Does location or geography matter in education?
Let's see what kind of answer we can get by combining urban competitiveness, innovation, The Economist, the Creative Class blog, the book 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques, colleges, and education into the Education Innovation blender.
I came across this interesting article from The Economist on the Creative Class website.
From The Economist print edition
"New York is the world’s most competitive city, according to the Global Urban Competitiveness Project. The study ranks 500 cities on their ability to attract and use resources to generate wealth. The cities are assessed on nine measures, including income, economic growth, innovation, jobs, prices and the presence of multinational firms. The report found that the gap between the best-performing cities and the worst is widening. Indeed, there is a fairly large gap between the top two cities, New York and London, and Tokyo in third place. Cities in Europe and North America are richest, but China has the fastest-growing ones. Asian cities also score highly in patent registrations and attracting multinational companies."
How do you think your school or school district would rank if compared on global competitiveness?
James M. HIggins makes this interesting point in his book 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques.
“Research by Michael E. Porter, a renowned business strategy researcher and consultant, and several others has clearly demonstrated what we have long suspected—it is easier to innovate in some geographic locations than others. This is because these places have more of the necessary supportive environmental factors that lead to successful innovation that do other locations.”
He cites several comparisons to illustrate the point. It is easier to innovate in the Silicon Valley in California as opposed to Jackson, Mississippi. It is easier to innovate in Denmark as opposed to Germany, in Singapore than in Japan, in Boston than in Paris.
Higgins explains that there are several factors that contribute to this.
“There are several factors that constitute a supportive societal environment. Some of these are a supportive govern-ment in term of policies and economic factors such as taxes, a positive view of innovation by the society, an acceptance of entrepreneurs as being vital contributors, a positive view of achievement, major research universities, and excellent public education system.”
Is it possible that some school districts, school sites, and teachers are more successful at innovation than others? It must be.
Some school districts are bound to have a more positive view of innovation when compared with other districts. What factors would contribute to that? Leadership, history, success with innovation, openness to new ideas, and flexibility would be factors. I am sure that the same could be said for individual school sites and individual teachers. Some will have a more positive view of innovation than others.
What about acceptance of "entrepreneurs" as being vital contributors? These entrepreneurs will either be viewed as an important and welcome part of a district or a school site that is bringing new and creative ideas to the fore, or viewed as a troublemaker who is not following policy and procedures. Again, there are clearly levels of acceptance from district to district or school to school. What are the implications for the kids?
Some school districts have the good fortune of being located near or within the same city limits as a college or university. Does this translate into those districts or schools being more innovative as compared to neighboring districts and schools? It seems that business benefits from the proximity, but does education?
How might being in a geographic area with a high concentration of colleges impact the education students in the local school district receive. For example, in the district I work in their is one junior college, a CSU campus, a private college, a law school, and an optometry school. One might think this would foster a high level of educational innovation in the local school district through partnerships and research. There has been some, but not to the extent one might imagine.
What kind of school or district are you working in, high innovation or low innovation? Are your neighbors doing innovation better? Inovation in education might come down to location, location, location.
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