Guess Who's Not at the Table

School Administrator, Nov, 1996 by David Mathews

Can you imagine planning a wedding without the bride? Or the groom? Of course not. In either case, a key participant would be missing from the discussion.

Yet many of those working to improve America's public schools have been developing plans without bringing all the players to the table.

Education reformers take note: Despite a long tradition of support, large numbers of Americans now appear ready to abandon public schools. According to research recently released by the Kettering Foundation, many are already halfway out the schoolhouse door.

Such a conclusion flies in the face of everything we think we know about the public and its relationship with public schools. In survey after survey, Americans indicate support for their local schools. But these responses mask a profound change, an erosion of the historic commitment to the idea of schools for the benefit of the entire community. Many Americans say they no longer believe the public schools are their schools. And citizens, particularly those without school-age children (who constitute the majority), feel little compulsion to support institutions that don't belong to the public.

While Americans still cling to the ideal that we should have schools open to all, the broad mandate that once tied the schools to this and other social, economic, and political objectives has lost its power to inspire broad commitment. People no longer see these institutions as their agents for carrying out their agenda.

Ironically, attempts by lawmakers and educational leaders to solve problems of finance, equity, quality, and efficiency may be putting even more distance between the public and the schools. If "public schools" means nothing more than schools financed by tax dollars and controlled by citizen boards, we may have nothing more than that in the future--and possibly much less.

The implications of our research go beyond anything that might be remedied by what usually is termed "public engagement." That's because no public may be waiting to be engaged. There may be such a small community for schools that institutional reform has to be recast as community building. Schools are best understood as means to the broader educational objectives of a community, and citizens, not educators, have to make decisions about community purposes and interests.

Where does the retreat from public schools leave school administrators? Today they are caught in a situation where they can't be the sole authors of what they need. Educators can't create authentic publics--only citizens can do that. And pressure to meet immediate schooling goals allows educators little freedom to divert energies from the agenda of schools to the agenda of communities.

If our research is even partially on target, however, there is no escape from retracing the steps that brought the public schools into being in the first place. That initial step was the rechartering of all our schools so that they were public in both character and function. But rechartering is not the first order of business. Prior to that, communities must establish or re-establish the shared purposes that generate mandates for education. Charters for schools grow out of these mandates.

Where can you look for help? No how-to books can provide guidance, but new ways of thinking about communities and public life should lead to public-building strategies. Kettering has described many of these in its publications. Also, read the new literature on civil society and social capital. Talk to public journalists interested in strengthening public life and to staff members at nearby foundations interested in civil investing. Most of all, find allies in broad-based organizations of citizens focused on the community as a whole, even if schools are not their primary concern.

Strengthening public life has to be done with the public, not for the public. So we must have citizen allies from the start.

Americans once described schools as agencies for completing "the great work of the Revolution." We have to return to the idea that public schools are the agents of a democratic public.

David Mathews is the author of is There a Public for Public Schools? available from Kettering Foundation Press.