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ac		language is power

language is power good schools for everyone making alliances working and learning finding a focus trying out new ideas how schools are organized how are we doing? opening the school doors things to avoid		WHEN DID teachers stop talking about grades and start talking about "assessments"? How did an open conversation about schools among different kinds of people turn into "public engagement"? Why are so many school people suddenly referring to their "critical friends"? Who started calling a school a "learning community"? And what is systemic change," anyway?

		What's the Challenge?
		In 1993 Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg gave $500 million to the nation's public schools, the largest such gift in history. Matched by other private and public funds, the money went to nine of the country's largest urban areas, five smaller cities, a network of rural schools across the United States, and three arts education projects. The Annenberg Challenge has a singular vision of good schools, but it encourages many local strategies for bringing good schools to fruition and for expanding their numbers. Over 2,700 schools and 1.8 million students in almost every state currently take part in the Challenge.
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		Like the language of doctors and lawyers, the language of professionals involved in school reform has grown into a terminology that can sound like nothing but jargon to outsiders. But as with medicine and law, such terms develop to pinpoint small but important differences between one concept or condition and another.

		theory of action
		Most people begin a project with a fairly good idea of what they intend to do and why they think it will work -their "theory of action." And that theory usually contains hidden assumptions about what does and doesn't work. As the project gets underway, some of these assumptions hold up and some don't, while the work shifts course because of new people or unexpected forces. The Challenge asks schools to make clear their assumptions up front, and to regularly look at their work to make sure that as people learn and things change, their theory of action changes too.
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		The Annenberg Challenge has often used new terms to describe just what it is doing and why, and how the schools of tomorrow will look if they succeed. Most of these terms grew up to convey real distinction and new ways of thinking about schools. Others are the kind of verbal shorthand that members of a family start to use over the years, referring to their common experience. Different Challenge sites do bear family resemblances; though they may differ in circumstance or approach, their shared core beliefs stand out like the shared genes of a clan. But whether it's intended or not, a family's "secret language" can exclude those not in the know, taking away their rightful power. The Challenge envisions schools that include everyone in a community - so if the old words can't describe our new schools, it must keep looking for clear words that will.

		Historically Speaking: Much of the lingo of school reform derives from the field of "organizational change," which grew up in the 1970's and 1980's as corporations moved away from top-down management styles, asking workers to take more responsibility for the success of the organization.
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