Should we build a Federal Office of Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation? (Part 1)
November 4, 2008
Andy Rotherham, an education guru whom I deeply respect for writing the excellent blog, Eduwonk, recently published a report titled: “Changing the Game: The Federal Role in Supporting 21st Century Educational Innovation.” The report recommends creating a $450m Federal Office of Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation to fund educational entrepreneurs in charter schools, private industry, and non profits. [I am speaking to Andy on the phone this Friday about the report; therefore please comment if you would like me to bring anything up with him.]
Even though Smart Solutions could directly benefit from this office because we could apply for funds to scale up our business, I am a bit scared about the repercussions. Instead of intensely focusing on improving service or lowering costs – I now need to keep an eye on Washington.
The federal office may slow growth in the ed tech sector over the long run because we would be lobbying for pet projects in Washington instead of focusing on client needs.
While some ideas from the report are compelling, such as funding an “Education Innovation Challenge” to invest in long-term R&D efforts in education, other ideas need to be carefully studied to understand their impact on the marketplace.
Here are some other comments from one of my colleagues:
My main question is: how would the Office of Innovation actually impact the policies that support or hamper innovation?
The New Teacher Project helps bring more effective educators into the pipeline, but despite having funding support, they were unable to open in Cleveland because of issues with teacher licensing requirements.
It would be great if the incentives created by this office could help eliminate those barriers. But the Office could end up adding another layer of federal bureaucracy
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