John Kamensky

Getting Good Advice.  In a commentary piece for Government Executive, Janet Weiss writes: “Across the federal government, about a thousand committees governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act and an untold number of additional committees meet each year to offer advice to improve government performance. Federal leaders devote considerable effort to planning, scheduling and staffing these committees.

John Kamensky

“We are data rich and information poor,” says former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official Shelley Metzenbaum. If that is the case, the challenge for public leaders is to figure out how to lead their organizations into the future with data.

John Kamensky

From its earliest days, American democracy has been rooted in vigorous civic engagement. More recently, there have been fears that increasing distrust in institutions – including government -- will lead to large scale disengagement in civic life.

John Kamensky

Sage Reorg Advice.  Alan Balutis writes a commentary for FCW where he lays out nine lessons for rightsizing, downsizing and reorganizing. Definitely worth the read!

Charter schools have been a part of the landscape of U.S. elementary and secondary education for more than two decades, enrolling about five percent of K-12 public school students across the country.  They have been touted as providing choice to parents and students in the provision of education, and they have been long promoted as a key source of innovation in educational performance techniques. But are they really innovative?

John Kamensky

This parallels the goal of many public administrators -- to create reliable, repeatable administrative processes.  This could be done via the emerging technologies associated with artificial intelligence, but Tom Davenport and Julia Kirby write in a recent book about AI that: “The moment a realm of intellectual activity is codifiable, it ceases to be uniquely human.”