Enter the Innovation Officer: Districts Design New Jobs

Alyssa Whitehead-Bust, center, the Denver district's chief of innovation and reform, meets with Debbi Blair-Minter, the principal at Omar D. Blair Charter School, to tour the school and discuss upcoming statewide testing. Eighth graders Isaiah Nestor, left, and Isaiah Davis work on geometry problems during the tour.

—Nathan W. Armes for Education Week

Focus of work often on securing grants

On the long list of education buzzwords—paradigm, experiential, accountability—"innovation" can be just as vague and all-encompassing as any other.

But it is a buzzword for a reason. New forms of educational technology, the growth of nontraditional schools, and new public and private funding sources are among the trends influencing and potentially even redefining K-12 education. All are broadly categorized as "innovation."

Enter the "innovation officer," a job title that is cropping up in school districts and state education departments nationwide. Often a top administrative position filled by a candidate from the corporate world, charter school management, or a district office, the innovation officer (or a variant on that title) might oversee a "portfolio" of schools, lead the integration of new technology into the classroom, and redistribute central-office services.

Data on how many of those jobs exist are difficult to come by, but many identified byEducation Week began in the past five years, with the more recent ones loosely coinciding with the Obama administration's Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation, or i3, competitions.

That shouldn't be a surprise, said Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, based in Alexandria, Va. During President George W. Bush's administration, districts developed administrative positions around "assessment and accountability," to garner favor and funds under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and its test-centered mandates, Mr. Domenech said.

How Much Substance?

Now, the Obama administration has awarded more than $4 billion so far in Race to the Top grants, which reward initiatives like school turnarounds, charter schools, and technology-based reform. School Improvement Grants offer $3.5 billion in federal aid to districts that agree to aggressive overhauls of their worst-performing schools. This year, the i3 fund awards $150 million in competitive grants for innovative practices proven to boost student achievement.

Again, districts are responding, Mr. Domenech said, but will the administration's leverage really have an impact?

"They are just basically recooking or rewarming the old school," Mr. Domenech said. He added: "In the majority of cases, it's just a new title."

The U.S. Department of Education's top innovation official, however, disagreed.

"I don't think people are jumping in [to create the innovation officer positions] just because it's trendy," said James H. Shelton, the assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement. "I think districts are both seeing the upside of the opportunity and feeling the necessity that the pace of change should pick up dramatically."

Attracting Money

Innovation officers interviewed by Education Week did acknowledge a focus on procuring and managing state, federal, and private grants.

"That is what I do. All of it goes towards that," said Michael Haggen, the associate superintendent of innovative services for the St. Louis public school system, which enrolls 25,000 students.

Most of the time, Mr. Haggen's office, which manages federal School Improvement Grants the district received in 2010 to turn around 11 low-performing schools, must come up with ...

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Assistant Editor Michele McNeil contributed to this article.