Derek Abbring
I spent 57 weeks in live sessions with thousands of teachers, principals, and superintendents from districts across the country. What they told me about the state of education changed everything I thought I knew about EdTech. So I built something different.
At DataWORKS Educational Research, I spent one hour each week for 57 weeks straight meeting with 2 to 250+ teachers, principals, and superintendents from districts all over the country and around the world. During these webinars, I gathered a lot of data about the problems educators told us they are facing.
Worksheet-based curriculum. Teaching practices that don't work. Not engaging students. Too much teacher talk, not enough student interaction. No personalization. Lesson plans with no research-based foundation. AI helping students cheat. Absenteeism. Textbook costs and outdated materials. State mandated testing pressure. Budget constraints. Too much on teachers' plates. Social media and screen time concerns. EdTech that doesn't deliver results.
And despite all of these issues showing up in districts across the country, what do we see being funded, built, and pushed into schools? AI chatbots repackaged with a school-friendly interface so students can chat with a bot. Tools for teachers to automate lesson plan creation and student feedback built on absolutely no research-based pedagogy or learning science.
These tools are built from a myopic view of what the blocker is for education. The logic goes: "if we remove this one friction point, teachers could do XYZ and that would lead to better outcomes" - meanwhile ignoring the very real, interconnected challenges listed above.
If these tools and their many variations are the only solutions being created, the headlines will write themselves: "EdTech doesn't work." "Computers give too much screen time and students are falling behind." "AI fails to fix education."
And those headlines would be correct... unless the right tool is built to solve multiple issues at once.
That is exactly why I built American Digital Education.
Told Us
Through 57 weeks of direct engagement, I documented these interconnected challenges that districts consistently identified. ADE was purpose-built to address them within a single platform.
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Worksheet-Based Curriculum
Fails to engage students. Replaced by interactive, media-rich lesson experiences.
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No Research Foundation
Addressed through EDI-based lesson design grounded in 80+ research-backed pedagogy and learning science strategies.
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Zero Personalization
Solved with 305 quadrillion+ unique lesson combinations tailored to student interests.
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Too Much Teacher Talk
Countered with built-in CFU checkpoints, verbal response prompts, and adaptive re-teaching.
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Textbook Costs
Eliminated with a $5/student/month subscription delivering always-current, standards-aligned content.
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Absenteeism
Addressed through recapturing Average Daily Attendance funding. When the platform recovers even one day per student, it more than pays for itself for the entire year.
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AI-Enabled Cheating
Mitigated through anti-cheating session management and interactive assessments requiring demonstrated understanding.
American Digital Education is an AI-powered K-12 interactive learning platform delivering standards-aligned, research-backed lessons with real-time personalization, voice interaction, and multilingual support. Every design decision is rooted in what educators identified as their most pressing classroom challenges.
Research-Backed Pedagogy
80+ research-based strategies with Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) principles embedded into every lesson. Structured, engaging instruction, not passive screen time.
305 Quadrillion+ Combinations
Lesson personalization across student interest categories. Learners stay engaged throughout entire lessons while maintaining full standards alignment.
Interactive Learning
Real-time CFU systems, verbal and multiple-choice interactions, and an adaptive re-teaching feature that provides corrective feedback in the moment.
All 50 States' Standards
State-specific standards-aligned content with district-specific pacing guide support. No more manual curriculum alignment for teachers.
75 Languages
Multilingual content delivery with synchronized text-to-speech audio, serving ELL students and diverse school communities equitably.
Enterprise Compliance
FERPA, COPPA, OWASP 2025, WCAG 2.1 AA. Third-party VPAT audit completed. ClassLink SSO with OneRoster for district-wide deployment.
District Dashboards
Real-time progress monitoring, enrollment management, and compliance reporting at student, school, and district levels.
$5/Student/Month
When the platform recovers even one day of attendance per student, it more than pays for itself for the entire year. Two or more days and the district recovers funding that would normally be lost.
Built ADE from the ground up as an AI-powered K-12 interactive learning platform delivering standards-aligned, research-backed lessons with real-time personalization, voice interaction, and multilingual support.
- Conducted 57 consecutive weeks of live webinar sessions with 2 to 250+ educators per session including teachers, principals, curriculum directors, and superintendents from districts across the United States and internationally.
- Systematically documented the top issues educators reported: worksheet-based curriculum, lack of student engagement, no personalization, teaching practices without research foundations, rising absenteeism, textbook costs, budget constraints, AI-enabled cheating, and EdTech that fails to deliver measurable outcomes.
- Built deep expertise in Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) methodology and research-based pedagogy through direct collaboration with DataWORKS founders and education researchers.
- Developed outreach programs connecting with K-12 administrators, education service centers, and university education departments nationwide.
- Contributed to multiple multi-million-dollar RFP wins for K-12 educational services by translating educator needs into research-grounded proposals.
Operated a tech-focused digital marketing and services agency serving Fortune 50 brands, startups, and high-profile clients. Built expertise in data analytics, user experience optimization, security, and scalable technology systems that directly informed ADE's platform architecture.
Built for K-12 deployment.
Platform
React/TypeScript frontend, Python/Flask backend, PostgreSQL with Row-Level Security, Supabase, Heroku cloud deployment, CI/CD pipelines
Security & Compliance
FERPA, COPPA, OWASP 2025, NIST 800-63B, WCAG 2.1 AA, AES-256 encryption, role-based access control, immutable audit logging
District Integration
ClassLink SSO/OneRoster, Google OAuth, Microsoft OAuth, SAML 2.0, administrative dashboards, SIS connectivity
Content Delivery
AI-powered lesson generation, standards crosswalk (all 50 states), text-to-speech synthesis, multilingual architecture (75 languages), personalization engine
Dr. Larry Federico
Decades of K-12 curriculum development and instructional leadership ensuring all ADE content meets the highest pedagogical standards.
Dr. Scott Pickle
Education administration leader focused on school operations, district partnerships, and implementation strategy.
- B.S., Health Communications: Grand Valley State University, 2006
- Google Labs Certified Python Developer: 2023
- Additional: Google Ads, Microsoft BI & Virtualization, SQL Server