Time to Re-Envision Vision Statements in Education

Introduction

Vision statements are intended to provide direction for an organization, to communicate where the organization is headed and what it wants to achieve. They are usually authored by a leadership team to help an organization develop shared understanding of the organization’s aspirations and sense of purpose, and they are typically accompanied by a mission statement and the core values and goals considered central to the organization’s work. Much has been written about the importance of vision statements for school improvement – the value of having vivid, clear, and compelling statements that convey a coherent and shared sense of priorities (e.g., Fullan, 2001; Hyatt, 2020; Stojsic & Linetsky 2020). They are intended to inspire, motivate, and help schools focus on long-term direction (Hyatt, 2020). Unfortunately, in many organizations there is a “knowing-doing gap” between writing a vision statement and living that vision – merely crafting a vision statement and featuring it on the organization’s website, for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is impacting the work of people in the organization in any meaningful way (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). Fullan (1992) has also argued that visions can “blind” leadership teams when they impose their own particular vision for improvement instead of creating a vision as a collective enterprise.

Educational literature has identified the importance of vision statements to help schools pursue a clear and shared purpose for student learning and as a means to develop collective responsibility for student learning (e.g., Dufour et al, 2008; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995). However, to enact a vision for schools requires that necessary resources are marshalled to support the vision, that the vision is clearly communicated and understood by others, that enabling policies and practices support the vision, and that a collective sense of commitment to the vision is developed. These factors challenge turning a vision statement into a collective sense of purpose and action for improvement, and they often arise when vision-building is not done collectively with key stakeholders. Developing a powerful vision to guide educational practice requires creating a commonly owned plan for success, which, in turn, makes it more likely that people will buy into the vision and act upon it (Kirtman & Fullan, 2016).

This literature is useful for thinking not only about the value of vision statements in schools and how they can be created, it also highlights how they might be enacted as living visions for school improvement. However, many vision statements are bland, narrow, short-sighted, and fairly uninspiring. They do not provide a transformative vision at a time when education requires radical change and fundamental paradigm shifts in terms of the purposes and practices of education at every level (Fullan, 2021). At a time when humanity is facing climate crisis, increasing inequalities, and growing concerns about well-being, equity, and sustainability, it is time to get serious about transforming our education systems. Despite vision and mission statements that tout innovation, preparing young people to meet future labor market demands in the global knowledge economy, and improving student achievement, mounting scientific evidence shows “that key trendlines gauging humanity’s well-being – economic, social, political, and environmental – have indeed turned sharply downward” (Homer-Dixon, 2020, p. 2). There are growing concerns about the well-being of young people and the future of the planet.