- Below is the second of three excerpts from the “Urgent Appeal to Engage a Generation at Risk” Summary Report and Action Plan. Download the entire document PDF here.

TABLE FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The heart of the Forum consisted of thirteen table discussions designed to surface collaborative strategies for education transformation. Facilitated by Frances Hesselbein, Chairman and Founding President of the Leader-to-Leader Institute (formerly the Peter Drucker Foundation), the discussions focused on four key issues: collaboration, transcendent strategies, leadership and synergies. Table Moderators helped each group arrive at three findings and three recommendations for each topic.

The New York City Leadership Center has sifted through the written notes of all thirteen Tables, with the similar goal of synthesizing common themes into findings and recommendations. The consensus that emerged is reported in this section, and provides the basis for the next section’s proposed actionable plan. A complete transcription of the notes obtained from each of the 13 tables can be found in Appendix 7.

Issue I: Collaboration

Is collaboration across sectors (business, education, non-profit, government, religious, students, and families) for comprehensive education reform even possible? If so, how so? What challenges inhibit collaboration and how can they be overcome?

A. Findings

  1. Collaboration is possible if cross-sector stakeholders commit to intentional communication, trust building, resource sharing, and coordination of efforts, facilitated by catalytic and creative leaders who have mutually agreed and are empowered by the stakeholders to shepherd the process on their collective behalf.
  2. Challenges include: defining the issues or mission too narrowly; using exclusive language that fractures communities; either-or engagement paradigms that perpetuate mistrust; and traditional “every organization and agenda for itself” approaches.
  3. Collaboration begins as each stakeholder raises awareness of the crisis within their respective spheres of influence and urges win-win approaches where each sector, and stakeholder, invests from its strengths to aid the others’ weaknesses.

B. Recommendations

  1. Craft a common communications platform that nurtures trust among stakeholders, dispels suspicions, and open sources* education reform by: sharing ideas and access to resources and relationships; identifying and innovating best practices; decentralizing program controls to grassroots partners; and coordinating efforts around a shared mission and common objectives.

    * [Footnote] The technological concept of “open sourcing” innovation is illustrative as we tackle uniquely 21st century challenges to educating our children.

    In the early 1990s, upstart computer programmers discovered that the best way to solve common problems with the then-emerging Internet technology was to collaborate with others who shared an interest, but lacked the necessary time and resources to solve the problems on their own. “Open source” refers to their practice of allowing anyone, including potential competitors, to view and even improve upon source code – the underlying instructions that make computer software work – by making the code publicly available online, and permitting potential users to download the software for free. This radical departure from business-as-usual fueled the development of the World Wide Web, and its innovations empowered the information age in which we now live.

    On the Internet platform it helped create, open source methodology has evolved beyond just programming practices to social networking, content creation, media production, political campaigning, publishing, and even commerce. Why not education as well?

  2. Identify grassroots community institutions and influencers such as faith congregations, businesses, and non-profits to educate, equip and mobilize individuals to act both personally and collectively for education reform; empower their success by supplying research, best practices, training, and scalable initiatives that can be decentralized, owned and implemented at the local level.
  3. Inject accountability into reform by emphasizing shared ownership, including responsibility for the problems and opportunities to innovate solutions; protect accountability by rejecting old-style blame shifting and focusing instead on rigorous standards, feedback, and evaluation.

Issue 2: Transcendent Strategies

Do any specific educational issues transcend regional, demographic, and religious differences around which we can mobilize? Which one(s)? How should we mobilize, and to what end(s)?

A. Findings

  1. Chronic underperformance metrics nationwide (such as literacy, drop-out rates, college admission and retention, and job readiness), especially in urban and rural communities, suggest widespread institutional and individual failures.
  2. Inequitable distribution and management of resources – financial, personnel, and otherwise – have contributed to de facto educational apartheid, where the place of one’s home often dictates – unjustly – the quality of education one will receive.
  3. A strategy that integrates the need for systemic reform with the need for character education that empowers personal responsibility (of students, teachers, parents, administrators, etc), and supportive services that compensate for gaps in family and social assistance, must be pursued in a complementary way.

B. Recommendations

  1. Appoint a delegation of stakeholders who would craft a comprehensive mission, vision, values, and agenda for an education reform movement that responds to educational injustices and collaborative opportunities for meaningful change.
  2. Overcome resource constraints by developing a web of partner supports that identifies existing (and nurtures new) womb through college interventions and services both regionally and at the grassroots level.
  3. Build infrastructure for ongoing networking and coordination of efforts, resources, and communication that leverages technology for exponential reach.

Issue 3: Leadership

What is the role of leadership in addressing the educational crisis? What kind of leadership is required (top-down, bottom-up, indigenous, expert, both/and, other)? How do we discover, develop, and deploy students themselves to provide meaningful leadership in both conceiving and implementing solutions to entrenched problems?

A. Findings

  1. Leadership is the linchpin for comprehensive education reform and requires a compelling vision of the future; the courage to pioneer new approaches to both collaboration and education; the determination not to settle for anything short of long-term transformation; the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances; and a willingness to be accountable for results.
  2. Collaborative leadership must be ethnically, economically, gender, and sector diverse, and reflect all of the above leadership styles, without the arrogance that suggests one style, demographic, or sector is inherently more important or valuable than the others in the process.
  3. Empowering effective student leadership requires changing our paradigm of students from customer (adults do “for” them by teaching, parenting, etc.) to owner (investing in their own lives, communities, and futures by cultivating their own education); and releasing real authority to students – along with corresponding mentorship and supervision – both to make decisions for themselves and their schools and to deal with the consequences thereof, whether good, bad, or messy.

B. Recommendations

  1. Define stakeholder roles clearly (while preserving flexibility for adjusting as necessary), even as stakeholders empower a leadership team to coordinate this effort, and align their personal and institutional agendas with that team.
  2. Co-create among the diverse groups of leaders by demonstrating a willingness to meet the “other” on their terms, in their space, according to their language and customs. Model student leadership development by retaining the attitude of an ever-learning servant leader.
  3. Identify existing and potential student leaders, whether formally through student groups and achievement records, or informally through personal observation and peer or teacher recommendations; nurture student leadership development inside or outside schools through mentoring, leadership clubs, and formal training; and create platforms for them to be heard and to actually lead.

Issue 4: Synergies

What will you bring (individually and organizationally) to an ongoing engagement strategy? How can NYCLC help facilitate your continuing participation both locally and nationally? What other institutions and individuals need to be engaged in this dialogue?

A. Findings

  1. The capacity exists for the 120 participating executives at the Forum to contribute significantly to education reform in New York City and beyond, both individually and on behalf of their organizations. Expanding the circle to include others not already at the table only enhances the capacity for systemic and lasting change.
  2. Mobilizing existing networks and spheres of influence (employees, parishioners, friends, etc) requires commitments by each participant to educate themselves on the issues (using resources provided by NYCLC, partners, and other interested parties), pledge personal and/or institutional support, and champion the cause whenever and wherever possible.
  3. The technological and media capacity exists to open sourceIbid. education reform so that every stakeholder can learn from the others’ successes and challenges; innovate and share solutions; and leverage scalable impacts as a result.

B. Recommendations

  1. Process the data from the Forum thoroughly and timely; distribute it freely to as wide an audience as possible; and coordinate actionable next steps for existing and future participating stakeholders.
  2. Identify from within the current participants names, contact information, and affiliations of others who need to engage the conversation; and create onramps for them to catch-up quickly and contribute meaningfully.
  3. Invite specific contributions from participating and future stakeholders.