Helen Vollmer’s POV - Unheralded Heroes:Teachers

 By Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

It’s clear that education in this country needs an overhaul. Just look at Texas, where according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, we rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 36th in senior graduation rates and 33rd in teacher salaries. Unforgivable. But while governmental budget deficits and antiquated policies and teaching methods are widening the gap in what needs to be done to reform schools versus what is achievable, I’d like to stop a minute to thank teachers, past and present, as unheralded heroes.

There are very few among us that when asked, “Who made a difference in your life?” can’t point to a teacher who gave us new direction, inspiration and knowledge.

For me, this was Mrs. Baker who in 2nd grade recognized I needed glasses to see the blackboard, Mrs. Sparham in grade school who instilled self-confidence, and high school’s Mrs. Zuschlag who infused me with a love of Latin American literature and a more global world view. Thanks also goes to Bernard Leskowitz, a Radio-TV Professor at UT at the time, who encouraged me to write via seriously critical reviews of my work. They may not remember me, but I remember them and how they changed the course of my life.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked with education clients to help them and their institutions - whether at primary, secondary or university levels - find their voice. Teachers, at their best, are mentors and guides who lead us down new paths and force us to find the best in ourselves. And while there are those in the classroom who clearly shouldn’t be there, all professions are touched by the incapable or, almost worse, the simply mediocre. There are plenty of educators who are gifted and exceptional. Teachers, as a profession should, on the whole, be revered and treated as the leaders they truly are.

The education system may be broken, but the fault doesn’t lie necessarily with teachers. The fault more appropriately lies with all of as community members, students, parents, and individuals who too easily find blame but don’t step up to the plate to be change agents. If we support teachers and the challenges they face every day in the classroom by ferociously advocating for reform with our elected and appointed officials as well as with local school boards and administrators, then teachers at least have a chance to focus on what’s truly important: making our children knowledgeable, well-rounded and productive citizens.

One last shout out—to my mom, Helen Dromgoole Vollmer, and her mother, Helen Deermont Dromgoole- who were amazing classroom teachers but as great life lesson coaches, instilled a love of learning in me and my siblings. Well done, ladies. It’s time to pay it forward.

Strong Communications and Public Engagement Key to Effective Education Reform

 By Marni Futterman, Vice President, Chicago

For the countless Americans interested in revitalizing our nation’s public schools, the current back-to-school season certainly is heralding an exciting time.

In Chicago where I reside, our new Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has made public education a top priority, and his new schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard, will begin their first school year leading the nation’s third-largest school system when students return on September 6.

In a May 3 article by the Chicago News Cooperative shortly after he was named head of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Jean-Claude Brizard spoke about his goals for CPS, including “raising graduation and literacy rates, improving communication with parents and teachers, and enforcing accountability of principals.” He also emphasized the importance of “send(ing) the right message to the community.”

I commend Brizard for acknowledging the central role effective communications and public engagement plays in improving our public schools. Too often, in light of the myriad financial and political challenges they face, education leaders neglect inadvertently the critical task of fostering an open dialogue with parents, teachers, principals, union, business and community leaders, and the community at large.

But what’s the best way to go about communicating these complex issues to diverse audiences? In my experience counseling districts around the country about education communications, it’s important to work from the inside out. From a communications perspective, the first task of a new district leader must be to build a rapport with current teachers, principals, parents and union leaders. One of the best ways to do this is through asking for their input and truly listening to their thoughts and opinions about both challenges and possible solutions. The next step is reporting back to them on what was learned from these conversations, both the positive and the negative, and sharing how their opinions and ideas will be incorporated into the district’s action plan moving forward.

It’s also critical to engage business and community leaders in the dialogue about how to improve our schools. By creating opportunities for them to get involved, through ongoing volunteer leadership roles as well as forums and events, education leaders can garner much-needed financial support and creative ideas from those with experience in other disciplines.

Finally, it’s important to make the broader community aware of what’s happening within our schools. One way to do this is through local and national events that inform and engage the public around specific education issues. Traditional and social media also serve as critical conduits for telling education stories to the community. Too often, media coverage of our schools focuses on the controversial and confrontational. What’s needed is a much more intensive – and effective -- communications drive to illuminate and celebrate the student-achievement programs that succeed. State and district leaders can do this by highlighting to the media the data that illustrates initiatives that are working, as well as by leveraging the voices of teachers and principals in the classroom to share their personal success stories. In addition, it’s important that school systems tell their own story effectively through their websites and the social media channels where their constituents are already engaged.

This collaborative approach to communications can go a long way toward building a school system and community with a shared commitment to and concrete plan for transforming our schools and providing our children with a high-quality education.

Back to School No More!

 By Erika Briceno, AAE, Dallas

This school year marks the first time in twenty years that I am not taking part in the first day of school. As a recently nationalized American, I can’t help but think about the current state of the public education system in the country I now call home.

I grew up attending school in both Latin America and the U.S. This experience provided me a unique perceptive, as I always found it mind boggling to think about the learning disparities from one U.S. public school to another.

The way I described this to my family back in Venezuela was by quoting Dickens (my favorite author), “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” For such an elaborate and successful public school system, the learning gap is too wide, and the best of the system can be overshadowed by the worst. In the Dallas public school system, there are two extremes that reflect this dilemma: a top fifteen school and a school with the seventh highest dropout rate in the country.

Growing up in Venezuela, it felt like everyone attended a private school and, in actuality, everyone around me did. In Latin America, public school systems hardly exist and, sadly, the average student drops out by the fifth grade.

When my family moved to the U.S., after reading so much about the gap in education mainly by the U.S. Hispanics population in public schools, my parents choose to enroll me in private education. This was clearly a generalization, as not all Hispanic students fall behind in public school, but it is a frightening statistic.

For a Hispanic migrating to the U.S., being held back in school is not something you want to take a chance on if you can prevent it. It’s hard enough to deal with making new friends in a foreign place, learning a new language and adjusting to new customs and cultures.

It is unfortunate that in most of Latin America, private schooling is usually the only path for those that seek higher education, thus it is hard for many of us to part from our preconceived notions.

It is also unfair to compare public education between the U.S. and Latin America. However, it is not unfair to question the reason for the education gap in public school districts across the U.S.

When deciding my post graduate career path, I considered accepting an offer with Teach for America, an organization that works in impoverished public schools to provide every child with adequate education. It is programs like this that help bridge this education gap in the public school system.

For many Hispanic immigrants, private school is not an option, thus it is important that public schools have the adequate resources to ensure that all students, regardless of their nationality, do not fall behind and add to the U.S. learning gap.

Although my “back to school” days are behind me now, I’m thankful to have had such a diversified educational experience. One that has helped shape my career path and sparked my passion for education.

College Freshmen Show: The More Things Change, The More They Change

by Julia Weede, Vollmer Education Practice Leader

Want a glimpse of the future? Look at the   incoming freshmen for the class of 2014.

Beloit College has published its annual Mindset List, capturing the everyday realities and paradigms of the next crop of  new college students. It never fails to deliver a jolt of reality to anyone who feels their college years aren’t really that far behind.

Created for college professors to help them understand whom they are teaching, the Mindset List is a handy touchstone for those outside of academia, too. Consider that, in a few short years, these students will be in prime marketing demographic territory.

This year’s college freshmen were born in 1992 and were about nine years old on Sept. 11, 2001.

According to Beloit College:

• Few know how to write in cursive.
• Email is too slow and they seldom, if ever, use snail mail.
• Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
• Czechoslovakia has never existed. 
• Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
• John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.
• Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
• A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigrant debate is not a big priority.

As a public relations company that does a lot with different education clients, this list is a 'must-read' for Vollmer!  For the full list, visit beloit.edu/mindset.

Vollmer is Passionate about Generation TX

by Denisha Stevens, Vollmer Public Relations Dallas

One of the great things about working at Vollmer is the fact that we have the opportunity to take part in programs that we are especially passionate about.  Today that special program is Generation TX (GenTX).

We are working with Milkshake Media, an Austin-based brand agency, to support the campaign by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to foster a college-going culture in the state.  To understand the challenge and why we are so fired up about this assignment, consider these statistics:

• Texas has a population where 20 percent of residents over 25 have failed to complete high school and only 55 percent of students go to college.
• A high percentage of the public school students in Texas will be the first in their family to pursue college or career education beyond high school.
• Studies show that a college graduate will have $1 million more in lifetime earnings than a high school dropout.

It’s safe to assume that many of us wouldn’t be in our current professions if we hadn’t had the opportunity to pursue a college education or specialized training after high school.  Where would we be today if we’d had difficulty making our way through the application process or failed to find a way to pay for tuition?  The GenTX initiative has been created to help students overcome these obstacles.

Through a variety of grassroots tactics, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is asking community organizations and leaders to engage students and then connect them and their families to the resources   they  need to prepare for, apply to and pay for college and career education beyond high school.  The program will be launched in the pilot markets of Fort Worth and San Antonio this fall, with plans to reach out to additional markets in the future. 

We invite you to learn more at www.GenTX.org and check back frequently to watch the program take shape in the coming months.  Likewise, we invite you to do your part to reach out to students in your community to share this important resource.  After all, educating the next generation of Texans is something we all should be passionate about.