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Remarks of Hayes Mizell on April 18, 2002 as a participant on the
panel, "LEF's Insider/Outsider Role in Moving Community Change"
at the Public Education Network's Policy Initiatives Convening in Washington,
DC. Mizell's comments followed those of Jon Butzon, Executive Director,
The Charleston (SC) Education Network. Butzon reported on the Charleston
Education Network's campaign to mobilize parents of students in low-performing
schools to request that the school system transfer their children to better
schools. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.
Local Education Funds: Complicity or Reform?
Jon's comments are a useful provocation to re-examine assumptions about
the roles of local education funds and the strategies they can and should
pursue. His remarks also suggest a number of important questions:
Whose interests do local education funds represent? The public
school system? The community? Both?
If they represent "the community," how do LEFs mediate the diverse
interests and needs of sub-groups within the community as the funds develop
new priorities, goals, and strategies?
Regarding the different interests and needs of gifted and talented, special
education, low-performing, and limited English proficient students, should
LEFs ignore these differences, attempt to reconcile them, work around them,
or focus only on broad common denominators of interest such as teacher quality,
assessment, and class size?
Regardless of the interests local education funds choose to represent, how
should they do so? Should they only support the school system? Should they
research and report on how such contextual factors as funding, state policies,
and teacher preparation impinge on the school system's operations? Should
they monitor the school system's operations and performance and educate
the community about more effective practices the system could pursue? Should
LEFs critique and challenge the school system and, if so, under what circumstances,
and how?
Whether a LEF steadfastly supports a school system or aggressively challenges
it, is there a point of diminishing returns in either case and how
does a LEF know when it reaches that point?
These and similar questions may be new for LEFs because all of them began,
and many remain, as agents of community support for public schools. That
support often takes the form of:
-- direct grants to teachers,
-- development and operation of projects that school systems cannot or will
not mount themselves,
-- seeking and administering on behalf of the school system grants from
funders who lack confidence in the school system's management and accountability,
and
-- stealth reform projects with the overt purpose of providing new educational
opportunities for teachers and administrators but with the covert purpose
of changing hearts, minds, and professional practice.
School systems accept this support either because they value the money and
services that LEFs provide, or because they have too much to lose, politically
and otherwise, if they refuse them.
This support role, whatever form it takes, has been of enormous value to
school systems, helping nurture their psychological readiness for change
and increasing their capacities to implement it more effectively. But LEFs
are learning that "support" is a slippery slope.
It leads to a series of experiences and lessons that can slowly nudge a
LEF on a continuum of roles and strategies from "support" to "improvement"
to "reform" of the school system. With each passing year, a local
education fund's engagement with its school system increases and the LEF
becomes more knowledgeable about and better understands the idiosyncrasies
and limitations of the school system's personnel, operations, and culture.
This leads the LEF to advocate or work behind the scenes for new policies,
new funding, new initiatives, new school board members, a new superintendent,
or new principals, hoping that one of these changes, or a combination of
them, will cause the school system to become more effective.
Sometimes the LEF's hopes are fulfilled and it sees improvements in the
performance of education leaders, or new programs for students. More often,
however, the LEF's hopes are ultimately deflated and perhaps dashed. It
is these experiences over time that move an LEF from a "support"
role and strategy to one of more actively seeking "improvement"
and then "reform."
But this is not an inexorable journey to strategic maturity. At any point,
an LEF's board of directors may opt instead for strategic arrested development,
choosing for the LEF to adhere to a limited support role that continues
to hope for the best in spite of evidence to the contrary.
If a local education fund is in a community where over time the school system
improves at only a glacial pace, and fails to address effectively the learning
needs of low-performing educators and students, then it is a healthy indicator
when the LEF confronts a crisis of conscience about its role and strategies.
The LEF reaches this point when it realizes that in spite of all the years
of its effort, there is a gulf, not a gap, between the LEF's programs and
the persistent unmet educational needs of the community, or major sectors
of it.
Assuming the LEF is serious about its mission and values its integrity,
the local education fund faces some difficult choices. How public and how
vocal should it be about expressing its concerns? What will it likely gain
and lose by "going public"? Or is the better choice to stand with
the school system in public but, as the Quakers say, "speak truth to
power" in private?
Some of the choices the LEF has to make are ones of style. Every community
has a culture of what constitutes boundaries of discourse, the First Amendment
to the Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. Within that culture
there is even a more restrictive culture spawned by the economic and political
power structure of the community, some of whose members may sit on the LEF's
board of directors. This culture may exert a powerful influence on what
a LEF decides are appropriate means to influence the school system.
As in Jon's community there may be a thin patina of gentility that sanctions
candid discussions in private but responds more harshly when someone is
perceived as not playing by mannered rules the culture enforces. Apparently
it makes no difference if the purpose of those rules is to curb public disclosure
and dissent so as to protect the advantages of some and ignore the disadvantages
of others. A LEF may discover that all it takes to incur the chill of the
local Establishment is the fund's vigorous exercise of freedom of speech.
Local education funds also face the dilemma of whether and how to raise
important issues that school officials take personally. There is no question
that many educators, particularly superintendents and principals, feel beleaguered
and on the defensive. They may not be perfect-none of us are-and their performance
may not always be at the levels we would like, but they are engaged in very
difficult work most of us would go to great lengths to avoid. They are among
a diminishing number of community leaders truly committed to public education.
Local education funds need these leaders as allies, not adversaries. But
it should not be surprising that they are often thin skinned and take a
if-you're-not-with-me-you're-against-me position towards people and organizations
that call them to account. This can be true no matter how "enlightened"
or "progressive" the educators may be. In their view, they are
on the side of the angels and any external criticism is at best a distraction
or, worse, an illegitimate threat to their holy work.
If these education leaders or their friends in the business and professional
community serve on the LEF's board of directors, it can make it very difficult
for the LEF to be an aggressive advocate for the community's education interests.
This makes it all the more necessary for the LEF board to reflect proportionately
the major sectors of the community whose children the school system serves.
The board should not be just a means to raise money and set policy for the
LEF. It should also be a venue to educate school system and business leaders
about how other sectors of the community experience public education, and
a forum in which all board members explore and learn together how the school
system can more effectively and more equitably raise the performance levels
of educators and students.
Developing this kind of board is itself an extension of the concept of community
organizing, but it is not likely to occur in any other community context
other than a local education fund. A LEF is uniquely positioned to increase
the sophistication of education leaders and major sectors of the community
in understanding that critical analysis and commentary on the operations,
professional practice, and results of the school system is a prerequisite
for increasing student achievement.
Ultimately, every LEF will face the fundamental issue of how patient it
should be in waiting for the school system or individual schools to act
aggressively and effectively in improving the performance of educators and
students, particularly in cases where there is abundant and continuing evidence
of unacceptable levels of performance. Incremental change is not the problem;
no meaningful change is the problem. In the face of promises, delays,
and bureaucratic timidity that may stretch across not only years but also
decades, what is the LEF's role?
In these situations, LEFs need to be sure that their patience is not de
facto complicity that makes the LEF party to a school system's or a
school's failure to reform. It is, therefore, entirely appropriate for LEF's
to "go public," to collaborate with others in taking control of
schools or creating schools, to facilitate the organization of community
groups that can directly represent their interests in seeking better education
results for their children, or to develop alliances with such existing organizations.
If a LEF chooses this path, it can expect to hear from some quarters that
it is harming rather than helping public education, that its strategies
are confrontive, counterproductive, and racially divisive, and that the
LEF is presumptuous and not a legitimate representative of the children
on whose behalf it is advocating.
These reactions are the norm, but the LEF has to gracefully bear the burden
of these barbs because it is the LEF's role to foster better schools. If
it is possible to do that and also win the plaudits and support of the community
power structure, that is fine, but an LEF's first obligation is to represent
and give voice to the powerless whose children's futures depend on the quality
of their public schools.
Thank you.