PILOTed

Is this how presidential education policy should be made?

Any candidate for the presidency of the US must be able to sound knowledgeable on every important issue. How did Barak Obama go about doing that?

 

Cathy Toohey worked as a volunteer on the Barak Obama campaign to help with the education platform.

 

Cathy was one of 200 field workers (correction from Cathy: there were 2000 volunteers for education.  Those 2000 were subdivided into state groups to report to the education policy group member with certain state responsibilities and they in turn reported into the campaign.) reporting to the central committee on education. Each field worker was responsible for an area. They checked local media, schools, websites, and organizations for educational issues in their region. Cathy’s region was rural Iowa. Her job was to find out:

·         What were the education issues

·         What was working

·         Where were the problems

·         What did rural Iowans want to do about them

·         What was being reported about education locally

·         What were the differences between their issues and national, suburban, or urban issues

·         Which of their issues were being addressed and which exacerbated by state and national policies

·         Which of Obama’s ten education principles resonate with the local population

 

Here are some of the things she found about rural issues, and Iowa’s in particular:

·         In Iowa, 40% of students are in rural schools, but rural schools only receive 22% of federal funding; nationally, rural enrollments are about 20% of the school population and 40% of the schools.

·         Most of national education funds and policy are geared toward urban schools; that’s where the money is, and that is where most of the Title I funds go.

·         Schools are much more a part of the community in rural settings; many members of the community attend and root for school teams, and go to school events like plays and concerts.

·         Teachers live, are known, and participate in the community, differently from urban and suburban schools, where the teachers usually are not part of the community they teach in.

·         AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is an issue in rural schools, but not nearly as big an issue as in urban schools.

·         The biggest issues are a) finding teachers in hard-to-staff areas like math and science, especially given the lower pay scales that they can offer, and b) closing the achievement gap for students with disabilities and students from low income families.

·         Having the resources to help children who need help is a key concern; if there are three children in a small, rural district that need help, that is both an economic hardship and a difficult area to staff.

·         About half of young children in rural areas are in center-based day care, which is not that different from the 57% nationwide, so investing in early education, a key element of Obama’s education platform, is a concern in rural areas, too.

·         Teacher turnover is less an issue in rural areas; probably because teachers are not as meticulously controlled, teaching is less stressful, and teachers are part of the community they teach in.

·         Diversity (racial, language, and cultural) issues are not as major as in urban schools, but are a growing concern. Caucasians are just over 80% of the rural school population, but minority enrollment has grown by over 50% over the last five years.

·         The average rural school in Iowa has 200 students.

·         With small schools and large distances between schools, professional development is an issue; how are you going to get a group of elementary teachers together for training if there are only three within 100 miles.

·         Curriculum alignment to standards is considered a key solution, and is perceived as a reason districts have been able to meet NCLB goals.

·         Access to AP classes is difficult.

 

Cathy took her information, just as the other 200 education volunteers did, and regularly reported to the central education committee, who compiled all of the reports and communicated with Obama.

 

So, rather than relying primarily on a few hand-picked experts, the Obama campaign mobilized field researchers, analyzed data from a variety of sources, used the data to make communications and decisions, and then verified those policies and decisions with more data from the field.

 

Sounds like a sensible, rationale approach to making decisions and carrying out policy.

Ideas that Stick

Chip and Dan Heath, in Made to Stick, write about the six attributes that make lessons, information, and communications memorable and actionable. Not all sticky information needs all six attributes, but more attributes means greater probability that your audience (students, prospects, customers, co-workers, etc.) will remember and incorporate your message into their actions.

Successful communications are

• Simple: they hone in on the essence, the one aspect that needs to be communicated.

• Unexpected: by producing a cognitive dissonance in the audience, they demand greater attention.

• Concrete: they relate to an incident or object instead of an abstraction.

• Credible: they use statistics, authorities, cases, or simulations as proof elements.

• Emotional: they hook into emotions to spur action and long term memory.

• Stories: they use stories instead of just listing facts or bullets.

Unfortunately, the description above violates virtually every one of those attributes. Even knowing that the attributes use the mnemonic SUCCES, if all you do is read those first few paragraphs, you won’t remember any of this and your communications will remain forgettable. You probably won’t even buy the book.

Here’s a great example that shows the contrast between sticky and non-sticky communication.

Let’s say you wanted to produce a summary of a conference. Which would be more effective for the attendees and other interested parties:

1. Provide all of the handouts, data, and presentation files from the presenters in one, easy-to-use location.

2. Compile every funny, tragic, or exciting story told by the presenters.

The Heaths point out that people will remember the stories and their lessons. The presenters spent most of their time researching the data and creating the presentations. If the purpose of your summary is to acknowledge the effort and expertise of the presenters, you’ll post the notes and data. But, if your purpose is to maximize the impact of the conference on the attendees and audience, you’ll post the stories.

Here is an example from school.

Imagine that you want to teach a lesson on journalistic writing: after getting the facts, start your article with the main idea. Do you

1. Show articles that do this, explaining (or having the students explain) how the authors found, organized, and reported on the story.

2. Present facts, such as, “The governor will address the teachers of this school next Thursday in a full day session on (and so on).” Let the students write their stories and hand them in. And only then spring the main idea on them, what should have been their headline or starting sentence: that there will be no school this Thursday.

The second builds in story-telling, unexpectedness, emotion, and concreteness while bolstering the credibility of the instructor. Students will remember it.

By the way, did you know that in all of the Sherlock Holmes stories, he never said, “Elementary, my dear Watson?” There were plenty of times he said, “Elementary.” There were plenty of times he said, “My dear Watson.” And there were plenty of times he was condescending to Watson. Even though the phrase, itself, was never actually uttered, if you ask someone to quote Sherlock Holmes, that’s probably what you’ll hear. That’s because it really captures the essence of the master detective and his relationship with his faithful assistant.

Now, if we can capture the power of “Elementary, my dear Watson” in our own communications, while being accurate, maybe we can be more effective teachers, workers, and leaders.

My suggestion, if you want to sell better, manage better, or teach better, buy Made to Stick.