ROGERS — Oftentimes the virtues of business, such as the concern for efficiency and quality, are superimposed upon the field of education and the business of school. This became especially true when the federal government passed the accountability legislation “No Child Left Behind,” giving schools and school districts a bottom line.

There are some similarities that should be acknowledged. School districts and businesses employ large numbers of people and manage large budgets creating the bureaucratic necessities of departments, lines of authority, specialization of skills, customer service and the need for information. It is as if school districts have become publicly traded commodities. Test scores and demographic information are published on a regular basis in state and local newspapers comparing the performanceof one district to another, implying that this district or that district is operating more efficiently and producing quality products because they have done a better job of assimilating the virtues of business.

There is much to be learned from business models and all organizations need to reinvent themselves and watch their bottom line.

Schools need to stay agile and meet the changing needs of their “customers.” Schools need to stay abreast of the latest research and technology to be prepared for the future. Schools need to be efficient. Schools need to continually look to improve themselves. Schools have a lot in common with the business community. However, there is one primary and fundamental difference and it is exemplified in the story below told by Mr. Vollmer. (The Blueberry Story has been reprinted with the permission of Jaime Vollmer.)

The Blueberry Story

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”

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. 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 mid-1980s when People Magazine chose our blueberry 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! TQM! 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 razoredged, 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 ADHD, 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!”

Mark Sparks is the deputy superintendent for Rogers Public Schools.

Scholars, Pages 9 on 11/04/2009

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