After School Club: Dartmouth College – Tuck's Education Club

Elliot Gillerman, co-president of Dartmouth College: Tuck's Education Club, talks about the most dynamic methods to improving education in the United States. He also debates whether it would be efficient to have a private education system similar to the country's healthcare system.

 

 

The two main goals of the Tuck Education Club are: to serve as a resource for students interested in education as a career path, and to promote awareness of education issues in the Tuck community.

 

Most of our classmates won’t pursue careers in education, but they will be exposed to issues in the education system over the course of their careers. Whether you’re the parent of a student or a business leader charged with developing your company’s human capital, it’s important that you understand how education impacts society at large.

 

 

We count 57 students among our active members, but our events and activities are open to the entire Tuck community.

 

 

This year the club primarily focused on providing education-internship and career opportunities to students, through job treks to New York and Boston.

 

As club leaders for next year we’re excited to maintain the club’s career focus, while also building more awareness among our classmates of the important role that education plays in society. We’re also looking forward to developing relationships with education club leaders at other business schools, to build a network of like-minded MBA students.

 

 

Many of the major trends in education today – education technology, standards-based assessments, and rigorous teacher training, just to name a few – are driven by the belief that learning outcomes can and should be measured.

 

If we can identify the solutions that work and then scale them successfully, we’ll make a lot of progress toward improving education at every level of the system.

 

This is particularly important for districts and governments as they consider which solutions and technology in which to invest. Taxpayers deserve to know they’re getting a good return on their investment, and measuring learning outcomes will go a long way toward achieving that goal.

 

 

There’s no shortage of private institutions in American education, some of which are great and some of which are terrible, so the choice between private and public is a bit of a misnomer.

 

The challenge for the future is figuring out how to take the best practices from each system and apply them in ways that will improve quality across the board. Competition is a good thing, but the healthcare industry has taught us that it’s often easier said than done.

 

The good news is that today there’s a lot of exciting innovation happening within both the healthcare and education industries, and hopefully that innovation will result in better outcomes for all.