The Supply Side of School Reform and the Future of Educational Entrepreneurship

The most intriguing and daring ventures in K-12 education today are the efforts to reimagine the way American schoolchildren learn. Entrepreneurial ventures like Teach For America, the KIPP Academies, New Leaders for New Schools, and High Tech High are reinventing the definition and delivery methods of public education. Yet these innovative programs have been hindered by difficulties in raising financial resources, finding talented employees, and overcoming regulatory barriers to entry into schools and districts.

AEI’s director of education policy studies, Frederick M. Hess, has commissioned a dozen scholars, education practitioners, and business analysts to examine this new entrepreneurial sector in education as well as the obstacles that prevent the creation of promising new ventures. By offering strategies to facilitate the growth and success of new education providers, the authors address how the entrepreneurial sector (composed of policymakers, practitioners, and philanthropists) can invigorate, complement, or replace the work of traditional schools and districts.

Contributing authors will present their findings at this daylong research conference, and an array of discussants will join the discussion. This conference and project were funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

For a link to the second part of the video, please click here.

About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess



  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including “The Same Thing Over and Over,” “Education Unbound,” “ Common Sense School Reform,” “ Revolution at the Margins” and “Spinning Wheels,” and he pens the Education Week blog, Rick Hess Straight Up. His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public School Charters as well as on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Lauren Aronson
    Phone: 202-862-5904
    Email: lauren.aronson@aei.org
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