Monthly Archives: March 2007

a brief history of community engagement in education

Arnold F. Fege has contributed an excellent overview article to the current issue of the Harvard Educational Review entitled, “Getting Ruby a Quality Public Education: Forty-Two Years of Building the Demand for Quality Public Schools through Parental and Public Involvement.” Fege’s narrative introduces seven views about public involvement, which I have numbered sequentially below. All of these views contain at least fragments of truth and should be considered as we begin the debate about revising No Child Left Behind (which is the main federal law governing pre-college education).

(1) President Johnson believed that poor children received inadequate educations because local authorities either lacked sufficient money or preferred to spend it on other kids. Thus he designed the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, 1965) so that it earmarked funds for poor students. But Senator Robert F. Kennedy believed that money was not the only problem. School systems could be discriminatory or corrupt. His solution (2) was to require school systems to “collect objective measures of educational achievement … at least annually” so that parents of poor kids could assess how well their schools were performing and organize for reform. This was an explicitly political strategy. It was included in ESEA at his insistence.

Apparently, good data were rarely collected–partly because schools received no help in measuring outcomes, and partly because there were no penalties for failing to assess. Between 1965 and 1982, Congress tried a new strategy, which was (3) to support parental involvement in schools, especially by requiring parental advisory councils. The most significant version of this reform was the Educational Amendments of 1978.

However, critics charged that (4) these councils were dominated by small groups of parents with axes to grind–special interests that didn’t represent their communities. Activists organized themselves around special programs or needs, not to represent broad concerns. On the other hand, a later analysis by the esteemed scholar Tony Bryk apparently found that (5) the councils actually did build civic and political skills, especially over the long term.

In any case, Congress increasingly lost faith that school districts would spend public money effectively to benefit disadvantaged kids. Congress also lost confidence in organized parents’ groups. Instead, No Child Left Behind (6) required that assessments of outcomes be written by professionals at the state or federal level and allowed parents to remove their own children from schools found to be failing under those assessments. I think Congress sincerely wanted to empower parents–but as individuals, not as members of communities.

Arnold Fege–like my emeritus colleague Clarence Stone, David Mathews of the Kettering Foundation, and a few others–believe that (7) community participation is essential and must be written into the next version of No Child Left Behind. Only community participation can create public support for school funding plus accountability so that the money is well spent. We can build on 40 years of experience to do this right. Above all, we need to require–and enable–school systems to generate valid data, but these data must be understandable, relevant, broad, and responsive to public concerns.

Libby and the First Amendment (continued)

I suppose the most favorable summary of the Libby prosecution would go like this:

(1) The Covert Agent Identity Protection Act is narrowly tailored and not a threat to legitimate whistleblowers.

(2) Nevertheless, there were plausible reasons to suspect that members of the Bush Administration had violated the Act by releasing Valerie Plame’s name. Hence an investigation was appropriate.

(3) A serious investigation required official FBI interviews, subpoenas, and testimony under oath.

(4) In the course of his interviews and testimony, I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby lied, thereby committing felonies that had to be prosecuted.

In my view, this four-part argument must be weighed against the precedent-setting interference in personal liberties that (3) implies. To be hauled in front of a grand jury and required to testify is an expansion of governmental power, and it will not be limited to the Plame case, nor to the Bush Administration. One can easily imagine pacifist whistleblowers triggering the same process.

Much depends on whether (2) is valid. And that seems a close call. If the Act truly has limited scope, then perhaps it was pretty obvious that no one had violated it. Then no investigation was necessary (and civil libertarians, despite our abhorrence of the Bush Administration, should have opposed the appointment of a Special Prosecutor). If the Act is pretty broad, then I’m not sure I like it, because it could sweep up courageous whistleblowers as well as Cheney staffers.

Scooter Libby’s civil liberties

Before you read this post, you have to say the title 10 times fast.

Seriously, as a civil libertarian, I find the prosecution of Libby troubling. The whole case started with allegations that members of the administration had leaked true information to reporters. That was an act of speech that involved the press, thus implicating two clauses of the First Amendment. Our first instinct should be to protect such expression.

To be sure, Congress may forbid federal employees from leaking secrets–as in espionage cases. But not every statute that is constitutional is also welcome or wise. This one clearly constrains freedom of speech and the free flow of information, and we should ask whether the price is worth paying.

I am not defending the particular leak that began this case. It supported atrocious behavior: the launch of a disastrous and unnecessary war. I was under the impression, however, that in a free society, the law is blind to the merits and demerits of speech. Moral judgments about expression are to be separated from legal judgments.

Daniel Ellsberg calls the leaking of Plame’s identity, “a very bad leak,” whereas his unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers was heroic because it helped to end the Vietnam War. But both were acts of speech that could be called “whistleblowing.” We should be careful that by criminalizing some leaks, we don’t criminalize them all.

For example, according to Raymond Bonner in the New York Review of Books, a blond American woman was present in several foreign countries when individuals who had been transported there by the CIA were tortured. I would rejoice if a whistleblower revealed this woman’s identity so that she could be investigated by Congress and the press and we could explore our government’s responsibility for the torture. But if she is a government agent, then revealing her name would violate the same statute at issue in the Libby case.

Libby was not charged with leaking Plame’s name. He was charged with lying to government investigators and a grand jury as part of an investigation of the Plame leak. I will not condone lying, especially under oath. But it is always an expansion of governmental power when someone is forced to talk about Allegation X, for which he is never charged, and then indicted for lying to the police. This is a net that could catch a lot of innocent people.

The leak of Plame’s identity allegedly caused her material harm by ending her career as an undercover agent. The remedy for such damages would seem to be a civil lawsuit. Indeed, Plame and her husband have sued Cheney, Rove, and Libby. That seems perfectly appropriate to me, and if their suit succeeds on the merits, I hope the damages are steep. But a civil lawsuit is entirely different from a criminal prosecution.

Finally, I am relieved to read that the jury did not discuss “the subtext of the trial–the decision to go to war against Iraq. ‘This was not a question about who can we punish for going to Iraq,’ said Mr. Collins, 57, a registered Democrat [and a juror]. ‘We just never allowed ourselves to go there, and I am not going to go there now.'” The decision to go to war was probably the worst–the stupidest and most immoral–act of the United States government in my lifetime. But there was no law against it. Nulla poena sine lege (no punishment without a [clear, written, public] law): that is a bedrock principle. We have no hesitation in upholding such principles when we admire the individuals involved. The test of our commitment to civil liberties is how we respond when abhorrent people are in the dock.

deliberative democracy in California

I missed a big meeting last week at Pepperdine in California. (I couldn’t afford the air fare.) The conference combined talk of electoral reform with discussions of public deliberation. Electoral reform was on the agenda because our legislative districts have been drawn to minimize competition and accountability. Public deliberation seems a powerful response; it can generate reform ideas that have legitimacy because representative citizens have chosen them (whereas all elected officials have some kind of stake in the status quo).

The Canadians have some useful experience in this area. The British Columbia Citizens Assembly proposed a redesign of that Province’s electoral system. Gordon Gibson covered the Pepperdine conference from a Canadian perspective for the Globe & Mail:

One of the most surprising things is that randomly selected panels (drawn, say, from the voter’s list) are actually far more representative than the so-called representatives we elect. If you look at the face of Canada, you do not find it reflected in the House of Commons. And, for some things, these random panels are far better than elected representatives or groups of experts. They are not partisan and they do not play games.

This is not to disrespect elected representatives, who will and should do the bulk of the work of governance. They are paid to be experts on our behalf. But citizen panels on policy issues can be highly imaginative. They have been used on environmental cases in Texas, on what to do with the Roma in Bulgaria, on reconstruction planning in New Orleans and on public works prioritization in China (really – and it worked). A gathering of 600 “ordinary citizens” is scheduled to appear in the European Parliament chamber in June to discuss the future of the union.

The big excitement, however, is likely to come down south, just because the United States is so big, so powerful and so governmentally messed up. The key will be to use citizen panels as we have done in B.C. and Ontario to get around the conflicts of politicians and reform the very machinery of democracy. For the good of the world, that most needs doing in the United States.

blogs that make you think

Richard at Philosophy, et cetera has kindly selected this page as a “blog that makes you go hmmm.” In this game, if someone tags you as a “thinking blogger,” you’re supposed to recommend some other blogs that make you think. These days, I mainly read high-traffic political blogs that don’t need any more incoming links. But here are some interesting, quirky, thought-provoking sites:

Bridging Differences is an extraordinary venue for conversation between Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier. These are two truly distinguished thinkers about American education. They would normally be seen as representatives of opposing, even antagonistic, ideological camps. But they had a very moving exchange in EdWeek last May that demonstrated an ideal interaction between people of good will who disagree. They didn’t suppress their differences in the name of politeness, but they acknowledged the weaknesses of their own positions and the validity of the other person’s views and pledged to address common problems together. Now they have taken the courageous step of starting a joint blog. Counting only the time since Meier founded Central Park East School and Ravitch obtained her PhD, these women have 65 years of combined experience as leading thinkers. I hope their joint blog flourishes and lasts.

In Medias Res is always good. It’s political, but Russell Arben Fox posts longish essays on political theory rather than ephemeral comments on the day’s headlines. His position is distinctive and challenging. For a sample, see his recent summary of communitarianism.

The Citizens Symposium is just getting started, and I don’t know if it will work. But the idea is to solicit and “compile” a set of thoughtful essays on a common topic and then promote discussion.

I just came across Extra Credit last night. This is James Forman, Jr.’s blog about “education, race, kids, and justice.” It so happens that Forman has recently given space to my friend and downstairs neighbor, Colin Bane, and to my friend and former colleague, Arthur Evenchik. But seeing their names was a complete surprise; I started reading this thoughtful new blog because of the seriousness of the topic.