But whether the ultimate solutions involve tinkering with the current system or launching a fundamental overhaul, neither leaders nor the public appears confident that the issue will actually be addressed with any real purposefulness. Despite its critical importance to both the public and leadership, higher education always seems to be somehow less urgent than crime or jobs or immigration. It is lower on the political agenda. It does not attract the same level of media attention. Many leaders interviewed for this study told us that they do not believe that the underlying issues will ever be addressed without some very special effort.
Again and again, as we conversed with leaders, they called for some "public space"-some forum or public process that would generate a statewide discussion of the issue. As Public Agenda has found in all of its research on attitudes toward education reform, the American public is neither apathetic nor unwilling to tackle the hard task of finding solutions, if they are but invited to join the conversation. In this study of California leadership, the desire to participate and to be heard could not have been more clearly articulated.
Whether and how such a conversation can be initiated remains a question. The time for decision, however, is near. In California, as in the nation, failure to deliberate openly is to invite serious public resistance to reform.
Deborah Wadsworth
Executive Director
Public Agenda