Congress Finally Funds DARPA-Esque Center for Advanced Digital Tech in Education
In 2001, two significant things happened in the realm of public education. Both houses of Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act to set standards for classroom learning, and a group of foundations recommended that the government set up a multibillion dollar fund to research advanced learning technologies. No Child Left Behind became policy, but the fund stalled, leaving behind an opportunity to place the best advanced learning tools in classrooms. Nine years later, the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies has finally received funding and could be investing in a new, tech-savvy brand of education by fall. The center, which will be officially introduced Monday, will be something like what DARPA is to the DoD, or what the National Science Foundation is to science, co-founder Lawrence Grossman told the press. The center will explore ways to get advanced digital tech developed in the...