MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE BY DONNA GARNER:
From Donna Garner --
6.18.09 -- My experiences with the Delphi
Technique:
[Friends, you might
find my article interesting. Some of you have been
discussing the Delphi Technique lately because
Organizing for America in its facilitating of the
healthcare meetings around the country has been
utilizing the Delphi Technique. The RAND
Corporation actually developed it in the late
1960's --
http://www.carolla.com/wp-delph.htm -- to
provide a model in which a "group of experts could
come to some consensus of opinion when the
decisive factors were subjective and not
knowledge-based."
This technique was
used in Texas in the early-to-mid 1990's to
produce the Texas standards (TEKS) in every
subject area. Thankfully the State Board of
Education adopted new English / Language Arts /
Reading TEKS in May 2008 and new Science TEKS
recently. [Since I wrote these comments in 2009,
new Social Studies and Math TEKS have also been
adopted by the SBOE.]
A new day came to
Texas when Gov. Perry appointed Commissioner of
Education, Robert Scott. He is a fine man and has
set a new tone for the TEA. Most of the TEA staffers who participated in the Delphi Technique back
in the mid-90's are no longer employed at the
Agency; however, during the hostile debates that
occurred with the adoption of the new English /
Language Arts / Reading TEKS in May 2008, I
learned that some of the same Delphiers from the
mid-90's were poisoning the public against the
good work of the conservative SBOE members and
myself. This is why there was such instant vitriol
that erupted when the Substitute Amendment (i.e.,
TAD) was brought forth for consideration at the
February 2008 SBOE meeting. These TEKS Delphiers
are still around, and I have an idea that some of
them have influence that reaches into the Texas
Freedom Network, the
Austin American Statesman,
and the Texas Legislature. -- Donna Garner]
"The Delphi
Technique in Texas"
by Donna Garner
December 13, 2004
When the Texas
Education Agency orchestrated the writing of the
public school curriculum standards (Texas
Essential Knowledge and Skills -- TEKS -- adopted
in July 1997), the Delphi Technique was used on
the writing team members. I, as one of the writing
team members for the English / Language Arts /
Reading (ELAR) standards, experienced the Delphi
Technique up-close-and-personal.
The Texas Education
Agency (TEA) staff was trained in the Delphi
Technique by the National Center on Education and
the Economy (NCEE) -- Marc Tucker, Hillary
Clinton, Ira Magaziner, Gov. Cuomo -- at a price
tag of $1.5M. The Texas State Board of Education
never approved the large expenditure by the TEA to
NCEE.
A professional
consensus-builder from Washington, D. C. was hired
to manipulate our English / Language Arts /
Reading writing team. Representatives from the
Chief State School Officers were brought in to our
meetings, plus there were other various and sundry
individuals at every table -- to the right of us,
to the left of us, all around us. We never really
knew who these people were, but they would hardly
let us go to the bathroom by ourselves.
The "lightning rods"
(such as myself) were immediately located, and we
were put through various psychological strategies.
First, the facilitators tried appealing to our
egos. When that didn't work, they tried peer
pressure. Then we were labeled as "the bad guys"
and were treated with disdain and downright
antipathy. Soon the other writing team members
didn't want to be around us because we were
considered the troublemakers.
By the way, who were
the other writing team members? They had been
carefully chosen from the TEA's favorite
organizations who held the same educational
philosophies as the TEA staff: whole language,
holistic scoring, inventive spelling, no grammar
instruction,
constructivist/performance-based/subjectively
assessed curriculum.
At my first
meeting, I counted 7 out of approximately 45
people who were current classroom teachers, and
the parent representatives could have been counted
on one hand. The rest of the members were reading
coordinators, curriculum directors, bilingual
coordinators, special education directors, and
various other non-classroom educator types.
The interesting
thing was that most of the other writing team
members all knew each other and knew the TEA
staff. Supposedly the TEA chose the members based
upon their applications. Strangely enough, only
certain professional organizations had been
notified of the application process for writing
team members. At that time, there was one
conservative professional organization in Texas
(ATPE), and it was completely left out of the loop
undoubtedly to make sure that none of its more
traditional educators applied for the writing
teams.
Obviously, the whole
agenda was stacked from the very beginning and was
done so with careful intent on the part of the
Texas Education Agency et al. (It was a miracle
that I was placed on the writing team because I
certainly did not fit the TEA's prototype. The
reason several of us were added to the writing
team is a long story that basically evolved
because I managed to get an important political
figure to take my concerns over the "stacked"
writing teams seriously.)
What did
I do to break out of the Delphi? I
tried to work very judiciously with the other
members, only disagreeing on those issues about
which I felt strongly. Next, I refused to be
sidetracked whenever I asked a question. I
insisted on going back to my original question
whenever the facilitator tried to Delphi me.
At the first
meeting, I was very forthright and announced that
I wanted quite badly to work in concert with the
other members but that I would reserve the right
to vote my convictions. I said that if that right
were taken from me, I would then be forced to
submit an alternative document and/or to contact
the news media about my concerns. I also stated
that since the TEKS writing teams were funded out
of Goals 2000 and other public funding that I
would insist on following the Open Meetings Act
and make our deliberations known to the public.
I said that there
was an epidemic in our schools -- children could
not read. We needed to do what doctors do when an
epidemic occurs. They study the research, set up a
protocol, go back to their local settings and
implement the protocol, and then come back later
and share their results. I said our ELAR team
needed to do the same thing, beginning with
studying the latest reading research.
I made sure that I
attended every social occasion that the writing
team members had outside our formal meetings. I
deliberately sought out people who had similar
concerns to mine, and we managed to build a small
but effective coalition. We enlisted help from
outside education experts and utilized their
expertise. (Some of the most well-known education
experts in our country today willingly and
graciously offered their help because they knew
the importance of writing quality standards.)
I asked the TEA
staff if I could deliver an oral report on a piece
of outstanding reading research which I had
obtained from California; I was denied the
opportunity. I ran off the research and passed it
out to the writing team members anyway. I kept
telling the members about the NIH reading research
under Dr. Reid Lyon and kept referring members to
Marilyn Jagger Adams' book.
All of us in our
little coalition tried to offer positive
suggestions, and we tried to work cooperatively
with the other members. Unfortunately, a few in
our little coalition gave up because of the
peer pressure which was very uncomfortable. It was
no fun being lied about for the two years it took
for the TEKS process to be finalized.
Almost all of us in
our little coalition were classroom teachers. We
didn't have secretaries and other resources to
step in whenever we needed to work on the TEKS
project. We taught all day and then performed our
TEKS duties after hours.
When TEKS meetings
were scheduled by the TEA, we classroom teachers
had the added pressure of getting our classes
ready for a substitute teacher; and when we got
back from the meetings, we had discipline problems
to handle and additional papers to grade.
For two years, this
process went on; and our little coalition had
little-to-no support from administrators. I found
out later that our own administrators were
communicating behind our backs with people at the
TEA. I was given the worst teaching assignments,
the worst students, the least disciplinary support
from the office, and on and on. We
certainly were never validated by our local
administrators even though what we were doing was
to impact the future of every public school
student and every public school educator for the
next ten years in Texas.
One positive step
which I took was to provide writing team members
with the Virginia standards which were far
superior to the sample standards our team was
given by the Texas Education Agency. The Virginia
standards were based upon academic,
knowledge-based elements which could be
objectively tested. The state standards which the
TEA provided our writing team were examples of
grade-cluster, constructivist, performance-based,
subjectively assessed elements; and,
unfortunately, this is the style in which the
final Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
document was written.
Those of us in our
little coalition who did not give up eventually
submitted an alternative document -- the Texas
Alternative Document for English / Language Arts /
Reading -- because in all good conscience, we
could not endorse the miserable TEKS standards. We
TAD writers had the help of many wonderful people
who contributed to our document, and we gave
credit to them in our document whenever possible.
The end result was
that the TEKS vs. TAD controversy became too
politically hot to touch by those running for
higher office, and the TEA-produced TEKS became
the law in Texas for ten years. The TAKS tests
were later written to align with the TEKS.
Donna Garner
And here's another piece of good advice from Michael Dullea:
I believe the most powerful
strategy of Delphi is the break down into groups.
During the early process when folks speak out
revealing their positions, such is noted by the
facilitator. Those identified as not supportive
are put into groups where they will be outnumbered
and outvoted. When the groups reconvene to present
their vote, the majority of each group supports
the Delphi agenda, having neutralized resistance
by the wise placement of the trouble makers across
the groups therefore each group leader reporting
support for the Delphi leader's agenda. In other
words if 49% of the trouble makers are wisely
dispersed the final vote shows 100% support not
51%.
My suggestion is to plea for no group break outs
and not deprive most participants of wisdom and
critical thinking that will be shared in other
groups the majority will never hear.