The Classroom Connectivity Gap Is Closed. How Did That Happen?
EducationSuperHighway has only been around since 2012, but this morning they issued a report with a simple message: the classroom connectivity gap has been closed.
That’s not entirely a surprise; last year’s annual report from the non-profit reported that 98% of US schools had high-speed internet access. This year the number is squeaking past 99%, with the vast majority also meeting the FCC 1 Mbps per student standard. Along the way, EducationSuperHighway managed to involve around 80 governors from all 50 states, recast some federal regulations, and approach an unheard-of milestone–become a non-profit organization that will close up shop because it did what it set out to do.
How did they manage all that? I talked to founder Evan Marwell about the secrets of his success.
Marwell had been an entrepreneur four times, successful enough to live comfortably (Marwell takes no salary as CEO of the organization). He had set his sights on the non-profit world, but hadn’t identified his “bold endeavor” of choice until his daughter told him they were unable to stream videos at her school–a private school in Silicon Valley. The second part of his non-profit epiphany came in a DC conversation with a top US tech officer, who explained, “We’re the government. We don’t fix problems.” What he meant was that the government has money, some leverage, and a bully pulpit, but not the human capital to pull off something large scale. And Marwell identified the biggest non-profit problem as getting solutions to scale.
It would be easy for those of us invested in classroom teaching in public education to view Marwell with suspicion; after all, the CONTINUE READING: The Classroom Connectivity Gap Is Closed. How Did That Happen?