Habitually, they present themselves as unfortunate and hapless victims of powerful and overwhelming external circumstances. In other words, persistently underachieving schools tend to find reasonable grounds for their predicament and state of affairs. There cannot be any serious investment in charting a new course when the justification for depressing performance seems to exist. Change can only come when the current state of performance is unacceptable and a source of embarrassment to the school. There cannot be any meaningful efforts to address underachievement when a culture of indifference to it appears to have gained currency. If there is some degree of justification or reasonable, understandable grounds for the status quo to continue, then working towards improvement can be a daunting task, if not an impossible mission.
A reconstruction process can only take off and gain momentum where there is a collective admission of systemic shortcomings within a school. Progress begins with admitting that one or two things within a school’s control should be done better. Failure to accept responsibility for matters within a school’s sphere of control can only perpetuate the status quo while frustrating movement towards remedial action. Here are some possible grounds for a school not wanting to accept some degree of responsibility when desirable student learning outcomes remain elusive. It has to be acknowledged that there are a number of externally controlled factors that are making it difficult for schools to provide quality service to students. Outside forces are generally overwhelming, leading to a loss of hope. When the chips are down, it is fair and justified for a school to apportion some of the blame squarely to the crippling effects and limitations imposed by external factors on the operational efficiency of a school.
