For Whom The Bellwether Tolls
The cat’s climbing out of the bag. National Journal recently wrote about Bellwether Education Partners(pdf). Ed Week’s McNeill, the Fordham Flypaper blog and a few others did as well and New Schools has a press release with some information. More to come this spring.
Basically, Bellwether will be a hybrid organization that is part think tank, part organization builder, and part professional services firm. It’s non-profit and funded by a blend of grants and specialized and actionable services the organization will provide. While the organization is ecumenical about who it works with — public and private sector, philanthropy, NGOs, socially entrepreneurial ventures, and individuals — Bellwether only works with entities with a clear and demonstrated commitment to dramatically improving educational outcomes for low-income youngsters.
Bellwether’s work is organized around four core areas: Executive search and placement, strategic advising and consulting, leadership and organizational development, and thought leadership and knowledge generation. Monisha Lozier, Mary Wells, Kim Smith, and I will lead those four areas, respectively, but we’re in the process of adding and figuring out relationships with some terrific people in different roles. Sara Mead is on-board as well, adding some great capacity on a few issues.
For my part, I’m also going to do a few other things including publishing, along with John Bailey, a subscription-based forecasting and analytic newsletter about trends and likely outcomes in education policymaking. That will be published by WhiteBoard Advisors, a non-lobbying affiliate of Dutko Worldwide.
And I’ll continue to pen this blog. Starting next week Eduwonk will look a little different, physically, but will otherwise be the same. Depending on who you are I guess that’s good or bad news.
Stay tuned for some news about what’s next at ES, some good stuff. The ES experience has been a great 5+ years for me and I’m excited about what’s next for the organization and about what’s next for me.
March 13th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
WOW–another advertisement for yourself. Obviously you only care about fattening your wallet.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Getting into the EMO game huh? Lets steal some more money from schools and tax payers in the name of student achievement.
D.B.
November 25th, 2010 at 4:07 am
i am very pleased to know about Bellwether that works for such an important work without any profit motive objective
February 2nd, 2011 at 1:34 pm
I’m glad to hear you’re focusing on education for low-income children. I used to work in the nonprofit sector and it always was such a shame to see these bright kids with so little future – just because they were poor and getting their education in a failing school district.