Who hasn't gotten frustrated with a company or employer that resists change? In the business world, an organization that resists change for too long loses its ability to compete in the market and goes under. For most that means there is motivation to embrace at least some innovation. In academia, however, lack of change is a commodity called "tradition" – and according to Dr. Frederick M. Hess, it might be time for the scholars to learn a new business model.

Out with the old, in with the new: That’s why entrepreneurship can bring results to American education. Entrepreneurs are passionate about results, regardless of the field to which they bring their innovations. And American education can use some results-oriented passion and innovation.

Year in and year out, school reformers show an earnest tendency to paint by the numbers. Those seeking to improve schools latch onto the familiar litany of “best practices” and hot new instructional techniques, asserting that if only administrators identified and implemented the right set of prescriptions, successful reform would cascade through every level of the system. Yet for forty years, this approach has delivered little by way of lasting results. Perhaps it’s time we sought another track.

Such a course is offered by “entrepreneurial” reformers who doubt that there are pat recipes for school improvement and instead look to foster a wealth of creative problem-solving. They offer evidence that real, sustained change may require the emergence of new providers able to create and deliver educational services in more effective ways. While entrepreneurial reformers face intense resistance, and constitute a still minuscule portion of schooling, they are also responsible for the most exciting developments in twenty-first century education.

The Education Industry Association reports that over 26,000 educational ventures are up and running in the United States. Many operate in established niches such as tutoring or textbook sales; other operations either run schools or recruit teachers; and still others are tackling issues of instructional literacy, professional development, and information technology. These ventures, which are among the most discussed names in contemporary school reform, include the likes of KIPP Academies, K12 Inc., Teach For America, Edison Schools, Blackboard Inc., New Leaders for New Schools, SMARTHINKING, National Heritage Academies, Catapult Learning, Wireless Generation, Aspire Public Schools, and The New Teacher Project.

Why is educational entrepreneurship—now more than ever—so deserving of our attention? Today, schools confront challenges that our education system isn’t equipped to answer. Erected haphazardly over the course of two centuries, our structure of schooling has been configured to process large numbers of students for lives in an industrial nation. Given the realities of globalization and the demands of a knowledge economy, arrangements that may have worked passably well in the past are no longer adequate. Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that our schooling system has the ability or the know-how to embrace a reconfigured model commensurate with its changed mission.

Experiences outside education suggest that entrepreneurship has been the sine qua non in spurring American success. Observers of all stripes acknowledge that, whatever its failings, the astonishing performance and adaptability of the U.S. economy have been fueled by a high rate of entrepreneurship, a welcoming regulatory climate, and the constant creation of new ventures.[i] This technological and managerial entrepreneurial revolution has become an organizing principle of American public policy and social life.

Especially in recent decades, dramatic advances in technology, transportation, and data storage have created new possibilities for autonomy, decentralization, and customization. In 1990, for instance, the Internet as we know it didn’t exist. By 2004, the U.S. Census Department reported that 61 percent of households had Internet access. In 1993, the Census reported that just 23 percent of households owned a personal computer. By 2004, two-thirds did.[ii] In 2004, there were 324 cable and satellite channels available in the United States—up from 60 in 1990.[iii] The iPod didn’t exist in 2000; by 2007, more than 100 million had been sold. [iv] In short, an entrepreneurial revolution, fueled by the forces of innovation, has been sweeping through American homes, creating previously unimaginable communication, instructional, and educational opportunities.

Entrepreneurship is valuable because, left to their own devices, organizations are reluctant to upset established routines. Given this high self-approval and a natural distaste for the inconveniences of change, inertia prevails. As a consequence, efforts at reform tend to be shallow and symbolic.
Combating this tendency requires the capacity of new enterprises to emerge, challenge, and displace the old. While the plight of any given venture is uncertain, the entrepreneurial process itself ensures that potentially good ideas are constantly surfaced and then sifted. The presumption is that the risks of inaction outweigh those of reinvention—even with all the attendant disappointments and confusion.

In education, the decision to embrace entrepreneurship requires an informed decision to rethink familiar policies and practices. For that reason, entrepreneurship provides a useful lens for thinking about the impact of reforming the rules and routines that govern teacher or administrator licensure, teacher and principal compensation, financing systems, accountability, and the rest of the architecture of schooling. In the end, serious consideration of educational entrepreneurship entails asking: In the twenty-first century, is it possible to educate children in radically more effective ways? If so, can we identify and adopt those using our longstanding structures and systems? If familiar arrangements do not serve, who are the pioneers willing to stumble forward in the dark to find better answers, and how willing are we to provide the opportunities, tools, and support they may need?

To Know More...

[i] Carl J. Schramm, The Entrepreneurial Imperative (New York: HarperCollins, 2006); Paul A. London, The Competition Solution: The Bipartisan Secret Behind American Prosperity (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2005).

[ii] U.S. Census Bureau, “Computer Use in the United States,” Current Population Survey (CPS) Reports (U.S. Census Bureau, October 1993), Table A: Level of Access and Use of Computers.

[iii] Motion Picture Association of America Worldwide Market Research, US Entertainment Industry: 2004 MPA Market Statistics (Los Angeles, CA: Motion Picture Association of America, March 2005), 41. Available online at www.mpaa.org/researchStatistics.asp

[iv] “100 Million iPods Sold,” Apple, April 9, 2007, available at http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/09ipod.html.