Aaron Tang - Your Path in Eight Questions

Aaron Tang
Executive Director, Our Education

1)  What was your reputation on the playground as a child?

As a really young child, I was fairly shy and introverted on the playground, almost an “indoor kid” really!  It was only after I started to play more sports around the time of fifth grade when I started to develop confidence and be more outgoing with other children.

2)  What do you do and why do you do it?

As the Director of Our Education (www.OurEd.org) I work with high school and college students across America to increase public attention and demand for improving K-12 public education.  We do it because we believe that every American child—no matter where they are born, how much money their parents have, and what color their skin may be—should have a fundamental right to a high quality educational opportunity.

3)  How did you land your current gig?

I founded Our Education with a group of friends during college by raising money to support local student organizing initiatives in New Haven, CT.  Upon graduating from college I was lucky enough to obtain seed funding from Echoing Green and a few other foundations to launch a national organizing initiative around a federal constitutional amendment guaranteeing children quality public education.

4)  Where do you spend most of your time?

After working full time for two years with Our Education through the fall of 2007, I decided to spend last school year as a middle school teacher in a St. Louis City public school.  So I spent most of my time this last year both at school and after school working with students, grading papers, and designing lesson plans! I continue to work with Our Education and a student Youth Action Board that leads the organization by connecting with as many students across the country as possible through online and in-person outreach.

5)  Who influenced you most on your path to where you are today and in what way?

The greatest influence in my life has been the students I have met and worked with as a teacher and youth organizer over the past several years.  Coming from a quality public education experience of my own in Northeast Ohio, it was a shock for me to realize that millions of children simply did not have access to the same kind of passionate and supportive teachers and schools that I had.  Yet I am consistently amazed at how bright these children are in spite of their educational environments, and inspired by their desire to learn and better themselves.  If so many of our children are willing to fight for their education, why shouldn’t I and other adults be willing to fight to provide them with the resources and opportunities they deserve?

6)  If you reviewed your recent web browsing history, what sites do you frequent that reveal most about who you are and what you’re thinking about lately?

My homepage is www.bloglines.com, which is a feed service that tracks my favorite blogs.  Most of my feeds are education-related (www.eduwonk.com is my #1 policy read) and a good number are also sports related.  I’m a diehard baseball fan and Cleveland sports fan!

7)  What’s the last big mistake you made that you’ve learned from?

Just this summer I made the mistake of trusting a ticket scalper at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China who was selling entrance tickets after the official ticket window closed at 4 PM.  Rather than doing my own fact-finding by walking up to the entrance where I would have learned that the gate was shut for the rest of the day, I decided just to trust a sneaky looking fellow who assured me that the tickets he was selling would still get me in!  The lesson I learned?  Don’t make important decisions until you have done the legwork and gathered as much information as you can!

8)  What would you list as “must have” items in every social innovator toolkit? (books, music, software, etc)

My life would have been a lot harder without QuickBooks software for accounting, a couple of pleasure reads for de-fragging, and great music to relax to!  My favorite musician these days is Martin Sexton, particularly his album Black Sheep. He’s one of those eminently talented singer-songwriters who for some reason hasn’t made it big even though he’s been recording for 15 years.  

Biography:

Aaron Tang is a twenty-four year old graduate of public schools in Painesville, Ohio.  He is a 2005 graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in political science.  During the summers of his sophomore and junior year of college, he taught at Aspire, a tuition free summer program for Cleveland inner-city middle school students, summers which he considers to be among the most important and formative experiences of his life.  He currently works as the Executive Director of Our Education (www.OurEd.org), has taught 8th grade US History in St. Louis City public schools, and will be starting his first year at Stanford Law School in the fall of 2008.

Aaron is a 2004 Truman Scholar, 2005 USA Today All-USA College Academic First Team honoree, and recipient of the 2005 Alpheus Henry Snow Prize given by Yale University Faculty to the graduating senior who “through the combination of intellectual achievement, character and personality... has done the most for Yale by inspiring in his or her classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship.”  Along with Ethan he was named one of the “World’s Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs” by Echoing Green, and is a 2005 winner of the American Eagle Outfitters Live Your Life competition for his work on Our Education.  He is also a founding board member of Prepare The Future, a national education organizing initiative and a weekly blogger at www.wiretapmag.org.