SSNS Mission
Jim Broadway
Posted: 04/29/2005
Jim BroadwaySSNS Mission Statement: State School News Service provides information and analysis that will empower public education advocates, individually and as a constituency, to help the forces of democracy do their work in influencing the ways education policy is crafted by our state policy makers. Our mission, therefore, it like that of any other journalistic enterprise, except that our focus is on school policy and our eye is on the state level of government.
Rationale: Public education is a pure creature of public policy shaped at the state level. Local board and administrative decisions are authorized by state policy makers; all federal policy on education is implemented in ways that are decided by state officials. To influence school policy, it is vital to understand this, and to focus efforts on the state level.
The need for better understanding of school policy trends is obvious from the events of the last two decades. Beginning with "A Nation At Risk" in 1983, culminating with "No Child Left Behind" in 2001, and punctuated with "reform" and "accountability" legislative enactments in every state, policies have been put into effect that not only do nothing to foster effective learning, but often even have negative effects.
That is just one aspect of public education policy that cries out for greater awareness and understanding. Another is the whole question of how public schools are funded, and it is a question that has raged in Illinois, and in most other states, for two decades or more. A result has been public anger, confusion and frustration, all of which can be addressed by just one thing - better information.Therefore, it is a goal of SSNS to help define the forces that shape school policy, and to give the public, and education advocates, tools they can use for the benefit of public schools and schoolchildren.
SSNS Strategies: Influencing policy is a process, not an event. It requires timely information and direction on how to intervene in the policy process, and it requires continual communication to refine that effort, to expand it, to bring everyone who cares about education "to the table," so the policy makers will know beyond question what "the people" want for the public schools.
Timely Information: SSNS informs subscribers of the emergence and movement of school policy issues. We post details of such issues on this web site, including such information as legislative committee schedules, membership on those committees and ways the legislators can be contacted before they cast their votes.
SSNS gives subscribers a "look over the horizon," letting them know what is likely to happen on issues of public education policy, based on state and national trends and the agendas of organizations that exert a powerful influence on school policy.
Asserting Influence: SSNS give clear direction on how to influence the flow of initiatives that affect schools, educators, parents, children and communities. This direction is often so timely as to take the form of an "alert" delivered by email. It also includes in-depth examinations of concepts that are integral to the processes of government- or community-relations in general.
No SSNS subscriber should ever feel "out of the loop" or "helpless" against the challenges of the policy process and the forces now driving it. There are ways to avert or mitigate the ill effects of poorly conceived school policy, and ways to achieve positive goals even in the face of long odds. SSNS subscribers will come to understand those ways.
Continual Communication: SSNS has been likened to a seminar in that it is dynamic and responsive. It adjusts its focus to the flow of the policy process, and maintains a link with and among its subscribers. SSNS is guided by subscriber "feedback," just like any good publicatio or seminar presenter. The SSNS site also gives education advocates ways to communicate among themselves, to achieve understanding and share ideas.
Community cohesion. Perhaps that is the most powerful effect of SSNS. When the community of education advocates is aware, when it is alerted to the issues, when it can see its role in shaping those issues, when it enjoys a consensus among its own constituents, then it becomes powerful.
Empowering the community of public education advocates through timely information: That's our mission. (I welcome your questions, comments and suggestions on state education policy. Send email to me at jbroadway@stateschoolnews.com)
