EVENTS

Date:	Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Time:	4:00 PM -- 5:30 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Finally, the Candidates Agree: American Education Needs Entrepreneurs

WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 10, 2008--When it comes to reforming K-12 education, presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain have expressed their fair share of differences. On the campaign trail, they have often sparred on issues such as No Child Left Behind, merit pay for teachers, school choice, and federal funding. But at an AEI conference on October 8, representatives from the two campaigns agreed on at least one issue: both view entrepreneurship as a critical and potentially transformative engine of school improvement. 

Michael Johnston, education adviser for Senator Obama and a principal at a Denver public high school, said that an Obama administration would put entrepreneurship at the top of its school reform agenda. In particular, he said, Obama would encourage an array of programs that help to recruit, retain, and reward high-quality teachers. As evidence, Johnston cited Obama's support of alternative licensure programs like Teach For America, his plan to create $25,000 service scholarship for teachers, and his proposal to pay teachers more who work in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas. "To improve the human capital pipeline . . . we need to create space for entrepreneurial innovation, provide resources, generate infrastructure, and promote accountability," Johnston said. "That's what will define success in education."

Lisa Graham Keegan, education representative for Senator McCain and a former Arizona schools superintendent, said that a McCain administration would focus on fostering the networks and attendant infrastructure required to attract entrepreneurs to K-12 schooling. One of McCain's key education proposals, she said, would establish a system in which money flows directly to students on a per-pupil basis. According to Keegan, this would give parents more control over financial resources and support the creation of new ventures tailored to student needs. "That's a game-changer, a fundamental shift in the way we think about education reform," she said. "Allowing money to go explicitly to parents would expand choices and allow us to do a better job of meeting the needs of every child." 

Johnston and Keegan both emphasized a need to overcome barriers in the burgeoning K-12 entrepreneurial sector, including the scarcity of venture capital, inadequate efforts to encourage a population of entrepreneurial educators, the paucity of research and development, and a lack of quality control. "It's not a matter of just throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks," Johnston said. "We ought to have metrics for what high-quality education programs look like and be able to track results." Keegan added, "Over time, not only do our schools need to get incrementally better, they must become good in all areas. . . . Entrepreneurship will help get us there."

Arthur C. Brooks, a visiting scholar at AEI who will become its president in 2009, framed the conversation by outlining a broad vision for social entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurship is the process of creating value, bringing in a package of unique resources, to exploit an opportunity," he said. "[In education], there is no meaningful difference between social entrepreneurship and commercial entrepreneurship--only in the denomination of rewards."

The conference also marked the launch of a new book edited by AEI's Frederick M. Hess entitled The Future of Educational Entrepreneurship: Possibilities for School Reform (Harvard Education Press, 2008). The volume, which analyzes the various obstacles to innovative and productive entrepreneurial activity in American education, is the latest in a series of books and articles by Hess on K-12 entrepreneurship. Keegan praised the volume, remarking, "It is a wonderful compilation of real life stories for how you do this on the ground."

--THOMAS GIFT

For video, audio, and event information, visit www.aei.org/event1797/.

Frederick M. Hess is the author or editor of several books and articles on educational entrepreneurship, including "After Milwaukee," in the most recent issue of The American, The Future of Educational Entrepreneurship: Possibilities for School Reform, Educational Entrepreneurship: Realities, Challenges, Possibilities, and Tough Love for Schools: Essays on Competition, Accountability, and Excellence.

For more information on AEI's Education Policy Studies program, visit www.aei.org/education/. For media inquiries, contact Véronique Rodman at 202.862.4870 or vrodman@aei.org.

###