Those of you who are teachers, you may appreciate this read

My mother-in-law forwarded this to me. Though I don't teach elementary school or grade school, as a teacher, I can definitely appreciate the message being communicated here:

THE BLUEBERRY STORY:
The Teacher Gives the Businessman a Lesson
By:  Jamie Robert Vollmer


"If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't
be in business very long!"  I stood before an auditorium filled with
outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute.  My speech
had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in-service.  Their
initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation.  You could cut the
hostility with a knife.  I represented a group of business people
dedicated to improving public schools.  I was an executive at an ice cream
company that became famous in the middle 1980's when People Magazine chose
our blueberry as the "Best Ice Cream in America."

I was convinced of two things.  First, public schools needed to change;
they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the
industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge
society."  Second, educators were a major part of the problem:  they
resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by
tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.  They needed to look to
business.   We knew how to produce quality.  Zero defects!  Continuous
improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced-equal parts ignorance and
arrogance.  As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up.  She appeared
polite, pleasant-she was, in fact, a razor-edged veteran high school
English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes
good ice cream."

I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, Ma'am."

"How nice," she said, "Is it rich and smooth?"

"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.

"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.

"Super premium!  Nothing but triple A."  I was on a roll.  I never saw the
next line coming.

"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to
the sky, "When you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an
inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap.I was dead meat,
but I wasn't going to lie.  "I send them back."

"That's right," she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. 
We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused,
frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take
them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second
language.  We take them all!  Every one!  And that, Mr. Vollmer, is
why it's not a business.  It's school!"

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides,
custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! 
Blueberries!  Blueberries!"

And so began my long transformation.  Since then, I have visited
hundreds of schools.  I have learned that a school is not a
business.  Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw
material.  They are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a
reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling
horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best
CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change.  We must change what, when,
and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive
in a post-industrial society.  But educators cannot do this alone. 
These changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission,
and active support of the surrounding community.  For the
most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes,
beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to
improve public education means more than changing our schools, it
means changing America.