Blog

eScholar manages a lot of data! We manage billions of educational experience records for millions of individuals from birth through higher education. Several years ago while working with one of our large educational agency partners, our data science team set out to answer a seemingly simple question, “Is it possible to analyze the anonymous records of students that have  … Read more

Posted: September 16th 2016

Are you one among the “nobody like me”? One of the key things we hear from students on our journey to support personalizing education, is a phenomena that we at eScholar have come to call “nobody like me”.  It reveals itself time and time again as, “nobody like me goes to college”, “nobody like me is an engineer” or  … Read more

Posted: March 29th 2016

  For our February Newsletter it seemed, with President’s Day and all the focus on the next election, this would be a good time to talk about Civics Education. I expect it will not be a surprise to the teachers of Civics, U.S. Government and other similar courses that mastery in these courses is highly  … Read more

Posted: February 23rd 2016

I want to respond to comments I have heard on the topic of personalized education that say standards are the antithesis of local control, flexibility, creativity and personalization. Obviously, if we standardized everything about education and applied that standard to all students, we would have a system much less local, creative and personal than we  … Read more

Posted: February 2nd 2016

What a year it has been! 2015 marks 18 years of delivering innovative data systems to educators across the country.  In this 18th year, we have seen our impact in the education field expand in every way.  We have delivered increasingly powerful capabilities to ever-broader audiences.  There are now more states using eScholar’s technology to  … Read more

Posted: December 22nd 2015

I am excited to have another opportunity to meet with the Virginia educators next week at the VSBA Conference. We are excited about the level of interest Virginia educators have shown in the unique capabilities of eScholar myTrack®, particularly our focus on student goals, interventions and alerts. Having been chosen as one of only two  … Read more

Posted: November 16th 2015

One of the first things that struck me when we became involved in education data nearly 20 years ago was how educators prioritize safeguarding student data. It makes sense when you consider the focus educators place on protecting students. Since that moment, we have embraced this same set of priorities:   Protect students and their data. Use  … Read more

Posted: May 27th 2015

NYSCATE’s annual conference has always been about interaction and collaboration. Sure we’re a bunch of technology geeks, but technology is only useful insofar as it helps people. I’m honored and excited to be one of NYSCATE 2014’s keynote speakers. I’ll be speaking on Monday, November 24th at 2:30 p.m. in the Rochester Convention Center’s Exhibit  … Read more

Posted: November 19th 2014

As many of you know, I’m the proud parent of two great kids. My daughter is a sophomore in high school, and my son is now a senior and working on his college applications. A while ago, he and I were working our way through his SAT prep book when the remarkable happened. He relaxed  … Read more

Posted: September 29th 2014

Parents and students should have more control over how data about them and their education are used. We believe they should have this control regardless of who is managing their data on their behalf. In our experience, most school districts, state education agencies and higher education institutions take advantage of a mix of in-house and “outside parties” to run their operations, including managing data. If this is done well, it should appear seamless to the parent and student. No matter who is managing the data, all parties must be held to the same standards to provide transparency while still protecting student privacy.

Posted: August 12th 2014

This spring, eScholar held a Goal Matters Essay and Video Contest for students ages 8-17. As we read and watched hundreds of creative entries to choose winners and finalists, we were inspired by how driven, articulate, and optimistic these young students are. It’s clear that they are serious about their future aspirations. Many are motivated  … Read more

Posted: June 13th 2014

When we launched the inaugural eScholar student contest last year around the theme of why education matters, it became clear from the entries we received that most students understood their education is relevant because they all had clear goals they wanted to achieve. Focused on personalized education with a mission to help individual student succeed  … Read more

Posted: June 11th 2014