What does innovation in education look like? How do we initiate and sustain innovations?  What are the barriers to doing so?  This report from the New Venture School Fund with contributions from the Stupski Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York  Foundation looks at these issues in a new report.   

Opener: “We find ourselves at a unique moment of broad consensus that the public school system, as it is currently constructed, simply isn’t delivering on its promise of educational excellence for all children – particularly for those in underserved communities. While this has been the case for a while, today there is also an unprecedented level of support for doing things differently and widespread recognition that new approaches and new structures will be essential to fixing the situation. When other sectors have faced this challenge, they have turned to innovation – new ways of doing things that bring about an improved result – in order to make this kind of dramatic improvement a reality. At its best, though, innovation is the centerpiece of a resultsdriven ethos, and a crucial engine for creating a cycle of continuous learning and improvement. It is sadly ironic that this learning cycle is weaker in public education than in almost any other field, even though the purpose of this field is to advance learning among the students it serves.”

Read the full report here.