Fixing Education’s Secrecy Problem #makereducation

FastCoExist published a story on Jim Shelton, the deputy secretary of education, who plans to use technology to make the education system more transparent to the public:

Education is a system shrouded in secrecy. Parents don’t know which schools are best for their kids, most educators can’t learn the tricks of their best colleagues, and students usually get feedback after they take a test. Now that the Department of Education has promoted their resident technology guru, Jim Shelton, to the number two spot in the organization, he’s bringing his tech chops to fix our education system with a little dose of Silicon Valley meritocracy and a heap of transparency.

“Right now, because of the lack of transparency on outcomes, people focus on lots of other things,” Shelton, the deputy secretary and chief operating officer at DOE, says. Mediocre colleges can skate by on reputation, even if their graduates aren’t able to get jobs; a struggling elementary school student may get labeled a failure, even if they’re really just stuck on a single concept.

Read more.


Adafruit_Learning_SystemEach Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!


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