"If you build world class facilities, you will get world class students. If you build prisons, you'll get prisoners."

January 16, 2007 6:24 PM

Genius at work. Bill Strickland is the visionary creator of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation, a combination craftsmen's guild, training center and (completely amazing) school. The school comes complete with a sound stage and record label that has won numerous grammys for the music recorded there as friendly favors from jazz legends to Bill and his students. He has been profiled in major business magazines for being a master educator with the ambition to become a master franchiser by working with Ebay CEO Jeff Skoll (see, "Applying model worldwide") to go global with his approach to education. He won the Macarthur in 1996. You can also watch his famous slide show, or some live footage of his presentation on youtube.
posted by The Straightener (4 comments total)

I thought this would make a nice counterpoint to the WSJ oped posted earlier today.
posted by The Straightener at 6:24 PM on January 16, 2007

Cool post. From everything that I've read, Strickland is the real deal. He certainly didn't pick a fancy neighborhood for the school, Manchester/Chateau is tough neighborhood on the northside of Pittsburgh.
posted by octothorpe at 7:48 PM on January 16, 2007

Thanks for appreciating. I heard him speak at a conference not long ago and was totally spellbound. He's an unbelievably smooth cat who has stayed humble and close to his roots despite having attained tremendous power and influence. You listen to him for forty minutes and he has you convinced that if fools would just step back and let him run shit like he knows he can the whole education crisis would disappear.

I think he's probably right, and may have the opportunity to prove it in his work with Skoll.
posted by The Straightener at 7:55 PM on January 16, 2007

Nice post about a guy I'd never heard of who's clearly worth celebrating.
posted by languagehat at 5:30 AM on January 17, 2007