Could the School Down the Road Write This? [287]

Try something with me.

Open your school's homepage right now. Read the first paragraph out loud. Then pull up the same paragraph from three competitor schools.

How many sentences could you swap between them without anyone noticing?

If you're being honest, probably most of them.

This is the academic excellence problem. Every school is committed to academic excellence. Every school offers individualized attention. Every school is a community where every child is known.

These aren't bad ideas. They're just not yours. They belong to everyone, which means they belong to no one.

Here's the audit I'd run this week. Take your homepage. Highlight every claim you make about your school. Then ask one question of each phrase: could the school down the road write this same sentence?

If yes, you have a generic claim. Not a wrong one. Just one that doesn't differentiate you from anyone else.

The fix isn't cleverer adjectives. The fix is specifics. Replace "academic excellence" with one thing your school actually does that proves it. Replace "individualized attention" with the actual ratio, the actual teacher, the actual story of the kid who almost slipped through the cracks and didn't.

A family touring three schools this spring will not remember which one had "a commitment to excellence." They will remember which one told them about the second-grade teacher who wrote a personal note to every student over winter break.

Be the one they remember.

Thanks,
Brendan

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