“5 Things That Should Be Done To Improve The US Educational System”, with Brian Potash of OverDrive Education

An Interview With Penny Bauder

Assessments and evaluations of both teachers and students: The current structure puts the focus on the wrong area. Many teachers are creating students that have the ability to read but not students who actually want to. As a result of current assessments, educators are encouraged to teach for the test with the goal of receiving a passing grade. However, every student learns differently, and teachers are often unable to accommodate that.

As a part of my interview series about the things that should be done to improve the US educational system I had the pleasure to interview Brian Potash. Brian has spent the past decade partnering with schools, helping increase literacy and reading practice with access to digital books. He leads the OverDrive Education team in developing school plans with ebooks and audiobooks to meet the wide range of student and educator needs.

Thank you so much for doing this with us, Brian! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the “backstory”behind what brought you to this particular career path?

I started by working in the public library division at OverDrive in 2007, providing ebooks and audiobooks to libraries worldwide. About 10 years ago, I began having conversations with schools to develop a digital solution to their unique needs. This predates iPads, Kindles and 1-to-1 initiatives. Schools knew they wanted to start incorporating ebooks and audiobooks into their classrooms and curriculum, but they weren’t sure how to do so efficiently and effectively. As a result, I helped develop and launch OverDrive Education and our K-12 digital solutions.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Early on in the K-12 division — before smart devices, data security and Wi-Fi were widely available in schools — we shipped a physical hard drive to a school that included a platform which allowed students to discover and use ebooks and audiobooks. At that time, the digital content needed to be physically located in the school district in order to be used. Very soon thereafter, with the growth of Wi-Fi, secure networks and connectivity with devices, we realized a hard drive was not an efficient way of delivering digital content to a wide variety of users.

The lesson learned was how to shift and adapt to our partners’ needs and evolving technology environments. This situation helped us grow and showed that we can’t be afraid of trying new things or being experimental for the betterment of serving our partners. That mentality has always been a part of our culture, but I used this specific situation as a lesson to never stop learning and innovating.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Our goal has always been to get students engaged with reading. The best way to do that is give students more access and more choices to content. We’re in a unique position because most public libraries in the US and Canada are using OverDrive for digital lending of ebooks and audiobooks. Because of this, we can help schools develop their own digital reading collections, but also leverage our public library partners’ materials by making them available to students through our classroom reading app, Sora.

The more access we can provide to digital books for students, whether through their school or public library, the more they’ll be encouraged to read and learn. We know reading has been positively correlated with happiness, social and emotional intelligence, academic career longevity and learning potential. Here’s a good article that identify many of the benefits: https://www.rd.com/culture/benefits-of-reading/

Can you briefly share with our readers why you are authority in the education field?

For 12 years, I’ve been with the company, OverDrive, that is the leading provider of ebooks and audiobooks to people of all ages. I’ve been leading teams providing digital solutions in the K-12 space for a decade. I also consider myself a lifelong learner and try to bring that learning and growth mentality into the company, as well as encourage innovation.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. From your point of view, how would you rate the results of the US education system?

The challenge with answering this question is that the US education system is so broad. This means you’ll find forward-learning districts providing amazing and unique programming for their students with great results, while there are also districts struggling to meet students’ basic needs.

Can you identify 5 areas of the US education system that are going really great?

As mentioned above, not every district has the funding or capacity to offer as much as they wish they could. Keeping this in mind, there are several areas that are operating very well, in my opinion.

1. The educators in our country are so passionate about their students and their communities.
2. There are many schools adopting personalized learning experiences, like choice reading and project-based learning. Choice reading allows students to be excited about what they are reading, therefore they are more engaged. Project based learning allows students to use skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. It also provides the opportunity for student input in the process.
3. Schools are providing different kinds of technology in the classroom to enhance learning opportunities. From interactive whiteboards to augmented and virtual reality, schools are providing new and unique learning experiences that have never been available.
4. Many schools are offering unique programming to students including coding classes, production classes, maker spaces and more. This exposes students to a wider variety of advanced learning opportunities.
5. Many schools put a focus on reading and offering reading-focused programming like DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) and SSR (Sustained Silent Reading).

Can you identify the 5 key areas of the US education system that should be prioritized for improvement? Can you explain why those are so critical?

1. Reading. Reading is well known as a key, perhaps the most important, skill that is one of the greatest predictors of academic success.
2. Assessments and evaluations of both teachers and students: The current structure puts the focus on the wrong area. Many teachers are creating students that have the ability to read but not students who actually want to. As a result of current assessments, educators are encouraged to teach for the test with the goal of receiving a passing grade. However, every student learns differently, and teachers are often unable to accommodate that.
3. Funding: Many times, the people making the decisions are not the ones in the classrooms. Because of this, school funding is insufficient and often allocated incorrectly.
4. Equity: The endless struggles of the haves and the have nots create challenges for schools, even within an individual district. Students might have a completely different experience depending on which school they attend.
5. Value of teachers: Teachers are underappreciated. We need to elevate the value of teachers in our society as a whole and recognize they are professionals who are responsible for our future.

How is the US doing with regard to engaging young people in STEM? Can you suggest three ways we can increase this engagement?

The US could be doing better by:

1. Increasing access to technology within the classroom.
2. Connecting STEM with real world applications and career paths.
3. Connecting STEM to what students are already doing and may not realize are related. For example, a love of the video game Minecraft can be explained as an enjoyment of building and engineering. The more teachers can break out of the classroom structure and apply learning to real life, the better.

Can you articulate to our readers why it’s so important to engage girls and women in STEM subjects?

This is important because there are biases and stereotypes in STEAM careers that need to be addressed. Everyone who has an interest in STEAM should have an equal opportunity to develop an aptitude and excel in that area.

How is the US doing with regard to engaging girls and women in STEM subjects? Can you suggest three ways we can increase this engagement?

I believe it’s important that this is being recognized as a focus and need.

1. Introducing young women to stories of female leaders in science and math fields. For instance, popular non-fiction books such as Hidden Figures and Reaching for the Moon are increasing the public’s awareness of STEAM females who thrive in typically male-dominated fields.
2. More programming geared toward young women which connect to real world applications and careers they can pursue.
3. Dedicated funding: grants and scholarships to support STEAM programming in K-12 as well as higher education.

As an education professional, where do you stand in the debate whether there should be a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) or on STEAM (STEM plus the arts like humanities, language arts, dance, drama, music, visual arts, design and new media)? Can you explain why you feel the way you do?

I believe in STEAM. By introducing students to stories and narratives that focus on topics of science, technology, engineering, arts and math, we can connect students to both STEM and STEAM. Literary non-fiction and even stories of fiction can open up a world of learning based on science and facts.

For example, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an award-winning non-fiction novel about the African American woman who was vital to developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization and more. The Martian is a science fiction novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars who uses his engineering skills to survive. Both novels are valuable ways to connect with young readers and open them up to new possibilities.

If you had the power to influence or change the entire US educational infrastructure what five things would you implement to improve and reform our education system? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. The approach to reading: most states guarantee students can read by third grade, but that’s not guaranteeing they’ll enjoy reading. We need to do more to encourage the love of reading.
2. More access to books: we know that more access to books is correlated to higher literacy and overall success.
3. More personalized learning: we know different students learn differently. A single set of instructions in a classroom is not going to help every student in that classroom.
4. More equitable access to technology. Through our Sora student reading app, we know that students engage with, on average, one additional book during the school year than they normally would because of access to digital books. In the Sora app, student reading more than doubles throughout the course of the year when schools add access to their local public library.
5. Funding. Underfunded districts are much too common and therefore don’t have access to teachers, programs or tools needed to set their students up for success.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Our job is obvious: We need to get out of the way, shine a light, and empower a new generation to teach itself and to go further and faster than any generation ever has.” ―Seth Godin. This quote speaks to me because I’ve always felt empowered to learn and innovate and I see so much of this reflected in what teachers are experiencing now. They’re helping to prepare students for a world and careers beyond our imagination.

We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Being a native Clevelander, I’d like to meet Lebron James because not only has he done fantastic things on the basketball court, he’s also given back so much to his community. He started an Akron public elementary school called the I Promise School that’s specifically geared toward at-risk children and also applies STEM-based curriculum.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@OverDriveEducation on Facebook and @OverDriveEd on Twitter

Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!

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About the author:

Penny is an environmental scientist-turned-entrepreneur. She’s worked as a climate scientist, an environmental planner, and a wilderness park ranger. Motivated by a passion to raise a generation of environmental leaders, in 2010 Penny founded Green Kid Crafts, a children’s media company that provides kids around the world with convenient and eco-friendly STEAM activities. Today, it’s become a leader in the subscription industry, with over 1 million packages shipped worldwide that have exposed a generation to think about and take a leadership role in sustainability. Penny, her husband Jeff, and her children Rowan and Declan live together in San Diego, California. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Management and an M.S. in Environmental Science. Penny has over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, management, strategy and finance. She’s a seasoned leader, an inspiring speaker, an encouraging business mentor, and a creative writer. You can learn more about Green Kid Crafts at https://www.greenkidcrafts.com/ and follow Penny’s stories and updates at https://www.instagram.com/greenkidcrafts/ and https://twitter.com/bauderpenny.