ISM published its Student Experience Study (SES) outcomes in January 2012, and published related articles in Ideas & Perspectives throughout the spring. Among the features in the report were a revised Faculty Culture Profile—ISM’s long-standing measure of the quality of a school’s faculty culture—and a revised Student Culture Profile, along with the study’s statistical findings and an instrument for use as part of any school’s approach to faculty evaluation, the Characteristics of Professional Excellence II.

Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate recasting previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the accompanying table.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).1 However, we also realize the CPI-U does not completely reflect expenditures in private-independent schools; it can only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate 2% above the overall inflation rate.2 The CPI has a built-in “productivity factor.” It assumes the workforce is increasingly productive as computers, streamlined mechanical devices, and other laborsaving developments provide greater output with fewer personnel. The more efficient a business becomes, the more the business can stabilize or reduce the effects of inflation.

In the previous issue of Ideas & Perspectives, the ISM School Culture Matrix was discussed and displayed. In this issue, the 10-item scoring instrument and its accompanying scoring chart are offered. As soon as your teachers complete the instrument, you, as a leader of the faculty or of a portion of the faculty, will be in a position to (a) follow the scoring directions shown after the instrument, (b) place your faculty’s instrument-outcomes on the scoring chart provided in this issue, and (c) compare your own outcomes to the lists shown in the ISM School Culture Matrix published in the previous I&P. Once this is done, you will want to discuss the implications of your teachers’ self-perceptions with the teachers themselves, with your teacher-leadership group(s), and with the members of your administration.

The ISM Student Experience Study (SES) produced instrument outcomes that included the Student Culture Profile II and the Faculty Culture Profile II. While these two instruments—both statistically related to student performance, student satisfaction, and student enthusiasm—provided straightforward operational definitions for an optimal teaching/learning environment, they did not in themselves address the characteristics of school cultures that lack strength in “predictability,” in “supportiveness” (the paired critical ingredients in the optimal culture), or in both. This article addresses those characteristics. You, as School Head, Division Head, Department Chair, grade-level coordinator, or other position implying supervision of teachers, were introduced long ago to ISM’s seminal study of student performance, satisfaction, and enthusiasm. Labeled the ISM International Model Schools Project (1989–95), that study identified “predictability and supportiveness” as the paired organizational-culture ingredients associated with enhancing the student experience. The original study’s findings were validated and refined by the recent ISM Student Experience Study.

Mission-based advisory is the front line of guidance and the center of a school’s leadership programs. It accomplishes those objectives through the recruitment of faculty who see advisory as a crucial element of their teaching practice, whether in middle or upper schools.1 Teaching, to these faculty, is holistic and encompasses the wider framing of a student’s success or failure. For optimal success, each student must experience a predictable and supportive environment in which at least one teacher truly knows and appreciates him/her, can act as an advocate in both good and bad situations, and is a crucial communications link between the school and the parent.

ISM published its Student Experience Study (SES) outcomes in January 2012, and published related articles in Ideas & Perspectives throughout the spring. Among the features in the report were a revised Faculty Culture Profile—ISM’s long-standing measure of the quality of a school’s faculty culture—and a revised Student Culture Profile, along with the study’s statistical findings and an instrument for use as part of any school’s approach to faculty evaluation, the Characteristics of Professional Excellence II.