School Districts Aren’t Businesses -- Why Do We Act Like They Are?
The similarities can be striking, but is this really how we should be operating our K-12 institutions?
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The similarities can be striking, but is this really how we should be operating our K-12 institutions?
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Budgets, forecasts, spreadsheets, IT, human resources -- I could see how it might be easy to conflate school districts and companies. After all, both mimic similar organizational structures, Superintendent equals CEO, parents equal customers, teachers your workforce. The similarities can be striking, but is this really how we should be operating our K-12 institutions?
It’s not uncommon that “business requests” are made by school district administrators. Directors of Technology have to prove ROI for devices & technologies in the classroom. Curriculum Directors have to improve grades and test scores. Superintendents have to drive all the above, plus overall student attendance. All of these metrics are reported up and up, much the same way businesses have to report to shareholders, owners, etc.
But let’s get down to business (bad pun, I know). School districts are not businesses. We need to stop thinking about them as such. For decades educators have agreed metrics like test scores, attendance, ROI are just not practical and educational outcomes are often immeasurable. Approaching this formula with a quantitative solution is like measuring the volume of water in a container with a ruler. It’s incomplete.
What we need is more qualitative data. And we need to feel confident making decisions with it. Instead of asking ourselves “how did moving to an online math curriculum improve state testing scores?” we need to think beyond that. Why not ask “how do our Math Teachers like using this new curriculum? Is it better or worse than before? What about the students? Are they more or less engaged?”.
The tricky part is making this switch. It certainly won’t happen overnight -- funding and other incentives are based on the metrics. However, educators are taking initiative here and blending the quantitative and qualitative data when discussing new ventures.
Ultimately, the outcomes for K-12 districts aren’t revenues & profits. Instead the goal is better educational outcomes -- which could mean a myriad of things that are hard to aggregate. Instead, let’s focus on engagement, teacher productivity, and the overall wellbeing of staff and parents. If that’s the focus, my hunch is that the previous stated metrics, and so much more, will ultimately fall into place.
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Written by in August of 2021
