The Future of Christian Schooling

I've been pastoring in upstate New York for a few years, and in that small window of time, multiple Christian schools in our area have shut down. Our own school has experienced a steady decline in enrollment the last several years, and we are at a crossroads ourselves.

Actually, I prefer to call it our "zero hour" - the time at which a planned operation is set to begin. Our leadership team sees the coming year as a rebirth of an institution which, done rightly, becomes a discipleship factory. The point of this article is not to lay out our plan before the blogosphere, but to share some key principles that are vital to the success of our institution along with every other Christian school in America.

What follows is not a comprehensive list, but the highlighting of three essentials for success. I came across these principles in an article entitled "Does Your Christian School Have a Future?" This article appeared in CSE: A Magazine for Christian School Educators (vol. 18, no. 3, 2014/15). To read the whole article, click here.

Gene Frost, the writer of the article, presented three principles that he gleaned from Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last (1997), and found them to be woven into the fabric of the most successful Christian schools across the country. Here's an overview of the three principles:

1.  Find educational leaders who are clock builders, not time tellers.

Time tellers are do-it-alone leaders who can always tell you what time it is, figuratively speaking. But when they aren't around, no one knows what time it is, and therefore have no clue what to do. But a clock builder is building the institutional clock. He knows how to get all the gears in place. This is a clock that everyone can reference and that will continue to be there long after the leader is gone. By looking to the clock, everyone knows what time it is and what to do.

Time tellers work tirelessly, sincerely believing that their hard work and long hours will pay off.  The problem is that time tellers fail to distinguish between employees who with the right training and opportunity can help to build the future of the institution, and the employees who were perpetuating the status quo. Time tellers end up managing those who are willing to hold on till the institution dies a slow and painful death.

2.  Discover the "genius of the AND."

Have you ever noticed that the best selling cars are the ones that are able to combine economy and performance? Likewise, current-day families are looking for value in our schools, and this value will only be created by the and. Instead of cutting programs -- deciding either football or soccer, choir or band, AP math or science -- educational leaders should be trying to find out how to do both.

Collins and Porras explain that the most important and that any enterprise needs to implement is preserving the core and stimulating progress. So many schools are caught up in preserving the core that they end up merely preserving the past.  The "genius of the AND" means that you only stimulate progress that leads to preserving the core and you only preserve the core by stimulating appropriate progress.

3.  Don't lower tuition.

Dropping tuition is signing the school's death warrant. When you lower tuition, you are telling your market that you aren't worth the tuition you were charging. Furthermore, you must then out of necessity eliminate offering that create the value that attracted families and their students in the first place. As your perceived or real value decreases, you lose students, then you're forced to lower tuition even further. This downward spiral continues until you close your doors for good.

So if you want your school to flourish, look for a leader who is a clock builder, who understands the "genius of the AND," and who can lead your school on the long journey of preserving the core and stimulating progress.