Missing Advantage Greenville?? - Part I

If you didn't participate in Advantage Greenville event in July, you missed two great events. First, Mark Bounds, Deputy Superintendent of Education for the State spoke about Jim Rex's five points for education:

• Dramatically Accelerating Innovation
• Improving Choice
• Increasing Accountability (while lessening test burdens)
• Elevating the Profession of Teaching
• Ensuring Fair & Equitable Funding.
  

Bounds shared at least three or four initiatives under each of these areas that are helping to move the needle on education in South Carolina.

He recommended a book that is seems to be undergirding a lot of thought and activity in Columbia - Disrupting Education by Clayton Christensen. Many of us in the economic development community know Christensen's seminal work - The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen has taken the same lens of theoretical research to the education sphere. I highly recommend the book. It has changed my opinions on many things about education, especially about how valuable charter schools can be to enhancing innovation in the system. More on that and other Advantage Greenville happenings later..