K–12 Education | Social Enterprise | Harvard Business School

In 2003, HBS launched an MBA elective course focused on entrepreneurship in education reform and cofounded the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) in collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This multiyear research project focuses on the management levers needed to create and sustain high-performing K–12 public school districts in the United States. These efforts have resulted in more than 30 case studies focused on adapting and applying management concepts within urban school systems to drive improved performance and on using entrepreneurial strategies to effect systemic change in K–12 education.

Publications

Flanner House and Community-Led Development

By: Brian Trelstad and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

July 2025 | Faculty Research

In 2025, Brandon Cosby, CEO of Flanner House—a century-old nonprofit in Indianapolis’s Near Northwest neighborhood—faced a critical juncture as ris...

Techint: Strategic Choices for Community Impact

By: Lauren Cohen, Virak Prum, Kenneth Charman, Pedro Levindo and Mariana Cal

April 2025 (Revised August 2025) | Faculty Research

In early 2024 Erika Bienek, Chief Community Relations Officer at Techint, had to decide whether to invest in a new company-owned and operated techn...

Helping Children Catch Up: Early Life Shocks and the PROGRESA Experiment

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Theresa Molina, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

January 2024 | Economic Journal

Can investing in children who faced adverse events in early childhood help them catch up? We answer this question using two orthogonal sources of v...

Pratham 2.0: Sustaining Innovation

By: Brian Trelstad, Samantha Webster and Malini Sen

March 2023 (Revised June 2023) | Faculty Research

Pratham is a Mumbai-based nonprofit, which focuses on high-quality, low-cost, and replicable interventions to address gaps in India’s education sys...

Featured MBA Course

Transforming Education through Social Entrepreneurship

This course (formerly Entrepreneurship in Education Reform) explores the central role that education plays in our economy and society and is designed for students who want to take an active role in shaping the future workforce, bringing about a more equitable society, and improving the trajectories of our nation’s youth.

For Leaders

Certificate in School Management and Leadership

The Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML), an online, multi-course certificate program for PreK-12 school leaders, is an innovative collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Business School. Bridging the fields of business and education, CSML integrates world-class faculty and research in managing teams and organizations with best practices in educational leadership, to provide school leaders with frameworks, skills, and knowledge to effectively lead and drive change improvement in schools. The CSML certificate is comprised of four courses, which can be taken independently or completed together in any order to earn a comprehensive certificate.

Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) Summer Institute

Taught by a team of faculty members from Harvard Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Harvard Kennedy School, PELP Executive Education programs feature a wide range of leadership cases and materials curated especially for K-12 system leaders in partner organizations. The PELP Summer Institute focuses on system level leadership at the superintendent level.

Accelerating Board Capacity (ABC) Institute

The ABC Institute is a Harvard Business School Executive Education custom program focused on governance in large urban districts. This program has been exclusively designed by Council of the Great City Schools and PELP for school board members and superintendents in member districts of the Council of the Great City Schools.