Innovation & Open Education Data - Education datapalooza
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And now a few words from another sponsor Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy
Secretary of Department of Education. Welcome Jim.
Good morning. So it's at this point that you go okay I know he didn't develop an
app. I know he can't invest in a business. What is he going to say? I want to say
three things and I want to then tell you a quick story.
The first thing is I want to say thank you. Everyone here is doing incredible work
that is transforming the field in a variety of ways that you're starting to get a
glimpse of as we sit around here today. But the second thing I want to say is many
of you know that I worked with Joe Klein when he first went into New York City
and he said something really interesting to me like a few weeks as we walked
around the district and looked at all the things that were going on and people
were reporting out. He said "A thousand flowers blooming no semblance of
a garden yet." And I say that not to be discouraging but
for us to remember that everyone in this room is actually a really important part of
a much broader potential mosaic. That will either come together or not, depending
on our ability to find a way to weed these pieces together into an ecosystem that
is actually healthy and supportive. Which brings me to the third point, so what
is next after this? If we move to this day, do our presentations, and then go our
separate ways then the game changing moment that the Secretary talked
about is not likely to come. We have had moments like this before where we've gathered
up lots of energetic folks with lots of ideas and lots of opportunities.
The context has been different, lots of things have been different, but what we actually
have today is an opportunity where we've got critical mass and we've got
a context where we have leadership at every level, whether it be federal, state
and local, that understands that transformation is absolutely necessary.
Now why is that important? Well think about the power of all of the things that
you heard about today if they actually were connected. Think about the power of
every student having access to broadband and data platforms and devices and
teachers having those things. Think about what would happen if the applications
had inoperable standards that allowed them to seamlessly flow the data across.
Those things are the things that will allow these individual outstanding efforts to
turn into those things that are catalytic for broader transformation.
I know I am singing to the choir here but I also know how easy it is to walk out of
the room and get back into your core work, and then forget about the things that
are actually going to allow this sector to be transformed the way many others
have. So let me end with this story because I know I'm kind of a downer.
I too got to go out with the Secretary on the bus tour. And anybody who has seen
me in the last two weeks knows I've been obsessed with the experiences I had on
that trip. But there was one moment that actually just brought it all home for me
and I want to share it with you, because you in your work are enabling these kinds
of moments. One of the places we went to visit was Eastern
Kentucky Berea Appalachian community, suffers the ills that many Appalachian
communities do. They have been fortunate they both won an I3 grant and
a Promised Neighborhood grant. And I went to visit the schools one of the
places where this was being implemented. And met a really outspoken student,
but ended my day with a nice roundtable of students telling me what they
though the most important changes in the school were.
One of the big changes was their big I3 grant was to introduce a ton of AP courses
in the school. Promised Neighborhoods had put counselors and things like that in
the school and provided some of their programs. So they went around the circles
and I said "Tell me what the one idea you want me to take away." And I came to
the last student a young man named Rex. And Rex said "I know we talked about the AP
courses and those are really great, but they're actually not the most important
thing. I know we talked about the resources because our teachers work really
hard, but without any resources it's hard for them. We were doing ROTC with brooms,
it was nice to have resources but that actually is not the most important
thing. The most important thing is we actually used to be an I Can't school and
now we are actually an I Can school. I can take AP courses, I can go to college, I can
do better than my parents." Well as you can imagine I was a little overwhelmed
in that moment and I feel it again today. But when you think about all
the individual pieces that we are looking at today we're allowing students to
say I can many, many times in many, many ways than they've ever been able to before,
but we need to figure out how to do that for everyone else, each one of
them and fast. This alone won't get us there we need a movement and we need you.
Thank you.
JIM SHELTON, ASSISTANT DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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