On page 139, Ms. Noveck quotes Dan Esty:  “The promise of cyberdemocracy with a fully informed and engaged populace could give way to spam, misinformation and dialogue among the uninformed that diminishes thoughtful deliberation.”   This is a good caution.  Sometimes solutions to black and white issues are presented; more often than not I have often found the issues are “gray.”  So how can we ensure that everyone is speaking about the issues from an informed perspective?  

The answer may lie in Ms. Noveck’s suggested ideas around a “policy wiki.”  Creating policy (or confirming existing policy) is one of the Board’s main tasks.   She envisions describing the goal of the policy under development, and then breaking down all the things that have to be done to create good policy into specific tasks that small groups could elect to undertake. Based on their experience and background, people would self-select as to which tasks they want to take on.  Sample specific tasks include

–Drafting and posting background research materials relevant to “the decision”

–Inviting experts and other participants to join an advisory network to vet the proposed standards

–Inviting people who want to comment on drafts of the policy

–Inviting people who want to create a visual interpretation of the policy draft

–Inviting those who want to look out for inaccuracies

–Inviting grassroots participation in reviewing and looking at the draft

 She comments (p. 153): “By splitting the overall task into many smaller fact-gathering and decision-making exercises for members of a network while preserving the authority and oversight of government officials, the software platform can make it significantly hard for a small group of people to control and corrupt the process. It can also facilitate collaboration …by representing the ‘physics’ of the process on the computer screen – that is, by showing people the roles and tasks they have taken on as part of the ‘x’  drafting committee and the rules of engagement.”

Would experimenting with this sort of policy development process be a good idea for Edmonton Public Schools?  Currently the public is invited to partipate by commenting on a draft of the policy that has been developed under the auspices of the Board’s Planning and Policy Committee.  People can sign up to be notified of any new policy at http://www.epsb.ca/policy/policyDevReview.shtml and then provide their comments through a survey mechanism.  Perhaps this is sufficient?  What do you think?

 It is interesting to reflect on these differences and then think back to the question I originally posed – Which public education problems could be better resolved through collaboration?  Which would not?

Deliberative democracy requires diverse viewpoints and an agenda for orderly discussion.  It measures its success on equality of inputs and procedural uniformity, and it emphasizes self-expression.  It presents a problem on an abstract level before implementing a solution (or discusses the solution after the fact) and is focused on discovering the general will or forming opinions or consensus.    

Collaborative democracy requires both diverse viewpoints AND diverse skills and breaks down a problem into component parts that can then be assigned to citizens and administrators. It measures its success on the effectiveness of decision-making and outputs, and along the way, offers a number of opportunities for participation to create a culture of participation and improve the quality of decision-making.  Collaboration emphasizes participation of people who have “expertise” (and/or interest) in the subject in gathering information, evaluating and measuring the information, and developing specific solutions for implementation.

Ms. Noveck then goes on to describe a  program in Connecticut called the City Scan program that helped city governments “rescue derelict land-use sites”  — city governments committed to assisting in cleaning up derelict sites, local people then tracked the progress of individual cities in cleaning up these parcels, posting to the web and giving valuable information to the various municipalities, while the municipalities took action based on the citizens’ input and information.

 This example makes me think about Edmonton Public’s Sector Review process currently underway.  In its ideal form, to me, this process is similar to the model described above…but I stand to be corrected!  Here is how I see it:  The Board has an obligation to provide excellent public education in the city with the resources it has.  These resources include its capital resources, human resources and the annual funding it receives from the provincial government. The resources are not enough to meet all the needs. So, the Board is asking the residents of each sector to take a look with the  Board at what education is being offered within that sector (i.e. what programs are being offered, what are the gaps), how it is being offered, how many children are attending the schools within the sector, who the children are and the type of needs they have, the shape of the capital assets (aka buildings), and the values of the community around both public education and the school buildings.   The question is then … what is the best plan for this sector going forward to ensure we are in the best position to meet the educational needs of this generation of children and the next generation? 

 To me the process is intended to work with citizens on creating a go-forward plan and is very much tied to the institutional processes of both educational and capital planning.  So, is this an example of “making government better”?  There is a website connected to the process  (http://sectorreview2010.com) that is tracking all the comments made at face-to-face meetings, providing information, and answering questions.  But could technology be better used to draw in more citizens and their expertise, values, and skills to this process – i.e. not only to reflect back what was said but also to allow for sifting and sorting the thoughts and ideas and facts. Ideas?

The next thing that caught my eye was the subtitle:  How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful.  So far the book has been a fascinating read and there is much food for thought in here.  I thought I would share some of the ideas over the next couple of weeks and I welcome your ideas on how or if the ideas could be applied to school board governance. 

Ms. Noveck has been part of President Obama’s drive to go “beyond improving citizen participation to address the emerging opportunity for meaningful collaboration  — as distinct from participation – across levels of government and between government and citizens.”  Her purpose in writing this book?  “Knowing how to use technology to get all hands on deck and create more effective and efficient government institutions is the focus of the book.”  Getting all hands on deck … mobilizing “the wisdom of the crowds” as per a book by James Surioweki… is something I have long been interested in. 

The first half of the book describes in detail some work done within the auspices of the US Patent Office, called the Peer-to-Patent Process.  Ms. Noveck then applies her learning to think about how technology could be applied in other ways to government.  She states (p. 146), “Peer-to-Patent is not a panacea. The design is not the right design for all types of decision-making. This is because not all problems lend themselves to problem solving by a group. An institution must be able to articulate the challenge to which the wisdom of the crowd will be applied.” 

So, any preliminary thoughts on what public education problems might be best resolved through collaborative thinking/work/action?  Which would not be good?

RE: Collaboration.  I totally agree that the whole community needs to be involved and active in public education, and we need to collaborate to maximize our respective strengths.  Truly, “it takes a village to raise a child.”   Collaboration takes lots of time, particularly up front, and time for all stakeholders is a precious commodity.  Collaboration needs to be supported through appropriate resourcing. Sometimes, though, we just need to get on with the job at hand.   

RE: Shared Governance. I also have a concern with “shared governance” if it comes with only the principle of shared decision making on paper and not the corresponding shared responsibility for the outcomes.  We need to be careful that we don’t end up in in a situation where everyone is responsible and yet no-one is ultimately responsible. Our children and their future are too important.  We ALL have a responsibilty toward our children/our future… I agree with that.  Practically, school boards have been the governing body “where the buck stops” in terms of public education…   Boards are a small enough working group where final decisions can be made effectively, and they are close enough to the local realities to reflect the local community in their decisions, and ultimately, they are the “public” voice in public education. If boards are well-connected to their communities, communicate well about upcoming decisions, and are open to hearing from the community, school boards are a very effective way of carrying out the business of public educcation. And if they are not doing this effectively, the community will let them know next election.

RE: appointments. I have a concern about appointments if you think this is the answer to “ensuring” a certain community is represented.  Who will make the appointments?  Which groups get an appointed representative… ?  The democratic process means elected reps should be responsive to their entire community (those who elected them, those who opposed them, those who did not vote) — what will be the acocuntability of appointed reps?  To the person who appointed them?  What other “out of the box” ideas are there for ensuring all voices from all communities are heard in the decision-making process?  Is it called public engagement?

I encourage everyone to visit the Inspiring Action Engage page and fill our your own transformation guide.  http://engage.education.alberta.ca/inspiring-action/become-involved/

Also some other ideas on governance … 

Edmonton Public Schools submission to the Minister with respect to School Act review

Comment from Public School Boards Association of Alberta on “Provincial governments or Local Communities: Where does school board accountability really lie?”

Some Thoughts on School Board Governance by Ken Chapman  (and be sure to read all the comments that people have made on Mr. Chapman’s blog entry)

Cheers.

The response, titled Inspiring Action, lays out a series of possible areas of change the Government is considering in its new Education Act. If you visit this page, you will also discover that the Minister is inviting further feedback through a series of topic-specific modules. For example, the first module is on Parental and Community Engagement. A new online module for discussion will be launched every two to three weeks until early October on the webpage mentioned above (and/or you can sign up for updates to alert you to the launch of the new module). (See dates below.)

The feedback received on these modules will directly influence the new Education Act that the Minister hopes to introduce in the Winter Session of the Legislature, so I encourage everyone to contribute your thoughts as the various modules are posted.

Parental and Community Engagement Module
I have gone through the first module and questions revolve around the role of school councils, ideal level of governance for school councils, what school boards and schools should be doing to support parental engagement, whether there should be a provincial parent advisory council, what school boards and schools should be doing to support community engagement in schools, what community engagement might look like, schools as community centres, etc.

Check it out! If you have more than half an hour (which is what it took me to go through the module), you may wish to read what about 40 people in SW Edmonton said about supporting students, teachers, schools back in March 2008 at my first broad community meeting as a preface to responding.

Also, consider: How does parental and community engagement contribute to Strengthening Families and Enhancing Innovative Citizenship Education – two of the key areas another group of community members have suggested as critical to achieve the schools and communities we want in 2030?