The public education system insufficiently incentivizes its leaders to prioritize student academic achievement. Examples from beyond the K–12 sector reveal how schools can adopt and maintain focus on student learning. Mission-driven organizations succeed by respecting governance-management boundaries, planning thoughtful leadership transitions, emphasizing operational coherence, and focusing narrowly on core tasks. By embracing sector agnosticism, public education will be better positioned to return student learning to the fore.
Key Takeaways
- Adult politics can force system and school leaders to do things that undercut what should be their key concern: student achievement. This happens when the boundary between governance and management is broken. School boards should empower superintendents to make key decisions and resist the temptation to deviate from the district’s core mission.
- Waiting for dynamic hero leaders is a fool’s errand; most organizations succeed or fail because of their external constraints. School districts are better off playing the long game: empowering management, giving leaders sufficient autonomy, and having a transition plan that builds on, rather than replaces, the current team’s successes.
- Public education tries to do too much. Successful organizations (and schools) combine coherence and focus on a limited set of tasks. Department of Defense Education Activity schools provide a compelling example of how focus and coherence can drive and sustain academic excellence.
- Sector agnosticism is critical. While ensuring accountability for results, state laws and education regulations should allow for the broadest possible definition of public schooling: using public resources to further student learning irrespective of how that schooling is politically regulated and overseen.
