Common Core Needs an Aggressive Communication Focus Now

Over 18 months ago, I projected that the Common Core movement could become a public relations train wreck if school leaders did not get out front to explain the changes that were coming by 2014 in most of the states participating in their state-driven programs. I noted that school leaders needed to get to the public first or our critics would easily fill the void with their own definition of what Common Core really is. They would twist the conversation to point out that it is just another education reform initiative that will waste money and fail. I also noted that commercial privatization advocates will seize the opportunity to promote their brand of reform and expand the charter and voucher movement.

Whether I was right or wrong really doesn’t matter. What matters is that public education is almost falling into the trap of losing the early public opinion war on the merits of the Common Core. Once again, school leaders have worked on the important and critical staff development and assessment process, but did not pave the way for successfully launching the Common Core Standards through strategic and proactive communication. Communication planning and strategies must be embedded in all phases of major initiatives. Historically we have failed by giving a little more than lip service to communication until it may be too late.

For the Common Core, it is not too late.

Tap NSPRA’s Newest Resource

Now is a great time to begin planning and implementing your communication strategies and tactics. Start with NSPRA’s newest resource, The Common Core Communication Network, which you can find at www.nspra.org/commoncore/index. It is a treasure of articles and opinion pieces that discuss what critics are saying, how others are answering the critics, a listing of “myth busters,” plus sample letters, FAQs, and a suggested plan to help you communicate about the Common Core in your system. You’ll also find examples of what some leading systems have already completed to communicate about the Common Core. In addition, NSPRA has started an online discussion group which is open to all who are interested in sharing and learning more about communicating about the Common Core.

Just last week I attended the Learning First Alliance’s (LFA) Council Meeting in D.C., along with NSPRA President-elect Nora Carr, APR; Past President Jim Dunn, APR, who is serving as senior consultant on our Common Core project; and NSPRA Associate Director Karen Kleinz, APR. Panels were held on implementing Common Core. We learned of some new successful communication and engagement programs that school districts in Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio are practicing. A special tip of our NSPRA hat goes to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) for its innovation grant program offered to the Quincy Public Schools (Illinois);  it can serve as a model for many of us. We will post more on their Commit to the Core! program shortly on our network website.

Delaying Testing Will Make the Program Stronger

Another outtake of that LFA meeting (most major education associations belong to the LFA) was the consensus that to implement and measure results of the new common core standards, it would be beneficial to delay testing by another year or so. Many systems — through no fault of their own — have started later than expected and need extra time to thoroughly prepare their instructional efforts and their students for the new high-stakes testing. We must fully explain the rationale for the delay because we do not want to give the impression of shirking the accountability factor to our community and stakeholders.

Do take advantage of the communication resource for the Common Core offered by NSPRA. It will help jump start your Common Core communication effort. The time is now!

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director

Prove Progress Since a Nation at Risk or Start Ducking Now

The 30th anniversary of the landmark report, A Nation at Risk, occurs this month. We can bet that national and perhaps even local media will use this event to ask, “What has changed?”

And then they will ask the natural follow-up question, “Are our nation’s school still at risk?”

We must be proactive and anticipate how these questions will play out for your local communities. If we do not take the lead on this one, the education-bashing machine will again turn our schools, staff, and leadership into punching bags.
As NSPRA colleague Larry Ascough noted in his Texas daily newsletter:

Anyone who has set foot in a school of late already knows that education today is not anything like it was 30 years ago. It’s improved, and it continues to get better. Teachers and kids are doing things no one could even imagine in 1983. But there are a lot of folks who don’t know it. Wise leaders will anticipate and be proactive in letting their constituents know about their education progress, how much schools have improved their strengths and plans for the future.

Begin today to compile your system’s story and messages about your improvement and make sure your entire staff understands just how you have improved since 1983. Your staff should be willing to talk with pride about their progress as well. Give them insights (or talking points) for discussing how far your district has progressed since the early eighties.

Outstanding gains have been made at a time when we are:

• reaching more diverse audiences,
• serving more exceptional children,
•  increasing technology to boost instruction, and
• delivering more positive results in a climate of diminished resources.

Use the spotlight to talk about future initiatives and the support your schools and staff need to continue to deliver results that we can all be proud of.
Be proactive now to tell your district’s story or be prepared to duck when the media comes calling.

Rich Bagin, APR
NSPRA Executive Director

Gaining Support and Trust from School Leaders

NSPRA members Keith Imon and Phil Kavits of the Prince William School District (VA) are two well-respected pros in our field. Both shared their expertise and wisdom in NSPRA’s most recent Power Hour on Building Organization with Effective Communication.

One call-in question dealt with this dilemma: How can a professional help build trust when superintendents or school board leaders don’t understand the impact of a truly comprehensive and strategic program?

Simply put, it is difficult to help leaders lead when they do not recognize the value of school communication in their systems.

I admit that this remains a major frustration in our profession. NSPRA has provided a great deal of helpful information, actual data, and anecdotal persuasive stories through the communication accountability program (CAP) on our website at www.nspra.org.

But Phil Kavits gave us all a good tip for how to make the PR function a bit more personal for our school leaders. He urges us to ask individual board members and superintendents this one critical question:

What is the question you most dread being asked?

Or

What is the one question you hope you will never be asked?

Most of us have seen trust in our leaders diminish and support take a nose dive when tough questions receive either weak answers or no answers at all.

Both Phil and Keith urge you to begin helping your leaders work through  responses to these questions. They noted that you will help  insulate them from the perceived problem and actually begin an “inoculation” program that builds their confidence to deal with public statements about their system. (I must admit that you first need to run this exercise by your superintendent and receive a “green light” to put it into play.)

And best of all, this process can easily grow into a triple play:

• First, it  begins opening relationships with your leaders in helping them solve a problem.
• Second, it demonstrates how one aspect of communication can build more support for your schools.
• And finally, it increases the value of the communication program and your efforts for your schools.

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director

So, God Made a PR Pro

So, God Made a PR Pro

 The Super Bowl commercial, “So God made a farmer,” with the classic voice of Paul Harvey relating the attributes of farmers with the Dodge Ram piqued my curiosity as I had no idea where it was headed. But its graphics and copy along with the gravitas of Paul Harvey’s voice created a real attention grabber for me.

And then just this week, I caught a creative blog by Arik Hanson at www.arikhanson.com who took a shot of developing a similar piece to advocate for our PR profession. Such advocacy measures are rare and we thank Arik for his permission to share his “So God Made a PR Pro” with you. (He even mentioned schools.) You may want to tap into Arik’s website to learn more about the insight he offers. So here is Arik’s blog. Enjoy!

On the eighth day, God looked down on this world and said, “I need someone to help these retail companies, schools, manufacturers, hospitals, start-ups, tech companies, restaurants, hotels, sports franchises and news organizations communicate better.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone to wake up at 4 a.m., manage a live shot down at the Mall of America outside when it’s 5 degrees outside, then get back to the office by 7, take a two-hour client call at 8, get to a new business meeting at 10:30, take the new AE out to lunch, crank out a strategic plan and proof a news release in the afternoon, pick up the kids at 5:45, get them to ice skating lessons, eat dinner, go back online and complete billing reports, send a few emails to clients, finish the news release and do it all again the next day.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone who can sit in a meeting with a room full of senior-level executives and stand toe-to-toe with the CEO and tell him he needs to take a risk in the first quarter with a new campaign based on her recommendations, then turn around and sympathize with her team and figure out how they’re going to get the whole plan done in just 12 days.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone who can break down analytics and glean useful insights for clients. Someone who can crank out a news release, a blog post, and an annual report in a single afternoon. Someone who can manage and lead a team. Someone who can mentor younger team members. Someone who can massage and manage a client’s concerns, then sit in a room with an assistant account executive and listen to their challenges.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone strong enough to handle a crisis–where the client has absolutely no clue what to do next. Someone who can handle the heat when it gets so hot you can actually feel the sweat through the phone. But someone kind enough that other employees love coming to work with her each day.”

So, God made a PR pro.

It had to be someone who could write and edit. Interpret and influence. Direct and debate. Consult and collaborate. Organize and categorize. Evaluate and motivate. Lecture and listen. Someone who was willing to take risks. To push the envelope for her clients. To go above and beyond. Day after day after day after day. Someone who has an insatiable curiousity and someone who simply loved to learn.

So, God made a PR pro.

Someone with a strong moral compass–someone with ethics. Because without that, she is nothing. Someone who’s hyper-organized. Loves lists. And love to complete them. Loves coffee. And loves to read. Someone, who loves grammar so much she spell checks text messages. Someone who has CNN on in the background along with Tweetdeck and 18 columns. And someone who wakes up each morning, takes a shower, eats breakfast and looks in the mirror and says, “I am a PR pro.”

Thanks Arik for helping more people understand what it takes to be a PR Pro.

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director

Considerations for the New Year

Considerations for the New Year

The New Year prompts many of us to look at ourselves in different ways. Some of us come up with the normal resolutions of losing weight, getting more exercise, devoting more time to leisure, doing some out-of-my-career reading, taking a better shot at developing a balanced life, and the list continues. But this time of year can also be a good time to reflect on the advice of leaders, peers, and some other notables as we approach the year ahead.

So what follows is selected advice that may be good for many of us in the school PR profession. These are far from new year’s resolutions, but they might make you think about your personal practice of school communication.

Here are just some bits of advice that I think may be worth a quick test-drive for 2013:

Berkshire Hathaway director Thomas Murphy told Warren Buffet:

“Never forget, Warren, you can tell a guy to go to hell tomorrow — you don’t give up the right. So just keep your mouth shut today, and see if you feel the same way tomorrow.” 

(Sure beats the old “counting-to-10” approach before letting anger prompt you to say something that you’ll later regret! Been there; done that.)

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Author and national speaker Jamie Vollmer in his book, Schools Cannot Do It Alone, used this John Powell quote:

“Communication works for those who work at it.”

(For me this rings true when some school leaders just give lip service to the communication function. For school communication to work, you really do need to work at it day in and day out. I realize this sounds like a big “Duh” moment, but I have seen one-time initiatives fail when the ongoing commitment was lacking and the communication function painted as a failure.)

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Doug Ullman, CEO of Livestrong, (of the recent Lance Armstrong debacle) noted that during tough times, we need to stay strong as he noted,

“You can survive any type of distraction if — and only if — you stay focused on the organization’s mission.” 

(In education, distractions seem to be another item to place under the umbrella of “the new normal.” We must keep our focus on what is best for our kids and our communities. We will always have some blips on the screen when employees or others behave badly, but we must keep a visible focus on our core responsibilities because they are the very reason we exist.)

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Meg Carnes and Kitty Porterfield opened each of their chapters in Why School Communication Matters with a quote. The one that fits here, albeit anonymous, is:

“You can’t win on defense.”

(I have often said that the lack of proactivity is the Number One problem in school communication. We are forever reacting to some else’s story before we tell our own.)

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Here’s a personal mantra for those of us who manage or supervise people or issues. Many years ago when I was in the agency-marketing business, a consultant from a management consulting group taught us to regularly ask this question:

What did I do (or not do) to make this happen (or not happen)?

It makes you realize that we may not always do some of the little things that lead to success.

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Let me close with a school PR leadership classic from NSPRA’s very own Larry Ascough. Larry notes:

“I’ve spent an entire career helping leaders lead — that’s what I do.”

(Great school communication professionals really help all school leaders excel and that’s why they are indispensable in systems that give these pros the freedom to perform the PR function at the highest level of our profession.)

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Well, there you have it. Just six brief items to reflect on as you begin your journey through 2013.

Let’s make it an outstanding and rewarding year for our school PR profession.

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director

Gobal Study Looks at PR Leadership

Global Study Looks at PR Leadership

One of NSPRA’s roles is to serve as curator of communication research. We review the research and, in turn, wade through it so you don’t have to. It is often a daunting task to find any relevant research and make it relevant for you.

We recently came across a study that the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama released in October. Nearly 4,500 private, public, and nonprofit professionals in 23 countries completed the survey. Some 70% of the participants currently hold the #1 or #2 leadership positions within their organizations. IBM and Heyman Associates co-sponsored the study, with research allies in Brazil, Hong Kong, and Germany. For the full study findings, go to: plankcenter.ua.edu/the-summit/

Here are just a few excerpts from the full study with their analysis:

“Millennials” Look at the PR Profession

Ron Alsop’s book, The Trophy Kids Grow Up, is one of several that describe the first wave of the millennial generation and the values, expectations, and changes they bring to the workplace. Our survey provides some evidence of generational differences. Younger professionals (< 36 years) rank professional image and measurement as significantly more important issues than do older age groups. They give high ratings to the need to develop talent. They give significantly lower ratings to the actual presence of two-way communication in their organizations. They are more positive about the future of the profession, and they rate 8 of the 12 approaches to developing future leaders significantly higher than other age groups. These include: accreditation, associations working together, measurement, and emotional intelligence.

Measurement Remains the 800-Pound Gorilla in Communication Units Worldwide

The salience and valence of media coverage still rules measurement approaches in most surveyed countries. Yet, the measurement issue is rated as the #3 issue among 10 big issues in the field.

Given the sharply increased focus on measurement standards by several groups and organizations today, it seems likely that more reliable and meaningful measurement approaches and standards ¾ and the moment of truth ¾ are close at hand. Who will embrace these approaches and use measurement to build competitive advantage — for the organization?

Yes, measurement can certainly be a competitive advantage for the profession and the organization. Who gets left behind? Who will have the vision? And who will seize the opportunity to deliver measurement knowledge and skill to those who hunger for it? (Note: NSPRA’s Benchmarking Project is working on this issue for NSPRA members.)

Soft Skills and Self-insights Are the Holy Grail of Future Leaders

Yes, digital media skills are crucial, and so are enhanced measurement skills. But practitioners say mastering the so-called soft people skills — better listening, cultural sensitivity, emotional intelligence, conflict-resolution capabilities, and change management skills — is crucial to improving PR leaders for an uncertain future. More widely publicized systemic changes such as accreditation, a global education curriculum, measurement standards, and enforcement of ethical codes are also important, but survey results suggest systemic changes run second to soft skills.

Aren’t soft skills, for example, crucial to successfully implementing the model for corporate communication proposed by the Arthur W. Page Society? The model calls for activating organizational character and engaging individual customers, investors, employees, community members, and others as advocates for shared beliefs and actions.

Aren’t listening skills, cultural sensitivity and change management skills vital in doing so? To develop these and other capabilities, leaders must spend more of that scarce resource — time — in self-reflection, in thinking about how they think, and in knowing their strengths and limitations. Self-reflection is not a passive activity, but it is the pathway to greater self-awareness, which is the basis for improving leadership skills and connecting more.

The study offers additional insight about the communication profession. See for yourself at plankcenter.ua.edu/the-summit/.

Indeed, our profession is changing as it is must to meet the new realities of our mobile and ever-changing audiences. As the report notes, we all must better use our scare resource — time — to analyze the best ways to perform our communication function and to elevate the skills and practices of all professionals in school communication.

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director

Making Your Messages More Relevant and Effective

Making Your Messages More Relevant and Effective

If you follow the advice of Ken DeSieghardt’s book Think Like a Patron, your communication effort may become more effective and concise in reaching more audiences with the information they seek. He notes that we must give our audiences what they want to know—even though it may not be exactly what we want to tell them.

Ken DeSieghardt, an NSPRA member, has been completing communication-related research and compiling data for more than 20 years. The full title of his book is Think Like a Patron (Without Losing Your Mind) and it is available from NSPRA at www.nspra.org/store. It is  an informative, quick read of just over 100 pages that will make you take stock of just which messages may work for you. Of course, researching your own audiences is often the best thing you can do, but you will most likely find—as I did—that DeSieghardt’s results match NSPRA’s findings gleaned from our communication audits during the past 10 years.

Here is just a sampling of what is in this practical book:

A Twist on the 80-20 Rule

In school communication, most of our interaction is with the 20%, whom DeSieghardt notes can be divided into two 10% audiences, the Happys and the Unhappys.  

He touches on approaches to use with both groups, but notes we are missing some opportunities with the remaining 80% who cover the majority of costs of our schools. Too often we do not communicate with this group at all, or if we do, our communication is off target so much that it reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon strip where the teacher is talking to Charlie Brown and all he hears is, “Blah, Blah, Blah, and more Blah, Blah, Blah.”

We often speak, but no one is really listening.

The 80% seem too busy. Or it may be that they just don’t care until something operationally goes very wrong in your system. They then start paying attention. They often are fine in knowing that things are running smoothly, and that your costs, results, and overall value are equal or better than neighboring systems.

DeSieghardt’s Patron Information Pyramid

At the heart of DeSieghardt’s work is the analysis of his findings, presented in an inverted pyramid. He lists content items as essential, important, and as needed.Most of the book then gives vivid examples of how these three categories play out for the Happys, the Unhappys, and the remaining 80% of patrons in your school community.  Here a just some of the items in each area:

Essential Topics	Teachers,   school facilities (quality, maintenance, upkeep), quality of education,   preparation of students for next phase in their life, taxes, etc.
Important Topics	Principals, student safety, tech for student use, class sizes, spending balance, etc.
As Needed Topics	Extracurricular   activities, news about Central office, Superintendent, Board of Education,   etc.

The remaining pages describe ways to talk about taxes and funding, renovations versus new buildings, teacher quality, and many more topics that are regularly on our communication plates.

DeSieghardt ends his book by saying communicators have two choices:

•   keep telling them what you think is important, or
•   concentrate your efforts on subjects that matter to them.

He urges us to stick primarily to the general issues of our audiences and then enhancing that core list with topics that are unique to our districts and of interest to our audiences.

As a school communication professional, this book directly gets to the core of what you do every day. It’s a “must read” to challenge and improve your school communications program. And it reminds us all that researching our target audiences is the very first step in our communication efforts.

Rich Bagin, APR

NSPRA Executive Director