Hopefully you’ve read some of my previous posts and found that I know a little bit about the subject.  And you should know by now that this is my business and I’m passionate about it.  We really do care about whether or not our planners can move the needle on college-readiness (and that includes making better grades in middle and high school).

When it comes to printing student planners, paper and ink cost about the same anywhere you go.  The big differentiator is labor cost and companies in this business have figured out how to get that cost as low as possible, whether they are running idol printing presses in the US or using the new global economy to compete, the playing field is pretty level.

In the end it is the cost to acquire a new customer (advertising, sales commissions, etc) that add much to the cost of a planner.

When we started selling our page-per-day student planner in 1996 this was a fledgling industry.  Over the last decade printing companies have flocked to the business and schools have seen one option in various flavors marketed in various ways.  They seen covers become 3-D, seen pockets and rulers and pouches added.  That’s about it for innovation.  One makes a change and the rest follow.

But in the end, it’s been the same mouse trap repackaged over and over.  Someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  And this is partially why so many schools have abandoned student planners.  They say they school planners don’t work for the majority of students.  I think they are right.

But a daily student planner…we’ll call it a student day planner…is a different animal.  When designed right it is the perfect vehicle to teach organization and planning skills that translate into good time management skills.

A weekly student planner doesn’t cut it.  Seriously, ask every friend you have to show you their day planner and then come back and post how many of them use a weekly planner (7 days spread out on two pages).   There are some great ones out there, I’ve used just about every planner on the market because it’s my business and my favorite is the “Planner Pad” but even that great planner doesn’t translate into the academic setting.

iPhones don’t work, computers don’t, PDA’s don’t either.  There is something about the tactile feel of writing down assignments and seeing how they fit into a busy day that begins to orient the mind toward what can and can’t be accomplished in a given day.

AgendaWorks student planners have taken all of this into account.  We can print and sell “weekly student planners” but that would be against what we know to be the best planner solution for the modern student.  And if you think that’s all there is to our planners…you’d be wrong.  Every aspect of our planners map back to solid research.

Self-monitoring is a metacognitive skill and is outside the scope of this post, but study skills is clearly a skill that can be taught in the classroom.  And a key component of study skills is…yes, you guessed it…time management.

And a student planner should teach time management.  Not through some supplement stuck in the back.  Time management, aka organization and planning, is learned over time through the repeated and systematic use of the right tool, in this case a student day planner (daily planner) that visually causes the brain to organize different compartments of life.

Layer in different learning styles, personal styles and a host of other factors and it’s apparent that kids are going to “get it” at different times in their academic career and the best we can do is ensure that they have the right student planner in hand when the time is right.  Remember the old saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive”?

So should you be investing in a student planner?  Yes and No.   “Yes” if you are committed to ensuring that students leave school with the time management skills necessary to succeed in college (and by extrapolation to succeed in the workforce), then you should be happy to spend the money necessary to ensure students learn this skill.  Because that is the question…How to better prepare my students for success in college.

“No” if you are planning to spend money on weekly planner (one week over 2 pages) that is not much more that 5 note cards taped on a page.  You get what you pay for…because the question for you is really “how can I help my student write down their homework assignment.”  My next post will dig a little deeper into this subject of weekly planners versus daily planners.