In-House Expertise

When schools spend too much energy proving they offer “academic rigor,” they risk losing the argument before it’s started.

I have worked in independent schools for 17 years, and I still cannot muster up a worthwhile definition of “academic rigor.”

Tuition-paying families have good reason to expect their children will work hard so they are prepared to seize a world full of opportunities.

How such a broad, reasonable aim became distilled into “academic rigor” is beyond me. Yet it has, and every school in which I have worked has grappled with articulating an appropriate balance of warmth and academic credibility (as if those two characteristics are at odds with one another!). 

In one instance, we grew tired of answering questions about the seriousness of our academic program, so we opted to be more proactive with our message.

We wanted our audiences to look beyond “academic rigor” as a valuable metric. Instead, we wanted them to see and hear the insights and commitment of the people responsible for our program. So, we set up a video camera, and I asked the school’s academic leadership what “rigor” meant to them. 

The academic leaders beautifully articulated a common theme: a prescribed amount or severe difficulty of work has no meaning if the students are not engaged. The teachers, and the school by extension, were more interested in helping students tap into their passions, knowing that students are capable of tackling work of extraordinary difficulty and complexity when they are inspired. The video came together easily, and we posted it everywhere we could.

A few months later, at an event welcoming new families, I found myself talking to a family who said the video about rigor had catapulted our school to the top of their list. 

If we find ourselves answering the same questions over and over, especially questions that are out of step with our missions, we can use in-house expertise to answer them differently. Reframing the question is often more persuasive than answering it.