If the true motivation behind the
education reform movement has been to implement solutions that are “what’s best
for kids”, then why have ed reform results in traditional public schools in
Newark, Nashville, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Orleans, New
York state, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere been so tumultuous,
ineffective, and harmful?
The answer lies in the fact that the
marketing of the ed reformers’ ideas, the implementation of these ideas, and
the ideas themselves have been deeply flawed. If, as the reformers claim,
they’ve sought to bring a disciplined business model to public education, they
should have borrowed time tested wisdom from successful organizations as a
guide to vet their experimental theories. Instead, and unfortunately for
the kids in the school districts where their destructively disruptive edicts
have been implemented, the reformers’ corporate approach has the hallmarks of a
hand-scrawled, Red Bull-stained business plan from a flailing Web 1.0 startup,
rather than a coherent and sensible strategy from a profitable, top tier
company.
Here are six Marketing 101 lessons
that ed reformers should have followed when envisioning their policies and
putting them into practice:
1. Update and improve what
you’re selling.
Imagine if
Apple’s iPhone 6s offered the exact same features and functionality as the
original iPhone from 2007. Going even further, imagine if all variations
of the iPhone were replicas of first iPhone, and only their model numbers were
changed. Consumers would see through the ruse, and they’d take their
business elsewhere.
Education reformers have been
selling the exact same “model” since they introduced their offerings over 15
years ago. Increasing high stakes standardized testing, demanding higher
levels of teacher “accountability”, measuring the “effectiveness” of teachers
and schools based on students’ test scores (and then firing teachers and
closing schools based on those scores), extolling/exaggerating the “benefits”
of no excuses charter schools while refusing to address their downsides,
pushing digital learning (as a way of pushing out actual teaching), bashing
teachers and their unions, seeking to remove teachers’ tenure protections,
claiming that their “solutions” will close the achievement gap - it’s been the
same rehashed stuff with no upgrades, revisions, or modifications of their tool
kit (which, based on its inability to generate anything remotely close to
iPhone-like enthusiasm, seems to be in perpetual beta mode).
If the ed reformers expect to
achieve positive connections with their customers - which would be students,
parents, and yes, teachers, since they’d be the ones who would be implementing
the reforms - they need to head back to the lab, devise something new, test it,
refine it, focus group it with their target customers, roll it out, and be
willing to modify it based on feedback from the market.
2. Create market-specific versions of what you’re selling.
Starbucks
recognizes that their customers’ tastes for coffee drinks vary tremendously in
different regions of the world. In their stores of Asia Pacific and
Japan, customers can order a coffee jelly frappuccino, filled with boba-like
jelly cubes made from brewed coffee. In Peru, Starbucks sells a sweet
frappe made from lúcuma, which is a sweet mango-like fruit that’s native to the
country. In India, Starbucks customers can enjoy an exclusive delicacy
called Lemon Jazz Cheesecake.
Savvy companies with regional
franchises or stores understand that the preferences, needs, and goals of
consumers in every market are different, but this reality is lost on ed
reformers. From state to state and city to city, the reformers see all
public school “problems” as being exactly the same. To fix things, the ed
reform toolkit is presented as a one-size-fits-all panacea for the complex
challenges that the reformers say are irreparable by a “status quo” approach to
public education.
In the view of American ed
reformers, students, districts, schools, and teachers are identical from coast
to coast - and therefore their turnkey “solutions” can work everywhere.
If the chief marketing officer for a national restaurant chain or retailer
presented a rollout plan that refused to account for regional distinctions, the
plan would collapse, and he/she would be fired. Given the ed reformers’
long string of fails, a similar shake-up in their hierarchy - and modification
of their methodology - is in order.
3. Don’t give your customers what you think they want, or what you want them
to want.
Restaurant
consultant Brandon O’Dell has
found that one of the biggest mistakes that owners make is “offering customers
what [they] think is good, instead of what the customer thinks is good”, which
“is a surefire way to lose money in the restaurant business.”
To help business owners understand
what their customers want, business consultant Evan Carmichael offers very specific advice: “Have customers
involved in your decision making process and have them help you guide your
process. Start talking to people. Ask them about their problems and
pain points. You want people to give you feedback and tell you what’s
helpful, what’s not, and what needs to be changed.”
To ed reformers, this fluid,
customer-centric, bottom up system is anathema to their rigid, top down,
universal recipe.
The reformers want us to be sold on
the benefits that their trusty trick bag can bring, but by now, they should
understand that it’s filled with stuff that they want us to want, and
not what we truly want. While they’d point to the innumerable astroturf
groups that they fund as examples of grassroots approval of their agenda, they
know, and we know, and they know that we know, that these endorsements aren’t
legitimate and don’t represent the actual needs and goals of the majority of
American parents, students, and teachers.
4. Don’t blame your customers if they're not buying what you’re selling.
Business.com
writer Ashtyn Douglas says
that “blaming your customers is always a losing strategy.” Marketing
coach David Newman puts it even more bluntly in his Top 10 Nifty Excuses for
Marketing Failure:
“[If you’re not making sales and] you’re
unwilling to make changes, get help, or innovate… then you suck at marketing…
and ALL of these shortcomings are 100% your own damn fault.”
Ed reformers tend to blame everyone
but themselves for the wide criticism and marketplace failures of their product
line. They scold teachers unions for misinforming parents, and they
reprimand parents for listening to the unions and also for misunderstanding ed
reform’s benefits. Even former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan got in
on the customer bashing when he blamed white suburban moms for their criticisms
of the Common Core - the centerpiece of his divisive ed reform philosophy - by
saying that the moms were upset that their children weren’t as brilliant as
they thought.
Ironically, some of the biggest supporters
of ed reform (and blamers of ed reform’s customers) are America’s top CEOs and
financiers, who wouldn’t dare implement such off-putting tactics in their own
organizations’ interactions with clients and buyers. If these business
pros insisted that the same successful sales and marketing best practices that
their firms follow were also used by the ed reformers, the movement might
possibly have achieved greater traction, support, and buy-in.
5. Listen to Bill Gates.
The
Microsoft co-founder has offered valuable advice for
professionals in all industries, including such aphorisms as:
·
“Your most
unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
·
“It’s fine
to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
·
“Be humble
and mindful in [your] actions and words. Seek and heed the counsel of outside
voices.”
It’s interesting to note that Gates
is one of America’s most prominent financial supporters of charter schools and
the Common Core - so, as with the CEOs and financiers discussed above, his
marketplace acumen is obviously not guiding his ed reform pursuits. If he
had heeded his own business wisdom, he might have seen a better ROI on his billion
dollar ed reform investments.
6. Make your customers fall in love with you.
The common
sense tips of content marketing consultant Brian Honingman of Honingman
Media are axiomatic, but his wise recommendations are just not the
way the ed reformers prefer to roll:
·
Treat your
Customers Right
·
Respect Your
Customers
·
Hear What
Your Customers are Saying
·
Treat a
Customer Like a Valued Partner
·
Build Trust
·
Be
Transparent
·
Recognize
Responsibility: The Customer is Always Right
If ed reformers don’t understand why
more of their target customers haven’t fallen in love with their strategy for
school salvation, they shouldn’t be flummoxed: the fact that they don’t
integrate Honingman’s powerful maxims into their customer relationship
management (CRM) is clear evidence that, as David Newman would say, they suck
at marketing and their shortcomings are 100% their own damn faults.
The education reformers have
billions at their disposal from interest groups, hedge funders, CEOs, and
executives from Wall Street and Silicon Valley - all of whom passionately
support the reformers’ positions. This vast treasure is being used to buy
influence with politicians, fund pro-ed reform astroturf groups, and
(unsuccessfully) sway public opinion. But unless the ed reformers
implement the smart marketing and CRM guidance discussed above and adapt their
agenda to the needs and goals of their target customers, they’ll continue to
sell us aging, defective inventory that American parents, students, and
teachers will continue to refuse to buy.
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