The ‘Three A’s’ of Successful P-16 Reform

Design Elements That Help Maintain Momentum

By Jennifer Dounay

Creating a seamless, prekindergarten-through-college system for learning has become a key component of education reform in the states, with the number of P-16 (or P-20) councils steadily increasing, from one in 1996, to 25 in 2000, to some 30 in 2006, and to 40 this year. Yet establishing a council is just the first step, not the end of the road, for a state seeking to implement P-16 reform. As too many stakeholders can testify, many well-intentioned P-16 alignment efforts can stall or become stuck in a quagmire because crucial elements are missing.

Work on the Education Commission of the States’ database of such councils, which is informed by the National Governors Association’s criteria for “traction” on P-16 efforts, has revealed certain design elements that seem to help ensure that P-16 councils maintain their momentum and effect meaningful policy change. These elements can be loosely grouped around what could be called the “three A’s” of successful implementation: agenda, actors, and appropriation of resources.

AGENDA. One of the cardinal sins of P-16 councils often is committed while addressing this first A: Councils frame a reform agenda that is either too vague (“improving student achievement”) or too broad—trying to take on, say, six or more discrete areas of work at the outset, rather than tackling a more manageable set of issues first, achieving success on those, and then moving on to the...