What are you interested in reading about in 2017? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for visiting On the Agenda, the Public Agenda blog, in 2016! Here are the posts that most interested readers this year. Many of them come from our series on Key Talents for Better Public Participation – we hope you put those skills to work in 2017!
10) Cultural Competence and Engaging Youth: As they build coalitions and recruit participants, participation leaders should think explicitly about cultivating skills for cultural competency and boosting youth involvement.
9) Building Coalitions and Networks: Successful public participation is often built on the foundation of strong relationships among leaders and citizens.
8) Providing Information and Options: Issue Framing: If an issue is framed well, participation leaders will be better able to direct productive dialogue about the problem.
7) Managing Conflict: Understanding the basics of how to manage differences can go a long way toward improving public participation.
6) On Participatory Budgeting and Democracy, We Need Patience, Research And Clear Goals: We have some work to do before we can understand if and how PB is improving democracy in the U.S. and Canada.
5) Elevating Public Views to Rebuild Faith in Higher Education: We believe that efforts to boost college attainment will have the best chance of succeeding if they are informed by and responsive to the needs and perspectives of the American public. Do you agree?
4) Expanding Diversity in STEM Education: With the majority of Americans convinced that STEM skills are crucial for the nation’s future, addressing barriers to diversity and expanding STEM opportunities for all students seems a critical goal.
3) Deepening Public Participation: Summary and Resources: Whether dealing with an immediate challenge or building long-term infrastructure, participation skills are a valuable asset for anyone’s proverbial toolkit.
2) Understanding the Debate on Charter Schools: A Nonpartisan Perspective: Given the tenor of public dialogue around the presidential transition, we’re likely to see even more division and emotion emerge around the already controversial topic of charter schools. That’s where we come in.
1) Ten Key Talents for Better Public Participation: Part 1: Throughout the summer (and fall), we shared a series on key skills to help local leaders engage citizens.
Perennial favorites:
A number of our top blog posts this year weren’t even published in 2016! Here are posts from years past that remain interesting to our readers present-day.
Paying for Quality Over Quantity in Health Care: Why the Public Ought to Be Engaged: Engaging hospitals and doctors is crucial to making payment reform work for Medicare, and to proving to private insurers that it can work for them too. It’s to policymakers’ advantage to include patients in the conversation about payment reform as well. (February 2015)
Parent Involvement in Education – What Really Matters Most?: Just as there are different ways to understand parent involvement, there are also different ways to define student success. (September 2014)
Most Americans Think Government Should Do More to Fight Obesity – Or Do They?: The school lunch dispute is one of several that have emerged when governments try to take stronger steps to combat the country’s rising obesity rates. Is there an appropriate and effective role for government in improving what we eat and helping us maintain healthier weights? What are Americans’ views? (June 2014)