An Investment Strategy that Works

2/23/2017

by Mike Davis, Ph.D.
Head of School

There is often a temptation to compare the operation of a school to that of running a business. In many ways, there are some similarities, but there are major differences in what educators bring to their work related to their motivations and their hopes for their students. (My friends in the business world often tell me that my job is way harder.) Ultimately, our goals as an institution are more altruistic. We seek to help students grow and become intellectually curious contributors to society. But, for a minute, let’s go with this comparison of schools as a business.

Let’s assume we are investors, and we’re looking for growth in our portfolio. Given the potential volatility of the market these days, we are hoping for better-than-average gains in our earnings, so we want to be in a “growth” mindset. Like all good investors, we want to be able to see the return on our investment, and we also want to know that are investing in a well-managed business.

Yet, as people who work with children, we know that students develop at different rates and based on different inputs and experiences (not to mention the fact that they have free will), so we are wise to go with a “value” mindset. This means that we see the “diamond in the rough” and the promise of future results. While it may feel a bit more risky, we have gotten used to looking far into the future when dealing with kids. Even if everyone else can’t see it, we believe in the long-term value of what we’re supporting.

Growth or Value? When you’re running a school, you have to be pretty content to straddle both investment strategies. We hope parents see those better-than-average gains in their children – a bit of growth, new skills, and newly acquired knowledge each and every day. While as parents, you may be channeling your grandmother thinking, “Whatever will become of this child?”, here at CA, we are constantly amazed by the growth in students. At the same time, we see the future contributions that our students will make, and each time we look at them, we feel that the future of the world is brighter.

Just a glance at my “IN box” will tell you why, as we receive frequent news and communications from our alumni.

I was delighted this week to hear from Class of 2013 graduate Erik Rivera, who is finishing up his last semester at Dickinson College.

Erik writes, “… I am very appreciative of the tools that CA provided me with in order to be successful after graduation…. I thank you and CA for preparing me to get to this point. I am a Psychology and Philosophy double major, … I am involved in and hold executive positions in various organizations on campus. I am the vice president of the local chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.; a part of the executive board of the Black Student Union; I am the Enrollment and Student Life Committee senior senator; and a member of Student Senate. I am also an organizer for the Student Liberation Movement, which is a movement to ensure that equality is upheld on campus. During these four years, I have had the opportunity to travel abroad, and … I have been applying to a graduate program in London. I want to pursue a career in education (I’m pretty sure you predicted this four years ago).”

I did predict this four years ago. Erik was a tremendous student leader on this campus and, in a short time, made an impact on CA.

Then there is Andrew Myers, Class of 2012, who in his dorm room at Yale decided to shake up the job recruiting system, and he and others created a company called Ripple Recruiting. It is a hiring platform that connects top employers with top students. Operating on several Ivy League campuses in the U.S., Ripple uses its matching software to connect students to jobs. He already has more than 5,000 students signed up, and Ripple recently secured $700,000 in seed funding from Internet entrepreneur and now company advisor, Kevin Ryan. Writes Myers, “We are so grateful for the encouragement and advice so many of you have provided and look forward to staying in touch as we continue this journey.” Andrew was a star student in my War on Terrorism class who always amazed me with his insightful questions.

There is Katie Ozawa, CA Class of 2009, who is a Swarthmore College graduate and is now working at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. She creates special exhibits and engineering design challenges for the museum, combining her engineering background with her love for design, art, and education. She says, “I get to build everything from the ground up, which brings in some of the skills that I learned way back in Technical Theater at CA!”

And then there is Lauren YoungSmith, the CA alumna also from the Class of ’09, who returned to the school last week to paint a mural in our Upper School Building. YoungSmith is now a San Francisco Bay Area artist and is best known in the urban art sphere, having dedicated herself to creating large-scale works of public art that aim to bring a sense of vibrancy, wonder and positive uplift to every community she approaches. She says her work is Influenced by dreams, mythology, death, comics, love, and her Asian-American heritage, Lauren’s work is often geared towards pushing a narrative undertone and always has a fantastical aesthetic. Her CA mural centers on the theme of “a journey.” So many of our students loved seeing her work, and for me, a highlight of her visit was seeing Lower School students ask for her autograph.

No, we can’t and don’t take credit for what these students go on to do after CA. But we do believe in our “investment strategy” of enjoying the short-term and sometimes dramatic growth, combined with having the vision and patience to not only see young people for who they are, but also for who and what they will become.

At our new parent dinner each year, I regale parents with the story of Winston Churchill, British statesman and former Prime Minister, a writer, academic, and historian as well as a Nobel Prize winner. Churchill’s schoolteachers thought he was “a very naughty boy"; he was ranked last in his class and was considered lazy. His headmaster said of him, “He is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape or another. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere.”

With kids, you really can’t predict their trajectory and that rate of growth. They always surprise us — sometimes in great ways and sometimes in ways that, well, are not so great. But, there is clearly something happening at CA that creates graduates who are prepared for the world. It comes from teachers who are dedicated to challenging their students and setting high expectations. It comes from a community that has a shared sense of values and one that emphasizes courage and kindness. It also comes from parents who invest in their child’s education and provide support to the school. For all of that, we are grateful.

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