I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming
angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes
of in-service training. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless
agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife. I represented a group of
business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an
ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People
Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in
America."
I was convinced of two things. First, public schools
needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed
for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge
society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted
change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded
by a bureaucratic monopoly.
They needed to look to business. We knew how to
produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous
improvement!
In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced-equal
parts ignorance and arrogance. As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up.
She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high
school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.
She began
quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice
cream."
I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am."
"How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"
"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.
"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.
"Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.
"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"
In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie. "I send them back."
"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our
blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused,
frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and
English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr.
Vollmer, is why it's not a
business. It's school."
In an
explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and
secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries!
Blueberries!"
And so began my long transformation. Since then, I
have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a
business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they
are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and
they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer
groups that would send the best
CEO screaming into the
night.
None of this negates the need for change. We must change
what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive
in a postindustrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes
can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of
the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that
schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they
serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our
schools, it means changing America.
****Jamie Robert
Vollmer, a former business executive and attorney, is now a keynote presenter
and consultant who works to increase community support for public schools. He
lives in Fairfield, Iowa
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