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Brett van Zuiden

Product Manager at Outschool - We're hiring PMs!

Brett van Zuiden is dedicated to helping people reach their full potential and aims to foster a positive impact on society. He excels in creating diverse and mission-driven teams to drive innovation and change across various industries. With a passion for encouraging and developing talent, Brett has a keen interest in education to support children in realizing their talents. Beyond his professional pursuits, he enjoys cooking, soccer, side projects, and aikido, calling Oakland his current home. Brett's educational background includes studies at Los Gatos High School, Y Combinator, and a Bachelor's Degree in EECS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With a rich professional history, Brett has served as a Product Lead at Outschool, held PM Lead positions at Clever Inc., IFTTT, and founded Filestack. Additionally, he has interned at Google and iControl Networks.

Highlights

Jun 2 · linkedin

We need to update the way we measure schools to focus on individual student growth.

Now that I'm much closer to the data used for school accountability, it's clear there is a structural flaw in how school ratings are calculated (e.g. the data that powers GreatSchools.org, charter renewals, etc.): they can swing up or down based on the preparedness of incoming students.

The solution is straightforward and easy for states to implement: measure schools based by individual student growth, not single-year snapshots. Celebrate the schools where students make greater than one year’s worth of growth and put pressure on those that cause students to fall behind in the first place. The current system harms the very schools that are doing the most to help.

https://lnkd.in/gP-WwXym

Mar 28 · linkedin

Interesting volunteer project: would you or someone you know be interested in designing an interactive, standards-based report card?

Lots of interesting challenges - designing for non-english-speaking families, figuring out how to enable students to understand where they are today, why, and what they need to do to get to the grade they want, etc. Also opportunities to include non-academic information like attendance, behavior, etc.

We're starting this exploration over the next few weeks, so let me know!

Brett van Zuiden
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Location

Oakland, California, United States