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Conversations About Education
Bring CT Citizens Together
For eleven years Conversations About Education in Connecticut have been funded by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund. These Community Conversations have engaged citizens from 85 cities and towns throughout the state. Community Mediation, manager of Community Conversations About Education, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to making democracy work fairly, inclusively and vibrantly for all.
Something almost magical happens during these Community Conversations. Education is the focus and participants are able to speak openly in a safe, civil environment. No yelling, no personal attacks. People listen to each other respectfully. They may agree or disagree; consensus is not the goal.
Learning what others in town think about an issue can highlight where citizens share points of agreements, disagree and are left with questions and concerns. The conversations can help policy-makers form decisions.
Communities organize the event themselves with technical assistance from Community Mediation consultants. Local sponsors from throughout Connecticut compete for awards of $2500. The award covers the conversation expenses including a light supper or breakfast for 100. This large group of 100 divides into small, manageable discussion groups. The individual groups, led by a local, trained moderator, all discuss a single topic that may be drawn from this list:
Topics of Conversations:
School
Safety
Academic
Expectations and Standards
Teaching
Methods
School
Funding
Parental
Involvement
Purposes
of Education
The
Question of School Choice
Helping
All Students Succeed in a Diverse Society
Neighborhood
Schools and Diversity
Child
Care
Creating
a Formula for Success in Low Performing Schools
Making
Standards Work for All Students
Readiness
for Elementary School Success
Creating
Family Learning
Who attends these conversations?
Planners work hard to bring together diverse
groups of people. The richer the diversity, the richer the conversation.
Each small group has a mixture of ages, stages in life, economic status,
ethnicity, and gender. Parents and students attend, as do school administrators
and teachers. But it is essential that the larger community be involved.
So we see employers, non-parents, the clergy, home schoolers, college
students and school dropouts. Everyone is represented. When this happens
a broad spectrum of opinion emerges. It’s an opportunity to see some
new faces and hear some new voices speak out on important issues.
At the end of the event we often hear, “That
was great. Let’s do it again.”
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