Educational Marketing. - Review - book review

School Administrator, Feb, 1997 by George E. Pawlas

Three episodes that serve as an introduction to Educational Marketing--A Business Approach to School-Community Relations establish the compelling need for educational leaders to sell a school's learning program to the public.

The author, John H. Holcomb, director of the Cross Timbers School Development Council at Tarleton State University in Texas, supports his thesis throughout eight chapters with concrete examples.

Holcomb maintains that public schools focus on too many targets or too many products (courses, programs, recreational activities, health services, food services, transportation services, school meals).

The power of the book lies in the examples of practical approaches borrowed from the business world and adapted by Holcomb to the education community. Aspiring administrators, newly appointed ones, or seasoned veterans will find the book to be a valuable resource as they focus on their schools' academic programs. They will gain support for their message that public schools can do anything, but they simply cannot do everything!

(Educational Marketing-A Business Approach to School-Community Relations, by John H. Holcomb, University Press of America, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Md. 20706, 1993, 190 pp., $49.50 hardcover, $28.50 softcover)