You have to have stuff for a school to be great: And it’s mostly because of people
{Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five in this series.} The final of six features needed for a school to be great is resources. It sounds like quite a comedown from Truth, and small-minded compared to humility, vision, and the like. But it’s really no less noble or altruistic because it’s pure and simple about people, how we are, and the sort of thing that a school is.
Higher education is different in this because the students are adults – young and quite immature, but adulthood is what they have to be facing. It is ironic that those institutions of learning where the students are best able to fend for themselves are also the ones, on average, with the greatest resources. Of course, research and scholarship and the like are part of that reality, but the fact that higher ed is the best place for us to seek our legacy in our giving plays no small part in that financial reality. A little both/and approach might form a better balance.
The point here is that the schools where our children grow up right along with their growing up in our homes are places that need material provision and protection. The institution needs care and feeding and protection just like the children who grow there.
Values like continuity are directly challenged by a lack of resources. You can’t count on folks sticking around if there’s uncertainty in every financial report. The faculty you need to attract and retain won’t be there. The families you need to grow in community together will always be looking for the next year and the next place, rather than investing in lasting relationships and commitments.
Of course, it’s nice to have nice facilities. Depending on the school and its constituency, this may be quite reasonable, and may even be quite necessary to attract and retain families. But greatness is not defined by ivy, stone, tricked out athletics complexes and science labs which could facilitate college teaching better than the high school students they serve.
More than adequate resources – and I do believe more than adequate is what it takes to raise expectations and community commitments to the levels necessary for greatness to begin – are a people issue, not a things issue. Of course, funding is also necessary for programming and equipment and all the other features of a comprehensively excellent education experience.
Not infrequently, we tend to gather ideals and vision and commitment to children and call it school, but leave out a few incidentals like capital and cash flow. In a business, we would call that incompetence or a clear sign that we weren’t really committed in the first place. Magic wands and pixie dust don’t make a business plan work. Even great ideas, great products and great people fail miserably in business if that’s all they have. Usually you don’t even get to see if the idea, the product or the people are great if the business is under-capitalized. You just see it drift away or perhaps crash dive as a going concern.
But in a school, are we tempted to call ideals without funding great moral commitment? I would call it no sort of commitment at all. I’m not making a call for gold plated fixtures nor funding without accountability in terms of results. If we won’t commit more than adequate resources, however, then our claimed commitment to the children is shown in its naked, inglorious reality.
This series on greatness for our schools has been mostly about the “what” and the “why”. That leaves an enormous ground of “how” mostly untouched. How to do it is the challenge, but also the fun of leadership. If you think I might be of some help to you in pursuing that “how,” please drop me an email.