What Do People in the Achievement Gap Research Want to Learn From Each Other?

[This was posted from the Kettering Foundation meeting on September 20-21, 2007 with 12 sites working on the project, "Too Many Children Left Behind". For more information about the project visit the Project Home Page.]

Question posed by Charlie Houser:

Think about What would you like to learn from other people who share this journey? What will we share with each other?

• Very helpful to hear that there is a variety of ways to do this work - highly structured vs. organic.
• Want to drill down a little further into groups that are farther along. How did you handle communication, for example? Did you do powerpoint presentations of your data?
• How do you handle diverse participants? How do you get them to the table so that your participants reflect the community?
• Some groups may be more sophisticated than others. Do you frame this in term of a gain or a loss? What is more affective in getting people to show up?
• How do you get the internal district or state systems to actually change? System has to change. After you instigate the conversation, how do you make the bridge
• What are our AHA moments. In this movement, we are trying to organize others to do what we are passionate about? To plan a process to get others engaged in this process?
• How do we communicate when a major shift has happened? This could keep the energy up if we can help people see that something is happening. We should ask people how they would like to hear back from us after the forum.
• Post media articles about what our partners are doing.
• How do politicians successfully frame the issue?
• What are some limitations that people have / are struggling with?
• We are all in different positions in doing this work.
• How did people take action? What were the last words people heard at the end of the forum and how did that lead to something happening. How will we monitor that action?
• Can we get ideas about the budgeting? What will others be doing that are a little less than the $132,000 budget of the E3 partnership in Central Texas? [resounding "yes" and much laughter from the participants.]