ELEMENTS OF PUBLIC ACHIEVEMENT

Public Achievement is an experiential civic education initiative with young people that is based on the idea of citizenship as public work; work that creates real civic goods and makes real contributions to communities, and that develops political skills, unleashes democratic spirit , and cultivates public identity. Public Achievement is closely integrated into the cultures and practices of school and community Òsites.Ó Youth ÒteamsÓ work on problems and projects of their own design and creation, undertaken with the help and guidance of adult Òcoaches.Ó

1) Teams

  • Youth, roughly between ages 8 and 18, participate as teams of citizens.
  • Youth participate voluntarily.
  • Teams choose their issues through a deliberative process with help from coaches.
  • Team action is real work, not simply practice or pretend. It is challenging, involves planning, stages, takes months of work, and has identifiable results or products.
  • Team citizens collaborate on the basis of democratic equality. Leadership roles are rotated. Leaders facilitate rather than direct or preside.
  • Teams use evaluation to learn from experiences including successes and failures.
  • Teams meet about once a week.
  • Citizens run their own teams. Coaches are guides and helpers, not leaders or directors. In Public Achievement ÒKids Rule!Ó

2) Issues

  • Issues are pursued in a legal and nonviolent fashion.
  • Issues are grounded in the participantsÕ interests, values and passions.
  • Issues have a public quality; they make a community contribution.
  • Issues are practical concerns that can be acted upon.

3) Coaches

  • Coaches help teams do their public work, learn from their tasks, and foster understanding of key concepts such as democracy, public work, citizenship, equality.
  • PA coaching is a serious time commitment. It involves several hours each week.
  • Coaches should try to make a year-long commitment so they can work with their teams.
  • Coaches are part of a course or other process so they discuss theory as well as practice.
  • Coaches work not only with their youth teams but as teams of coaches.
  • Coaches use evaluation to learn from experiences. The goal is one hour of ÒdebriefingÓ after each team meeting.
  • Coaches are oriented through training sessions that give them a site, area wide and national perspective. Training sessions involve skills and techniques, site orientation and ideas and theory.

4) Coach Coordinator

  • A Director or Coach Coordinator is responsible for the overall project and supervises and supports the coaches and teams.
  • The Coach Coordinator establishes a structure of accountability.

5) Sites

  • Sites do Public Achievement because it helps them implement their mission and values.
  • Sites see themselves as participants in the national Public Achievement initiative and the emerging civic renewal movement to strengthen and invigorate democracy.
  • A site coordinator helps integrate PA into the site culture, coordinates logistics, and helps teams continue their work all week and makes the work visible.

July 7, 1998

Harry Boyte

Center for Democracy and Citizenship

Harry,

The draft looks good as you sent it. I first went through and made some changes on your page. Then I got ambitious and rewrote the whole thing to my satisfaction. Take both as suggestions. If some words in my version raise issues beyond the authority of our little subcommittee just table them.

Thanks.