The Civic Index for Quality Public Education

The Challenge

Public Education Network (PEN) wanted to investigate and strengthen the influence that communities have in improving public schools. As a result, PEN embarked on the design of an innovative Civic Index for Quality Public Education to give LEFs and communities a new tool for articulating their priorities for schools and engaging with each other about making progress.

Our Approach

Collaborative worked with PEN to produce part of the content for the Civic Index for Quality Public Education. This first-of-its-kind, comprehensive, online tool includes a national poll that measures public attitudes toward education. It assesses 10 scientifically-based categories of community support determined by the public and experts to be critical factors outside the school needed to support and sustain quality schools. The 10 categories are:

•   Tolerance and Inclusiveness
•   Officeholder Leadership
•   Parent Involvement
•   Media Coverage
•   Youth Development and Involvement
•   Business Involvement
•   School Board Elections
•   Community Organizations
•   Use of Data
•   Higher Education

The tool helps to tailor community engagement efforts for maximum impact in communities. Collaborative built strategies for engaging the public through public conversations, coalition building, town meetings and forums, and building stakeholder groups to advance recommendations. As a result, we researched and wrote two sections in the Index—Media Strategies and Strategies to Engage the Public. Our staff wrote, edited and revised content to ensure it would be accessible and relevant to users in communities across the country.

Our Impact

The Civic Index was released at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in June 2008, along with results from its national poll on how well the nation is supporting our public schools. Read more about the Civic Index on PEN’s Web site. At the time of release, eight cities and counties were using or would soon be using the Index to develop a local report card and work with their communities to improve their Index score in areas that need improvement.

Date Added: Mar 12, 2010