What’s in your mission statement?

Mission statements are ubiquitous in every part of the education world — from elementary and secondary schools to the charter sector, higher education, teacher preparation programs, and on and on. Whatever kind of institution they work in, faculty and staff know the drill: They are supposed to articulate a shared vision of successful teaching and learning, put it on the letterhead, and use it to guide everyday practice. But is that really what happens?

A few years ago, when time came to update the mission statement in the teacher education program where I worked, I took the opportunity to interview more than 200 of our former students about their views of our existing statement of purpose. The results were surprising, even alarming.

When we began rewriting our mission statement, my colleagues and I assumed that we had been inundating students with the message that we were preparing them to “teach for justice and equity.” That was our mission, and we were sure that they had heard it loud and clear. Yet, the interviews proved otherwise. Nearly two-thirds of alumni said they could not identify a single priority that had been stressed by the teacher education program or the larger school of education. Further, not one of them could recall our mission statement. Again and again, they said things like, “I didn’t know we had one of those,” “There’s a mission?” and “I had to interview to get into the program, but I don’t remember anything about a mission.”

As a faculty, we strongly believed that our mission was literally everywhere in our work, driving classroom practices in overt ways. However, the interviews revealed a large gap in perceptions, prompting some deeper digging into the legitimacy of the school of education’s explicit focus on justice and equity. Further, this sense of confidence is pervasive in many elementary and secondary schools as well — teachers and principals overwhelmingly believe their own school mission statements reflect actual and obvious practices in their schools (Stemler, Bebell, & Sonnabend, 2011). But how many of them can actually demonstrate that their students know the mission and recognize how the school is actively pursuing it?

One way to know if, when, and where these priorities are evident is to conduct periodic inquiries into students’ views and experiences. For example, state and district surveys (such as the Colorado and New York City Student Perception Surveys, 2016) can easily include questions about schools’ mission statements. This might also prompt further discussions about and student-led inquiries into school culture, values, and practices. Consider this quote from Josh, a former student in our master’s program for elementary-level teachers:

“If we had ever talked about the school of education’s mission. . . . I would have asked a lot of questions: Who wrote the mission statement? How does the program enact the mission statement? How do the classes reflect the mission statement? How do professors meet that mission statement? You have to know to ask.”

Regular efforts to inquire into each school’s mission (and to look for evidence of that mission’s relationship to actual school practices) could also bring parents, community members, prospective teachers, and others into the process of continuous improvement. Ensuring awareness and structuring “check ins” around the mission can lay the foundation for all stakeholders to work alongside faculty and staff to celebrate successes, consider missed opportunities, and perhaps participate in the mission’s updating. Allowing all parties to be involved in this way can also help the school stay on track to pursue its avowed priorities, holding faculty and staff accountable for efforts to make sure the mission statement becomes more than just words on a page.

References

Colorado’s Student Perception Survey. (2016). www.coloradoedinitiative.org/studentsurvey

New York City Student Perception Survey. (2016). http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/resources/Studentperceptionsurvey/default.htm

Stemler, S., Bebell, D., & Sonnabend, L. (2011). Using mission statements for reflection and research. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47 (2), 383-420.