Leadership and Organizational Development
Leadership matters. And anyone who has grown significant organizations or participated in important social movements knows that in times of ambitious growth or transformational change, leadership really matters.
After 20 years of impressive – but relatively small-scale – progress, social entrepreneurs in education are facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform public education in America to serve all of our previously underserved students – particularly, low-income students of color – substantially better than ever before. This is the kind of moment when leadership is crucial, yet we have done a poor job of developing, sustaining, and expanding our leadership cadre for the movement.
To meet the demands of this incredible opportunity for progress, we need to simultaneously sustain and develop our current entrepreneurial leaders in education – as they are required to step up to ever greater levels of responsibility and effectiveness – and identify and develop the next wave of leaders we need to sustain and expand this important work on behalf of low-income students and students of color across this country.
Entrepreneurial-minded leaders bring a crucial sense of urgency, a desire for action, a tenacious dedication, and a dogged optimism to achieving their ambitious goals and above all a focus on constant learning and clear outcomes and results for students. We need more of these entrepreneurial-minded leaders in education – whether they lead in schools, districts, CMOs, state departments of education, policy and advocacy organizations, or community-based allies or are creating new entrepreneurial organizations to provide others with the tools they need for better assessments of students, management of teachers, or analysis of financial systems. And we need to better support the leaders we have so that we do not lose the momentum we have gained over the past 20 years.
Bellwether Education Partners provides programs and services designed to support and cultivate these leaders in education. Our initial programming includes the Aspen Institute – NewSchools Fellows program, which was created by our CEO and co-founder as one way to sustain and diversify leadership for this field. As we grow, we plan to expand our offerings to include individual and organizational leadership audits, executive coaching, and other tools and services for leadership and organizational development.