Trends: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly An NAISAISGW Trustee Workshop

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Trends The Good, the Bad, and the UglyAn
NAIS/AISGW Trustee Workshop Patrick F. Bassett,
NAIS President
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Presidents Report The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly

• 1966, Sergio Leone Satire of a world at war
  (Southeast Asia)
• Violent, unpredictable, and hostile landscape
• World where villains prevailed, betrayals were
  common, and alliances were ephemeral and shifting
  
• G, B U the VUCA U future. While not all of
  the trends will impact any single school, some of
  the trends will impact all of our schools

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Trend 1 Challenges with Demand, Pricing, and
Financial Sustainability

• The Bad Congressional hearings and threats on
  escalating college tuitions canary in the
  mineshaft.
• The Ugly Perfect storm of four dangerous
  trends coalescing 1.) a looming recession 2.) a
  shrinking demographic 3.) a continuing trend of
  high tuition increases 4.) a disappearance of
  the middle class, not only in the country but
  also in our schools
• The Good School task forces re-thinking the
  entire financial model. New tools on the horizon.

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Average DC-area Tuitions 2007 - 08 22,900 (Gr.
12) 19,700 (Gr. 6)
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Trend 1 New Tools for Financial Sustainability
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Trend 2 Runaway Costs

• The Bad We are America We have redefined
  luxuries as necessities, spent too much, saved
  too little, and borrowed breathlessly against the
  future.
• When it comes time to build a new building, the
  image we start with

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Trend 2 Runaway Costs

• In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
• A stately pleasure-dome decree (the new
  student center)
• Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
• Through caverns measureless to man (the new gym)
• Down to a sunless sea.
  (the new natatorium)
• Belt-tightening and reassessment here or coming
• Questions of what is really important to fund
  and whats not emerging. Building or Financial
  Aid?
• Wrong question at budget time is, How much more
  can we charge? Right question to ask is, How can
  we offer excellence while moderating
  price increase? Be the value(s)-leader?

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Trend 2 Runaway Costs

• The Ugly The law of unintended consequences
  losing the middle class and the upper middle
  class
• Were becoming like Porsche, indisputably best
  of breed but so highly priced that its not even
  worth the time for most to go to the dealership
  to take a test drive.
• Mirror image of value proposition for college.
• Serving the top 3 percent of families gt200K
• So what? Values and diversity mix important.

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Trend 2 Runaway Costs

• The Good Moving on up families, the newly
  affluent, can be wooed. Great schools finding
  ways to keep the base of middle class kids.
• financial aid funding expanding to specifically
  address the woes of the middle class.
• financial aid policies changing to include more
  merit aid to attract those on the affordability
  fence.

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Trend 3 Giving Under Pressure

• The Bad College alumni giving down this year,
  and the percentage of alumni making a donation
  fell in each of the last 2 years.
• The Ugly Loss of control of your image and
  message via the new tools of the data aggregator
  websites and social networks Charity Navigator,
  FaceBook, Wikipedia, even RateYourTeachers.com.
  Digital dirt on schools.
• The Good While participation rates are down (for
  alums and grandparents) or flat (for parents and
  trustees), average giving adjusted for
  inflation is up significantly over time.

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Trend 4 The War for Talent Demographic
Sustainability

• The Bad Talent pool challenges on the horizon.
• Boomer class leaking away as retirement beckons.
• Fresh recruits from the bottom of the pool, from
  non-selective colleges and universities.
• Price for the best rising.
• The Ugly Millennials hard to manage
• Expect immediate rewards and gratification from
  the workplace, anticipate their next job after
  just landing their current job, show little
  patience with workplace conventions
• What IS it with you people and 830 am?
• Sign of the times Millennials moving home
  Kippers
• Kids in Parents Pockets Eroding Retirement
  Savings

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Trend 4 The War for Talent Demographic
Sustainability

• The Good Theory of generations promises
  Millenials as problem-solvers on a global stage.
• 20-something Millennials exactly the kind of
  young people we need to hire.
• Lots of the most gifted, inventive, and
  idealistic from the top of their class in
  Americas most prestigious colleges and
  universities apply for Teach for America
• Lots of Millennials in the field now and their
  brothers and sisters in our schools are budding
  capitalists and future social entrepreneurs Free
  Rice Orphans Against AIDS,
  Unite for Sight just the beginning.

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Trend 4 The War for Talent

• The Good Millenials as problem-solvers on a
  global stage.
• The good news Well be attractive to smart,
  idealistic, entrepreneurial young peopleif we
  get smart on how to recruit them give them
  leadership, social justice, change agenda
  opportunities.
• NAIS Career Center mailings to the top colleges
  and universities and ads in Ed Week and on the
  New York Times online Job Board -- and through
  that channel, to your school..

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Trend 5 Global Environmental Sustainability
Gaining Traction

• The Bad Growing isolationist and nativist
  sentiments in the country. Exasperation that
  globalism is just one more thing to teach our
  kids in an already overcrowded curriculum.
• The Ugly The growing size of our carbon
  footprint as individual organizations and as an
  industry We cant lead the charge to
  environmental change until we model the change.

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Trend 5 Global Environmental Sustainability
Gaining Traction

• The Good An emergent agreement on what it means
  to be a citizen of the world.
• Kwame Anthony Appiah sees a compassionate
  realpolitik or cosmopolitanism, where we
  recognize the worlds total inter-connectivity
  and the impact we have on others, and take
  responsibility accordingly.
• Global Resources www.nais.org/go/global
• Cosmopolitanism at NAIS Challenge 20/20 Adding
  our students and schools to the list of
  Millennial social entrepreneurs.

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Trend 5 Global Environmental Sustainability
Gaining Traction

• Challenge 20/20 team of 8th graders from Fay
  School (MA) and their 9th grade counterparts from
  South Saigon International School (Vietnam)
  created Foveo, chocolate bars and bottled water,
  whose proceeds will go to disaster relief around
  the world.
• Mandarin teachers Gap Year Pilot

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Trend 5 Global Environmental Sustainability
Gaining Traction

• The environmental revolution in independent
  schools, led by our own social entrepreneurs, by
  building green (LEED-certified building
  www.usgbc.org ), by teaching green
  (www.nais.org/go/green), and by living green
  (www.greenschoolsalliance.org).
• The new 3Rs of environmental sustainability
  Reduce, re-use, and recycle.

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• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
• Hasnt it always been so?
• Brutal facts the combination of the bad
  and ugly.
• Counterbalanced by unshakeable beliefs, the
  good.
• The historical record We prevail even in dire
  circumstances, since we have the freedom and
  capacity to sacrifice, to improvise, and to
  change course.
• Independent schools have the leadership will to
  do what necessary and whats right.

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The End! (See related slides in Appendix)
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Return
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• Cosmopolitanism- Kwame Anthony Appiah Core
  moral ideas embedded in the conception of basic
  human rights needs, options, protection (pp.
  162-163)
• people should have basic needs met for life to be
  decent and tolerable health, food, shelter, and
  education
• people should have options to exercise (or not
  exercise as they see fit) the rights to have
  children to enjoy liberty (freedom of movement,
  assembly, expression, religion) to exercise
  sexual expression with a consenting partner
• people should have protection from preventable
  harm brutality needless pain contempt from
  individuals or groups.
• PFB The 3Rs of the Second Curriculum
  respect, responsibility, and reverence/resilienc
  e.

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• Cosmopolitanism- Kwame Anthony Appiah Core moral
  ideas embedded in the conception of basic human
  rights needs, options, protection (pp. 162-163)
• People should have basic needs met for life to
  be decent and tolerable health, food, shelter,
  and education
• People should have options to exercise (or not
  exercise as they see fit) the rights to have
  children to enjoy liberty (freedom of movement,
  assembly, expression, religion) to exercise
  sexual expression with a consenting partner
• People should have protection from preventable
  harm brutality needless pain contempt from
  individuals or groups.
• PFB The 3Rs of the Second Curriculum
  respect, responsibility, and reverence /
  resilience.