Repositioning Lay Leadership: Policymaking and Democratic Deliberation

Abstract

Communities in the 21st century are complex systems. They are composed of a number of interacting and constantly changing individuals and groups who hold diverse beliefs and values. The differences may be immense and obvious, or they may be small and subtle. The public schools of the community are charged with educating the youth who come from homes representing various perspectives of the community. Consequently, schools are elaborate, loosely coupled organizations (see Weick, 1976) with multiple goals and diverse technologies. The challenge for professional leadership is to synthesize the multiple voices within a frame of what is known about teaching and learning, to articulate a vision for teaching and learning, and to move the community's schools toward that vision. The challenge for lay leadership is to represent multiple voices (and to ensure that all voices are heard) while implementing state and federal mandates, and yet to agree on purpose and local policy for schooling. Because this task is deeply complex, nonlinear, and unpredictable, the lay leadership function operates with varying degrees of ambiguity within formal and informal structures. These structures serve as forums for democratic deliberation in which the multiple community values can surface and coalesce.Our analysis categorizes control of education as a struggle among several broad categories of groups: individuals, families, and communities; the educating profession; and society at large (Swanson and King, 1997). Leadership from these groups is enacted in the venues of government, the market, and voluntary association (Murphy, 2000). To the extent that decisions are made through the market, consumers can maximize their personal choices within the limits of their economic 239