After 27 years in the national security business, more or less, I have accepted a position to work something far more tractable: the U.S. education system. My new business card says I am the Director for Knowledge and Innovation at the Stupski Foundation: a private, operating foundation in San Francisco whose mission is to improve life options for children of color and poverty. The foundation does so by helping education leaders accelerate academic achievement so that all students graduate with the knowledge, skills, and aspirations that will enable them to thrive in college, career and life.
What follows is my personal observation following an extremely short time with the Foundation – and is certainly subject to change as I learn more about this exciting new challenge (I was kidding, this problem is quite a few postal zones away from tractable). When I write on behalf of the Foundation, I will be doing it somewhere other than on this blog site. These musings here will always represent the addled mind of yours truly.
Specifically, we take the following approach: Until we address the systemic breakdown in the educational “system,” we cannot have enduring change for the children that are our focus. Core to these systemic issues is the failure to innovate. Good ideas are not transferred across the system to other districts or other states. Districts forget core understandings about “what works” when the leadership changes. Innovation helps an industry adapt to change and survive (right, Detroit?). Where is the innovation in education? Where is the research and development (and distribution) that characterizes the innovation engines in other sectors?
At this early date, this is how I understand my new job. Help an extraordinarily talented team by bringing KM principles to bear in building out the R&D capacity for U.S. education. Partner with states, school districts, research firms, technology companies, philanthropic institutions, and an increasingly vital federal Department – developing ways to conduct multi-disciplinary investigations in order to spread “what works” to the most under-served in our educational system. There are great opportunities in methods and technologies, a willingness to invest in meaningful change, and an unprecedented need to develop a ready workforce suited to the emerging global economy.
This is an exceptional and humbling opportunity, I am most fortunate to be presented this chance to serve. It should be quite a ride, and I’m hopeful my friends and casual readers will be there to enjoy it with me. Oh, and if you have any ideas in this area, this is no time to be shy.
9 Comments
I congratulate you on a most worthy position, serving an organization you believe in.
Do you believe the success of your Foundation’s efforts will be key to US competitiveness in a global market?
How do we drive the same type of innovation and performance measurement in schools that we do in industry?
Step one: eliminate the unions or marginalize their influence on pay/performance.
Congratulations!
Sounds like an opportunity to reach above and beyond your past experiences. Congrats.
Sounds like a great opportunity to help make the world a better place, John. Congratulations. I will share with you some of my observations after my 3rd season of work with the FIRST robotics program for young people.
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (http://www.usfirst.org/who/default.aspx?id=34&LinkIdentifier=id) uses volunteers to guide high school age students as they build a robot in 6 weeks to compete in regional and national contests. The program relies on volunteers. Young people are attracted to technology these days (cell phones, ipods, etc…) and our particular build team included members from the high school basketball squad, an amatuer boxer, and many young ladies – all races and nationalities (we were 2009 Chesapeake Regional champions).
Teachers volunteered their time after school to help with the build, as did parents and several technology professionals. What struck me was the low attention and involvement by the school administration. Schools provide equipment for football and baseball – why not equipment and space for experimenting with technology? Meetings with teachers from several schools also revealed that many teachers must use their own money to purchase technology books that are up-to-date for their classrooms.
Change is accelerating. The volunteer model for FIRST seems to work well. However, schools should study this model and support it by adding administrative and other resources. Eventually, each school should have a Science-Technology-Engineering gym where students can experiment and play with technology, just like basketball, baseball, and football.
Awesome John. No need for humility though. Boldness, yes!
I do agree that the problems are systemic in nature, and would add that, as Einstein observed, these problems cannot be solved by the same level of knowledge that created them. Shifting consciousness to a higher level and finding mechanisms to do that must be a big part of creating the systemic solution. What kinds of mechanisms can you create which reliably generates the type of group consciousness which leads to the emergence of breakthroughs that will be translated into practice. Open Space, Future Search, Appreciative Inquiry, Power of Now, Theory U…there is a lot of interest in creating this generative space. Change the head and the body will follow!
Hi John,
Congratulations! What a wonderful field to be working in! I have been reading about the KIPP schools in the USA (found out about the approach through Outliers, the book by Malcolm Gladwell). Really impressive. Do you know about them? If not, you might want to take a look. Here is a link: http://www.kipp.org/
Best regards, Mireille
I found out about this approach by reading Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)
Something went wrong. So here’s the link again: http://www.kipp.org/
I think it’s great that smart people are tackling these problems at the level of the school system – what’s so demoralizing is that the real problems are “lower down the stack,” to use a tech metaphor. It’s the families of these poor kids. Many of them do care and do take an active role. But most don’t, either because they’re working too hard, or because they’re too uneducated or ignorant to properly nourish their kids (physiologically and mentally) instead of parking them in front of a TV with sugary drinks and junk food for the first three years of their lives. A hundred years ago, the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole lifted their kids up by sending them to parochial schools that (with more determination than innovation) just whipped them into shape, and with a lot of personal sacrifice (and the attendant guilt, visited on said children). That’s not part of our culture any more. Kids arrive at kindergarten with stunted vocabularies, type 2 diabetes, and no concept of why it’s important to their families that they work hard and study. It may be too much to ask the schools to solve for that, and trying to do so may be a rat-hole for federal funds – witness the astronomical per-student costs of some of the worst public school systems. Are you doing anything to leverage the parents and families who are doing their best at home? If you can shift the neighborhood in small ways, the school part isn’t as hard…
JC,
The reason we focus on the school ’system’ is precisely to your point – how can we inform the overall system to effect change? It is not enough to address just schoolhouses, or teachers, or even the home life situation. If you begin with the student at the center of the problem, and consider all the elements of life that challenge their success, you quickly ask the question: is there a holistic approach that changes the conversation from point solutions to systemic change? All this to say, I agree with you – from the little time I’ve spent in this area, you are touching in the challenges to cognitive development that pose great barriers. But there are also issues of content, affective skills, critical thinking, assessment, etc., that cry out for attention. Innovation will come in all areas, and from all corners – our challenge is to create the opportunity for lasting and system-wide change.
jb