On today's episode, how a former teacher turned education innovation leader navigated remote education for his kids and the trends he's seeing that will impact the sector moving forward.

Jason Weeby is an independent consultant who helps senior education leaders make high-stakes decisions about the future of their organizations so all students have access to high-quality learning opportunities. He advises foundations, nonprofits, school systems, and government agencies that believe innovation can be a force for equity using his 18 years of education sector experiences ranging from a middle school teacher to venture philanthropist.

We talk about how education is woefully underfunded and what some of the obstacles to innovation in the education sector have been. We also talk about the $122B of federal funding coming to schools from the Biden administration as part of the American Rescue Act and how that money can be used. For example, did you know that it can be put towards decarbonizing schools through infrastructure improvements like new electric HVAC systems or heat pumps, solar panels, and even composting toilets.

Jason also shares some of what he's learned doing empathy interviews with parents, teachers and students as part of a consulting engagement he's been working on, and I LOVED hearing how honest students were about how they've found remote education to be compared to traditional, pre-pandemic school.

If you're an education leader or a policy maker, I think this episode provides some great big picture context in which schools today are operating.

Links Mentioned:

• Article about $122B federal investment from the Biden administration
  
• Article on New Schools Venture Fund's $200M Advanced Education Research & Development Fund (AERDF)
  
• National Parents Union
  
• Find Jason Weeby on LinkedIn | Twitter
  

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