Managing School Districts for High Performance: Instructor's Guide

Stacey  Childress; Richard F. Elmore; Allen S. Grossman; Susan Moore  Johnson

Manual | 2007

Managing School Districts for High Performance: Instructor's Guide

by Stacey Childress, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman and Susan Moore Johnson

Abstract

Teaching by the case method has the potential to affect profoundly the way that teachers, students, and professionals approach the learning process. This companion volume includes detailed teaching notes on each case in the coursebook, with an emphasis on making cases drawn from other disciplines relevant to education administrators. It also includes C. Roland Christensen's classic essay on teaching by the case method, "The Premises and Practices of Discussion Teaching." Both experienced instructors and those new to the case method will find this instructor's guide an invaluable resource.

Keywords: Learning; Teaching; Cases;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Childress, Stacey, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman, and Susan Moore Johnson, eds. Managing School Districts for High Performance: Instructor's Guide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2007.

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African American, low-income, and first-generation students—groups with historically lower postsecondary graduation rates compared to national averages. Georgia State’s Student Success team, led by Tim Renick and Allison Calhoun-Brown, used a data-based approach to deploy micro-grant programs to retain students, implemented predictive analytics to improve student advising, and optimized course sequencing to help students graduate before they exhausted their financial aid. In 2016, they faced a growing “summer melt” problem where nearly 20% of incoming students who committed to attend never actually enrolled at Georgia State—and many never enrolled at any college. At the same time, they wondered how to balance continuing to incrementally improve student success at Georgia State and scaling their efforts to help the many other universities facing similar problems who sought to learn from their experience.

Keywords: Education; Higher Education; Learning; Curriculum and Courses; Demographics; Diversity; Ethnicity; Income; Race; Leadership; Goals and Objectives; Measurement and Metrics; Operations; Organizations; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Outcome or Result; Performance; Performance Effectiveness; Performance Evaluation; Service Operations; Performance Improvement; Planning; Strategic Planning; Social Enterprise; Nonprofit Organizations; Social Issues; Wealth and Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Technology; Technology Platform; Education Industry; Atlanta;

Citation:

Toffel, Michael W., Robin Mendelson, and Julia Kelley. "Student Success at Georgia State University (A)." Harvard Business School Case 621-006, September 2020. View Details

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This is a supplement to the Student Success at Georgia State University (A) case. The (B) case includes the results of a randomized control trial that Georgia State conducted to test education technology start-up AdmitHub’s chatbot solution as a strategy for improving “summer melt” (i.e., applicants confirming that they planned to enroll but then not enrolling).

With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has struck for Shellye Archambeau once again. As CEO of MetricStream, she had spent the last seven years turning a tech startup on life support after the dot-com bust into a market leader of governance, risk, and compliance software for businesses. As a black female CEO, Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Becoming a leader had been her goal since high school and she had achieved it through decades of hard work and skillful decision making. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. She calls a meeting with her board chairman, Gunjan Sinha, to discuss the best path forward: Sell MetricStream while offers are on the table, or try to save it by looking for a big customer of the company’s risk management software against the backdrop of the financial crisis? Both options have dire consequences. Valuations are plummeting by the day. Cash is disappearing by the minute. Archambeau and Sinha need to decide and act swiftly.

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Managing School Districts for High Performance: Instructor's Guide

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