Effectively integrating public education and its impact on the economic opportunity into the culture requires an integrated marketing and communications effort that embodies the most effective elements of advocacy and social marketing.  Success is defined by more than just educating key constituencies about education efforts and their goals.  True success requires stakeholders to take specific action – to implement effective education efforts in partnership with educators and the business community to directly improve education and job opportunities for all students.  Such actions require us to move from informing the public to building commitment for a solution, and, finally to mobilizing around specific actions. 

There is a great difference between making stakeholders aware of a concern like the need for more math or science education to the more sophisticated level of informed public opinion necessary to reach consensus and generate a sense of urgency that ultimately leads to the action of adopting an education platform and integrating the educational and community needs on such a platform.

The Inform-Build Commitment-Mobilize Action process can be broken down to understand the steps necessary to move through this process.  Using a seven-stage model developed by Daniel Yankelovich of the Public Agenda Foundation, we can analyze the process of engaging a target audience and moving them from uninformed bystander to an action-oriented group, a group ready to enthusiastically adopt public education solutions.  These stages are:

·      Becoming aware of the issues

·      Developing a sense of urgency

·      Looking for answers

·      Managing and persevering through resistance

·      Weighing choices

·      Intellectual acceptance

·      Full acceptance

In applying these seven stages to our key audiences, we must recognize that each stakeholder group may be at a different point along this continuum. Understanding this is critical to designing and implementing the appropriate tactics to move them to action.  Many a plan has failed because it was based on the assumption that one size fits all audiences. 

INFORM: The first two stages occur in the Informing phase.

Before we can get audiences to adopt public education reforms and embrace the portfolio of research and recommendations available to them, we must first make them aware of the issues at hand. 

Quantitative research, coupled with stakeholder reaction and interest in education, demonstrates the concerns our audiences have for workforce preparedness and opportunity.  This data is even further enhanced by a number of respected business and education organizations.    All audiences are looking for solutions – solutions that can both be easily implemented and have maximum impact on improving educational and economic opportunity.

While many decisionmakers recognize that there are problems in meeting the coming workforce demands, many do not agree on what those problems may be or what actions might successfully address them.  And, unfortunately, too many people believe that there is nothing that can be done to fix these problems.  High school dropout rates and postsecondary education preparedness issues only complicated the discussion.  Those that are poised to become leaders in true education improvement must first convince K-12 and postsecondary education leaders, current and potential employers in the state, state and local policymakers, and the public at large that there are solutions that will work, and solutions their communities can get behind and support.

Stage One: People Become Aware of an Issue

In general, the public recognizes that meaningful employment in the 21^st century requires a basic understanding of reading, math, and a collection of “soft” skills, often referred to as 21^st century skills. Better-educated consumers are now placing greater scrutiny on the relevance of secondary and postsecondary education on employment opportunities.  At this first stage, states should develop messages and materials with clear, concrete examples spelling out the problems.  We do not need to worry about promoting our solutions just yet.  Our goal for this stage should be to steer the debate on the skills needed for 21^st century jobs.  This can be done through media relations, special events, and the successful use of advocates.

Stage Two: People Develop a Sense of Urgency

When a problem has existed for a long period of time, people stop seeing it as a problem and start seeing it as a situation.  For years, the public has been flooded by news coverage that there is little, if anything, they can do to keep jobs in their community or to gain the skills needed to hold onto a job.  Many see job loss or employer departure as a fact of life.    We need to instill a greater sense of innovation and optimism among stakeholders.  This increased pressure on decision-makers can encourage the adoption of new approaches and programs, such as those highlighted in education improvement efforts. 

Leaders like ASCD provide stakeholders a proven solution to the problems associated with rigorous, relevant education and preparation for well-paying careers.  With the research and support, most “reforms” are not yet another new initiative looking to turn our schools into test tubes, using classrooms to test virtually any available idea while leaving many mandates unfulfilled.  Ultimately, leaders need to transform the general perception that our schools have not adapted for the 21^st century, and thus are unable to prepare students for the rigors of both postsecondary education and meaningful careers.  This effort needs to replace such cynicism with hope.

We can create this sense of urgency by showing the enormous need for solutions in the communities gaining the greatest scrutiny.  By focusing on past successes and proven-effective methods, we can demonstrate the critical role of a strong education, helping make key decisionmaking constituencies understand the serious risks they face not using proven, comprehensive practice to improve educational and economic opportunities.  The most effective strategy here is to explain the negative implications of maintaining the status quo in the context of the concern about economic vitality of the nation, particularly among the public, policymakers, and the business community.

BUILD COMMITMENT: The middle stages help build commitment.

Once individuals believe in your interpretation of the problem, they are ready to commit to your solutions. Transforming a general education mission into a public call to arms will require all involved parties to demonstrate to a variety of audiences, in dramatic and memorable ways, that these solutions are the right ones to improve efficiency and success.

Stage Three: People Look for Answers

Once people feel that an issue is urgent they begin to demand solutions.  If we have been successful in defining the issue in our terms, it will be easier for us to state solutions convincingly.  In this stage, people will demand action from policymakers and education and business leaders.  This is a good time to organize meetings to introduce specific actions that our audiences can take to help us reach our goal. 

Stage Four: Manage and Persevere through Resistance

Inevitably, some people will reject your solutions.  This leads to the most difficult stage of the process.  Some audiences will be reluctant to face and accept the trade-offs that come from choosing a specific plan of action and opponents will try to poke holes in our ideas.  This resistance may be heightened by the following factors:

Misunderstanding:  Some people will (intentionally or otherwise) misinterpret or outright misconstrue your goals.  They may question the purpose and motivations of both you and your partners. 

Narrow Thinking: Many in our target audiences will miss the big picture and misunderstand the main elements of the problem.  They may determine that the problems in many communities are a symptom of the times, and that employers may just improve themselves over time.  Here we need to expand stakeholders’ vision and demonstrate that both the issue and the solution are not what they initially perceived.

Wishful Thinking: Others may fall into the clutches of those peddling miracle cures or silver bullets aimed at solving an institution’s problems by simply adopting the next easy quick fix, ignoring the research, strong partnerships, and impact on economic development that must accompany such a change.  Here we need to inject a note of reality and point out the logical consequences (and costs) of this line of reasoning.

Resistance to Change: People are sometimes eager to project the problem onto others. There will be some who are content with the current state of K-12 education or the employment situation, believing their local community is doing the best it can and does not need change.  We can counter this by pointing to overall benefits that come from relevant education, reduced drop-out rates, an improved college-ready rate, and clearer paths to employment.

The best way to avoid this resistance is to ensure that everyone is involved in the process and that all of their concerns have been heard.

Stage Five: People Weigh Choices

After moving beyond initial resistance to tackling the challenge of improving educational and economic opportunities in their community, people will begin to weigh their choices rationally and look to a variety of options for moving recommendations into practice.  At this stage, stakeholders should feel that they have a range of choices and a reason to make them.  As leaders in this process – with a special awareness of how decisions are made – we can clarify the pros and cons of each decision and allow time and opportunity for deliberation. 

MOBILIZE FOR ACTION: The final stages help mobilize our audiences for action.

Changing attitudes and informing the debate is not enough.  Just as a politician who has convinced 60 percent of the public to support his/her issues, but who has not succeeded in convincing them to go to the polls on Election Day, will lose the election, advocates for improving school and school district management cannot accomplish their goals unless supporters move from passive acquiescence to active engagement.  Public education succeeds when policymakers and community leaders are actively supporting its solutions.  Once our target audiences are engaged because they believe in the merits of our position, they will need to know what we want them to do to help accomplish these goals.  So it is important that our communications and organizing efforts include specific actions that supporters can take to help us reach our goals.  In addition, we will also need to make it easy and feasible for them to take these actions.

Stage Six: Intellectual Acceptance

In this stage, many people will agree that education improvement efforts are valid and will produce desired results, but may not be willing to change their behavior or adopt recommendations.  We must recognize that this is a temporary stage and that, with patience and continued effort, they will get there. It is important not to expect too much, too soon.  The process of moving from awareness to action takes time. 

Stage Seven: Full Acceptance

Given time, incentives, and opportunities to consider their core values in light of challenges and needs, our audiences should reach the final stage of full intellectual and emotional acceptance of the importance of improving educational and economic opportunities.  Now is the best time to make sure that there is a role for everyone to play in the effective adoption of education solutions that directly impact educational and economic opportunities, giving stakeholders the tools and information they need to persuasively move themselves and others from awareness to action. 

Of course, different target audiences will reach these stages at different times and go through them at different rates. We may need to tailor the same event or materials to perform different functions depending on where in these stages specific members of our audience stand. 

Education is an industry as driven by emotion as it is by fact.  As a result, too often, stakeholders decide that inaction is the best action, out of fear of taking a wrong step or alienating a specific group.  For that reason, the Inform-Build Commitment-Mobilize Action model is one of the most effective methods for leaders to educate key audiences on the need for public education improvement and the long-term impact such efforts have on strengthening the schools, the community, the economy, and the nation as a whole.