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National Association of State Boards of Education
ESSA Stakeholder Engagement: Early
add to this challenge. “Accessing ELLs
across the district has been a real struggle,”
Challenges and Promising Practices
said Burney. “Creating spaces that they feel
comfortable coming to and engaging with us
By Rachel Man and Chris Hofmann at the district level has been a challenge.”
The Every Student Succeeds Act es. We began our project by analyzing 51 Promising Practices. While many
(ESSA) requires state education SEA websites for evidence of engagement states are struggling to determine who needs
agencies (SEAs) to collaborate with stakeholder groups. Then in July and to be included, how many people from one
with school districts, civil rights August, we conducted in-depth interviews interest group constitutes “engagement,”
organizations, principals, teachers, with representatives from 15 SEAs in order and how to connect meaningfully with people
to hear their perspectives on the challenges far removed from the intricacies of the feder-
“other school leaders,” parents,
and learn from the states’ early successes.1 al law and education policy, some have hit on
and “stakeholders representing
During the summer of 2016, not one state strategies that work.
the interests of children with dis-
was confi dent they were doing everything
abilities, English language learn-
right on stakeholder engagement. Even First, use existing networks to expand
ers, and other vulnerable children”
as states prepare to submit ESSA plans in the pool. “Part of every discussion is, ‘If you
as they create state education
April and September 2017, these challenges know of someone else we should include,
plans. Although each state faces persist, and states continue to identify strat- let us know,’” said Donna Brown, federal
unique challenges, all face fi ve egies to engage stakeholders meaningfully program monitoring and support director
common challenges in engaging and sustain these efforts throughout ESSA in the North Carolina Department of Public
this extensive list of stakeholders: implementation. Instruction. Many stakeholders who would
identifying diverse stakeholders have otherwise been overlooked have been
and casting a wider net, overcom- IDENTIFYING DIVERSE included in North Carolina’s process because
STAKEHOLDERS AND they asked this simple question, she added.
ing time and resource constraints,
CASTING A WIDER NET Similarly, Washington state sought out as
communicating effectively with
Reaching out for new perspectives presents many groups as possible, asking, “Whom are
stakeholders, maximizing the im-
a major challenge for many SEAs and state we missing? Whom have we not invited?”
pact of meetings, and organizing
boards of education. “We have to try differ-
and incorporating feedback into
ent ways to reach people,” said Karl Eakins, Second, allow for a dynamic process.
the state plan.
communications director for the Wyoming The state asked about absent stakehold-
Department of Education. “If we keep ers throughout the process. They added
As classroom teachers, we were drawn to reaching out in the same ways, we’re only new members even after working groups
this work on effective stakeholder en- going to reach the same people.” SEAs also were established—despite the challenges
gagement for two reasons. First, we know struggle to ensure they hear from advocates inherent in changing membership midway—
that we are at our best when we are truly who truly represent key groups. “How many so policymakers would not miss important
listening to our stakeholders—our stu- actual parents are represented, and does the input.
dents and their families—and we believe feedback represent them?” asked Shanita
a strong ESSA state plan should be based Burney, interim chief of the Offi ce of Family Once important stakeholder groups are iden-
on the same principle. Second, in our own and Public Engagement in Washington, DC. tifi ed, states still need to determine whom
ESSA advocacy experiences, we found that to invite. Simply having one representative
although states were providing stakehold- Many SEA staff cited parents as a particu- from a group at a meeting is not enough for
ers with opportunities to participate in the larly diffi cult group to engage. Interviewees those groups to feel they have been heard.
process, these well-intentioned efforts were said SEAs have less experience reaching There will be important subgroups within
falling short. out to parents than they do to teachers and every stakeholder group. For example, when
administrators. Traditionally, schools and dealing with parents or teachers, state
For these reasons, we set forward to study districts, not SEAs, have engaged parents policymakers may consider reaching out
promising practices in stakeholder en- and community groups on school matters, so to representatives from different socioeco-
gagement. We wanted to determine what this type of engagement is something new nomic statuses, school types, grade levels,
challenges states were facing and how for many SEAs. In communities with many disciplines, and minority groups. A teacher
states were addressing those challeng- English language learners, language barriers from a high-income, high-performing school
will have valuable input, but she does not every state has created an online survey using stakeholders’ prior knowledge of No
represent the needs and perspective of a about ESSA. There are other technology Child Left Behind. Vermont, for example,
teacher at a low-income, low-performing options as well. Hawaii’s Department of Ed- proactively tries to clarify misconceptions by
school. Nor will a fi rst grade teacher have the ucation is using social media website Tumblr taking the fi rst minutes of presentations to
same opinions as an eleventh grade teacher. to reach teachers, parents, and students. compare and contrast the provisions of ESSA
The Alaska Department of Education and They asked, “What does student success with NCLB.
Early Development, for example, intentionally look like?” Individuals or groups are posting
included teachers from elementary, middle, pictures of themselves with a thought bubble MAXIMIZING MEETINGS’
and high schools in the state’s working cut-out and a comment. The website directs IMPACT
groups. stakeholders to offer direct feedback on their Many SEAs and state boards have conduct-
draft state plan.2 ed regional meetings or “listening tours” to
OVERCOMING TIME AND engage stakeholders in the design of ESSA
RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY state plans. SEAs have found it challenging
Although all state education offi cials value WITH STAKEHOLDERS to balance presenting necessary background
face-to-face connections, many struggle SEA offi cials described ESSA provisions as information in these meetings with provid-
to fi nd the time and funding. “We have 58 complex, abstract, and “weedy,” and many ing time for authentic discussion. “ESSA is
county offi ces in 11 regions. Time con- struggle with explaining ESSA to groups 449 pages long. How do you distill that to
straints and a limited travel budget only not familiar with education policy language. an audience who wants to know in 5 to 10
allowed us to visit 6 regions,” said Barbara “Describing how that all fi ts to parents is minutes what it’s all about and what the
Murchison, ESSA state lead at the California hard,” Murchison said. For this reason, SEA personal implications are?” said Vermont
Department of Education. Samantha Koch, offi cials consistently expressed the need for education project manager Patrick Halladay.
executive policy analyst at the Pennsylvania accessibly written, visually appealing ESSA Pennsylvania’s Koch added, “We want to
Department of Education, asked, “Do we materials. Fact sheets abound, said a senior inform without prescribing.”
have the manpower to engage with 500 dis- offi cial at the New Jersey Department of
tricts with 3,000 school buildings and 1.7 or Education, yet “even the best one pagers still Promising Practice. Nearly everyone
1.8 million students with a handful of ESSA have the word accountability across the top.” interviewed cited face-to-face meetings as
dedicated staff?” the most meaningful form of engagement.
SEAs also struggle to clarify which areas However, those meetings are only meaning-
Promising Practice. Limited time, under ESSA fall to states and are thus open ful if they are well structured. Stakeholders
staff, and resources is a common complaint to discussion versus which are federal are turned off by didactic meetings in which
in education, and it defi es simple solutions. requirements. If they don’t understand the they sense that presenters have already
States have nonetheless used strategies to difference, “people will advocate for things determined their preferred direction and
get around some resource constraints. One that weren’t the state’s decision,” said are simply checking off a regulatory box.
is to identify community partners with the Donna Brown, federal program monitoring Moreover, state policymakers miss out on
needed resources. Alaska’s Department of and support director in the North Carolina innovative ideas when they limit stakeholder
Education and Early Development partnered Department of Public Instruction. Or groups discussions to option A or B. Perhaps option
with the state’s National Education Associa- may come to the table with misinforma- C, which the SEA had not conceived, is the
tion (NEA) affi liate; the union paid teachers’ tion or different interpretations on ESSA better solution.
travel costs to attend the SEA’s spring lead- provisions. Working through these misun-
ership meetings. While NEA affi liates cannot derstandings can be challenging, but SEAs Every teacher has had to learn this lesson:
pay for meetings in every state, every SEA realize that without a common understanding Getting rich input from students means
has organizations it works with regularly. of the law’s requirements and options it is allowing them to fully engage. This is not an
Community partners may not have exten- diffi cult to maintain stakeholders’ trust in the easy task, said Edutopia blogger Todd Finley,
sive resources, but they can alleviate some process. who said, “A preponderance of evidence
burdens, even if it is just coffee for working demonstrates that many teachers mistak-
group meetings. Promising Practice. The need to enly confl ate discussion with recitation.”3
inform without overwhelming is crucial. Recitation seeks a predetermined response;
If partnerships are not an option, virtual Some states have found it helpful to begin discussion involves questions that may have
focus groups can provide meaningful yet less from a point of fi nding out what is critical more than one right answer and that get
costly discussions where access to technolo- to the stakeholder and then explaining how students to challenge each other and think
gy and internet service permit. Partners may the state plan might or might not be able to more critically. The application to stakehold-
also help with publicizing an SEA’s planned address it. For instance, Oklahoma started er engagement is clear.
meetings. Michigan, for example, partnered the dialogue with stakeholders by asking
with a public relations fi rm to begin their these questions: “What impact have you ORGANIZING AND
stakeholder engagement process, and they seen or experienced, if any, from funding INCORPORATING FEEDBACK
are conducting virtual focus groups to reach challenges facing public education? What at- INTO A STATE PLAN
parents. tributes describe a successful school? What Some states have labored to structure and
is missing and in short supply? How is your report feedback so it is digestible and action-
Absent the resources for in-person engage- school doing? How do you know?” Other able. “We’re getting a lot of comments,” said
ment, there are valid alternatives. Almost states have chosen to ground conversations Sondra Meredith, administrator at the Alaska
Department of Education and Early Devel- NOTES
opment. “Processing the information that is 1. The 15 included Alaska, California, Delaware, District of
Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, New
coming in is challenging.” And states need
Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont,
to show people that their contributions were
Washington, and Wyoming.
valued and impactful. “If we waste their
2. http://hiqualityed.tumblr.com/.
time, we’ve forever lost them as an engaged
stakeholder,” Wyoming’s Eakins said. 3. Todd Finley, “Rethinking Whole Class Discussion,”
Edutopia blog, (June 24, 2013), https://www.edutopia.
org/blog/rethinking-whole-class-discussion-todd-fi nley.
Promising Practice. Whether
feedback is collected via listening tours or
surveys, it must be documented and publicly
available and then turned into actionable
recommendations. Transparency is critical.
Whether or not the recommendations are
included in a fi nal plan, stakeholders must
see their comments have been serious-
ly considered. In collaboration with the
Pennsylvania Department of Education, the
American Institutes for Research synthesized
feedback from stakeholder working groups
into recommendations organized by key
components. This structured process provid-
ed tangible evidence of stakeholder contribu-
tions and promotes the continued credibility
of the state’s stakeholder engagement.
CONCLUSION
Although it is challenging, stakeholder
engagement is critically important work
that can give voice to concerns, make
ESSA state plans better, and foster greater
commitment and buy-in for the new state
system. Moving forward, we urge SEAs to
continue to be proactive and transparent
in their communication with stakeholders.
Maintaining this trust and openness will be
vital in overcoming the inevitable disap-
pointments stakeholders will feel when cer-
tain provisions they advocated for are not
included in the fi nal state plans. By learning
from early SEA experiences, all SEAs can
meet the challenges of stakeholder engage-
ment and build collaborative networks that
will sustain the hard work of implementa-
tion in the months and years to come.
Rachel Man teaches sixth grade reading and
English language arts at Dwight D. Eisenhow-
er Middle School in Prince Georges County,
Maryland. She is a Teach Plus Teaching Pol-
icy Fellow. Chris Hofmann is a fourth grade
teacher at KIPP Raíces Academy in East Los
Angeles and an alumnus of the Teach Plus
Teaching Policy Fellowship.
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strengthen state leadership in education policymaking, advocate equality of access to educational opportunity, promote excellence in the education
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