Following is a draft of the first two sections of the big picture framework as it pertains to the social marketing plan I am creating for TFA. There are some issues remaining to be worked out. First among these is the category designation -- I am unsure yet whether to define the category as educational reform (TFA as market leader) or broaden the category definition to include other demands on students' time and attention so that I can couch TFA as a competitor seeking to steal share.
Any and all feedback is most welcome!
Big Picture Framework
Section 1
· Business Objective: Boost achievement scores in lower income inner-city school districts
· Fundamental Entity: Teach For America (Alternative considered: TFA recruiting team with goal of getting the most talented corps members)
· Core Competence: Human Resources – developing pipeline of talented college graduates committed to teaching in under-achieving school districts
· Goal: Increase achievement scores in reading and math for students engaged in primary education in low-income inner-city school districts by 20%
· Time Frame: 3 years
Section 2
· Category Definition: Inner-city education – may have to broaden?
· Customer Definition: Primary school students
· Marketing Objective: Retention –students are obligated to attend primary school (truancy aside), so they are familiar with the product, but TFA needs to boost frequency of interaction as well as depth of engagement. The key acquisition goal is to get students to buy-in to the time and effort expended at school to improve performance. While TFA might be the market leader in education reform, it lags behind competitors like sports and entertainment when it comes to buy-in from students.
· Source of Volume: Steal Share – TFA should approach competitors like sports, drugs, and entertainment as market leaders and seek to steal mind share away from these activities.
· 4 B’s:
o Bodies: number of students in a given school system
o Beliefs: Current: education is not a priority -- Proposition: education is a means to success, respect, and security -- Desired: education is “cool”
o Behaviors: students go from ignoring homework and skipping class to paying attention and studying for standardized tests. They commit themselves to learning and raise test scores in reading and math.
o Benefits:
§ Students: improved life prospects – earning potential, security, respect among peers, power over life direction
§ Society: Fewer dollars spent on social safety net programs, lower crime, improved economy
I think this is a great start, and a noble organization to work for, but I have some questions. Your goals are to motivate students in inner city high schools to enjoy learning while achieving higher scores on standardized testing, while TFA's core competency is human resources and obtaining teachers for these schools. I see both of those things as true, your goal, and their core competency, but I guess what I wonder about is the translation. Teach for American, as I understand it, only gets teachers (recent talents graduates with undergraduate degrees) to stay for limited amount of time, what is it one to three years?
ReplyDeleteIn that time, how do they make a measurable impact, and how, as TFA can you standardize that impact?
If your goal is to better the overall attitudes towards education of the inner city students, while improving their scores, are you just depending on the creativity of the young teachers? Or, as TFA, do you provide a comprehensive training for these new teachers? (Since you're in the human resources business).
I think your goal might have to be for the teachers first, and the students second. How can TFA better prepare teachers to make a change? How can TFA retain teachers for longer, so that inner city students actually think that someone cares about them, and through time change their attitudes about education?
And as far as the 4Bs, your goals will be very important at defining what type of plan you have. If your goal is to get great teachers, then acquisition, but retention if you want to keep them for longer. If your goal really is with the students, then yeah, it's a different story and your competitors might be tv, sports, etc.
Oh, and as an aside, here is a great blog about teaching experiences in inner city schools:
ReplyDeletehttp://teacherrevised.org/