Aaron Scheinberg ’11Journal #1
This summer I have the amazing opportunity to be an Education Pioneers Fellow in New York City and a consultant at Wireless Generation. Education Pioneers is a consortium of highly motivated and talented graduate students from diverse backgrounds whose mission is to transform K-12 public education. Think of it as a graduate-level “Teach for America” for public education management and leadership.
So far, I have been extremely impressed with my co-fellows and with the level of discussion and training. In addition to the weekly learning and problem-solving sessions that Education Pioneers hosts at the New York City Charter School Center, we are all coupled with a partner organization. Instead of just learning about education reform, all 71fellows are employed full-time by a leading education organization. Some of our fellows are at nonprofits, foundations, and government organizations (like the New York City Department of Education). Others, like me, are working with for-profit businesses in the K-12 education sector. This structure enables all of us to build a network throughout the entire K-12 education landscape and paint a full picture of the reform movement.
Education Pioneers spends a lot of time matching us with these partner organizations. Using a comprehensive HR system, we are matched based on our experience and skills. I have been matched with the perfect organization, Wireless Generation, which stands at the intersection of the private sector and social enterprise. Wireless Generation is a leader in K-12 education software development. Based in Brooklyn, they provide products, services, and research that will help to transform the classroom and make the most of technological development. Wireless Generation is the consulting lead for New York City’s School of One, which creates individualized and tailored instruction and uses a complex algorithm for content presentation — a model for the classroom of the future.
Journal #2
Every school needs to be able to better recruit, retain, and reward effective teachers. At Wireless Generation, I worked with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching, which helps build a school’s data capacity and develop an innovative dashboard software program that easily displays school and teacher data. This $290 million project will help four school districts to answer, “So what?” and, “Now what?” regarding providing effective instruction. During the summer, I created a data-mapping plan to prioritize the data collection strategy for the school districts.
The biggest take-away for me while working on this project is realizing how difficult it is to compare schools on even quantitative elements. Trying to collect data from these four districts has illustrated why we have only been using national test scores to measure teachers, schools, and students. There simply is not enough capacity for the schools to collect the right data. In order for schools and teachers to be properly evaluated, thousands of school districts around the country (there are over 13,000 school districts in the United States) will need to systematically collect, monitor, and calculate hundreds of pieces of data elements.
This is no easy undertaking, but, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with Wireless Generation, have begun the process. The pilot project will allow four school districts to set the pace for other districts for building out data capacity and analysis. The entire process will take years, and will require school leadership to prioritize data collection. However, until we can take into account the multiple variables in school and teacher success, comparing the success of students across the country will be quite difficult and politically volatile.
Journal #3
To celebrate the end of the Education Pioneers Summer Fellowship Program, Education Pioneers put together a showcase event for all of the fellows and partner organizations. I was selected from 71 of my peers to speak at the event and to talk about our summer experience, and there were over a hundred sponsors in attendance.
