This post was written for the 20 community colleges participating in Completion by Design, a five-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative that aims to significantly increase completion rates for low-income students under 26. As a “National Assistance partner” for Completion by Design, Public Agenda provides direct assistance to the colleges to help them build capacity for solutions-oriented dialogue among faculty, staff and administration. Here, Public Agenda's Alison Kadlec discusses best practices for authentic internal stakeholder engagement. While the post is geared toward Completion by Design planning teams, the principles are useful for any authentic engagement process.

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Far too often, throughout our work in the education field, we've seen even the most earnest and promising ideas from experts and reformers for improving schools and ramping up student learning met with confusion, anxiety or even anger from teachers, parents, students or community members.

As Americans nationwide voice concern about the health of our democracy and our ability to work together to solve the problems facing the country, civic learning as a priority in education has plummeted. How can we move it from the periphery of education to the center? What experiences should schools, colleges and universities offer to prepare their students to be productive citizens? How can 21st century learning inspire our nation's young people to be more civically-minded, engaged and ready to lead?

The materials that we have helped develop to involve instructors in K-12 and higher education reform are flexible and varied, and administrators, educators and others can use them in a variety of contexts. Creating diverse occasions for dialogue is a key to effectively and authentically engaging stakeholders, and is our next core principle for public engagement.

When engaging people on a tough public problem like education reform or a region's transportation needs, obstacles and resistance are bound to creep up. Here are a few tips you can use to help them move beyond pipe dreams, recognize and accept trade-offs, and work through obstacles and resistance.

While we were conducting the research for our recent study, Don't Count Us Out, members of the public told us that an abundance of technical information can be jarring and confusing, and that they are actually quite skeptical about the accuracy of statistics and measurements. When providing information for a group of people to help them deliberate an issue, it's crucial to weigh the amount, type and timing of that information:

Is Social Security a failed system in need of replacement or a successful one in need of normal maintenance? Is the public school system the best hope for democracy or a state monopoly immune to reform?

The presentation of information, facts and arguments is not neutral. Different presentations, depending on language and word choice, can have very different impacts and can evoke very different connotations and reactions from our listeners. This presentation provides a context, or a frame, through which people make a value judgments.

The guest list for a community conversation in Coolidge, Arizona two weeks ago included small business owners, faculty and administration of colleges and universities, students, K-12 teachers and principals, representatives from local community-based organizations and even the chief of police. It was an impressively diverse group gathering to talk to about how to improve the success and completion rates of college and university students in their community.

Engaging the public in a genuine and robust manner will be central to moving our nation forward in these challenging times. Last week we described the first of the ten core principles that undergird our public engagement work. This week we bring you two more, both of which speak directly to the frustrations of the public in this moment:

Our system is broken. While our leaders bicker about inconsequential issues and refuse to have constructive dialogue about the important ones, the voice of the average American is lost entirely.