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Good politics is good government, longtime Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used to say, and good government is good politics. Probably the idea is as old as government -- and politics. It's an especially good thought to keep in mind when school districts go to the voters in a referendum, because a referendum is nothing if not political.

Politics -- to people who practice the art from day to day -- is largely about relationships, and successful relationships do not begin and end during a campaign. "We didn't start working a month or two before an election," Jacob M. Arvey, one of Daley's most powerful ward committeemen, once told an interviewer. "We worked all year 'round. . . . If I ever found a voter who wasn't seen at least two or three times a year by a precinct captain, I'd raise hell."

What does old-fashioned Chicago ward politics have to do with school finance campaigns as we move into a new century? There are obvious differences, of course. But there are also similarities. Like Daley's precinct captains, the school officials who get the votes to carry a referendum tend to be the ones who cultivate ongoing relationships with the people in their communities.

"A referendum reflects a values vote, and a person's values are not going to change during a two-month campaign," says Jeannie M. (Sissy) Henry, deputy executive director of the South Carolina School Boards Association and a nationally recognized authority on school finance campaigns. A referendum has a much better chance of passing if the school district already has a strong public relations program in place that helps the community feel ownership of its schools. Citizens are suspicious of election-time-only public relations efforts.

Steve Larson, president of Illinois School Consulting Service, agrees. "The success of a referendum isn't determined at the time you go for the referendum," says Larson, an independent public finance adviser who has worked on more than 75 campaigns. "It may be determined five years before the referendum. It depends on how the public perceives you all the time, rather than just when you want to ask for money."

A referendum also is much more likely to carry if the school district and its constituents agree on goals and policies, according to William J. Banach, CEO of Banach, Banach & Cassidy and executive director of The Institute for Future Studies. Banach urges school officials to focus on "engaging the community," which he defines as "building consensus about what education ought to look like." This process can go a long way toward creating a strong sense of public "ownership" of the schools, he believes.

In a time of economic uncertainty and tax resistance, coupled with increasing controversy over public school reforms at the national level, winning a school referendum is no longer a simple matter of announcing your decision and scheduling the vote on a day of low expected turnout. More and more, educators, consultants and others who work with school finance campaigns call for a policy of two-way communication that actively involves the community in helping to set goals for the schools and pledges the schools to work with the community to attain those goals. With that kind of communication, your referendum isn't necessarily guaranteed to pass. But without a fully engaged community that feels ownership of its schools, the consultants suggest, the referendum is almost certain to fail.

How much confidence does your community have in its schools? Do your "constituents" believe their interests are being served? Are there misperceptions that need to be corrected? When you begin working to build public support for your schools, it helps to know where you already stand.

Fortunately, there exist a number of ways to take the community's pulse. Among the more formal methods are polls, surveys and focus groups.

Victory Campaigns Inc., a nonprofit corporation that assists taxing bodies with referendums, frequently uses surveys to help set strategy. "When we work with a school district, we interview the administration, community members, and the board members separately," says Gayle Russell, co-owner with Janet English of Victory Campaigns. "We assess the weaknesses and strengths in the district. Then we put all the information together and we tell them whether we think the referendum will pass, and why it will or won't."

Sissy Henry finds focus groups valuable. "Ours," she says, "are always scripted. Outsiders come in and run them for us. The administration does not run the focus groups, so the people who are running them are neutral. Very often, the side issues [such as lingering anger over consolidation or contract negotiations] that exist in the communities will surface." Henry also uses focus groups to "put up trial balloons of packages. When I say packages, I mean building programs, to see which program they like best. If there's part of the building program that doesn't seem to be as positively accepted as others, sometimes we'll encourage them to split the ballot."

But there are informal ways to track public opinion as well. "Key communicator" networks, newspaper clippings and plain old ordinary gossip can all yield clues as to how the public feels about your schools. One advantage to these informal methods -- besides the fact that they're often less expensive -- is that the opinions may be more bluntly honest than those expressed in the more formal polls.

Henry suggests paying close attention to ongoing media coverage of your district. Tracking newspaper stories over a period of time can provide information about potential controversies in the community, or simply alert you to the need for a better relationship with the press. (Like your other "publics," the press needs to be cultivated on a continual basis, not only when there's a crisis or an upcoming election.)

Key communicators -- defined by the National School Public Relations Association as "those people on the school staff and in the community who talk to and are believed by lots of people" -- can pass along rumors, warn about side issues, react to proposed policy initiatives and in general serve as a liaison between the school district and the community. While business, civic and political leaders are obvious key communicators, experts advise that you not overlook a favorite hairdresser or a waiter at a popular restaurant. If your community is racially or ethnically diverse, or contains a large number of senior citizens, make sure key communicators include credible people from each of these groups as well.

Banach even urges principals and superintendents to listen to community gossip. At administrative meetings, he suggests, one might say, "This isn't necessarily on the agenda, but let's spend fifteen minutes on what we're hearing about what's happening in the community. Tell us what you're hearing in the neighborhood."

Of course, checking the public pulse might yield disturbing information. A community that school officials thought was pretty complacent might turn out to harbor pockets of discontent over everything from curriculum choices to the closing of a school building five years ago. Issues that can, in Gayle Russell's words, "send a campaign straight down the river."

"In some communities, you might not like what you find out," Banach warns. But information is power, and what better time to have it than before you need the public to approve a tax increase. The best way to begin dealing with side issues, Sissy Henry points out, "is to know they exist."

What, exactly, is "an education" in your community? This question is not as rhetorical as it seems. "Most educators can't tell you what an education is without putting you through a four-day seminar," says Banach, who assists schools with planning, marketing and research. "Most people in the community can't tell you what it is either. . . . So they define it by what it's not. It's not that teacher, not that textbook series, not that set of outcomes, not this, not that."

Consensus on "what an education should look like" might be different in each community, Banach says. "In one community we might find that all people want is reading, writing and arithmetic and nothing else. That's how they define education. There may be other communities that say, no, it's reading, writing and arithmetic, and the arts are also important, the kids have to be physically fit and we ought to have Latin. They may define an education that way."

If conflicting groups in the community can't agree on what they want, "the role of the educator here is to be a leader and show people what the possibilities are," says Banach. The trick is "to make sure people understand we only have so many resources to do what we're doing here. And something is probably not going to be included in the program. The decisions the group's going to make are really going to boil down to this: Do we cut back on a new textbook series we were going to buy for math in order to afford soccer?"

Banach calls community consensus-building "the down and dirty work of education" and believes such work is well worth the effort, no matter how time-consuming it may seem at first. "If I can get people to come to some kind of consensus on what a school system ought to look like, then I have my support base built in, because now together, we're working toward that. That's how you win a bond issue or a millage election -- when people can see that you're pursuing something that fits into their scheme of things."

If you are planning a building referendum, involving the public in the needs assessment process can greatly improve your credibility and that of the building proposal as well. "The thing we've found to be very valuable is citizen involvement in the decision making process," Larson says. "People have different opinions based on what they perceive the problems and need to be."

"Many districts establish community task forces to study building needs, review already existing reports and make recommendations to the board concerning the building program," Henry says. "So they've already gotten the community acclimated to the fact that they need the facilities. Often these people then become powerful voices for the referendum."

Internally, you want to make sure principals, teachers, parent-teacher organizations and other staff understand the need for the referendum. "Often voters go to district employees -- teachers and support staff -- to ask their opinions if they are undecided on how to vote," Henry says.

What if you've taken the public pulse only to discover a community upset over a series of hot issues you didn't know existed? What if your public turns out to consist of warring factions who can't agree on "what an education should look like," let alone on the need to have their taxes go up? In either case, you have some work to do before you even consider putting a referendum on the ballot.

"If there's an awful lot of controversy going on, then you need to wait," Henry insists. "I know that's hard to accept. . . . Sometimes you have to build a cadre of support. You can't do that in a month."

While you're working at defusing side issues, and bringing your community groups to some kind of consensus on what they want from your schools, some intense marketing is in order. "Not pro referendum or anti referendum, nothing to do with the referendum," says Gayle Russell. Just "some straight PR coming out of the school district. . . . Really get out there and reach the community at large to tell them that yes, the kids are here."

Banach believes its time school people learn that "marketing" is not a dirty word. "It has always made sense to listen to people and to address their needs," he points out. "And, there's nothing wrong with giving people quality, treating them with respect, and valuing their loyalty. That's what effective marketers have always done."

To effectively market your school district to the public, it might help to ask, "What is the taxpayer getting for their money?" Consultants agree that a successful referendum is one in which all key constituencies in the community believe they will benefit from the proposal on the ballot. Community and civic leaders should be reminded that good schools attract responsible, long-term residents to the community. Businesses should know that economic growth is more likely in communities perceived to have excellent schools, and both senior citizens and realtors should understand that good schools improve property values. Senior citizens may also have grandchildren in school. Therefore, emphasize that all citizens benefit whether they have school-age children or not.

William Seiple, managing director of LaSalle Capital Markets in Naperville, who has worked on more than 300 referendums since 1962, believes campaigns that succeed have broad-based community support. "By that I mean they had citizens involved that understood the need, and they are the group that really went out and sold it," he says. "That hasn't changed much in my career." That support, he adds, was there long before the referendum ever went on the ballot. It wasn't drummed up in mass meetings.

"School districts that pass bond referendums have had strong public relations programs in place for years," Sissy Henry says. "Our whole intent is, we're building ownership years in advance before we ever go for a referendum."

That, many would say, is not only good marketing. It's good politics. It's also good government.