The role of solicited public engagement in the development of educational policy

A report by the State Education Department to the New York State Board of Regents in 2001 concluded that significant numbers of students leaving the middle grades were at risk of not graduating high school in four years. The Board was asked to consider changes in mandated curriculum and pupil support services to ensure that middle grade students meet state learning standards. The Regents sought research and advice from national experts and also solicited ideas from an "extensive and inclusive" public, using a variety of formats and venues.; This case study on the role of solicited public engagement in the development of educational policy, conducted by a participant observer, pursued the following research questions: (1) What are the challenges in mounting a statewide public engagement process and how were these challenges met? (2) How do members of the state policy-making Board of Regents report being influenced by products of a public engagement? (3) How are the products of a statewide public engagement process reflected in promulgated regulation?; The investigation illuminated, through triangulated modes of inquiry, aspects of the public engagement process that potentially go unnoticed. In spite of the ambitious effort, the public engagement process had only limited influence on the formation of public policy.; This study revealed three main points with important implications for theory and practice. (1) Absent a clearly enunciated purpose for public engagement in the case of policy development for middle level education, agency staff and managers made important decisions about who the public is, what to ask the public, and how to present public comment that engagement yielded to the decision makers. Purposes for engaging the public can be organized into three functional categories: traditional obligation, political expedience, and public investment. (2) An extensive and inclusive public engagement process will bring voluminous and conflicting feedback. A soliciting agency needs a plan for how it will collect and report the thinking of the "publics" it solicits. (3) Prior institutional beliefs of the soliciting agency can constrain the way the process is conducted and the way the output is communicated.