Educational Ecosystems: A Trend in Urban Educational Innovation

There is an increasing reliance on market principles and values in the education space, particularly in urban contexts, accompanied by a growing diversification of educational service providers. Due in part to increased interactivity amongst constituents in this growing assembly of providers and actors, educational innovation ecosystem arrangements have emerged across urban centers. In this article, we present and define the concept of educational innovation ecosystems: The concept is discussed generally as a product of an increased market emphasis in the education sector and more specifically as a product of public-private partnerships. The concept is further exemplified through case examples that offer a perspective on how such arrangements can be of benefit in urban education environments. The article opens with an example of how market logic has been operationalized in some urban centers through a diversification model for providing schooling services. Next, we discuss and provide case examples of educational innovation ecosystems. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how education technology, as an outgrowth of public-private activity and collaboration, is being designed for pedagogical application in schools. A Diversification Trend in Education Service Providers In 2002, the Philadelphia public school system was taken over by the state of Pennsylvania. The school board was dissolved and replaced by the School Reform Commission, which consisted of three gubernatorial appointees and two mayoral appointees. At this time, the district conceived the diverse provider model, infusing market principles into the mechanisms through which educational services were secured and provided to students and families in Philadelphia. The diverse provider model entailed a restructuring design that had “45 of the city’s lowest performing schools turned over” to a diversity of education service providers (e.g., charter schools, for-profit firms, reconstituted district schools) (Gill, Zimmer, Christman, & Suzanne, 2007, p. 21). At the time, this was a radical act of urban education reform both in scale and scope. Due in part to these changes as well as the general arc that urban education reform has taken in Philadelphia, the school district has steadily devolved away from the traditional model in which the district is the sole provider of education toward an emerging diversity of schooling options (e.g., charter schools, cyber schools, home schooling, for-profit education centers). Like Philadelphia, the cities of Chicago, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and other urban centers have experienced a similar diversification trend. Increasingly, there is a plurality of voices in the urban education sector exercising more influence than in previous decades. These voices include philanthropic organizations, national charter management organizations, financial investors, and a host of other educational service entities such as education technology (or ed-tech) startups, for-profit education companies, and both research and corporate universities. [1] But this trend has not been met with complete approval. Some have decried this transition, characterizing these shifts as a type of private sector encroachment on the public’s interest in education. Rather than entertain these criticisms, which have been fully ventilated in other works, [2] the goals of this article are the following: (1) to characterize and reframe the discussion around marketization trends in education as an outgrowth of public-private sector collaboration rather than as an encroachment of one by the other; (2) to define the term innovation ecosystem, with some attendance to the origins and application of the term in the education sphere; (3) to present case examples of active innovation ecosystems that are creatively leveraging public-private interaction on behalf of teaching and learning, and (4) to discuss the burgeoning education technology industry that is emerging in the wake of public-private efforts to bring more technology to urban classrooms. The purpose of this article is to highlight examples of positive innovations and developments arising from emerging ecosystem arrangements in multiple urban centers, with the hope that these trends may inform ongoing efforts to facilitate innovation on behalf of students and families in our urban communities. The Rise of Innovation Ecosystems in Education The term innovation ecosystem is rooted in the practices and partnerships of technology firms that produce devices for customer use.[3] Due to the context in which the term was developed—business, technology, and industry—it has only recently gained recognition and application in the education sphere. Innovation ecosystems are complex, cooperative networks among a variety of Volume 12 Issue 1 (Spring 2015) stakeholders in a particular industry whose collaborative efforts generate new ideas, products, and processes for industry consumers. Innovation ecosystems in the education sector are typically the result of evolving collaborations between schools, philanthropic organizations, and for-profit entities, among others, in which schools seek to procure particular technologies and/or technological services from their partners for the benefit of students. The increased reliance of public schools on business and technology partnerships may be linked to the role that technology can play in promoting student engagement and enabling pedagogical and organizational innovation. A report by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (2009) indicates that classroom projects and lessons involving technology may increase student engagement by as much as 21%. (See Figure 1.) It is not surprising that technology has pedagogical value in schools because schools are consumers rather than producers of technology devices. Innovation ecosystems, which facilitate the acquisition of learning technologies by teachers, parents, and students, may prove instrumental in supporting 21st century learning.