Kindle Notes & Highlights
Teaching became more feminized as schools assumed greater responsibility for socializing children. American women had long been seen as the keepers of morals and the builders of community in early American and frontier culture. Tocqueville attributed the bulk of America’s social progress to its women despite their subordinated political and economic status. The role of women as teachers was seen as a natural extension of women as homemakers, and classrooms became a social and moral extension of the home.
Preserving our American way of life in the face of social, economic, and demographic transformations requires us to sometimes change how we live in order to preserve what we live.
The lesson is clear—deny people access to the American Dream, and they will create their own. Like
“America’s future will be determined by the home and the school,” said Jane Addams. “The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.”
two basic types of problems—positive and normative. Positive problems are problems of fact. We solve positive problems by using legal, scientific and technical knowledge.
Technical choices involve positive or factual statements.
Solving positive problems does not require leadership.
Normative problems are problems of values. We solve normative problems by using moral, ethic...
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As this example shows, the essence of the public in public schools is normative, meaning it is value-based and political. Leadership is essential to preserving the public in public schools.
Such arguments presume that we can remove politics and policy conflicts from either the classroom or the boardroom without harming the public in public schools. We cannot. To do so would remove the public from public schools. It might reduce policy conflicts, but it would also remove the very values that all of the purposes of public education and all of the rationales for public schools rest upon. Policy problems, conflicts and choices in public schools are about the public in public schools.
They involve technical issues, but they are not technical problems. They are normative or value-based problems.
Policy problems involve both facts and values. We may know many different facts about a policy problem. But when we argue about how best to resolve a policy problem, we are likely to select those facts that support the values we already prefer.
When we argue for or against a particular policy solution, we are likely to make both positive and normative statements.
The more strongly we believe normative statements, the more likely we are to state them as if they were facts. Just because a statement is value-based doesn’t preclude some people from holding it to be true.
Policy problems arise when individuals or groups pursue different public values. They occur in public settings where we engage each other as fellow citizens rather than as private individuals. And they require us to use normative statements.
When citizens and public school leaders debate normative issues such as these, inevitably they discover that they have value differences. They are likely to assume that their value differences arise because they hold different values. They do not. They hold the same values, the core public values of liberty, equality, community and prosperity. Their differences arise not from different values, but from different priorities among these core values.
Public values of liberty, equality, community and prosperity unite us as Americans in ways that nothing else can. Most of the ways we describe ourselves as a people divide us.
Because different values give us different views of the problem, we tend to also see different solutions. Before we can decide how to solve a policy problem, we must first be able to see the problem in terms of its core values.
Sometimes we are reluctant to look at different points of view, either because we are convinced that our view is right or because we prefer not to make room for different views.
To paraphrase Aristotle, an educated mind should be able to entertain an idea without having to accept it.
Because policy problems are value-based and not technical, they are seldom solved in any permanent sense. At best they are resolved for some period of time. Most important policy problems emerge again and again. How long a specific policy solution lasts is influenced by many factors, not least of which is how well all of the values represented in the most recent configuration of the problem were satisfied.
For our purposes, public leadership is the art and science of solving policy problems, making policy choices and crafting policy solutions on behalf of the public good.
Because policy problems involve the values of the public good and affect us as citizens, we do not make these choices alone. We engage each other in collective public decision making, and we must do so consistent with democratic principles.
The first task of public leadership is to create a shared understanding of policy problems and choices. Without a shared understanding, we are more likely to harm the public good than to do good. The second leadership task is to craft policy solutions that achieve the greatest possible public good. We do this by striking the best possible balance among all of the competing public values. The third leadership task is to use democratic means to accomplish the first two tasks. This requires arts and skills of democracy such as inclusion, participation, representation, deliberation and
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There are no single-value problems. More than one value means there is more than one solution.
Agree on the problem before solutions. Ask people what they like and don’t like about a particular problem, issue or solution. Hear all of the arguments, identify all of the values. Recognize value differences. Make room for others. Distinguish between means and ends, and between the how and the what. Public problems have multiple solutions but no single right answer. Good choices are both technically feasible and politically acceptable.
Beware one-value problems and solutions. Since every public problem involves at least two values, we cannot solve a public problem by using just one value.
Seek to optimize all values involved rather than maximize one value. Think long-term. Benefit the community as a whole.
The best solution to a public problem is one that expands the realms of liberty, equality, community, and prosperity simultaneously.
No one person, organization or unit of government owns a policy problem alone. Competing public values means that people have differing visions of the public good and d...
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The problem isn’t that we can’t see the solution, it’s that we can’t see the problem.3
“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.”8
The previous steps in our policy problem solving process helped us define the why and the what surrounding summer learning and summer vacation. We drew upon what people value about summer learning and summer vacation to identify the good that people want to achieve and preserve. We also drew upon what concerned participants about summer vacation and summer learning to identify the harm people want to prevent. Once we have crafted an integrative policy goal, we must address how to implement our policy solution, which involves the how and the who. In public decision making, “once the what is
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Technical problem solving skills are useful and necessary for many endeavors, but they are inadequate for addressing policy choices involving the public good.
An educated citizen also possesses the arts of liberty.12 The first art of liberty involves connecting rights and responsibility, e.g., the
The second art of liberty involves understanding that differences matter and should be incorporated into all institutions and aspects of American life, especially public schools.
Seeing difference as a strength and tapping into the power of difference are two of the keys to effective policy problem solving.
Anyone who has ever played a game of pinball learned that the true measure of success isn’t the score itself but winning the chance to play another game. In public problem solving, the true measure of a good policy solution is that it helps get us to the next iteration of the problem.
Governance is the process of governing. Government, including school districts, is the institution in which governing occurs. For public schools, governance involves choices and decisions about how to allocate and use resources to achieve value-based educational goals. Five key features distinguish governance from management and administration. Governance is political, collective, horizontal, democratic, and uncertain.
governing is political. It involves making decisions about the fundamental purpose, goals and means of public schools.
Administrative authority can reside in an individual, but governing authority cannot.
Third, governing is horizontal. It is broader than management and leadership because it reaches beyond organizational boundaries to encompass political issues of policy, rights and powers. Its legitimacy typically depends upon representative election rather than selective appointment. It requires consideration of multiple interests, points of view and solutions. Representing the public interest requires a horizontal governance structure and process that can equalize power differences among diverse and competing interests.
governing is democratic. “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” proclaimed Jefferson.
Governing requires boards to use democratic processes such as facilitation, participation, and deliberation to identify and understand the needs and interests of the public. It requires processes of negotiation, mediation, adjudication and legislation to transform public needs and interests into policy and practice.
governing is uncertain. Management and administration are about authority, control and predictability. To govern means to rule without absolute power. Those who govern cannot predict or guarantee a specific outcome.
