If we’re going to improve learning opportunities, especially for the poorest and neediest kids in our state, one of the most important things we can do is have strong and effective leadership at the school level. Principals need to be trained not only to be great instructional leaders but also to be more like entrepreneurial managers than compliant bureaucrats.

Enter the partnership between Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver:

Beginning in Spring, 2010, the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business will incorporate its cutting edge MBA core curriculum with a specially-designed concentration in education, developed in cooperation with the Morgridge College of Education and GetSmartSchools, a non-profit organization designed to dramatically increase the number of high quality schools serving low-income students in Colorado’s Front Range.

All elective courses will be specially designed to train future leaders of autonomous schools. Unlike traditional Principal preparation, this will give participants both the business and instructional expertise to manage and lead schools closing the academic achievement gap.

Just as we need more high-quality alternative routes into the teaching profession, so we need more high-quality alternative routs into school leadership. Kudos to Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver.

Maybe this is the sort of opportunity you have been looking for, to get involved in education and really make a difference. If so, don’t delay. Classes will start before you know it.