Questions to Guide Break-Out Session

Assume you were hired as a consultant to develop two instructional programs [6 intensive weeks each].

1. What do aspiring and existing not-for-profit and public sector educational leaders need to know about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking in order to achieve innovative and sustainable educational reform?

2. What do aspiring and existing not-for-profit and for profit social entrepreneurs need to know about education in order to achieve innovative and sustainable educational reform?

Group Members

Facilitator: Carol Majors
Presenter: Sonia Hernandez
Participants:
Greg Dees
Chris Fleischner
Calvin Kent
Greg Kourilsky
John McNeil
Al Osborne
Mark Slavkin
Gene Tucker
C. Z. Wilson

Suggestions

What do educational leaders need to know about entrepreneurship?

1. How to marshal resources.

Educational leaders need to learn how to effectively marshal resources, whether they be financial, human, intellectual, or physical.

2. Opportunity recognition.

Educational leaders need to learn how to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. They need to also be able to recognize that not all ideas are viable opportunities in the marketplace or as a social venture. Similarly, they must make a distinction between entrepreneurship and innovation. A large number of educational innovations exist, but not all of them are going to lead to an entrepreneurial opportunity. Opportunity must be grounded in something that can satisfy a real need, for which there is a customer willing to pay money for that benefit. Educators have the tendency of using an ineffective dependency model in which something is viewed as an opportunity because money (e.g. a grant) exists for it.

3. Defining and understanding sustainability.

Educational leaders need to understand what it means to sustain innovation. What does it look like? Who has done it well? Where has it made a difference? One of the problems with schools is that once something innovative becomes part of the system it becomes transformed to look like everything else. Educational leaders must learn how to perceive of schools as growing rather than static environments and how to manage that growth. The business cycle requires entrepreneurs to start new things, manage their growth and appropriately exit from them.

4. Basic business practices.

Important basic business practices include but are not limited to the following: accounting, human resources, cash flow, and capital structures. Traditionally, most administrators are not taught these skills because they have little control over the cash flow, accounting or capital structures of the schools.

5. Competition.

The notion of competition within the public education system is very novel. Educational leaders need to be able to identify what the competitive environment is and what competitive strategies may be employed. They also need to know how to develop a venture plan that takes into account the big picture and describes how their venture will make a difference. Often, a venture needs to make connections to other pieces of the whole to ensure that a real difference is made overall.

6. Knowledge of the product.

Educational leaders need to understand what the supply chain is and what the features and benefits are. They need to shift from being process-oriented to being product-oriented. They need to begin examining all of the things which go into delivering value to a customer.

7. Customer service and orientation.

The customers of schools include parents, students, teachers, administrators, investors, etc. There are many different constituencies which must be satisfied.

What do social entrepreneurs need to know about education in order to achieve innovative and sustainable educational reform?

1. Best practices.

Best practices in an educational setting are not about business practices. They are about pedagogical skills, instructional decision-making, tools, content, technology, etc. These are the practices which occur in the classrooms which result in "good things" happening with and for children. Social entrepreneurs need to understand these instructional best practices.

2. Current curricular requirements.

Educational entrepreneurs need to understand what the realistic curricular constraints are, what choices exist, and what the available "air time" is. It is impossible for teachers to actually teach everything they are expected to within the timeframe they are given, so tradeoffs have to constantly be made. Entrepreneurs need to understand what tradeoffs are being made and what is influencing these decisions, including federal, state, district, and school requirements. They also need to understand that in schools things are often done, not because they are actually required, but because that is the way they have always been done.

3. Culture of success symbols within schools.

These culture of success symbols include rewards, incentives, and disincentives. Incentives work very differently in the educational setting than they do in business. In education, as soon as someone is singled out for excellent work, the micro-system within the school makes sure that that does not happen again. This is all part of the culture of the schools.

4. The politics and social context of educational institutions.

Educational entrepreneurs need to understand how education got to be the way it is. They need to understand the social context which includes where the schools are located, what kinds of systems work within the schools, what the relationship of educational institutions are to each other, teacher preparation, etc. A large factor in the politics of education is real estate - where a school is located. Entrepreneurs, therefore, need to understand where schools are being built, how real estate agents sell neighboring Mains, etc.

5. Theory and the culture of school change.

Social entrepreneurs need to understand what it is that causes schools to change and how people, in terms of their actual behavior, demonstrate what the theory of change is that is operating within their system. Entrepreneurs need to fully understand the culture of schools in order to infiltrate it, engage it and eventually move it in a different direction.