NationSwell is a new digital media company focused on high-quality stories about American renewal—about the new innovators, pioneers, and builders who are doing the most creative and impactful things to move America forward. We’re focused on identifying them, telling gripping stories about them, and mobilizing support behind them.
Like you, we are frustrated by Washington’s dysfunction and the fixation on it. We believe there is more to the story of America today–and if we shift the lens and look beyond Washington, we will discover that the solutions to our national challenges are all around us.
We’re inspired by the people who are rolling up their sleeves and the things they are doing–to spur advancements in education and environmental sustainability; to make government work better for citizens; to engage more people in national service; to support our veterans and their families; to revitalize our economy and advance the American dream; and more.
cities
Idea Village: 5 Things We Can Learn from the Folks Bringing Startups to New Orleans
In the mid-1980s, New Orleans was in a downward spiral, in part because of its longstanding political corruption and failing education system, but also because the once-thriving Louisiana energy industry tanked as soon as oil prices fell to $10 a barrel. Statewide, one out of every eight people was unemployed. Economic hardship drove residents toward opportunities in more prosperous places such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, New York, and Boston. The exodus was most prevalent among 23-to-35-year-olds, the very demographic that could have provided the fresh ideas and innovative businesses essential for growing the state’s economy and addressing its pressing social issues.
Analytics + Data
Will Bringing Big Data into the Classroom Help Students Learn Better?
Brad McIlquham was tutoring at-risk youth in Durham, N.C., when a former co-worker gave him the educator’s equivalent of the Social Network pitch. What if, instead of teaching at most 50 kids a year, you could help bring personalized tutoring to 100,000, or a million kids? McIlquham’s co-worker, Jose Ferreira—who had taught SAT and GMAT prep with McIlquham at Kaplan—was proposing an upending of the traditional “teach to the middle” classroom model. When teachers instruct students of varying ability in the same class, some students get bored, while others struggle. And often, teachers don’t discover which students have failed to understand key concepts until their tests get graded. But by then, they’ve already fallen behind.
