Should We Promote Individual Public Schools?
Yesterday over at Always Something, National School Public Relations Association Executive Director Rich Bagin offered some thoughts on how we can best promote public schools, taken from private schools’ marketing campaigns.
Chief among those thoughts: Promote individual schools. In public education, we typically promote school districts, not individual schools. But private schools – and though Rich does not mention them, I think charter schools as well – focus to great effect on what one individual school does for its students. And as Rich points out:
When real decisions are made, it comes to a school versus school and program versus program decision.
Given that we already know this, why does this PR strategy run so counter to what we in public education do? Do we want to avoid creating competition within the system, to avoid potentially concentrating families who lack the social capital to get into a better school in a struggling one? (Though isn’t that happening anyway, with charters, private schools and the ability of some parents to choose with their feet?)
Is it because we believe so strongly in the importance of access to a quality public school for every child that while we acknowledge there are differences in quality in our public schools, we don’t want to name those differences—we’d rather just fix them?
Of course, it could also be structural – private and charter schools have marketing teams (using that term loosely) employed at the school level. Most public schools marketing teams are employed at the district level, so they have different interests.
But in rethinking school marketing, it is worth considering, as the American Association of School Administrators points out, that the lowest 5% of schools drive our nation’s perception of public education. I do have to admit…I live in Washington, DC, and when I think about public education in the District, I don’t think about Stoddert Elementary, or Murch Elementary, or Janney, all excellent district schools where the vast majority of students meet proficiency standards in reading and math. I think about what I read in the paper – that overall, less than half of students in DCPS are proficient in reading and math. Improving, to be sure. But not somewhere that parents would be thrilled to send their children. And honestly, most of my friends who can't avoid private school for their children move out of the city, rather than search for district schools where they can be confident their children are getting an excellent education.
So maybe it is time to promote schools individually, focusing on their strengths. That does not mean that we ignore those that are struggling, but we can acknowledge the differences in that exist in our system while working hard every day to overcome those that are negative and take to scale those that are positive.
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"Is it because we believe so
"Is it because we believe so strongly in the importance of access to a quality public school for every child that while we acknowledge there are differences in quality in our public schools, we don’t want to name those differences—we’d rather just fix them?"
This sorta thinking runs counter to everything the private schools, charter schools, and school accountability folk believe. They think, "Yes, we'd rather just fix them. But part of fixing them is leaving the denial stage and saying, 'You have a big problem. Go look at your buddy over here who's kicking butt and I hope you learn something. Because if you can't, you're not cutting it for our kids and someone else needs to get a shot at doing right by these students.'"
No one wants to admit that they send their kids to a bad school, that they teach in a bad school, that they run a bad school, or that they fund a bad school. But many of us do this every day and the first step to recovery is recognizing and admitting the problem.
Part of that process is recognizing the great success of others as exemplars and models. That's what the educator's favorite phrase, "best practices", comes from. How can we have best practices without explicitly acknowledging excellence? We need that for every level from the classroom up.
I help 'market' a private
I help 'market' a private Christian school in the Northern Beaches of Sydney Australia. My kids now go there. I attended Public Schools. My mother taught in a Public School.
My main role at Covenant Christian School is one of Storyteller. The 'Our Covenant' school blogsite I run averages 2 news stories every school day and has over 8,000 photos and a YouTube channel. It is designed to help parents and students hear good news - and hear it very OFTEN.
You generally hear 'bad news' stories in the wider media. We decided to create our OWN media. With a school of 800 students the website averages 3,500 visits a week. Students, parents and staff can make comments on articles.
The best way to counteract bad news is with good news. If parents don't know all the good news about a school they can't share it in conversations with friends considering a school. Parents are more concerned about the reputation of an individual school - public or private - than the district or state.
Part of the reason private schools are growing is they fund 'marketing' through the telling of positive stories. Our School Tour on DVD helps parents hear from other parents. Parents believe parents more than any 'marketing'.
Unless Public Schools learn to become good storytellers to their own school communities I don't see them gaining back students.
I’ve recently started a blog,
I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work. Since private schools are usually smaller than their public counterparts, we often don't have the large numbers of people to talk to when we try to raise money.
Regards,
Private schools Orange County
I am completely agree with
I am completely agree with your all the points and we get a lot of information from this blog.The experience over the last few decades has clearly shown that unlike school education, privatization has not led to any major improvements in the standards of higher and professional education.
Regards,
Private schools Orange County
Great blog here. It’s hard to
Great blog here. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you.
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