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Here's a wonderful excerpt from a speech public engagement guru Rich Harwood made to the Learning First Alliance earlier this year:

When I've worked on public schools over the last 20 years a lot of folks who are doing engagement around public schools have this notion that … people should look at public schools like gas stations. You drop your kid off in the morning, you hope the teacher fixes the kid. When the kid comes home, if somehow or other they can't read or write, we need to go to a school board meeting and complain like you would to a mechanic. …

If we're serious about engaging people, we need to see people not as consumers, not as customers…but as citizens. As people who are able and willing to step forward and engage the tough issues; as people who are willing to deal with trade-offs and choices; as people who are in fact even willing, under the right conditions, to make sacrifices, not only for their kids but for other kids in our communities. …

I have not seen any change, process or movement in current times or over history in America where when we treated people as consumers we got what we thought we needed. It's only when people step forward as citizens that we're able to create the change that we need. To me, that's the beautiful lesson of American history.

You can read more about Rich's remarks here.