Educational Entrepreneurship

School superintendents, business managers, central office leaders, elected officials, industry leaders, educators, and aspiring practitioners in the field of education will find this book a useful resource in understanding innovative ways to stretch limited school resources or to improve the scope and quality of services and programs offered to deserving students. Approaching educational entrepreneurship by leveraging public and private partnerships is the primary focus throughout the book. Where available, real-world examples from school districts across the country are presented to provide the reader with ideas to consider and potentially emulate. Appreciating that there are innumerable ways for school leadership to pursue entrepreneurialism, chapters that represent a wide cross-section of common areas of educational practice were selected for inclusion. It should not be surprising, then, that such topics as curriculum development, educational technology, cooperative purchasing, higher education relationships, grant writing, foundation planning, and special education service delivery were all examined as potential public-private partnership opportunities. Improving schools in the twenty-first century will require new ways of approaching age-old challenges, not the least of which centers on increasingly scarce public funding. In response, the authors invite all readers to join the quest of applying the principles of entrepreneurship to schools to make them even stronger for the next generation.

Dr. Nicholas D. Young has worked in diverse roles in education for more than twenty-five years, serving as a director of student services, principal, graduate professor, dean, and superintendent of schools. He has published and presented widely on a variety of topics in education and psychology. A sampling of some of most recently co-authored and co-authored/co-edited books include “Learning Style Perspectives: Impact Upon the Classroom (3rd ed)” (2014), “Collapsing Educational Boundaries from Preschool to PhD” (2013), “Betwixt and Between: Understanding and Meeting the Social and Emotional Development Needs of Students During the Middle School Transition Years” (2013), and “Transforming Special Education Practices: A Primer for School Administrators and Policy-Makers” (2012).

Dr. Peter J. Bittel is cofounder and chief executive officer of Futures Education, a company providing special education and clinical services and management to school districts across the country. He is a speech and language pathologist and has more than thirty-five years of executive leadership experience in the areas of special education, rehabilitation, and developmental disabilities. He is the President of the Board of Trustees at American International College and was the co-author/co-editor of “Transforming Special Education Practices: A Primer for School Administrators and Policy-Makers” (2012).