Current Events and School Strategy--The View from Nor-Cal

I arrived in California this afternoon--Nor-Cal, actually-- to begin eight days of focus groups and planning workshops with independent schools, and discovered momentous things in the national news.  First, the recession everyone has known about is now "official", having received the blessing of the National Bureau of Economic Research.  While hardly a surprise, especially since the NBER back-dated their finding to December 2007, it does add to the mounting evidence suggesting that the economic problems are likely to be deeper and longer than anyone hopes.

Then, President-Elect Obama named his national security team, including some trusted advisers like Susan Rice and former rivals like Hillary Clinton.  Is this a case of "hold your friends close and your enemies closer"?  Time will tell.

Finally, the Dow dropped another astonishing 680 points.  Rather, numbers like that used to be astonishing.  Now they are the norm.  So commonplace, in fact, so as to hardly be newsworthy anymore.

How will the above play out in the minds of school constituents this week?  Stay tuned.  I'll keep you posted as the week goes on.