Students need tech skills for more than just jobs — they need it to be good citizens

For each of the achievers part of the education that prepared them for success happened outside traditional school settings, and one of them in particular has been tenacious about changing education so that students won’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

That would be George D. “Pinky” Nelson, a former astronaut and a champion of education reform who taught at the University of Washington and Western Washington University.