The Need to Name: A High-Risk Habit - game of public relations

School Administrator, Sept, 1995 by Richard Sagor

Out of a misguided need to trumpet every new school improvement effort, school leaders today seem inclined to attach a catchy label: outcome-based education, total quality management, quality schools, inclusion, strategic planning.

As school districts compete for column inches in the local press, the public is treated to a game of superintendents playing "Can you top this?"

The syndrome works this way: A politically attuned school district administrator concludes that his or her stature with the school board and community ultimately rests on creating a perception of providing strong educational leadership. An administrator seen as maintaining the status quo is unlikely to build a deep reservoir of such support.

Dual Approaches

School administrators who recognize this phenomenon often pursue one of two strategies. The traditional approach involves attending conferences, reading journals, and looking for the sexiest innovations on the market. What makes an innovation "sexy" is that it has captured the attention of the field. But politically what makes an innovation attractive to the savvy school executive is the belief that implementing it will put the district at the cutting edge.

Modern (and more trendy) executives don't brazenly shop or the next innovation. These leaders are more inclined to orchestrate a process, often tided strategic planning whose purpose is to point the way to that product, process, or vision, that will bring the district do closer to the promised land of high academic performance.

Whichever approach is used, once an innovation or school improvement process is selected, intuitive political and public relations instincts drive the school leader to promote the new vision to all who will listen and even to some who don't want to. As a consequence, readers of district newsletters and teachers attending in-service programs are treated to claims of the brave new world that will emerge as soon as outcome-driven education, performance-based assessment, non-gradedness, or any other innovation du jour is brought to fruition.

This strategy is no more likely to be successful at improving schooling for most school children than were efforts to revolutionize schools through earlier waves of innovation.

I don't take issue here with the sincere commitment of school leaders. Rather, the problem I see with new innovations rests in the strategies often used to promote them. Our public relations strategies sow the seeds of disaster.

Pointed Queries

Remember what happened when school executives announced that their districts had "adopted" Madeline Hunter's Instructional Theory into Practice or Essential Elements of Instruction as the new instructional model? Those announcements were usually the first step in the name game. They also were the first waving of the red flag to a host of potential bulls, internal and external. Teachers were told by their principals that the district was committed to implementing Hunter's program.

Place yourself in the position of an inquiring and creatively alive teacher. Imagine you just heard about your district's decision. What questions entered your mind? "Does this mean I'll have to change the approaches I'm currently succeeding with?" "Why are they calling for this change?" "Will this benefit my students?"

Now pretend you are a parent who reads in a district newsletter that your child's school has adopted a new instructional model. Further, the superintendent proudly asserts that over the next five years the district will invest in teaching all the faculty how to incorporate the essential elements of instruction into their classrooms. You wonder: "What happens if it takes my child's teachers five years to implement the essential elements? Will my child suffer in the interim? Has the program up until now lacked 'essential elements?' What was broken that had to be fixed?"

Triggering those questions is not a good way to start a school improvement program or PR initiative. The name game gave the best teachers good reason to be suspicious, while the strongest school supporters (the parents) have been given a reason to question the current program. And for what?

Assume that ITIP (one of the most widespread examples of the need to name phenomena) is what Hunter always claimed it to be: simply empirically derived answers to questions that inquisitive teachers ought to ask when preparing and executing their lessons.

What did school leaders actually think they were accomplishing when they brought ITIP into their districts? Perhaps their purpose was to make available to teachers information derived from research on how successful educators introduce their lessons, structure their teaching, provide students with feedback, assess their learning, and provide linkages to earlier learning.

No one would object to providing that type of information to teachers. Parents and teachers should agree that information derived from successful practice would be beneficial. Yet we saw something quite different happen in many venues when this program was introduced with much fanfare and given a name. The result was not appreciation but resentment, distrust, and anger.