The goal of this book is not just better leaders, but educational organizations that are entrepreneurial in nature. The author offers practical advice to educational leaders, from teachers to principals to superintendents, on practical steps toward a more innovative organization.

The call for entrepreneurial leadership in education has never been stronger, but there is little descriptive information about this kind of leadership and even less advice on how a leader might grow in this dimension. Beginning with the constant need for innovation in every learning organization, the author makes a case for an entrepreneurial style of leadership in education. The author paints a multi-faceted picture of entrepreneurial leadership using stories of real leaders in combination with writings from the social sciences, education, natural sciences, business and the arts. The incursion of business practices in education is also addressed head-on. The author defends the historic, democratic tradition of education against 21st century neoliberal trends, while allowing room to learn from best practices in other fields. The role of risk-taking and incentives is examined along with leadership motives. The goal of this book is not just better leaders, but educational organizations that are entrepreneurial in nature. The author offers practical advice to educational leaders, from teachers to principals to superintendents, on practical steps toward a more innovative organization. Specific chapters on the school leader, teacher leaders and school partnerships offer practical wisdom for out-of-the-box thinking.

"Once again, Phil Schlechty demonstrates why I consider him to be one of the clearest minds in American education. He knows how important public education is to our democracy and has real ideas for making it better. This book is a must-read for policymakers at any level and for those who think and care about school improvement." --Paul D. Houston, executive director, American Association of School Administrators "Schlechty shares leading-edge insights and offers practical guidance to anyone who affects student learning. His suggestions are wonderful dialogue starters for educators searching for ways to make dramatic improvement in schools." --Dennis Sparks, executive director, National Staff Development Council In this visionary book, renowned educator Phillip Schlechty argues for change-adept school systems. He not only challenges educational administrators, teachers, teacher leaders, legislators, and policymakers to recognize the need for transformation, but also shows how they can grow into skillful leaders of lasting change. Shaking Up the Schoolhouse begins with an incisive discussion of the dangers and opportunities in reworking school systems. Drawing from decades of experience and from actual cases, the author describes the essential characteristics of change-adept organizations. He then presents a practical framework for helping teachers to overcome obstacles in the learning experience, from reviewing the competition to improving student engagement through more effective standards. Schlechty also focuses on empowering principals, superintAndents, and school board members as they struggle with structural and cultural change in their schools and communities.

There is no shortage of innovations on offer for schools. Hardly a week passes without someone marching out the latest device, app, service, curricular add-on, or instructional technique that, we are told, is sure to cure the perennial woes of systemic education. This book is an investigation of this enchantment with “innovation” and its implications for not only everyday teaching and learning, but also the future of public education. Based on a study of The Innovation School—a public high school organized around makerspaces, design thinking, and personalized technology—the author challenges conventional wisdom about how educational transformation unfolds and argues that the popular understanding of innovation exacerbates inequality and undermines teacher and student autonomy. Building the Innovation School demonstrates how attending to the infrastructures of innovation leads to educational change that is driven by the interests and values of educators. Repair rather than disruption is the focus—a commitment to schools that allow all students to flourish. Book Features: Shows how specific innovations actually work over time in the everyday life of the classroom.Challenges the conventional wisdom about innovation, offering resources for breaking through the hype of current (and future) innovations-of-the-day.Offers a framework for “innovating from below,” tailoring local innovations to the needs, values, and priorities of students, educators, and the community.Includes an appendix of resources for teachers and administrators interested in applying the frameworks from the book in their schools and classrooms.

How do great educators bring about real change to make a difference in students’ lives? In this first volume of the Routledge Great Educators Series, 10 of education’s most inspiring thought-leaders come together to share their top suggestions you need right now to innovate in your school or classroom. You will gain fresh insights and practical strategies on these essential topics: Personalizing professional learning (Jeffrey Zoul) Promoting a positive school culture (Todd Whitaker) Improving our hiring practices (Jimmy Casas) Designing spaces that maximize learning (Thomas C. Murray) Empowering students in their learning and assessments (Starr Sackstein) Flipping the classroom to reach each student (Kirk Humphreys) Positioning libraries as learning hubs (Shannon McClintock Miller) Helping others embrace technology changes (Katrina Keene) Developing personal, not just professional, skills (Dwight Carter) Embracing each student's passions and strengths (LaVonna Roth) Filled with inspiring stories throughout, the book will leave you feeling motivated to take risks and try new things in your own school or classroom. As the authors say, if we want to make a real difference, it’s not enough to do the things we do better; we must also do new and better things!

This open access book offers unique and novel views on the social innovation landscape, tools, practices, pedagogies, and research in the context of higher education. International, multi-disciplinary academics and industry leaders present new developments, research evidence, and practice expertise on social innovation in higher education institutions (HEIs), across academic and professional disciplines. The book includes a selected set of peer-reviewed chapters presenting different perspectives against which relevant actors can identify and analyse social innovation in HEIs. The volume demonstrates how HEIs can respond to societal challenges, support positive social change, and contribute to the development of international public policy discourse. It answers the question ‘how does the present higher education system, in different countries, promote social innovation and create social change and impact’. In answering this question, the book identifies factors driving success as well as obstacles. Furthermore, it examines how higher education innovation assists societal challenges and investigates the benefits of effective social innovation engagement by HEIs. The interdisciplinary approach of the volume makes it a must-read for scholars, students, policy-makers, and practitioners of economics, education, business and management, political science, and sociology interested in a better understanding of social innovation.

School improvement, like motherhood, has many advocates. Everyone is for it, without having to campaign actively on its behalf. And just as the 100% of people who have had mothers think they know how mothering could be done better, so the (nearly) 100% of people who have been pupils in schools, or have even taught in or managed them, think they know how schools can be im proved. More precisely, they are sure that schools ought to be improved. The trouble is that they propose a staggering, conflicting range of methods of improving the schools, from ;'back to the woodshed" to teacher merit pay, a stiffer curriculum, a stronger tax base, reorganization, a more humane climate, "teacher-proof" innovations, community involvement-the list is nearly end less. Furthermore, the issues are not merely technical, but normative and po litical. The term improvement is itself problematic. One person's version of improvement is another's version of wastefulness or even of worsening the schools. Furthermore, the versions that win out in any particular school are not Improvement sometimes turns out to be merely a necessarily technically "best. " code word for the directives that administrators have successfully put into place, or for the agreements that teachers have lobbied into being. How much do we really know about school improvement? The available research literature is quite substantial, but not as helpful as it might be.

An inspiring account of teachers in ordinary circumstances doing extraordinary things, showing us how to transform education What School Could Be offers an inspiring vision of what our teachers and students can accomplish if trusted with the challenge of developing the skills and ways of thinking needed to thrive in a world of dizzying technological change. Innovation expert Ted Dintersmith took an unprecedented trip across America, visiting all fifty states in a single school year. He originally set out to raise awareness about the urgent need to reimagine education to prepare students for a world marked by innovation--but America's teachers one-upped him. All across the country, he met teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things, creating innovative classrooms where children learn deeply and joyously as they gain purpose, agency, essential skillsets and mindsets, and real knowledge. Together, these new ways of teaching and learning offer a vision of what school could be—and a model for transforming schools throughout the United States and beyond. Better yet, teachers and parents don't have to wait for the revolution to come from above. They can readily implement small changes that can make a big difference. America's clock is ticking. Our archaic model of education trains our kids for a world that no longer exists, and accelerating advances in technology are eliminating millions of jobs. But the trailblazing of many American educators gives us reasons for hope. Capturing bold ideas from teachers and classrooms across America, What School Could Be provides a realistic and profoundly optimistic roadmap for creating cultures of innovation and real learning in all our schools.

"Organized" and "innovation" are words rarely heard together. But an organized approach to innovation is precisely what America needs today. This book presents a blueprint for coordinating technology breakthroughs to advance America's global competitiveness and prosperity. That prosperity is at risk. As other nations bolster technology innovation efforts, America's research, development, and commercialization enterprise is falling behind. An "innovation gap" has emerged in recent decades, where US universities focus on basic research and industry concentrates on incremental product development. The country has failed to address the innovation gap because of three myths--innovation is about lone geniuses, the free market, and serendipity. These myths blind us from recognizing our dysfunctional system of unorganized innovation. In Organized Innovation, Currall, Frauenheim, Perry and Hunter provide a framework for optimizing the way America creates, develops, and commercializes technology breakthroughs. A roadmap for universities, business, and government, the book is grounded in the authors' seminal study of the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Center program, which has returned to the US economy more than ten times the funding invested in it. For too long, our approach to technology innovation has been unorganized. The authors enable us to turn the page. They show us how to organize innovation for a more prosperous, hopeful future.

As the authors state, “Without rethinking how, what, when, where, and why we are teaching, technology will merely be an expensive way of making the existing system faster and flashier.” In How to Innovate, Mary Moss Brown and Alisa Berger—founding co-principals of the NYC iSchool—applytheir extensive on-the-ground experience to demonstrate a radically different approach to school transformation. They introduce a scalable model of how schools can and should redefine themselves to better meet the needs of 21st-century students. Using a framework built around four critical levers for school change—curriculum, culture, time, and human capital—the NYC iSchool model merges the teaching of big ideas and valuable skills with the realities of accountability, academic preparation, and adolescent development.The bookincludes more than 20 activities that will help educators begin the process of school transformation, whether they want to focus on a single program, one area of change, or engage in a full-scale whole school improvement effort. This accessible, practical, and inspiring resource is designed to be used over and over again, in any context, despite the constantly changing climates in which schools operate. “Reimagining school and creating more schools like the iSchool must be our highest national priority. All students need to graduate from high school and college ‘innovation-ready,’ as well as prepared for the complex challenges of continuous learning and citizenship in the 21st century. Time is running short. I urge you to read this book with urgency.” —From the Foreword by Tony Wagner, expert in residence at the Harvard University Innovation Lab, founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education "Public education mistakenly relies on a 19-century model to teach kids in the 21st century. Moss Brown and Berger decided to change this by opening the iSchool in New York City and creating a whole new approach to how schools work. They succeeded wildly, and having walked the walk, they now talk the talk so others can follow on the trail they blazed.” —Joel Klein, former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (2002–2011) “Those who strive to create or transform a school will learn much from the shining example of these two fearless principals. As learning contexts change with the rising tides of technology, Moss and Berger focus above all on human and intellectual growth in schools. Their NYC iSchool offers hope for increasing imagination, equity, and depth in the face of the gathering storm of standardization.” —Kathleen Cushman, co-founder of What Kids Can Do and author ofThe Motivation Equation “Moss Brown and Berger launched one of the first schools to blend personalized instruction and community-connected engaging projects. Anyone interested in a picture of next-generation learning and the inside story of creating a great school should read this book.” —Tom Van der Ark, CEO of Getting Smart Mary Moss Brown and Alisa Berger are the founding co-principals of the NYC iSchool and are currently working as the founding partners in Novare Schools, a consulting group that focuses on school leader coaching, school design, innovation, and transformation.