A practical and entertaining volume, "Cage-Busting Leadership" will be of profound interest and value to school and district leaders--and to everyone with a stake in school improvement. Rick Hess aptly describes his aims at the start of this provocative book: "I believe that two things are true. It is true, as would-be reformers…

Today's education technology holds immense promise, but what matters more than the tools themselves are how they are used in schools and in classrooms. In "Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age," Frederick M. Hess and Bror Saxberg argue that educators have tended to think of adopting technology as a way to "reform" or…

Good times are not just around the corner. Rather, at least for the next half-decade, educators are facing what Secretary Duncan has termed the "new normal." After three generations in which national, nominal per pupil spending went up every single year, learning to operate in an environment of flat or declining spending is a new challenge for…

Above all else, the American creed is one of liberty and opportunity. In the 21st century, whether the topic is economic opportunity, responsible citizenship, or political engagement, the role of education is more significant than ever before. That means political and civic leaders committed to a vision of opportunity--and especially to equal…

Extended learning opportunities have emerged as a useful way to rethink how schools are organized and funded. That includes reconsidering who teaches and how they go about their work. That effort should be guided by four key policy considerations and goals: 1. Reengineer the role of teacher. 2. Rethink K-12, higher education, and community-based…

More than a decade ago, Michael Lewis penned the influential book "Moneyball." An examination of how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane used data to make his franchise competitive with wealthier baseball teams, the book struck a chord. Beane's strategy of making decisions based on data had a powerful and positive impact on the…

Reform-minded educators often run into obstacles when they try to bring their innovative ideas to schools modeled on twentieth-century factories. The challenge of "greenfield schooling," as I write in my new book, "Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling," is to cultivate environments that invite…

Greenfield is a term for an area where there are unobstructed, wide-open opportunities to invent or build. Greenfield schooling presumes that the greatest challenge to improving teaching and learning is the bureaucratic, rule-driven education system and that it is important to create an environment in which innovation can flourish.

In "Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling," this author argued for new education service-delivery organizations that, free from the constricting norms and rules of traditional providers, focused single-mindedly on executing their model. The challenge for reformers is to recognize that enabling such providers is not…

The United States is facing one of the worst financial crises of recent history. America is also experiencing a quiet crisis, as well--one that has been building in the nation's classrooms and schools for decades. This nation is failing to prepare the next generation of Americans as citizens, thinkers, and graduates prepared for success in a…

To an unprecedented degree, this is the era of educational entrepreneurship. Dynamic new thinkers have waded into the world of K-12 education, founded influential organizations, and shattered familiar conventions. They have developed new models for delivering instruction and recruiting teachers and at the same time have applied old-fashioned…

Neither the proponents of district-based reforms nor supporters of choice and competition can claim that their solutions have produced the schools that we want. To move forward, we must shake off assumptions that tried-and-true responses will deliver the reforms that schools need. To achieve the desired results will require fostering the…

This report, produced jointly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, is a call to action in response to how poorly states measured up on key indicators of educational innovation. The report is the first-ever attempt to evaluate the innovation gap in American…