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ac		opening the school doors

language is power good schools for everyone making alliances working and learning together finding a focus trying out new ideas how schools are organized how are we doing? opening the school doors things to avoid		MANY SCHOOL people keep their conversations private and their classroom doors shut to parents and community members. They see administrators and school boards, lawmakers and policy-makers as adversaries or threats. Or they overlook the ways that the arts and business communities might help young people try out their academic learning in the real world. Yet all those kinds of people, just like teachers and students, have an important stake in better public education. And schools won't get better, the Challenge believes, until they can break the habit of isolation and invite the public back into the conversation. In fact, much of the public outcry over various educational approaches- whether reading or math or bilingual education-comes about because too little dialogue takes place between schools and the community. People get locked into "either-or" battles when they could be figuring out some common ground.
		parent involvement
		Parent involvement in Challenge sites means more than making cupcakes. Students and teachers need parents and caregivers to talk with them about individual goals for learning. At home, they can show that they value reading, writing, and solving problems every day. Schools can help by making parents welcome, both as learners themselves and as an important public audience for children's work.
		cj
		Engaging the public in honest conversation is not a matter of "public relations. No one voice should dominate the dialogue, and no one group should bear all the responsibility for results. In fact, these conversations can help to reveal deep differences of opinion about the very purpose of school, and raise important questions about whose idea of "good results" should matter most. However confusing that cycle of inquiry may seem, the Challenge believes, it reinforces democracy at the community level, putting authority and responsibility in the hands of the citizens closest to the children in their schools.
		public engagement
		School reform people use this term to describe their open dialogue with community members about what people expect their schools to accomplish, and how. In public engagement at its best, everybody affected by the school works together to honestly assess its situation and challenges. In a continuing process, they make changes, assess the results, and correct their course as necessary.
		cj
		* HISTORICALLY SPEAKING: The term "stakeholders" come from Gold Rush days on the American frontier, when people seeking to better their fortunes put stakes into the territory they claimed.
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