Often the notion of being a social entrepreneur and an innovator in public service has been restricted to a handful of charismatic leaders who launch new organizations – just as College Summit’s founder J.B. did.  It wasn’t long ago (1993 to be exact) when he was in a basement of a D.C. housing project developing his idea for the change he sought.  Sixteen years and tens of thousand of students later, College Summit is a national organization that can be found in classrooms from Decatur Central High School in Indiana to Duke Ellington School for the Arts in Maryland. 

While we celebrate J.B. we must also remember that a social entrepreneur and an innovator in public service are as not as selective as the Hall a Fame or American Idol.  MLK once shared, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”  A similar philosophy of “Everyone A Changemaker” was offered by Bill Drayton of Ashoka, where the responsibility of seeking solutions to intractable social issues is a collaborative effort and rests in all of our hands. 

No better place is this articulated than the classroom of our educators. At College Summit, the best ideas are those that are generated by those who are closest to our students.   Many of our educators who teach in classrooms day in and day out create dynamic lesson plans that illuminate the tools we provide – they do this because at the heart of a great teacher is the ability to see classrooms and textbooks as building blocks for deeper learning.  This requires an inordinate amount of time, creativity, and entrepreneurship. 

Between bustling hallways of young people and inside vibrant classrooms of great educators, social innovation is unfolding. The nation’s leading educators – who I believe are servants, changemakers, and especially entrepreneurs – are working together to drive social change: identifying a critical social issue that was not being addressed, testing an idea to fill the gap (sometimes unknowingly), identifying key outcomes of their work to measure, and building the infrastructure and support to grow, sustain, and improve.

We see the embodiment of MLK’s works, everyone can be great, because everyone can serve, across the country. The organization City Year began as a small band of volunteers in Boston and has grown to an international organization that has partnered with policy makers to create the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.  The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) started at Jane Addams High School in the South Bronx when Steve Mariotti learned how the impact of starting a small business can transform a young person’s perception of their world – today NFTE hosts business plan competitions for young entrepreneurs around the world.

What many social entrepreneurs share in common is the heart of a great teacher and as social innovation continues to build momentum and casts a wider net – it is educators, classrooms, and schools that represent and opportunity to explore how innovation can be incubated, tested, scaled and sustained.

Recently, the Obama administration introduced the new Office of Social Innovation where the resources and support of the federal government will be directed to people and organizations that can create partnerships / programs that can be proven successful through results while innovative at the same time.  It’s my belief that some of those ideas, especially those that will positively affect the lives of young people, will come from classrooms and be led by educational innovators.

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