I am indebted to Ann Edenfield of Wings For Life International for leading me to this story.
On April 2, I heard an amazing speaker name Jamie Vollmer, who is a former business executive and attorney who now works to increase support for America’s public schools. He has written a book called, Schools Cannot Do It Alone, and it is available at www.jamievollmer.com
He gave me permission to reprint his “Blueberry Story” which follows:
“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”
I stood on the stage of a high school auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 60 minutes of Inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to expressions of open disdain. You could cut the hostility with a knife.
I represented a statewide group of business leaders determined to improve public schools. I was also president of an ice cream company that had become famous in the mid-1980s when People Magazine chose our Blueberries and Cream as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”
When it came to public schools, I was convinced of three things. First, they needed to change. They were archaic sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were the primary problem: protected by tenure, shielded by a monopolistic bureaucracy, they resisted meaningful change. And third, if they would just run their schools like a business, we would get the graduates we need. “We invented Total Quality Management,” I proclaimed. “We understand continuous improvement. Zero defects!”
In retrospect, my speech was perfectly balanced: equal parts ignorance and arrogance.
When I finally finished, the room was dead silent. Then a woman’s hand shot up. I looked at her. She appeared polite, pleasant. I learned later that she was razor-edged, high school English teacher who had been lying in the bushes for me for an hour.
I nodded, and she started just as nice as you please, “We are told, sir, that you make good ice cream.”
“Best ice cream in America, Ma’am,” I smugly replied.
“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”
“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I bragged.
“Your nuts, your berries, your flavorings, all Grade A ingredients?” she inquired. “No, no,” I said. “Our specification to our suppliers is not A. It’s triple A.” And a little
smile shot across her face that I did not understand at the time.
“I see,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky. “So tell me,
Mr. Vollmer, when you’re standing on your receiving dock and a shipment of, say, blueberries arrives that does not meet your triple A specification, what do you do?”
And in the silence of that room, you could hear her trap snap!
I knew I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie. “I send them back.”
“That’s right!” she said as she jumped to her feet. “And we can never send back the
blueberries our suppliers send us. We take them big, small, rich, poor, brilliant, confident, abused, frightened, gifted, and homeless. We take them with ADHD, head lice, no English, and an ever-growing list of mental and physical challenges. We take all the blueberries! Every One! And that’s why it’s not a business. It’s school!”
Well. I would have gotten the point, but in an explosion all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet yelling, “Yeah! Blueberries, pal! Blueberries!”
And so began my long transformation.
I have visited hundreds of schools since that day. I’ve shadowed principals, worked as an aide, and spent a warm Friday afternoon locked in a room with smelly eighth graders. And I’ve learned beyond doubt that a school is not a business, and no amount of glib free-market rhetoric can change that.
Can we graft practices and procedures from the private sector onto the rarified culture of PreK-12? Sure. But that doesn’t make it a business. Public schools have no control over the quality of their raw material. Their budget is at the mercy of state and local politics. And they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing “customer” groups that would send the most seasoned 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 the maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone. They need the understanding, trust, permission, and support of the people in the communities they serve. Everyone has a role to play because the truth is we all have skin in this game, whether or not we have children in school. We must all come together to help unfold the full potential of every child. It’s moral. It’s practical. And it’s the most important enterprise of our time.
Jamie Robert Vollmer © 2019