Personal Analysis
Through my exploration of the different educational entrepreneurships shared by our professor and through my own research, I selected the Rennie Center. The reason that I chose this large entrepreneurship because I loved the work that they are doing. This group works throughout Massachusetts, and the work that they do touches upon many areas of public education. In my role as a school principal many of the reforms and supports that this group provides for school districts is unprecedented.
The mission of this group is one that resonates strongly with me for its mission is to improve education for all students. My problem of practice is around just that. My problem of practice is looking at how to support all students through differentiated instruction to allow for equal access to learning. Although my problem is focused more narrowly, the concept and idea is much broader. This groups mission, vision, and goals are directly related to my doctoral work and I wanted to investigate their entrepreneurial enterprise and its means for improvement, innovation, and transformation of education. Through professional development, this group looks at supporting districts. It addition it seeks to foster thoughtful public discourse and informed policymaking.
While taking this course I am additionally taking the public policy course and am very interested in the policy systems in general, especially in Massachusetts. “Public policy profoundly shapes the prospects for entrepreneurship in education” (Hess, 2016, p. 35). This is important to consider in regards to my personal analysis of this enterprise, as “Public policy is the result of government actions (and inactions) intended to shape the behavior of public and private actions (Hess, 2016, p. 36). In defining entrepreneurship, we know that it “is any activity related to the development of new organizations, methods, or products that challenge or improve existing ways of doing business” (Hess, 2016, p. 36). In considering both of these definitions, it is important to note that the two go hand-in-hand as policy shapes entrepreneurship by incentivizing action, prescribing action, and encouraging action by providing interaction (Hess, 2016). Paul Reville, the initial founder of this enterprise sought to create a public think-tank to look at policies related to education while working for the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth. While working there, he created this enterprise to look at and research existing policies that were in place that hindered education. This motivated him to create this enterprise, which has grown to make significant impacts on the educational system of Massachusetts and different districts over the course of its time. This can be seen throughout the pages in this website.
Of particular note to me is in this course we have been learning about educational entrepreneurship. We were first introduced to the idea in the work by Hess. One of the things that stood out most to me about this enterprise is that the entrepreneur work not only created and launched a new ventures, it also wrestled with the constraints of the current system. Hess (2016), states, “The entrepreneur premise is that American education is in need of transformative improvement, and it’s easier to promise that kind of change by launching new ventures than by wrestling with the constraints and conventions of established systems” (p.3).
With this enterprise not only launching the new venture and wresting with the constraints of the current system many questions and much thinking arises for me! In thinking about my work in moving and transforming education, what can I do differently? How can I not only work within the system that exists, but how can I change the system within which my problem of practice is structured? I believe that in order to truly make a deep shift and transform education, there must be a change in the system itself. As I consider how policy and entrepreneurship go hand-in-hand, where can I begin to consider a venture and enterprise that does this?
As noted above, there are many insights that I take away from this activity. As a means of improvement, innovation, and transformation of education, I am eager to identify a way to answer the questions that I have posed. This activity has allowed me to think more deeply as well as broadly about the concept of educational entrepreneurship. It has given me a greater understanding of what this can and could look like, and has provided me a new context for my work.