According to the Education Commission of the States (1997), reforms are better supported, better understood, and more effective when communities play an important role in their creation. Schools need to build community involvement and understanding into the reform process early and not as an afterthought. When education leaders communicate with the public throughout the reform process, they become aware of the public's concerns. This awareness enables them to examine and adjust ideas and policies in light of community concerns. The result will usually be greater community trust of those reforms.

Public deliberation serves to bring diverse groups of people together to achieve understanding of--if not consensus on--a range of public issues, from the use of illegal drugs to the role of public education. Participants describe these structured conversations as promoting local dialogue that is personal, civil, deliberative, inclusive, and relevant. Insights into the potential role of public deliberation about education reform hold promise for helping state and local educators and policymakers make progress toward gaining public input, approval, and support responses necessary to realize the promise of high-quality education for all students (SEDL, 1995).

However, if public deliberation is to be a tool for effective schooling for all children, an effort must be made to ensure that all segments of the community are engaged in the dialogue. All too frequently, linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse populations are excluded from or decline to participate in public discourse. Their noninclusion or reluctance may come from a perceived lack of skills needed to participate, requirements for culturally unfamiliar behavior, or because the topic and activity appear irrelevant (SEDL, 1995). Deliberation requires not only setting aside time for people to meet and talk, but nurturing a sense of safety and connection for all involved (Olsen et al., 1994).

Family and community voices are essential to the dialogue of school reform. They provide a window on the experiences of students that teachers and other educators do not have. For students of linguistically and culturally diverse families, the window helps to link school and home by fostering better understanding of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Without this input, schools are at a disadvantage in identifying and implementing needed reforms, and children are at risk of being misunderstood, miseducated, and excluded (Olsen et al., 1994).

Common ground between the public and its schools emerges when communities share purposes, courtesy, language, issues, and processes and pledge to work together. In many communities, parents, educators, and community members at large have reached an understanding that the public's role must go beyond paying taxes, electing school boards, and participating in special events. Educators alone, though they are the professionals, cannot decide how schools will be run. The public must fulfill its role and help create the schools it wants.

Public deliberation can be an important tool that helps a community "generate greater clarity and broad agreement" (Wagner, 1997). The unique characteristics of public deliberation, adaptability, inclusiveness, accessibility, and emphasis on shared problem solving make it an important tool as schools change the way they teach and prepare students. Once integrated into a community culture, deliberation looks like a revolving-door process (Ledell, 1996). "If we think of education as part of our work as citizens, it changes our relationship to schools, making it more likely that we will see them as our agents, as institutions that help carry out public responsibilities" (Mathews, 1996, p. 54).