Tag Archives: diversity

School Choice and Enrollment Leverage in the Pandemic

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Leverage is designed to provide advantage.  Leverage when using a pry bar allows one to lift or move something that is otherwise unmovable.  Understanding the mechanical advantage of a lever helped early mankind build with stone and open the doors of later industry.  Not every lever is mechanical.  School choice uses the lever of money to influence decisions.  Choice is the fulcrum and enrollment and school money are the objects being moved by a parent looking for educational advantage.   

School choices offer parents a personal tool for addressing pandemic education.  It allows parents to examine available options and select the where and how their child will be educated.  Parental choice of schooling is without prejudice; it is a personal decision that is freely made and without subsequent repercussion.  Choice allows a parent to match their understandings and beliefs about the pandemic with an educational option and to re-choose as understandings and beliefs change.  And, re-choose again.

School choice was initially designed to allow parents in schools with chronically poor educational opportunity and achievement to enroll in schools that demonstrably provided better opportunities and achievement.  The idea of choice was to lever a child’s enrollment for improved educational equity and equality.

Like so many things in life, the use of the tool changed.  Choice has become a socio-economic- and political lever.  In some communities, choice re-established segregation from cultural and economic diversity.  In some schools, choice elaborated elitism.  In some schools, choice allowed those who could to leave and left a school community of those who could not leave depleted.  The tool no longer was a lever for educational equity and equality but for personal advantage.

Choice in the pandemic is a political and economic lever.  The power and threat are displayed in the following fashion by a parent addressing school administration or the school board.  “If I do not like your school policies, rules and decisions, I will take my child from your school and enroll in a school where I agree with their policies, rules and decisions.”  Most frequently, the parent is speaking about policies, rules and decisions related to in-person versus remote education and masking versus no-masking. On the face of this scenario, this is school choice.  In the reality of this scenario, this is economic leverage.  My child represents school funding and a parent controls where her child’s funding will be schooled.  A small school with a small economy may not be able to survive many losses of enrollment.  Or, may not be able to withstand the threat of “… there are a lot of families who feel the same way I do and they also will leave this school if you don’t change your policies, rules and decisions”.  A school may fear a significant run of disenrollments, like a run on a bank during a financial panic, that drains the school district. 

As with most things, one action begets another.  The loss of enrollment can diminish school pay roll.  Fewer children can diminish school  jobs.  Fewer children can diminish programs – not enough children for a football team or a school play.  The threat of disenrollment causes leadership to consider these “next” problems and that consideration can temper how leadership responds to the lever of threatened disenrollment.

Whoa!  At this point, the nature of school governance is completely distorted.  No school policy, rule, or decision can be made without the implied threat of disenrollment choices by those who disagree.  And, if the threat of disenrollment choices become the “decider” for future policies, rules, and decisions, governance for the good of the school community will be governance for the happiness of a few.  When the threat of the disenrollment lever works to change school policies, rules, and decisions, fear of disenrollment choice becomes the modus operandi – anything and everything done in the school may elicit the disenrollment threat.

The best response to such attempted leverage is this – and, make the best educational decisions and life goes on.  A school that is consistently focused on the equity and equality of educational opportunity and achievement, including the health and safety of all within the school, needs to stay the course of its policies, rules, and decisions.  These high ground qualities will sustain a school through the turmoil of both the pandemic and pandemic behavior.  Parents who persist in using school disenrollment as a lever for personal advantage or preference are not seeking the enduring qualities of opportunity and achievement inherent in public education.  They are into the self-serving politics of “I want what I want and if I cannot have what I want I will leave”. 

Wish them well, as life in the school goes on.

Five Dimensions of an Organizational Selfie

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How are we doing as an organization? Are we successful? Are we doing a good job? How do we know? Perhaps we need an organizational selfie; a snapshot using data not pixels. Smile!

In our selfie culture we are accustomed to seeing self- and group-portraits. Some are formal and others are whimsical snapshots. No matter, anyone with a digital camera can show the world “This is me!” It is fun and it can be informative. Selfies can show us how we want to be seen. Selfies also can inform us about how others see us.

An organization selfie serves the same purpose. It displays the image that the organization puts forward to the world at large. I posit that this image has five dimensions. The first dimension is the stated purpose, mission, and function of the organization. This is the formal portrait of “this is why we exist.”

The second dimension is the face that the organization wants the world see. This is a staged set of snapshots that capture the organization at its work. These snapshots typically are full of people and smiles. This snapshot shows “who we are.”

The third dimension is the data snapshot. Data tell as many stories about an organization as its portraits of purpose and people. Data show the quantitative and qualitative profile of how well the people of the organization perform the purpose of the organization. Where smiles are friendly and warm, data seem impersonal and cold. However, data tell clear stories of “this is what we do.”

The fourth dimension is an organizational selfie response. This dimension displays “this is what the public thinks about our organization.” The fourth dimension are snapshots of people outside the organization looking at the organization and considering their cognitive impressions of the organization. This selfie is “what do people think about us, who we are, and what we do?”

The fifth dimension, like the fourth, is a response selfie. This dimension displays “this is how the public feels about this organization.” The fifth dimension is emotional and visceral. It may mirror or be completely different than the cognitive dimension, because feelings about the organization may vary from thoughts about the organization. This selfie is “how do people feel about us, who we are, and what we do?”

Healthy and dynamic organizations inspect these five dimensions with regularity. It is pleasing to see validation. It is reassuring to learn that there is congruity in the line up of purpose, composition, quantifiable and qualifiable data, and how the public thinks and feels about the organization. Validation gives confidence for continuity.

It is equally valuable, perhaps more valuable, to learn of incongruities. Self-analysis opens opportunities for affirming organizational qualities and addressing things that need to be changed in order to re-achieve congruity.

  • Are we doing what we purport to be doing? Is our purpose still viable today?
  • Are we who we believe we are? Are we skillful? Are we diverse? Does the composition of our membership contribute to fulfilling our purpose?
  • What conclusions do we reach from the data created by our productivity? What strengths are displayed by the data? What weaknesses? How should we respond to the data? How will we respond to the data?
  • Does what the public thinks about our organization match our self-image?
  • Does how the public feels about our organization match our self-image?
  • And, most importantly, what are we prepared to do now?

Everyday we observe selfie pictures posed on social media. Now and then, we ponder “What does the person/people in this selfie really think about what they have posted? Is this really them?” It is good to ponder the same about an organization. How an organization responds when looking at its five dimensional selfie is very telling about the integrity of the organization.