Education Nation: A Mostly Great First Effort for NBC

Outgoing NBC chief Jeff Zucker and news head Steve Capus deserve credit for an all in multi-channel commitment to Education Nation.  Despite rain induced facilities challenges it was a good first year outing.

The NBC family, especially MSNBC, may a pretty strong embrace of the administration and the aligned edreform community.  There were a lot of media folks but few of the edtech crowd (many of which were at the simultaneous EdNet in Boston).  Panels seemed about a third off–heavy with sponsors, short of interesting people.  NBC made a strong effort to have 50 great teachers around and in each session.

Tom Brokaw set a great tone and did a nice hour segment with Secretary Duncan on recruiting new teachers.  Duncan was more compelling than Obama during his hour with Lauer where he was articulate but uninspired.  As is always the case at conferences, the hallway chats were the most valuable.