The Community Goes to School: A Multidistrict Analysis of Statewide Mandated Democratic Engagement

• In Event: To Devolve, Democratize, and Redistribute: Investigating Implementation of California's Historic Local-Control Funding Formula

Abstract

Policy makers, community leaders, and researchers have acknowledged the value of public participation in the political process (Cooper, Bryer, & Meek, 2006; Fung, Wright, & Abers, 2003; Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Head, 2007; McDonnell & Weatherford, 2000; Yang & Pandey, 2011). Echoing these broader trends, in 2013, California passed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) mandating democratic engagement in district educational decision-making. The LCFF requires districts to include and document the methods used to engage parents, pupils, stakeholders, and the broader education community in developing their Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). Thus, the new law dramatically shifts the public inclusion provision of education in California beyond representative democracy, in the form of school board elections, to encompass participatory engagement in goal setting and budgeting.

Given the ambitious nature of the LCFF democratic mandate and the significant investments occurring statewide to comply, it is critical to understand how civic engagement efforts are enacted at the local level and the extent to which they achieve the democratic goals. While prior research has examined civic engagement in educational reform at the district and school level (e.g., Bryk, 2010; Malen & Ogawa, 1988; Marsh, 2007), few studies have examined such a reform at this scale.

This paper extends previous literature on civic engagement by examining how democratic principles and community engagement methods have played out in statewide education reform. Specifically we ask: How did districts interpret and implement the requirement for democratic engagement? What district and community factors shaped the ways in which democratic engagement played out across districts?

To answer these questions, we drew on data from a broader study of LCFF in 10 districts, selected to represent variation in enrollment, geographic region, urbanicity, and student demographics (see Appendix A). For this paper, we analyze documents, videos, and interview data from state leaders (n=8), county administrators (n=20), and case study district and civic leaders (n=78) in 2014-2015. Guided by deliberative and participatory democratic theory (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Pateman, 1970), we analyzed the nature of engagement in each case along the dimensions of who (ranging from participatory to representative) and how (ranging from interest-based to deliberative) they participated.

Preliminary findings indicate a small number of districts were, highly participatory, engaging large numbers of community members, yet no districts engaged participants in a substantially deliberative process around allocations. Our data also indicate that in some districts engagement transcended formal district-sponsored meetings, and included community mobilizing and direct lobbying by advocacy groups designed to influence LCAP allocation decisions. Some civic leaders viewed this informal engagement as essential for ensuring particular voices were “heard.” We also found that districts demonstrating more participatory and deliberative processes generally benefited from the assistance of intermediary organizations and a history of strong civic organizations.

These findings suggest important implications for policy and practice, including the need for improved communication and capacity-building at the district and community levels to ensure adequate representation and substantive engagement of community members as intended. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Authors

• Michelle Hall, University of Southern California

• Julie A. Marsh, University of Southern California