Essential AED considerations

From Steven Baugh of the BYU partneship come the following thoughts about the AED and what should be done to keep it vibrant in the future.


In Dick’s note to the AED Scholars he states, “… the fundamental principles of the Agenda for Education in a Democracy (AED) are too important to ignore.” As I understand the Agenda, it comprises a number of strategies, the most important being that of “simultaneous renewal” of schools and educator preparation. The AED has a mission which I have come to embrace as Stewardship, Access, Nurture, and Enculturation—the acronym SANE has been useful to many of us. And finally the Agenda has a set of underlying conditions or postulates that need to be in operation for the Agenda to be its most complete. The call for renewal based on the Agenda through meaningful university-school partnerships encompasses principles which are indeed “too important to ignore.”

Dick asked us to remark on two things: first, what is essential about the AED, and second, what should be done to ensure that it continues to influence the direction of education in the country.

As to the essential nature of the AED, I want to comment on the issue of private versus public as I have come to understand it through my association with AED principles. Public schools exist, or should exist, for two primary purposes. One is a private purpose. That is, I want the very best education for my children and grandchildren possible so that they are prepared to pursue higher education and/or a career in order to enjoy a “good life.” The good life might mean providing for a family of their own and owning a house, car, and a flat-screen TV, for example. Nothing wrong with this—that is, if it is balanced with the second purpose of public schools.

The second purpose as I understand it is that in a public school setting where all of America’s young are invited, there exists the best chance for all (regardless of race, ethnicity, color of skin, language spoken, socio-economic  condition, disability, sexual preference, or other differences) to learn to be together, to work together, to appreciate one another’s differences, and to learn that these differences are strengths, not weaknesses. Or as Roger Soder has often said, in public schools we have our best chance of learning to live together “without killing one another.” 

Within the first purpose of public schools, our young learn to “make a living.” Within the second purpose, our young learn “to live.” Both purposes—the private and the public—must be balanced for the continuation of our American form of government and our American way of life. What I have said about public versus private is but one example among dozens and dozens that could be cited illustrating what is essential about the AED.

Now, I will address some comments to Dick’s second charge to AED Scholars: what should be done to ensure that the AED continues to influence the direction of education in the country. I will mention two things: one is local, the other national.

On a local level, I believe that every setting in the NNER and in NNER affiliates there should exist an ongoing associates-type program, similar to the Leadership Associates model in place during the 1990s in Seattle. In such a program the principles of the AED are experienced by participants through readings, presentations, inquiry and action research, conversations, and more. Participants come from each entity in the tripartite—schools, schools of education, and colleges of arts and sciences—and often the community. Given changes in those most involved in a university-school partnership and given the diversity and complexity of the challenges to schools and university educator preparation programs, a deep understanding of the underlying philosophical foundations of the AED is vital. When changes in leaders occur, and they will, when financial challenges emerge, and they do, and when attacks from our critics come, and many certainly have evidence of this, a deep understanding and adherence to the underlying principles of the AED can/will sustain us. I know many of the settings have similar associates programs—all settings should.

On a national level, I believe we need a fifty-state strategy to grow the number of NNER settings. I know this is not a new idea. I know it has been discussed at length by the NNER Executive Board on numerous occasions. And I know I am ill-informed as to all of the reasons why we haven’t proceeded. Acknowledging all of this, I suggest there is no better time than now to pursue this aggressively. We need to continue to build quality—that is to drive the AED principles into our settings as deeply as we can. But we need to build quantity—that is to drive the AED principles into the country as broadly as we can. It doesn’t have to be one or the other—it can be both depth and breadth. Delaying only makes it more difficult. I invite a conversation about what AED Scholars could do to make this a reality.

The principles of the AED are, as Dick has said, too important to ignore. And without question we need to continue to advance ways to ensre that it continues to influence the direction of education in the country.