Good to Great

We have good schools. Which is why we don’t have great schools.
With that sobering punch to our pride Gerald Hasselman of Mississippi College opened a two day training with a group of 25 Marietta City Schools folks. The object was to relate how successful business techniques can be applied to education.
Dr. Hasselman built the case that unless we begin to apply these techniques in American education we will fall further behind a world education system that has already outpaced us. Further reducing our standards will not keep pace with other students hungry for education and advancement.
He contrasted Ford and Toyota and how by building from within and creating an entirely new quality luxury product, Lexus, Toyota was far more successful than Ford which chose to attempt to buy luxury by acquiring Jaguar and Land Rover, only to sell the lines years later at great loss.
The answers to our future lie withinand with our choices. The challenge is to best utilize and develop our people and resources. The method is by constantly seeking to improve on every system and operation within our district.
He touched the lightening rod of district consolidation as the means of achieving great savings. Experience proves that the savings are minimal at best and politically unachievable in our lifetimes. Yes, there is value in those sports rivalries that foster competitiveness in athletes as well as the classroom.
While it was a challenge to those of us who speak and understand Northern English to keep up with his Mih-sippi version of Southern English it was of great value to have his 40+ years of educational experience in the state that can claim to be the poorest in educational performance in the nation address this audience. He was able to cite case after case of the grinding poverty of school districts and families in Mississippi eliminating any argument from us about why our area with its social and financial challenges cannot move ahead.
A family of twelve children living in two abandoned school buses on cement blocks in a cotton field at the end of a dirt path left us no room to make excuses about local poverty conditions. We were further dispelled from argument by the story of a school principal who, given a virtually blank check opportunity by state officials to ask for what she needed at her school knew that what her students needed most was a reason to attend school. She asked for “Some of those red rubber balls they use in gym classes.”
The literally hundreds of stories and anecdotes painted a picture of possibility for the attendees, mostly principals, but also union leaders, administrators, a school board member and your new superintendent. The presenter had walked the walk and earned the right to talk the talk. We listened and were inspired.
Several times he alluded to the fundamental concept of choice saying, “Mississippi has the schools we have chosen to have.” Which is true. It is also a challenge to our community as well as his state.
The challenge of recognizing that choices have consequences brings in the notion of accountability for choices and the outcome of those choices.
Student achievement is recognized as an accountable outcome of schooling. Those to be held accountable for student achievement are students, the board of education, the central office and superintendent, principals, administrators, teachers and staff. At the foundation of the accountability for choices equation are parents and the community.
What will our choices be, now and in the future? And what will be the outcome?