Want your voice heard on education?
The Center for Michigan is listening

Here’s one pretty safe assumption: I’m far from alone in being disgusted with the way our political system is “working” these days.

What seems to be happening, both in Michigan and all over the country, is this: A mix of highly partisan activists, passionate ideologues and special interest groups are succeeding in mostly closing the political process to the views of ordinary citizens.

As a result, if you’re not part of the Republican or Democratic base or if you’re not a Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street ideologue, your voice simply won’t be heard.

So what can we do to get our state and country back on an even keel? One idea is to pull ordinary people together and ask what they’re thinking. Then you actually listen hard, take careful notes, amplify their views and bring them into the halls of power.

There’s a name for this “subversive” approach. Most textbooks call it “democracy.” And some of us want more of it.

Making that happen is precisely the work of The Center for Michigan, a non-partisan, non-profit group trying to help reform our political system by holding citizen “community conversations” in Michigan. (Disclosure: I’m its founder and serve as its president.)

These chats are designed to pull together small groups of people, groups designed to mirror the face of our state in everything from color and age to where they live – and offer them a relaxed, anonymous setting in which to voice and share their opinions.

The first community conversations, called “Michigan’s Defining Moment,” took place in 2007-10. They asked participants what kind of state they hoped to have and invited them to develop a plan for achieving that vision. Eventually, they included more than 10,000 Michiganders in 580 discussions across the peninsulas – the largest public engagement campaign in our state’s history.

The result was an agenda for Michigan’s transformation. More than that, we think it helped frame the 2010 election debate and influenced Gov. Rick Snyder’s successful campaign platform and subsequent legislative program.

Now, we’re back on the road again. The Center kicked off a new round of community conversations last week at the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus. The subject, this time around, is how best to improve learning in our schools, focusing on the customers of the education industry – students, parents/families, employers – who are not usually included in the current fierce debates about education. The idea is not to demonize anybody, but rather explore how citizens feel we can best improve student learning.

Before we’re done this time, we plan to hold 250 conversations on this theme and involve 5,000 people. During this first discussion, I sat quietly in the back row of Prof. Dale Thomson’s course in Michigan politics, where the conversation took place. The most impressive thing about this class of 32 was the diversity.

There were Arab-American women, some wearing head scarves, some not. There were African-Americans. There were young undergraduates, older men and women with children in school, a few teachers and substitute teachers, a white suburban policeman, and an elderly gentlemen who spoke with a charming French accent.

Participants were given an issue guide that in 20 pages laid out what every citizen needs to know about schools in Michigan and the various ideas at play to improve it. Participants were also given clickers – “your tool for democracy” – one of the discussion leaders called them – and were asked to vote on various topics.

Votes are being tallied and analyzed by the Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants. The results will form the core of a report on student learning the Center will issue next year.

What was clear from this first session was that people are not happy about the quality of schools in our state. Seventy-two percent graded them either “C” or “D.” Opinions were better when it came to local schools, with 50 percent giving them at least a B.

But how did these folks think we could improve school quality? By raising the bar for teacher preparation? Increasing support for teachers? By holding teachers accountable? Seventy-seven percent said raising the bar for teachers was “crucial” or “important.”

Holding teachers accountable for student learning got heavy support too. Other questions included various ideas:

Reducing class size; improving the school calendar; on-line learning; working with pre-kindergarten early education. We asked how important is parental involvement and how best to achieve it.

Votes were taken. Discussion flourished. The range of ideas was breathtaking. The concern of nearly everybody, real and urgent. Opinions were offered and discussed civilly. Heads nodded when a teacher and mother of two said, “Learning is a problem for our whole society, not just the teachers or the schools.”

What’s important about these community conversations is that they offer a way to push past the hyper-partisanship of our current politics to focus on the views of ordinary citizens. “This is not just idle chatter,” said one moderator. “Citizen views can cut through the noise of partisan conflict in a powerful way.”

If you are interested in participating in or convening a community conversation in your own area, send us an email.

And prepare for an inspiring and illuminating experience.

Former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power is founder and president of the Center for Michigan, a nonprofit, bipartisan think-and-do tank. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of the Center. He welcomes your comments via email.

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