Guest blogger Peter Meyer wrote this in response to Checker Finn's recent Gadfly editorial, "The 'buy-in' paradox". Meyer is a Contributing Editor of Education Next and member of a New York State school board.
As the head of a task force on student academic performance in my small district, I'm in the midst of a "stakeholder buy-in" experiment right now. And ten months into it, the one thing I've learned is that it is a process not a program. Bottom line: asking whether stakeholder buy-in works is like asking whether air works. If mixed with carbon monixide, no; if you have too little, no; if you have too much....Like any other essential, it can be diluted and polluted. My task force (i'm a member of the board of ed) started out with a bang, with enthusiasm from every stakeholder group, including parents, aides, teachers, administrators, and even a few taxpayer types. The dropout rate, however, was worse than Detroit's. Among the first to go: teachers; we were getting to close to "contractual issues." Then the administrators: we were stepping into their territory. Then, of course, as word spread that the administration and teacher union types weren't happy, most of the rest of the staff disappeared.... If we didn't have two school board members on the team -- and a BOE mandate -- that would have been the end of it. We pressed on, with a few intrepid parents, a former teacher, and a couple of fearless staffers. We wrote a 29-page report with 50 recommendations (on time and under budget!) and -- this was a big victory -- got the board to approve a plan to "take the show on the road." With Draft Report (and PowerPoint, of course) in hand, we are now conducting a series of "feedback forums" with stakeholder groups -- to continue the dialogue! I'm not sure if this will amount to much or "work" -- but we're cleaning up the air a bit.
--Peter Meyer