Education and the Starbucks Experience

Just ran through this book. This guy was the Superintendent of the Miami-Dade public schools. He defined three priorities for the school district: eliminating low-performing schools, increasing academic achievement for all students and bringing cost-efficiency to the district's construction and business practices.

In the book, he presented a compelling vision for schools that are a focal point of community life. He describes how public schools can be vital and effective and defines the roles of government, parents, teachers, philanthropists, the arts community, the faith community, post-secondary educational venues and school administration in making this happen.

If you want a great overview without reading his book, go to Dr. Rudy Crew's website. Go to the Take Action page to see the roles of the different sectors.

In the book, Dr. Crew mentions that he is totally against school vouchers and not a big fan of charter schools. I was on the fence on this issue, but his comments were a catalyst for my thought.

He mentions that he is opposed to school choice vouchers because they will starve the schools that are doing poorly and "...take the dollars needed to do the work of rethinking our public schools and redistribute them (the dollars)...".

After some thought, I am thinking that, rather than just starving failing schools, which doesn't necessarily seem so terrible to me, the vouchers would force the schools that want to do well to rethink how they do school. Possibly ala the Dr. Crew plan. I think public schools have some great resources that the private schools don't and could do very well if they were to grab hold of some of the actions Dr. Crew defines.

However, like any institution, most of them will not change without a compelling reason to do so. Typically, speaking from my limited organizational experience, the compelling reason comes from either great pain (the frustration of not being what was desperately wanted or expected), great fear (the threat that we will cease to exist if we do not change) or a great vision (a clear picture of a future that we can really buy into).

Rather than killing the public schools, I think vouchers could help redefine the public schools. For instance, consider the Starbucks phenomenon. They are a monolithic corporate concern that everyone was sure would squash all other coffee shops. Much to the contrary, the advent of the Starbucks era has seen the rise of local coffee shops that probably may not have existed and did not thrive prior to Starbucks not only taking a huge market share, but creating a larger than ever market for this type of business. For example, my favorite coffee shop, the True Love Coffee House in Sacramento.

In any case, the book was very thought provoking. If you have any interest in education, at least take a peek at the action steps.