According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 35% of U.S. fourth graders in 2019 could read proficiently [0]. The pandemic has only made this worse [1] [2]. Once students start to fall behind in reading, they fall further and further behind their peers each year. What is, perhaps, most criminal is that there is a mountain of research [3][4][5][6][7] about what works, and yet these approaches aren’t employed nor even well-known.

I am a former principal engineer at a FAANG/MAMAA/etc. [8] company turned independent educational researcher, and I believe I have developed a novel edtech approach to address this learning gap. I am collaborating with a few data scientists and educators, but am searching for UX designers, curriculum designers, writers, and marketers who can help make this a reality.

In brief, one of the core challenges in edtech is how to build an engaging app that actually results in learning (many apps resort to psychological tricks [9] and gamification hacks [10] that are long-term detrimental.) Although I have a high-level direction for how to achieve this, my skill set is mostly in backend development and public speaking.

If you are interested, please reach out to (my HN username) @ (Microsoft's not cold email domain acquired in 1997).

[0] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/

[1] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2022/

[2] https://caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/CALDER%20Workin...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_Through_(project)

[4] https://www.nifdi.org/what-is-di/project-follow-through

[5] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Russell-Gersten/publica...

[6] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED472569.pdf

[7] http://arthurreadingworkshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/...

[8] MANGA, GAMMA, NAAAM, M2A3, Big Tech, Big 4, Big 5, or really whatever you would like to call them.

[9] Skinner boxes, daily rewards, resource decay, loss aversion, etc.

[10] Leaderboards, points, badges, etc.