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Kids who can't read, kids who can't think, kids who have absolutely no sense of common
sense. We're concerned that we're seeing more and more violence. Well there's absolutely
no way that we can solve all of these issues on our own. Far and away, the best way to
learn what your constituents think is to talk to them. You may have heard comments like
these two people you know. Like you, they believe we all play a part of the quality
of education we provide our young people. It's up to us to help children succeed and
become productive members of our society. "Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better
Schools" shows how educators, policymakers, students, and community members raised their
hands to show they are present and accounted for on the issues of education facing their
schools. During the decades the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory has worked
in the southwestern U.S. to improve teaching and learning, we have seen the value of involving
parents and community members in education and its policymaking. For this reason we work
with Arkansas Friends for Better Schools, the League of Women Voters of Oklahoma, and
the Study Circles Resource Center on this project. Our goal was to explore how to more
directly connect the public with educators and policymakers in an open inclusive forum
for exchanging information and ideas. In this video, we share what we have learned with
you.
Study circles are a process for small groups of people to come together on the grassroots
level and deliberate about complex social issues. It is a means for people to examine
issues that are facing their community over a series of weeks with the help of a neutral
facilitator, balanced discussion materials and eventually examine an issue thoroughly
and then develop strategies for action. In Oklahoma, the League of Women Voters sponsored
a statewide program of study circles in education. In an earlier project on criminal justice,
they had seen how study circles can make positive changes. Study circles are different than
other forms of citizen education that the league has done in the past, because the most
of our education to citizens is through authorities giving information to citizens and saying,
"Is there any questions, and how can I give you more information?" So it's more or less
in a giving information versus gaining information from citizens and the League knows that voting
turnout and people participating in government has a great deal to do with how much people
feel connected to community. Arkansas Friends for Better Schools, an organization that encourages
communitywide support for public education, saw study circles as a way to give people
a real voice in education reform. When you have folks at the grassroots level involved
and committed in their public schools, things are going to happen that are going to be positive.
I really see study circles applied to empower people. There is something that's very comfortable
about going into a small group to talk about tough issues, and people who wouldn't normally
go to a large public hearing or public meeting and stand up and talk may find a voice in
some of these small study circles. Most of the things I think that we attend as citizens
are public forums or you have a speaker who is telling you about a topic, but they don't
have people sit down and be equal at a table and talk about their experiences. It's amazing
to listen to people talk about how they feel about an issue and hear different people's
different points of view, and it always changes my own point of view. "We've gotten to know
each other, so we've developed a rapport here." I think that whenever we get diverse perspectives
together, and when people come together and they share their concerns or good ideas, then
you're going to come up with a better solution to any problem. Well, what's interesting about
this approach to community problems is that because people come together in small groups
and might sit down with people their neighbors or people from across town and the businessman
sitting next to the senior citizen who lives in the neighborhood, so there are relationships
that are built across the barriers that often separate us in communities. Barriers of age,
educational level, race, socio-economic level. Study circles is a whole different ball game.
At least it has the potential for that, because now we have the potential for the business
community and anybody else outside of education to actually have some input in the decisionmaking
as to what are the objectives, and that is what I think is sorely needed. The process
is helped with the use of of ground rules that ensure that there'll be an emphasis on
listening and civility and respect for all points of view. Once we started talking, everybody
opened up and I think that its because some of the ground rules that we set forth in the
very beginning that we were able to feel comfortable with each other. Well, they were really interested
in what we had to say and what we want to do to make a difference. They really showed
great leadership in just sitting there listening to what we had to say about it. People coming
every week with another set of issues and more enthusiasm and more dedication to this
whole process. So you see ties built, and I think that's the most interesting thing
is how that changes from session one to session two, session three and it gets stronger and
more powerful any you start seeing people believe that they have a voice again. The
real power in the program is that over a series of weeks the citizens and members of the groups
begin to develop a sense of ownership for the issue by the final session the members
are beginning to talk about what can they do in this community to make a difference
on this issue. To help individuals or organizations start their own study circles, the Study
Circles Resource Center provides ongoing guidance, training, and materials. In Arkansas, they
worked with Judy Wilmoth White, coordinator of the multi-community program initiated by
Arkansas Friends for Better Schools. In each community, White contacted school superintendents
and board members to keep the project grounded in local concerns. I think it's important
that Study Circles happened at the community level, because each community has its own
set of issues--its own concerns. In Crossett, White worked with Karen and Mike Murphy, parents
who learned about study circles from the school superintendent. We are concerned that we are
seeing more and more violence. We are seeing more and more violence nationwide, but we're
seeing more and more violence in Arkansas, specifically in Crossett, and our children
will reap the destruction of that if we don't step in, and that's something we're not willing
to allow to happen, at least without trying to make a difference. The Murphys' concerns
led them to sign on as coordinators and facilitators. There were three of us who went through training
with Study Circles Resource Center personnel, and they came in and trained up pretty intensively,
and then the three of us trained the other facilitators. In Oklahoma, Carol Woodward
Scott, state president of the League of Women Voters, organized the statewide project with
League members we're in touch with all sectors of their communities. I don't think truly
you can reach out into all aspects of the community if you don't have representatives
of that part of the community working on the planning. To achieve broad-based representation
in Stillwater, League member Brenda Anderson Bose called upon church, business, media,
and university leaders, many of whom she knew. To begin with, I sat down with a group of
selected individuals in the community. We formed a small committee of community leaders
to get the word out. In Oklahoma City, coordinator Grace Kelly's challenge was to bring together
a diverse and sprawling population, typical of a large city. Sometimes we tend to focus
on--in bigger cities--on those people that we see the most often, and I think it's important
to reach all parts of the community. One of the decisions we made was to train facilitators
who were bilingual so that they could talk to the different aspects of our community.
The most effective groups are those which are quite diverse. People recruit for diversity
to have all kinds of people come together in the small groups. There a lot of programs
that include college and high school age students and that's especially true with education
efforts. We really encourage that. It absolutely changes the nature of the discussion to have
high school students in the conversation talking about the issues that affect them everyday.
We need to, as young people, talk to our teachers and let them know what we want to learn or
how we can help them better themselves in teaching us and preparing us before the next
level. Calling the Roll also provided a forum to connect teachers, students and community
members with their policymakers. I think when I first started teaching, I said I just wanna
be a teacher. I want to be out of politics. I don't want to be involved in the politics
of teaching, and I think over the course of my teaching career, I have found out that
politics are a big part of teaching, because so many of the decisions made about education
and those decisions that affect me on a daily basis, my children on a daily basis, those
decisions are made at the legislature. Sometimes what the people in their communities wanted
to have done about a topic was not was being talked about at the capitol, and this gave
them a forum to hear what people wanted to say about an issue. An in-depth set of dialogues
that can really make the decisionmakers understand, in-depth, what the community believes should
be done in this issue. Because instead of the typical politician up on a platform discussing
their concerns, their agenda, they are in a collaborative group. The opportunity to
explore concerns and solutions with their constituents is valuable to policymakers at
all levels. I think far and away, the best way to learn what your constituents think
is to talk to them. When you go to the coffee shop, you can hit a pretty wide range of things.
You can't solve all the world's problems in fifteen minutes, but when you go to the study
circle, it's focused; it's directed; and you can hone in on what the problem is and how
we're gonna solve it. In Arkansas, we're a poor southern state with limited resources.
We've simply got to know how to spend our dollars as wisely as possible, but we also
need broad-based public support from parents and taxpayers who are willing to sacrifice
in behalf of better schools in Arkansas. Several years ago, school thought that, "Hands off;
we can handle everything," and that's no longer true. I not only need to listen if there are
concerns and issues out there that we're not addressing, but we need to look at, "What
can we do?" The public requires or feels that we need provide a quality education, but just
what is a quality education that's what we're trying to get a handle on. I don't like to
think of myself as a politician; I like to think of myself as a facilitator of what the
folks back home are desiring. But as study circles lead to state or local policy decisions
or result in school or community action, the results can be far reaching. That leads me
to Senate Bill 125 which would require the State Department of Education to publish annually
a performance report for each individual school in the state and distribute those reports
to the parents or guardians who have children in our public schools and to make those reports
available via the Internet. As a member of the House Education Committee and co-sponsor
of the bill, representative Jeffress helped pass Senator Argue's bill in the House. The
motion is due passed on Senate Bill 125. All in favor say Aye. Opposed? I think school
performance reports in Senate Bill 125 relate to the Call the Roll initiative, because it
provides parents with performance information. I participated in Call the Roll. I met with
parents and teachers who are genuinely interested in improving their schools, but without information
that is specific to individual schools, parents really don't have the right information or
adequate information to judge their schools. Information and an open exchange of ideas
and perspectives can help people understand both the issues and each other. Parents, senior
citizens, businesspeople, we can all have a better understanding of the problems and
collaboratively come together so that we can try to solve them and do a better job by the
young people of our community.