Publications

01 Jun 2005
News

A Tough Assignment

O’neill: An educational expedition. Courtesy Shackleton Schools As a corporate lawyer living in Greenwich, Connecticut, Luke O’Neill (MBA ’95) was on a well-defined path of success. But something about his life didn’t sit right. He quit... View Details

Keywords: Shackleton Schools; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Elementary and Secondary Schools

01 Dec 2009
News

Back to School

2008, I decided to make the leap: I began the process of becoming a certified high-school math teacher. When D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee spoke to the HBS Club of Washington in October 2008, I introduced her, presented her... View Details

Keywords: Anthony Priest; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Elementary and Secondary Schools

May 2013
Case

Education in Brazil: Waiting for a Revolution

By: Aldo Musacchio and Alejandra Meraz Velasco

This case describes the situation of the education system in Brazil circa 2012. The case discusses first some of the problems of the Brazilian education system. Then, the case summarizes the findings of a recent study of high performing schools in Brazil and outlines... View Details

Keywords: Quality Of Education; Federalism; Elementary Education; Quality; Human Capital; Education; Education Industry; Brazil; Korean Peninsula

April 2016
Teaching Note

IBM and the Reinvention of High School (C): Toward P-TECH's Rapid National Expansion

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Kelsi Stine-Rowe

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 316-130. This Teaching Note accompanies the third case in a 3-case series on P-TECH and the Reinvention of High School. The case focuses on the development and early diffusion of organizational innovation—how to create pilot projects for... View Details

Keywords: IBM; P-TECH; Stanley Litow; Robin Wilner; Cuomo; Scaling; Innovation; New York State; New York City; Business Model; Innovation Strategy; Innovation Leadership; Education; Business and Community Relations; Change; Technology Industry; New York (state, US); New York (city, NY)

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools

01 Mar 2006
News

Back to School

The state of public education in the United States is a perennial hot-button topic, with rhetoric often outpacing any real sense of progress. The Public Education Leadership Project (PELP), a 2003 joint ini-tiative of HBS and Harvard’s... View Details

2010
Working Paper

Cheaper by the Dozen: Using Sibling Discounts at Catholic Schools to Estimate the Price Elasticity of Private School Attendance

By: Susan Dynarski, Jonathan Gruber and Danielle Li

The effect of vouchers on sorting between private and public schools depends upon the price elasticity of demand for private schooling. Estimating this elasticity is empirically challenging because prices and quantities are jointly determined in the market for private... View Details

Keywords: Price; Religion; Entrepreneurship; Education

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January 2005
Case

Launching the Bronx Lab School

By: Stacey M. Childress

Examines the start-up process of a new, small high school inside the New York City public school system, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Covers the entrepreneurial process, the specific performance challenges in public high schools in the... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Social Entrepreneurship; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Education Industry

01 Dec 2005
News

Back to School

Whitney: She hopes to graduate from admissions to running a school one day. When Stephanie Whitney (MBA ’85) left behind a globe-trotting career in marketing in 1996 to raise her two young sons and get... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; Elementary and Secondary Schools; Elementary and Secondary Schools

Article

High School Curriculum and Financial Outcomes: The Impact of Mandated Personal Finance and Mathematics Courses

By: Shawn Cole, Anna Paulson and Gauri Kartini Shastry

Financial literacy and cognitive capabilities are convincingly linked to the quality of financial decision-making. Yet, there is little evidence that education intended to improve financial decision-making is successful. Using plausibly exogenous variation in exposure... View Details

Keywords: Financial Literacy; Cognitive Capability; Secondary Education; Personal Finance; Decision Making

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25 Aug 2021
News

Reimagining Chicago’s Schools

Back in 2011, when Melissa Zaikos (MBA 2000) first began digging deeply into the standardized test scores of the Chicago Public Schools system, she saw that elementary schools... View Details

December 1998
Case

Bell Atlantic and the Union City Schools (B): Education Reform in Union City

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Ellen Pruyne

The second in a five-part series about Bell Atlantic Corp.'s technology-in-education partnership with the Union City, New Jersey school system. Reviews the education reform efforts planned and implemented in the school system, which coincided with the partnership and... View Details

Keywords: Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Change Management; Partners and Partnerships; Information Technology; Education Industry; Telecommunications Industry; New Jersey

24 Jul 2020
News

Reimagining Chicago’s Schools

reached middle and high school, the gap between the high-achieving students and those who needed academic support grew considerably. A few years later, Stanford University released a study that confirmed her... View Details

June 2003
Case

Booker T. Washington High School

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Michelle Heskett

For over a decade, Principal Elsie Bailey has led a turnaround of this inner-city high school in Memphis. Although she's made progress, some problems have arisen for this "school of last resort" that deals with some of the more difficult student populations, and... View Details

Keywords: Secondary Education; Social Issues; Social Psychology; Policy; Problems and Challenges; Education Industry; Tennessee

July 2001
Case

Paula Evans and the Redesign of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (B)

By: Linda A. Hill, Kristin Doughty and Ellen Pruyne

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Strategy; Secondary Education; Restructuring; Leadership; Education Industry; Cambridge

01 Sep 2023
Blog Post

Harvard Business School Announces 2023 Goldsmith Fellows

Harvard Business School (HBS) has announced the 2023 recipients of its Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships. Established in 1988 by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Richard L. Menschel (MBA 1959), a former... View Details

23 Aug 2011
News

New Kid in School

Jacksonville.com (August 4, 2011). In July, Ellison became headmaster of St. Johns Country Day School in the Jacksonville suburb of Orange Park. Most recently, he had served a nine-year stint at the Roxbury Latin View Details

Keywords: Elementary and Secondary Schools; Elementary and Secondary Schools

April 1974 (Revised June 1983)
Case

Robert F. Kennedy High School

By: John J. Gabarro

Presents the problem facing a newly appointed high school principal. Raises issues about interpersonal and group behavior including lack of open conflict resolution and the need to intervene in an interpersonal conflict. Also raises the issue of intergroup conflict... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Secondary Education; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Structure; Behavior; Conflict Management; System