Education Pioneers: Wrapping Up

5 more days to go, and things are winding down.

Last week I had the opportunity to present preliminary drafts of my work to various leaders around ICEF, and the feedback I received was very encouraging. In fact, some of my marketing recommendations made it into the annual PR planning meeting with ICEF's communications vendor. I feel pretty confident that I added value to this organization this summer, and thus made my small contribution toward the solution to this education crisis.

This week I'm finalizing my recommendations, presenting to a number of leaders, and getting ready to hand everything over to my supervisor before I head back to school. Additionally, I've been working to make all of my recommendations as "plug and play" as possible. Resources are tight at this organization, and I've learned that one of the biggest hurdles in implementing my recommendations will most likely be staffing requirements. Thus, whenever possible, I've developed templates, examples, detailed implementation plans and in one case I was able to create the actual brand guidelines which I recommended.

I think one of my key learnings this summer has been organizational in nature. ICEF was founded with one after-school program in 1994. Since then, it's grown to 15 schools and about 400 employees. What was once a start-up environment is now transitioning to a small company. As I worked to recommend marketing and communications solutions in this environment, the importance of scalable systems became increasingly evident. ICEF has proven the success of its educational model and has exponentially grown its impact in South LA in a relatively short amount of time. The challenge is creating organizational systems to keep up, and to sustain even more growth and impact.

My summer as an Education Pioneers fellow has been a very rewarding experience. I've learned an incredible amount about education reform, I've formed my own opinions and have been forced to question those opinions, I've met and networked with numerous leaders in the LA education world (including Superintendent Cortines!), and I've given much thought as to how my work in education will continue beyond this experience. And, just as importantly, I really feel as though I've grown professionally as a result of this summer.

Jennie

Education Pioneers: Mid-Summer Update

This week marks the halfway point of my Education Pioneers summer fellowship. I can't believe it. Looking back, I've accomplished a lot, and learned an enormous amount, but there's still so much left to do!

My marketing project for ICEF Public Schools is well under way. I've spent the first half of the summer on two main workstreams. The first has been assessing the current position of ICEF within its major stakeholder groups. This has been done via informational interviews, web/press searches and also a survey (set to go live on Monday). I'm talking to people inside and outside of ICEF - home office staff, school staff, parents, members of the greater LA education community, etc. My findings regarding ICEF's position will flow directly into the marketing plan that I recommend.

The second workstream has consisted of more secondary research. I'm looking across a variety of research, reports, case studies and other resources to study, benchmark and evaluate potential marketing/brand solutions for ICEF. I've had luck with sources from both inside and outside of the education world, and from both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. It's been really exciting for me to combine a host of "best practices" to develop a plan that will be uniquely valuable to ICEF.

In addition to my project, I've had the opportunity to get involved in other exciting projects that are taking place at the organization. For example, I got to help out with ICEF's Promise Neighborhood grant application. (The federal government will choose 20 applicants to receive grant money in order to essentially replicate the Harlem Children's Zone model.)

And finally, outside of ICEF, the Education Pioneers Fellowship itself has proven to be a valuable learning experience. Today was our third workshop, in which we focused on Human Capital. We learned about current initiatives such as Teacher Effectiveness in LAUSD, and spent the day discussing, debating and even attempting to "solve" major teacher evaluation/compensation issues. I've found the workshops especially valuable, coming from a financial services background and still forming my own opinions on what exactly should be done in Ed Reform.

All in all, my first 5 weeks have been a valuable and worthwhile experience... and yes, I feel as though I'm making a difference!

Education Pioneers Fellowship: Day 1

I believe an MBA can be a powerful tool for impacting a community and affecting change. When I applied to Marshall, I had a pretty clear vision of how I might do this in a way related to a couple of my lifelong passions, including education. Throughout my first year, I took advantage of every opportunity to build the right skill set, develop as a leader, gain relevant experience and start brainstorming feasible business plans.

I had a long term plan, but when it came time to make a decision about my summer plans, I found myself at a loss. I had no idea where to begin. I soon found Education Pioneers, and realized this would be the perfect first step. My summer fellowship will help me make the transition from financial services to education – and eventually to my long term plans - by surrounding me with the right people, the right resources and invaluable opportunities.

Education Pioneers is a national human capital organization founded in 2003 by Scott Morgan. The organization is focused on urban education reform and addresses this issue by building a pipeline of talent from graduate programs such as business, law, education, policy and a variety of other disciplines. Graduate students are recruited as fellows for a 10-week internship which includes weekly workshops in addition to a project with a partner organization such as a school district, charter organization or foundation.

Currently, Education Pioneers operates in seven urban cities. This summer, there are 290 fellows from 111 graduate school programs at 66 universities. I am a proud member of this summer’s Los Angeles cohort, which includes 42 fellows from around the country. We are working with 15 different partner organizations, including LAUSD, PUC Schools, ICEF (Inner City Education Foundation) Public Schools, Teach for America and the Broad Foundation.

I will be working with ICEF Public Schools, a charter management organization which manages 15 charter schools in South Los Angeles. ICEF was founded in 1994 by Michael Piscal in order to transform South LA into an economically vibrant community. My project is to evaluate ICEF’s position within its community in order to recommend a strategic marketing/communication plan.

Today we kicked off the summer with a Foundations workshop for the LA cohort, and tomorrow is my first day at ICEF. Stay tuned!

Jennie