Online assignment

What Is Educational Entrepreneurship

WHAT IS AN EDUCATION ENTREPRENEUR?

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying

to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

—George Bernard Shaw1

Historically, much of the scholarship on entrepreneurs blurs the distinction between innovators and entrepreneurs, who share many characteristics.

we will define education entrepreneurs quite narrowly as a rare breed of innovator whose characteristics and activities may lead to the transformation—not merely the slight improvement—of the public education system.

We believe it is important to understand (1) the qualities that define

entrepreneurs in general, (2) those that distinguish social entrepreneurs, and (3) those that make social entrepreneurs such a potentially powerful force within public education today.

Entrepreneurs

In general, it is important to understand that entrepreneurs have a vision for a better way of doing things, thinking beyond the constraints of current rules and resources. Perhaps more importantly, they have the passion and sense of urgency that literally compels them to take the

risks necessary to realize that vision. They create new organizations to make the changes they want to see in the world—and by doing so, they inspire others to follow.

Be visionary thinkers. Entrepreneurs’ most unique characteristic is that they are able to think beyond the current rules and resources to see a different way of working. One of the classic entrepreneurship textbooks, New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, points out that while

most leaders plan around the resources that are currently available, entrepreneurs are driven by their perception of opportunity, irrespective of resources.2 As such, in the words of successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, “entrepreneurs do more than anyone thinks possible

with less than anyone thinks possible.” Where many would ask “Can this be done?”

entrepreneurs are hard-wired to ask instead “How can this be done?” As a consequence, entrepreneurs have the power to fundamentally redefine our sense of what is possible.

Start new organizations.

Good entrepreneurs are both mavericks and institution-builders,

as technology entrepreneur and former President of the California state board of education Reed Hastings has noted. For entrepreneurs, innovative ideas simply aren’t enough: Their sense of urgency and drive to achieve leads them to take action by creating new organizations that will

make their vision a reality. Here, our definition differs from that offered by other chapters in this volume. Although “intrapreneurs”—who have a vision for changing an organization from the inside—can also be incredibly important change agents, they are different from entrepreneurs.

The single greatest distinction between them seems to be their tolerance for risk and for frustration. Intrapreneurs tend to have a lower risk profile, but a higher tolerance for the frustration caused by trying to create change within a status quo organization. In contrast, entrepreneurs have a lower tolerance for this sort of frustration and a higher tolerance for risk,

leading them to strike out on their own.

Believe they can change the way things are done.

Psychologist Martin Seligman has found that certain people have developed “learned optimism,” in which they believe successes are the result of their own hard work while seeing setbacks as external and temporary hurdles they need to overcome.3 This trait often goes hand in hand with an “internal locus of control,” or belief that one can control his or her own fate, rather than feeling controlled by circumstance.

Taken together, these characteristics allow entrepreneurs to face the potential failure inherent in creating a new organization by focusing on likely success and overcoming all hurdles that stand

in the way.

Social Entrepreneurs

Within the realm of entrepreneurship, the social entrepreneur has particular potential for transforming public education. The social entrepreneur’s vision is not merely to create something new in the pursuit of fame or fortune, but rather to do so in the quest to make the world a better

place. These entrepreneurs may create social-purpose ventures through either a for-profit or nonprofit structure, but having a positive impact on society is a top priority.

A leading thinker on social entrepreneurs, Professor Greg Dees of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, notes that social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value), and that they exhibit heightened accountability to the

constituencies served and for the outcomes created.4 The social entrepreneurs in education under consideration in this chapter have great potential for impact today because they are focused on making a significant difference on outcomes of the K-12 system as a whole, particularly for

those students and communities who are currently underserved, rather than just for a limited set of students. Social entrepreneurs in education are also highly focused on outcomes. Although their organizations sit “outside” the public education system, education entrepreneurs are still

accountable to it; they may need to attract students to a new public charter school, entice principal candidates to apply for a new preparation program, or deliver improved outcomes in order to maintain a district as a customer. As such, they have a customer-focused orientation and

a consistent focus on outcomes, critical factors that allow them to compete with existing providers for attention, funds, and sales.

Social Entrepreneurs in Education

Within education, social entrepreneurs create many different types of organizations that seek to have a positive impact on the broader system. Some do this by creating a new supply of public schools and school systems. For example, across the country, a number of nonprofit

charter management organizations have cropped up to address the diverse needs of underserved urban communities by creating new centrally-managed networks of small public charter schools. Other education entrepreneurs instead create organizations that seek to enhance the capacity of the existing public school system. These include developers of alternative preparation or support programs for teachers and leaders, as well as creators of products and services that help teachers

and leaders with instruction, administration, and management.

The power of these entrepreneurs in education is not only as developers of alternative sources of teachers, leaders, schools and tools, but also as change agents whose efforts spur change in the larger system. As Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen has found in his studies of business, “an organization cannot disrupt itself.” In other words, organizations charged with serving a current customer base can only “sustain” and take change so far, while new “disruptive” innovations are the ones that move industries forward by quantum leaps. This

explains why, despite the best of intentions, educators and policymakers have found it impossible to achieve better outcomes within a bureaucratic structure designed more than a century ago.

At this critical point in public education, entrepreneurs have three crucial roles.

As change agents.

Entrepreneurs can demonstrate what is possible when resources are

used differently and point the way toward how policy and practice might be changed in light of what they accomplish. As such, their work has a direct impact, as well as a “catalytic impact”

that reverberates throughout the system. For example, Teach For America has directly affected the lives of more than a million students and of the fourteen thousand corps members it has trained to serve as teachers in high-need schools. But its success has also re-shaped broader

policy conversations around the recruitment and preparation of teachers for high-need urban and rural settings. Another way to consider this is as “co-opetition”—a combination of competition and cooperation in which entrepreneurs create additional capacity for school systems

(cooperation) while also applying pressure for change within the system (competition).

As venues for new skill sets and mindsets.

The organizations that entrepreneurs create often have the kind of culture that draws and retains achievement-oriented employees who might

not otherwise be involved in the more bureaucratic public education system. In exchange for a merit-based culture where they can see significant results from their efforts, these people are willing to give up the security of seniority-based progression within the traditional school

system. “I have all the agility in the world—and I have nobody to blame but myself if I don’t succeed,” says Larry Rosenstock, a former urban public school principal turned entrepreneur who founded High Tech High Learning, a nonprofit charter school management organization

based in San Diego.

As developers of learning laboratories where experimentation and ongoing learning are encouraged.

As problem-solvers, entrepreneurs are constant learners who regularly review progress and correct course. Since this ongoing learning process is exactly what we are asking our public schools to embrace today, entrepreneurial organizations can demonstrate how this new dynamic might work in a school system. For example, entrepreneurs that create national or regional systems of charter schools are both increasing the supply of high-quality public schools and learning important lessons about designing aligned systems of schools as they create them from scratch.

WHAT CREATES OPPORTUNITY FOR EDUCATION

ENTREPRENEURS?

The individual entrepreneur is a person who perceives opportunity, finds the pursuit of opportunity desirable in the context of his or her life situation, and believes that success

is possible.

—Howard H. Stevenson and William A. Sahlman6

Entrepreneurs can be important change agents for large, complex systems that need dramatic improvement. But what specifically opens the door for entrepreneurs to make this difference? In general, something changes suddenly or slowly over time, requiring new problemsolving

approaches. In most cases, many changes are happening simultaneously, creating a swirling eddy of both challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs. Here, we attempt to detail the different types of change so that we can better understand what resources education

entrepreneurs need.

Change in Expectations

The current system of K-12 public schooling was created in a social and economic context that was entirely different from our current one. Compulsory public education arose in the early 1900s as a way of ensuring that the massive influx of immigrants would be good. American citizens and productive workers in the country’s emerging industrial economy. At the

time, the national population was less than seventy-five million people, with only a small portion of school-aged children attending school and an even smaller fraction of those completing high school or college. 7 The economy was driven by agriculture and industry, which offered the opportunity for a variety of skill levels to earn a living wage, often without a formal education.

On every front, this picture has changed dramatically. The national population has tripled to nearly three hundred million, with forty-eight million students in public schools. Prompted by the triumphs of the civil rights movement, we expect more of our public schools today: it is no

longer sufficient for a small percentage of children to be prepared for success in college. Our nation’s postindustrial and increasingly global economy is now driven by knowledge and by higher-order skills like symbolic reasoning, analysis, and communication.

In other words, the public’s expectations of the system have ballooned, such that public schools are now expected to serve all children equally and well. This change in expectations demands innovative new approaches. Many expect that nearly all high school students should graduate ready to attend college, for example, which would be more than triple the current rate of 30 percent. But it’s not likely that we have—or should have—the political will to triple spending in order to triple effectiveness, notes Kevin Hall, a former entrepreneur who is now at The Broad Foundation. “The delivery system simply has to change to be more productive,” says

Hall. “Entrepreneurs can either access new resources or put resources together in different ways to get to different outcomes.” In other words, this enormous challenge has created opportunities for entrepreneurs to find more efficient, effective ways of ensuring that all students receive a

high-quality public education.

Change in Market Structure

Because public education is a public-sector institution charged with serving the public good, public policy is the most common tool for changing its structure. Whether at the federal, state, or local level, public policy shifts can create entrepreneurial opportunity by requiring the people within a system to think differently, and also by creating new “turf” to which nobody has yet laid claim.

One of the most significant policy shifts over the last several decades has been the movement toward standards and accountability. As the expectations for public schools have increased, so have the mechanisms for specifying what students should know and be able to do

(in the form of state standards), measuring whether they reach those standards (assessment), and, more recently, imposing sanctions on schools and school systems that fail to improve student outcomes (accountability).

Accountability policies have introduced a number of opportunities—some might say “pain points”—that entrepreneurs can address. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has created opportunities for entrepreneurs to provide supplemental education services

for students whose schools have not achieved adequate yearly progress (AYP) for three years in a row. At the state level, policies that mandate the turnaround of chronically failing schools have created demand for additional capacity to manage these schools. In Philadelphia, state-level

accountability has led to a change in the structure of the entire school system to support a portfolio of entrepreneurs. Since the state took over the district in 2001, its School Reform Commission has contracted with a variety of entrepreneurial education providers to manage the city’s lowest-performing schools. Because the standards and accountability movements have begun to define desired learning outcomes and freed up the means for getting there, policymakers have created opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop new approaches to schooling. State charter school laws allow individuals and groups to create new public schools that are supported with public dollars but managed independently. By specifying the expected school performance in the school’s “charter,” these policies encourage entrepreneurship by allowing charter school operators to use their own approach to achieve those goals. These policies have spawned an

entire subindustry of nearly 3,500 charter schools in forty states and the District of Columbia, serving nearly one million students.10 The first wave of charter schools consisted largely of individual charter schools, but these schools have been joined by a diverse array of entrepreneurs who seek to build systems of multiple charter schools. Policies that specify outcomes but allow different approaches have also enabled entrepreneurs to create alternative programs for teacher certification and school leader licensure.

One of the best-known examples of entrepreneurial innovation in this area is Teach For America, founded in 1989 by Wendy Kopp to recruit and prepare bright college graduates for two years of teaching in high-need classrooms. Because alternative credentialing regulations allowed for

different approaches to preparation, Teach For America was able to develop innovative processes to prepare teachers—including stringent criteria for candidate selection and training curriculum targeted at teachers who will serve in low-income areas. More recently, charter

school systems like High Tech High and KIPP have begun developing their own residency-based models. And New Leaders for New Schools has taken advantage of this opportunity to develop a program for preparing urban principals in major cities across the country.

Taken together, public policies such as the ones described above have pushed public education in a new direction. Although most of our public education systems were designed to focus on inputs (dollars, hours, students served) and management processes evolved accordingly,

the emphasis of these recent policies is now on results (skills achieved, content mastered, college attainment). This shift creates enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs to provide the requisite

people, tools, and practices.