Frederick Hess identified three assumptions related to problems in educational entrepreneurship – barriers to entry, lack of financial capital, and lack of human capital – which all lead to a lack of innovation. The recommendations in the Rotherham report, Changing the Game: The Federal Role in Supporting 21st Century Educational Innovation, are built on these three assumptions. I do not believe that barriers to entry or lack of financial capital are bottlenecks in educational entrepreneurship. Finally, I believe some of the tremendous innovation happening in the education space - such as Classroom 2.0, Ning, PLP, wikis, blogging in the classroom, Flat Classroom,  etc. - is not expensive to scale.

The third assumption - a lack of human capital (with teachers and administrators) - is in fact the most challenging factor to achieving educational success in this country. If we were to establish the Office, I hope it would focus mostly on initiatives that directly tackle the human capital problem in educational entrepreneurship.

The education industry is similar to other service industry players in the sense that people are the biggest bottleneck to scaling success. But there are a few important methodologies to scaling success in the people-intensive services industry.

To begin with, people management needs to be a central goal of educational institutions. The hiring of outstanding individuals, the ability to quickly fire ineffective staff, and financially rewarding excellent teachers are all critical components to ensuring that the best and brightest enter and stay in the education field.

In addition, teachers and administrators should carefully consider ways to maximize their most precious resource - time. I believe principles espoused in Getting Things Done, of 4 Hour Work Week, could be applied to the education sector to dramatically improve efficiency and productivity in the education sector.

Another way to increase human capital within the services industry - or education - is to invest deeply and strategically in developing talent. In the consulting world, each entry-level consultant is usually paired with up to 2-3 senior consultants who are intensely focused on developing entry-level employees. In addition, analysts often need to attend weeks of highly targeted professional development training each year to improve their performance. Teachers and administrators could benefit tremendously from replicating this intense approach to developing internal talent.

Finally, the only other way to scale human capital-intensive services businesses such as education is by strategic outsourcing. With the emergence of new technologies, there is a national and global talent pool of individuals who can perform peripheral and core functions at the school at a much lower cost than the traditional models.

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

Mathews on 21st Century Skills:

The problem I have is that these major pronouncements often seem to have been conceived and written by people who are miles away from real classrooms. Many of the producers and writers, I am sure, have been educators. They know what it is like to work with children for whom the notion of a 21st-century classroom is as inexplicable — and maybe as laughable — as the school janitor coming to work in a spacesuit. But so little of that hard-earned knowledge of the grungy unpredictability of teaching ever finds its way into their big national studies…

Good stuff. I liked all of those suggestions. I had only one question: How in the name of every teacher who has ever contemplated suicide during the unit on fractions are we supposed to make those things happen?

My response:

To make a long story short - you have not done your due diligence on 21st Century Skills. There are countless examples of actual teachers in school districts demonstrating the teaching and learning of 21st Century Skills.

My recommended blog reading:
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach - http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/
Will Richardson - http://weblogg-ed.com/

The bottom line is that there is an entire subset of education technologists who believe that technology, and particularly the integration of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, is the best, easiest, most practical, and cost-effective way to teach the range of 21st Century Skills discussed in that report.

The glossy report that you chide has inspired hundreds of schools and teachers across the nation to urgently work towards changing their districts…

My company, Smart Solutions, is committed to building 21st Century Schools and we have used the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as one of our guiding organizations.

The answer to “how do you do it?” is quite complex and we have our own philosophy on the topic.

We believe it requires administrative leadership that is focused on three areas:
Leadership (through strong technology leaders)
IT Management/Infrastructure (through managed services)
Teaching and Learning (through job-embedded professional development)

Jay’s response:

I will remain skeptical until I see it in the classroom, and can see what books and other materials are being used, and what assignments given. I have not seen anything very different in this very large metro area, with 1,200 public schools. I have seen things that say they are  21st century skill teaching, but arent doing anything unique. I know the superintendent in Manassas wants to start something, but hasnt yet. You know of any school in this region that meets your standard, and is doing this with regular kids? Thomas Jefferson can’t be a model for anything. Too selective. Point me to a school and I will check it out. Web site and blogs don’t do it. You are the first email I have received that takes your side. The skeptics, including many educators, are in the majority at least in my emails. They think this is one more fad, a name without a difference. So educate me. I need to see this in action. —jay

Therefore, if you are a teacher or administrator who is demonstrating the teaching of 21st Century Skills (particularly in the Washington area), please comment on this post so that I can send Jay a link!

I am the “computer teacher” at a small PK-5th grade school of about 250 students. I have a Mac lab of 25 computers. Our principal is very tech supportive. Any teacher who wants a computer and an email account can have one. Only about half choose to. Most choose not to have computers because they do not feel the need to integrate technology into their classroom. Most who do decide to have a computer in their room use it primarily for email. The students rarely touch them. Right now the teachers basically just hand me their students once or twice a week and entrust me to their computer/technical training. I love it and I feel I do a good job. I focus on keyboarding skills, internet safety and research, MS Office skills, etc. My job description does not include any technical support for the teachers or staff who do have computers, but I do try to help them when I can. Most of the questions are quite simple. “How do I make my font larger?” is a common one. Long story short, I would love some recommendations for tech training for our school. We really could use someone to come in and give everyone a basic computer and MS Office intro. There are so many wonderful things our teachers could do with technology and I would love to see that door opened for them. This is something I do not want to do myself. I really think we need a professional who is used to coming into a VERY low tech environment and giving some “boot camp” style training. I would also love any feedback or advice anyone could throw out there for me. I feel technology integration is a VERY slow process for us and I would like to give it a kick start.

What you are describing requires a lot of different components, and is very challenging for a small 250 student school to achieve.

Let me give you a general outline of how I would approach this problem from a leadership level.

1) Work through your administration to convince them that technology training should be a priority FOR THEM given the changes that are happening in the world today. (I wrote a blog post about the role of teachers in effecting change in education.)

2) Think LONG-term. The “quick fix” you describe of having someone come in for professional development in basics for the teachers is not going to be a long-term sustainable solution for your school. You may personally choose to change school districts and all the momentum may be lost. Your school leadership team, school board, school community, and all stakeholders need to be on board with a change management plan for technology. If your school leadership team is not on board with a plan, then aggressively recruiting teachers and community members to join an informal “tech committee” may be a suitable approach to build ground level support.

3) When talking about school technology basics, you should rethink the basics. Is there a technology budget? Do you have a technology plan? How is your school infrastructure/desktop support? Does your school want to move in the direction of thin clients, 1:1 computing, or desktops? Is there teacher buy-in to the technology plan? Does your technology professional development component of your plan support the curricular goals of the district?

4) Find a strong technology vendor to help build your infrastructure/support to truly take care of the “basics” of managing technology in a small district. (Blog post on choosing a vendor.)

5) As you build your plan, make sure that there is a significant emphasis on professional development to help get your administration and teachers up to speed with technology. Try to build capacity within your school by using the most advanced teachers as leaders to propagate change throughout the district.

For more information on supporting technology integration in a small district, please read this other blog post that I wrote.

We have helped change the technology culture at clients much larger than your school within a 12-18 month time period. Therefore, it IS possible - so please do not give up!

If this was useful to you or anyone, I encourage you to comment on this message or e-mail me at njulka@smartsolutionsonline.com.

The response could not have been more positive:

“Very stimulating information that I’m ready to go back and try more!”
“Needed more time for this!”
“*** Could have an all-day follow up session.”
“Thank goodness - wish they had more time”
“Wow! Overwhelming - but necessary”
“Enlightening”
“** Awesome!”

The greatest part about speaking at events like this is feeding off of the energy of the crowd. We had an excellent, engaged audience that was embracing our topics.

Of course, we hit on all the usual suspects:

• The growth of technology
• Web 2.0 (The Machine is Us)
• Our Vision of the Role of Technology in Education
• Shared Services Model (Supporting Technology in Small Districts)
• Social Networking in Ohio Education Technology
• Workshop on Use of Web 2.0 Tools in Education

My next presentation will be in Columbus, OH on October 15 at 12:00pm at the Ohio Association of Public Charter Schools on the topic: Technology Partnerships for 21st Century Schools.

The description is as follow:

An effective technology program is integral to preparing today’s students with 21st century skills. Yet, the components of a strong technology department - including E-rate expertise, networking, desktop maintenance, budgeting, curriculum integration, and professional development - are difficult to provide in-house, given budgetary constraints. This presentation will provide charter school leaders with an introduction to the shared services model of technology management and its benefits of increased technology service, stabilized technology budgets, and enhanced technology integration in the classroom.

If you would like me or our team to speak at any event (free of charge of course!), please e-mail me at njulka@smartsolutionsonline.com.

As a member of the digital native generation, and a large proponent and practitioner of the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into education, I think Will’s post represents a strong, unjustified stereotype of the role of IT in education. He seems to be sparking an “us against them” attitude of IT versus the rest of the school. This is the wrong approach to solving an important school policy issue.

As Web 2.0 tools become more ubiquitous, school IT departments need to continuously revise their policies to move with the times.

In my experience, the best functioning school IT departments partner with administrators, curriculum directors, and teachers to create sensible policies that work for the entire district. In the case of security and content filtering, we worked with one district to create a Wiki for decision-makers to collaborate and design their own sensible policies on the matter. This was a creative way of building a partnership between IT and the school.

It is also important for Will and others to recognize why content filtering exists. For starters, it is the law! The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) mandates that “Internet safety policy must include technology protection measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that: (a) are obscene, (b) are child pornography, or (c) are harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors).”

Obviously, pornography, obscene language, hate group web pages, etc. have no place in a school environment. School is supposed to be a safe place where parents are led to believe that schools are taking every opportunity to protect their kids.

Policies vary by school district and in some cases, any request made by a teacher to unblock a web site made is immediately acted upon after one phone call to our help desk. In other cases, there must be approval by some district-level administrator. Also, in nearly all of our school districts, group policies are set up for teachers, administrators, and students to have different levels of access.

In Will’s case, if he would have called one day ahead of time to ensure that the sites he needed were unblocked, and then tested his presentation with an IT person on site, then he would not have run into any problems. As the IT partner for a number of school districts, we are constantly doing this type of pro-active support to help speakers at our school districts.

In no cases do I think it makes sense for schools to provide unfettered access to the entire internet.

The country is facing serious financial challenges. Our nation’s school districts will experience the fallout through declining tax revenues and budget cuts. Will schools have to cut technology? How will our schools pay for their everyday technology costs, or keep up with technology changes that occur so often?
As 21st century educators, we recognize that technology is not a luxury or frill, it is a necessity. Thankfully, the E-rate program recognizes this fact, and helps schools cover their ongoing technology costs and infrastructure improvements in cases of financial need. The Federal E-rate (“Education rate”) program was started in 1998. It provides discounts of 20% to 90% to schools for typical tech costs such as Internet service and telephone service, as well as for the purchase and maintenance of network equipment. Eligibility for different types of products depends upon a school or district’s financial need. While it is common for all schools to receive discounts on, for instance, long distance service, only a small percentage of schools receive funds for hardware. Because E-rate funds come not from taxes but from the “Universal Service” fee on phone bills, it is a program that will not be cut – very important in today’s economic environment!

If your school or district is going through tough financial times, it is worth taking a close look at E-rate to see if there are ways to get more E-rate dollars, reduce local spending, and maintain or even improve their technology programs. Some entities are able to redistribute savings to areas of need. Many schools and districts maximize budgets in other creative ways that we would be happy to talk to you about.
Important questions to consider are:

Is your entity applying for all of the eligible products and services that it can? Surprisingly, many applicants do not realize that services for which they pay thousands of dollars are actually eligible for discounts.
Is your entity correctly filling out all required paperwork? As a federal program, E-rate is considered a pain to school administrators. But missing a date or filling in a form incorrectly can be very costly.

Has your free and reduced rate increased? Eligibility for free and reduced lunch is the measure used to determine program discounts. If your eligibility rate has increased, this means your entity is eligible for more money –- perhaps very significant dollars.

When the program first started, the $2.3 billion a year in funding for the entire nation seemed huge! Compared to the size of federal assistance to banks and other institutions, $2.3 billion seems paltry today, yet this program has effectively enabled our nation’s schools to connect to the Internet, join the 21st century, and to help address our current technology challenges.

Paul KarlinDirector, K-12 Operations
Smart Solutions
216-765-1122 ext. 8371
cell: 216-926-5997
pkarlin@smartsolutionsonline.com

… and they all crossed their fingers, hoping … despite little to no investment in their leaders … despite making conscious, intentional decisions to keep it out … that somehow their students and staff would be prepared for the digital, global world that surrounded them …

The End?

This text is written on the back of Scott McLeod’s business card.

This is what the front of my business card looks like:

Nitin Julka
Vice President

(216) 765-1122 ext. 8370
(216) 374-6723 Mobile

23900 Mercantile Road
Cleveland, OH 44122

Ohio Educators: Collaborate, Connect, Contribute
http://oetn.org

njulka@smartsolutionsonline.com
blog: http://ssik12.com
Twitter: nitinjulka