Education Commission of the States Web Dialogue on School Choice

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Education Commission of the States Web Dialogue
on School Choice

• October 12 13, 2004

Dialogue Evaluation Results
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Participant Categories
Total does not equal 100 since participants
could select multiple roles
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Participant Home Locations
Total does not equal 100 since this field was
not required
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Participants by State
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Evaluation Results

• 362 participants registered for the event
• A total of 58 evaluations were submitted
• Major positive findings
• 86 of respondents stated that the overall
  dialogue experience was positive
• 82 said they would refer a colleague to this
  dialogue as a tool to learn more about school
  choice issues
• 75 said they gained a deeper understanding of
  school choice issues

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Details Quality of Experience
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Views on School Choice
How would you rate the following statements about
your views on school choice issues?
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Details Refer a Colleague
I will refer a colleague to this dialogue as a
tool to learn more about school choice issues
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Contributed to Dialogue
Regarding how much they contributed to the
quality of the dialogue, how would you rate the
following?
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Suggestions

• need to have a place for the action to
  continue or the information to feed to, such as
  the US Department of Education, or other places
  where policy can be changed.
• There were a couple of times I would have liked
  to have seen the moderator step in with a gentle
  reminder of the ground rules when comments
  started snowballing or coalitions started
  forming...there were a few participants who
  steamrolled the conversation.
• My work schedule simply left little time to get
  back to the event or to keep up with the various
  responders. I think the concept is marvelous, but
  the event should last a week at the least.

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Open-ended Comments

• I thought the interface was easy to use, the
  moderators were good, and many of the comments
  very thoughtful, but there were some posters who
  weren't so much listening and responding as
  looking for attack openings. It seems to be very
  difficult to get a real conversation going on the
  tough issues around choice, but that's not a
  problem unique to this setting.
• Even in the more confrontational exchanges with
  individuals with whom I have huge political
  disagreements, the outcomes generally tended to
  elucidate some new lines of thinking and options
  that may help.

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Open-ended Comments (cont. 1)

• It was easy to fit in to work schedules, kids
  and errands....very user friendly, and very
  informative. Even if you could only stay on for a
  few minutes at first, you couldn't resist
  checking back in to see what else was said or
  what the responses were to the things you just
  read.
• I appreciated being able to read the summaries,
  even though I could not participate in the actual
  discussion.
• The experts had good info and insight but people
  on the dialogue could say anything they wanted,
  even if it wasn't true. It gave skewed positions
  on issues, particularly as states or institutions
  were referenced.

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Open-ended Comments (cont. 2)

• The exchange of ideas was very good. The most
  important thing I received from this was the
  opportunity to view ideas from people who agreed
  on the main issue but were able to comment how
  the same policies/issues affect each of them or
  the entities they represent.
• I was slightly disappointed that for the most
  part there were only a couple of dozen posters
  who actively participated. This does not
  adequately represent the broadest possible
  perspectives. I came away with a couple of good
  ideas for improving charter schools.
• I was pleasantly surprised by all of the
  participants-- whether I agreed with them or not,
  it was great to see that many people "fired up"
  about the topics.

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Open-ended Comments (cont.3)

• More substantive content than I've experienced in
  other web activities. The major frustration was
  the breath of issues discussed and the
  difficulty in tying it all together in the end.
•  Thought provoking...a very open line of
  communication. It was great to read other peoples
  comments and a definite bonus to bring back some
  of these ideas and stories to my state
  policymakers and fellow board members.
• Very well done, informative, and easily
  accessible....I look forward to more dialogues in
  the future.

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Comments from Panelists

• It was clear that participants had strong
  opinions (in some cases dead set) and were
  unwilling to waiver in their stance, however I
  did follow a few threads where participants
  engaged in more exploratory conversations My
  hope was that discussion around new themes would
  surface but it seemed that we were speaking to
  some of the already recurring issues
• It was a good experience for me as I was so very
  interested in the subject and also interested in
  other people's experience and suggestions. I got
  some good ideas from all the responses.

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Comments from Panelists (cont.)

• I found the Dialogue to be
• Easy to access
• Easy to follow, given the overall diagramming of
  statements and responses
• Extremely civil in tone and constructive in
  exchanges relative to the typical dialogues on
  these subjects
• Efficient in the use of participant time
• Participation was too narrow, with a few people
  taking up too much of the space. The format,
  panels, and initial questions were very good.

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Participant Interest in Future Topics
of ppl Topic 32
Teaching Quality 32 Accountability 26
Leadership 24 No Child Left Behind 21
Governance 18 Special Education Issues 16
Early Childhood Education 15 Finance 14
Postsecondary Education 11 Service Learning
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For more information

• Laurie Maak
• lmaak_at_wested.org
• [phone]
• Bob Montgomery
• bmont_at_wested.org
• [phone]
• Visit the ECS Web Dialogue at
• http//www.webdialogues.net/ecs