Fueling the entrepreneurial fire

In a new Education Next article excerpted from his latest book, education scholar Rick Hess recounts the skepticism that the entrepreneurs behind KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) and Teach for America (TFA) encountered when they set out to drum up financial support for their then-nascent ventures. The KIPP founders fired off more than a hundred […]

Guest post: Out of the shadows

This guest post is from Bill Jackson, founder and CEO of GreatSchools, who was one of the very first entrepreneurs to receive an investment from NewSchools Venture Fund. This year’s NewSchools Summit focuses on the promises and perils of education entrepreneurs going mainstream. Thanks to the Obama Administration, education entrepreneurs are no longer toiling off […]

Visit a DC charter school during the week of NewSchools Summit

While you are in the nation’s capital to join education entrepreneurs and other leaders at the NewSchools Summit 2010, see what this work looks like on the ground by visiting one of the city’s many outstanding public charter schools. DC Preparatory Academy, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, Friendship Public Charter School, KIPP DC, Maya Angelou […]

Guest post: What Race to the Top Says About Education Entrepreneurs

This guest post comes from Ariela Rozman, chief executive officer of The New Teacher Project, an entrepreneurial organization that is changing the conversation about teacher effectiveness across the country. Discussion of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition often resembles coverage of a major political campaign. Most of the focus is on the horse […]

More Heat than Light

For evidence that the terrain has shifted for education entrepreneurs, one need look no further than last week’s much-publicized hearing convened by State Senator Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) in downtown Manhattan. In what has been described as hours of “volatile” and “testy” debate, supporters and opponents of New York charter schools traded barbs over charges of fiscal […]

Object lessons in political savvy

Yesterday, I woke up to the latest in a series of object lessons in political savvy for education entrepreneurs. My alarm clock radio is set to NPR, and this morning, I hazed into consciousness listening to a terrific piece by Claudio Sanchez on the growing field of teacher residency programs. The piece focused mostly on […]

Guest post: Keep pushing for federal dollars

Our latest guest post comes from Teach For America‘s Kevin Huffman, who is also a columnist at the Washington Post, in response to Mike Petrilli’s recent post warning entrepreneurs away from pursuing fickle federal government funding. Mike Petrilli surfaced an interesting question in his blog entry here: should the education reform sector seek more federal […]

Telling stories with letters and pixels

All eyes are on education entrepreneurs these days. Parents and communities are watching to see whether chronically failing schools can be turned around by new operators, whether new charter schools will make a difference for low-income students, and whether new ways of preparing teachers and new tools for instruction will change the way classrooms work. […]

Guest Post: Of Evaluation and Transparency

Our latest guest blog post comes from Rick Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (and now also the blogger behind the eponymous “Rick Hess Straight Up” blog on Education Week’s Web site). The evidentiary standards for the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund have stirred much conversation. On those […]

Guest Post: Beware interest-group-itis

Our latest guest blog post comes from Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who has logged time in both the public sector (at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement) and the private sector (as a VP at K12, an online learning company). The entrepreneurial sector in education is right […]