WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation today announced the winners of its nationwide Future of Data in K-12 Education Design Challenge – six education stakeholders who presented a unique idea to improve assessments and accountability in K-12 education. The Design Challenge was launched as part of the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s Future of Data initiative, which seeks to create better education outcomes for all K-12 students through improved measurement of student learning.
The initiative comes at a critical time for students and educators: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, revealed that most states saw alarming declines in student achievement in both math and reading from 2019 to 2022. This data follows other recent disappointing NAEP results, which together point to historic learning losses incurred during the pandemic.
Rising to meet this challenge, the winners reflect an esteemed group of thought leaders and innovators representing Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Chicago. Each proposal was reviewed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Future of Data Working Group, and evaluated based on a set of guiding principles including ambition and feasibility, coherence, thoroughness, creativity, and equity.
"The Design Challenge was truly an opportunity for the most creative thinkers in the field to help us envision the future of data in public education," noted Cheryl Oldham, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. "At a time like this, when the data has shown that students are falling further and further behind, we need to turn to innovative solutions to prevent further learning loss in the future."
Future of Data in K-12 Education Design Challenge winners include:
- Chad Aldeman, Founder and Principal, Aldeman Education LLC
- Trish Dziko, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Technology Access Foundation
- Laurie Gagnon, CompetencyWorks Program Director, The Aurora Institute
- Dr. Heather Lechner, Executive Director of Education, Technology Access Foundation
- Dr. Jing Liu, Assistant Professor in Education Policy, University of Maryland College Park
- Denise McLean, Director of Professional Learning, Technology Access Foundation
- Elliot Regenstein, Partner, Foresight Law + Policy
- Dr. Marguerite Roza, Research Professor, Georgetown University
Learn more about the Design Challenge winners and their proposals.
The selected winners will be recognized at an event with the Future of Data Working Group in Washington, D.C., where they will present their proposals and discuss realistic paths toward implementation. The winners will also be awarded cash prizes of $30,000 each.
The Future of Data in K-12 Education initiative provides an opportunity to refine and improve upon existing policies and re-evaluate K-12 education data to provide more meaningful, actionable steps forward. The Design Challenge represents a significant step in the initiative, which strives to improve the use of data, assessments, and accountability in education, and to lay out a vision and agenda for the future.
