Stakeholder Engagement: Challenges and New Practices

Posted on by coreeducation

The stakeholder engagement provisions in ESSA (the Every Student Succeeds Act) will fundamentally alter how education policy is made. If implemented as intended, it will ensure that the expertise of the parents, educators and other leaders working with, and on behalf of, students every day informs the development of state and local policies and practices.

Anne O’Brien at Learning First Alliance highlights a number of resources that may be helpful in this endeavor:

  1. Learning First Alliance has issued guiding principles to help states and districts as they began this important work. See http://www.learningfirst.org/stakeholder-engagement-required-essa
  2. The National Association of State Boards of Education recently released a related policy update. Drawn from reviews of 51 state education agency (SEA) websites and in-depth interviews with representatives from 15 SEAs, ESSA Stakeholder Engagement: Early Challenges and Promising Practices identifies five common challenges that states are facing in this work:
  • Identifying diverse stakeholders and casting a wider net
  • Overcoming time and resource constraints
  • Communicating effectively with stakeholders
  • Maximizing meetings’ impact
  • Organizing and incorporating feedback into a state plan

See http://www.nasbe.org/policy-update/essa-stakeholder-engagement-early-challenges-and-promising-practices/

  1. National PTA has identified the following best practices for engaging parents in ESSA:
  • Ensure there is at least one dedicated parent representative on any ESSA state- or local-level committee
  • Partner with PTA to:
    • Disseminate information on ESSA and any meetings, forums or webinars
    • Co-host ESSA-related forums
    • Leverage parent and community leaders to gather input from other parents and families in the community
  • Show how parent input has been considered and/or incorporated in state plans and policies
  • Ask for specific input and feedback on topics and in parent-friendly language
  • Build in structures and opportunities for ongoing engagement and feedback

The association has also created a wide variety of resources accessible at PTA.org/ESSA to support states, districts and schools in engaging families in ESSA.

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