The Leadership Politics of School Purpose
Clark Kerr, entrepreneurial president of the University of California and chancellor of the Berkeley campus during the 1950’s and 60’s, once famously quipped that the modern university has three purposes—to provide sex for undergraduates, sports for alumni. and parking for faculty. While Kerr’s riposte was no doubt partly in jest, one could easily imagine a contemporary day school head saying that the modern independent school has five purposes—to provide protection from the vicissitudes of the capitalistic market for faculty, a prestigious university admission list for parents, freedom from micromanagement for administrators, robust giving by high-capacity donors for the board, and high-speed bandwidth for students. Should there be an active alumni association, a sixth purpose would be conservation of the school’s quirks and idiosyncrasies for alumni, regardless of whether they contribute to the annual campaign or not.It is interesting and instructive to current and aspiring school leaders how frequently tension occurs around the intersection of two or more interests when they seem to be heading in divergent directions. A university list that to faculty reflects the uniqueness and well-being of students may look second-rate to parents, thus provoking calls for more rigorous teacher evaluation and even Welchian rank-and-fire schemes. An underperforming capital campaign can quickly turn a board toward micromanagement of perceived administrative failings. And satisfying student demands for better technologic capacity can provoke alumni whinging about the demise of school as they knew it.
Anecdotally, but informed by much coaching work with school heads, it seems that successful and unsuccessful headships often swing on the degree to which the leader understands the above and accepts, and even revels in, the intensely political atmosphere it creates.