Defining Success

I read somewhere that reading outside of your areas of expertise or knowledge can help you become better at what you do. One of the reasons, if I remember correctly, is that seeing things from a different perspective can help us solve problems more quickly and possibly find better ways to do things in our work.

That being said, I found an article in Entrepreneur magazine that was about answering three questions before writing a business plan. While this activity doesn't seem to pertain to schools and education, I was intrigued by the first question, "What does success look like?" This most definitely pertains to education, as researchers, legislators, and educators argue about the answer to this question.

The author of the article claims this is "by far the most important question that almost nobody asks." I think it is the same in the educational field. Just as most of us would measure success in business by profits and business growth, so too do too many feel success in education is measured by standardized student achievement tests. And, just like business success is different for different entrepreneurs - flexibility in time to attend family activities or time to volunteer for example - school success may be different for each student, school, and community. Without the knowledge of what success is, what it looks like, and how it is determined to be achieved, the actions taken by districts, schools, administrators, and teachers may not be leading toward a common definition of success.