is so vocally opposing their efforts, and their need to press on in the face of that opposition.

The mix was a rather unlikely one. It included a charitable foundation, the 4-H, researchers and community-based reformers, a for-profit educator, and, of course, some current and former school superintendents. The conversation was about learning and understanding and communicating as much as it was about schooling.

The participants came together around the question "What is it that we can do to develop strategies to enlarge the publics awareness and engage more people in support of innovative practices that are transforming teaching and learning in Americas schools?" Here, in part, is their answer.

We call ourselves education reformers, a small but mighty group. We don't agree on a lot of things, but we all agree on one core belief: if America's children are to be well-served and provided with strong, equitable educational opportunities, the focus must be on pursuing every conceivable strategy available, and being willing to try bold, innovative, and sometimes even radical solutions to reform.

What ties us together as reformers is a fundamental commitment to children, not to one particular reform or system. What unites us is the need to provide immediate, substantive change to a system that for too long has been shielded from consequences that would put any other organization out of business. What ties us is the agreement that parents do know best: they can make decisions in the interest of their children, if they are given useful information, if they are given the opportunity.

It is clear that whether we as individuals focus on standards, charter schools, school choice, or finance reforms, we are each battling the status quo. The key aspect that separates reformers from traditional education groups is that the latter are organized, and the former, like the issues they represent, are as diverse, localized, and sporadic as the issues they embrace. Many of us think this is more a strength than a weakness.

So, we asked, What would be helpful to superintendents, parents, teachers, and communities who encounter opposition and challenges in the face of needed, radical change? How can we -- the combined reform community -- help one another?

The response from the superintendents at the Wingspread conference was swift. No one wants a new organization. Instead, they told us, "We need access to successes, to the growing list of reform-minded individuals, networks, and researchers, and we need to know who to call on for help and when to call on them."

How to create such a responsive non-organization? We discussed a chaordic effort, a term defined by Dee Hock, the founder of VISA. A chaord is the combination of two seemingly contradictory ideas: chaos and order. In his words, a chaord is "any self-organizing, adaptive, nonlinear, complex system, whether physical, biological, or social, the behavior of which exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos."

VISA is such an organization. The 23,000 financial institutions that create its products are, at one and the same time, its owners, members, customers, subjects, and superiors. It could be described as an "inside-out holding company" that has no centralized power and a dedication to unleashing human ingenuity in all its members.

The world in which our school system was created -- that of a century ago -- was hierarchical, linear, and mechanistic. Our challenge is to create new chaordic systems and organizations that are not based on command-and-control models, but on understanding and the coordination of variability, complexity, and effectiveness.

This idea calls for the ordering of chaos in the face of challenges faced by so many movements that have fewer ground troops than needed, but have exciting ideas. There is a need to create a communications force, in the words of one participant: it will be the key to unleashing and informing reform efforts and people nationwide.

We want to focus on several segments of the public, engaging them in real ways that go beyond simply starting a dialog. How to reach people where they are?

• People of color are far too often left out of the reform mix; they are patronized, talked about as if they have no understanding of what their children need, and they are disenfranchised by some of the very groups that claim to represent them.
• Middle-class people of all colors have been lulled into a sense of complacency by poor reporting that makes them believe there is no problem.
• Too many civic groups and business leaders too often buy the conventional wisdom that we just need a little more of this or that to get the ball rolling.
• We then turned our attention to our message. How can the public recognize reformers? How can our language distinguish us?

We Offer These Words:

"We support policies and practices that provide new systems of learning opportunities within and outside traditional educational settings, that guarantee student success by accountability through standards, assessment, and consequences, flexibility for school boards, and choice for parents and children."

To accomplish this vision, poor children need avenues to schools that succeed, and all citizens must have the ability to pursue the creation of truly autonomous public schools. States will need to adopt standards that are rigorous and hold all concerned accountable. And, local school districts need to be freed to solve their challenges in ways they see fit, whether it be through new forms of evaluation, contracting with other organizations to assist them, or creating their own new learning opportunities for children.

What Can – and Should – All Reformers do?

• Multiply forces by being in constant communication;
• Share existing communications vehicles and use them to galvanize and inform each other;
• Ensure that the media accurately reflect the diverse, dynamic movement that is building across the country.