One thing that I am hoping will happen as the School District of Philadelphia transitions to leadership is that we re-examine and rewrite the district’s mission statement. You see it everywhere, posted in school buildings and on our website.
Children come first.
Parents are our partners.
Victory is in the classroom and facilitated by a strong instructional leader.
Leadership and accountability are the keys to success.
It takes the engagement of the entire community to ensure the success of its public schools.
I have been looking at that statement, especially the third sentence, for two and a half years and I still don’t know what it means. Victory is in the classroom? What are we fighting? How does one facilitate victory? And when did I become an instructional leader? I like being a teacher.
You know what is nowhere in this statement? How a good school and a good education helps our students. Not a word about helping them think clearly about their problems. Not a thing about preparing them to take responsibility for their lives. Nothing about building connections that will help them take their dreams and make them real. Nothing about building bonds that will make our city and our nation a stronger community. How can we talk about victory in the classroom if we won’t even articulate what a successful classroom looks like?
I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing you can put into a mission statement. It’s probably not something that could survive a bunch of committee meetings and draft versions. But then that makes me wonder what this mission statement is supposed to accomplish in the first place.