- Mission statement or mission: a public assertion that schools or other educational establishments use to describe their institution purpose and major organizational commitments—i.e., what they do and why they do it. A mission statement may describe a school’s day-to-day operational objectives, its instructional values, or its public commitments to its students and community.
- Vision statement or vision: a public declaration that schools or other educational institutions use to describe their high-level objectives for the future—what they hope to achieve if they successfully fulfill their organizational purpose or mission. A vision statement may describe a school’s loftiest ideals, its core organizational values, its long-term objectives, or what it hopes its students will learn or be capable of doing after graduating.
The terms mission statement and vision statement often used interchangeably. While some teachers and schools may loosely define the two terms, or even blur the traditional lines that have separated them, there appears to be general agreement in the education community on the major distinctions between a “mission” and a “vision.” In general, a vision statement expresses a hoped-for future reality, while a mission statement declares the practical commitments and actions that a school believes are needed to achieve its vision. While a vision statement describes the end goal—the change sought by a school—a mission statement may describe its broad academic and operational assurances, as well as its commitment to its students and community.
Purposes of a Well-articulated Vision and Mission:
- Help a school community reflect on its core instructive values, operational objectives, goal as a learning institution, and hoped-for results for students. By asking tough questions about what the school aims to achieve, and by looking at where it is in relation to where it wants to be, a school can become better systematized to achieve its goals and more focused on the practical steps needed to achieve them.
- Act as a “call to arms,” or a way to rally support for its core educational values or an improvement plan, or to mobilize the staff and community to move in a new direction or pursue more ambitious goals. By creating a “shared mission” or “shared vision”—that is, developing the public commitments with the involvement of teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members—a school can increase general understanding of what it hopes to accomplish, why it matters, and what may need to change to realize a stronger academic program.
- Concentrate a school’s academic program on a set of common, agreed-upon learning goals. In some schools, teachers may work in relative isolation from one another, and each academic department may operate quasi-independently when it comes to making important decisions about what gets taught and how it gets taught. Mission and vision statements, therefore, have the potential to focus school leaders and educators on making decisions that are “aligned” with the vision and mission, that lead to greater curricular coherence, and that use staff and classroom time more efficiently, purposefully, and effectively.