The Future of Education (private feed for michael.b.horn@gmail.com)

In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane and I welcomed my colleague Julia Freeland Fisher, the director of education research from the Clayton Christensen Institute. Our conversation explored the potential and challenges AI presents in the educational landscape with a particular focus on Julia’s concerns about AI's impact on human connection and the risk that AI could replace genuine interpersonal relationships.Diane Tavenner:Hey there, I'm Diane, and what you're about to hear is a conversation Michael and I recorded with our guest Julia Freeland Fisher as part of our series exploring the potential impact of AI in education. This is where we're interviewing optimists and skeptics, and I really enjoyed talking with Julia and keep thinking about a few key ideas from the conversation.First, Julia's expertise related to social networks gives her a really important perspective on AI and the potential for it to either harm or help with social networking, which is such a critical factor in career and life opportunities for young people. She was really compelling in talking about how real experiences matter, and I think you're going to enjoy listening to her talk about how using AI to create what she calls infrastructure in digital experiences could enable young people to build social networks. Infrastructure is in contrast to sort of chatbots or agents, which are a really different experience.The conversation caused me to deeply reflect on my own social network, how I created it, and how I use it, and how complex it is. And at the same time, I'm thinking a lot about a handful of young people I know and what their social network is currently, and how AI may or may not be interrupting them building the social networks that they need and will depend on in the future. And then I'm also thinking about that for me and my age and stage, and what does that mean?It's been a fascinating rabbit hole that I'm really hopeful will yield some positive impacts on the product I'm building in the future, and how my behaviors as the leader of a company sort of evolve and respond to this moment in time. All of that to say, I truly cannot wait to thoroughly think through all of these ideas with Michael, but until then, I think you'll really enjoy this conversation we had with Julia.Diane Tavenner:Hey, Michael.Michael Horn:Hey, Diane. Good to see you.Diane Tavenner:You too. So, Michael, since we started this miniseries on AI and have begun interviewing all these really interesting people, I've started to notice AI literally everywhere in my life. And so I remembered something about this from my psychology days, and I had a conversation with yes, GPT about this to try to make sense of what's going on. And it turns out there is a particular psychological phenomenon that is going on here. I think I'm going to pronounce this correctly. It's the Baader Meinhof phenomenon. It's also known as the frequency illusion.And basically what happens is when you learn something new, you think about it, you focus on it, and then you start noticing it everywhere. And this is the result of two cognitive biases. So the first one is selective attention bias, where your brain is now sort of primed to notice the thing you've been thinking about, so you pay more attention to it in your environment. And then the second is confirmation bias. You know, once you notice it repeatedly, you interpret this as evidence that it's suddenly more common, even though its frequency hasn't actually changed. I don't know about you, I find this fascinating how our brain sort of filters and amplifies information based on what we're focused on. And so, yeah, that's happening to me. Just to illustrate my confirmation bias.I'm actually going to say out loud that I do think AI is everywhere. And I'm betting the person we are about to talk to today might feel the same because a lot of her recent work is on AI.Michael Horn:Well, I think you have nailed the lead in Diane. That's a perfect segue as well for today's guest, who I suspect is nodding along, excited to have her Julia Freeland Fisher. I'll say up front, I'm really excited about this one because Julia has been a longtime colleague and friend of mine. I hired her at the Christensen Institute as a research fellow. And then when I left full time a decade ago, just about a decade ago, she stepped in as my successor. It was like a version 2.5 or 3.0 or something like that. We jumped ahead several generations.So it was terrific. And I couldn't be more thrilled, frankly, about the work that she's done since because she's really elevated the important topic of social capital into the education conversation. She's frankly, taught me a ton along the way. The book that if you want to sort of catch up on it that she wrote a few years ago is Who You Know. But most recently, she published some really interesting research about AI in education titled Navigation and Guidance in the Age of AI, which we'll link to in the show notes. But I'm sure we're going to get into that and much more. But first, Julia, before we do that, just welcome to Class Disrupted. Great to see you.Julia Freeland Fisher:Thank you. So honored to be here with both of you.Michael Horn:Well, we hope you'll still feel that way by the end, but yeah, but before we get into a series of questions we have for you, actually, let's table set a little bit and share with the audience. How did you get so deep into this topic of AI itself? Because, as we said, you've been researching social capital for several years now in education. You've thought a lot about the role of technology in that equation, clearly. And you thought a lot about how schools perhaps should redesign themselves to become more permeable, if you will, to the outside world. But why AI and what's been the scope of your research around it?Reimagining EdTech for Human ConnectivityJulia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, historically I was sort of obsessed with the concept of, and I'm putting this in air quotes, edtech that connects. I've been really disheartened, but still optimistic that there's a long runway of innovation if we were to start to think about education technology, not just in service of content delivery or productivity or assessment, but also in service of connection, that young people could overcome the boundaries of their existing networks, they could connect with peers and protect professionals that shared their interests, that there's just so much possibility if we started to do in the classroom what many of us do in our working lives, using technology to connect across time and space. So I've been studying that for a long time, and it has been a small but mighty market, certainly not something that has grown significantly and that has made me painfully aware of just how much the ed tech market ignores connection as part of the value proposition of school. And so enter AI, and we'll get into this more. But you know, for all of its sort of fantastic productivity, upside and intelligence, the piece of AI that I've been paying attention to is the tendency to anthropomorphize it and to make it human-like, to make it capable of mimicking human emotion and empathy and conversation. Because what I see unfolding, and this is not inevitable, it just has to do with how the market absorbs it is a true possibility of disrupting human connection as we know it because we don't value it to the level the market ought to.And because the technology has suddenly taken this dramatic turn towards human-like behavior, affect, tone, etc. So I'm just fascinated by that. And I want those of us inside of education, I want parents to be awake to this kind of dimension of the technology that like wasn't really, it was maybe lurking, but it wasn't really dominant in the edtech sort of old days, the sort of version one of ed tech where we weren't giving these tools the same sort of voice and emotion that I'm seeing now. So that's a little bit of it. But I want to, you know, at various conferences I've been labeled a pessimist and a doomer. I really want to come to this conversation as a realist. Like I'm, I work for the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. I am not anti technology. I am worried about the market conditions inside of which the technology is evolving.Diane Tavenner:Well, Julia, I'm so glad we started there to like just ground everyone in the work you're doing and how you think about it. And I'm going to give you your moment to sort of be the realist. Let's start with just inviting you to sort of make the steel man argument in favor of AI in education. Like in your mind, what's the best case possible scenario for AI in education from your perspective, given your work, you know, as a mother even, you know, like, what's the best possible outcome we could reach?Rethinking Personalized Learning PotentialJulia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, I want to first just describe how surreal it is to have Michael B. Horn and Diane Tavener asking me that question. Like I'm chatting with two luminaries that I've learned so much from in thinking about the potential of tech to really personalize learning. And I know that term gets overused and now it's maybe out of fashion, but like it's a little absurd that I would be providing an answer to you on that. But here I go. Anyways, I think, just quickly, I think the potential to scale a system of personalized content, experiences and support and thinking about those three things actually as kind of separate strands or value propositions being key. The adaptive content and assessment piece may be the most obvious, the most familiar sort of evolution on top of how we've talked about ed tech in the past. But I'm actually probably equally or more excited about the possibility of seamless infrastructure to support a mastery based system that also gets students connected to new people and learning in the real world.And it's infrastructure doing that. It's not the AI talking to the student that's doing that. And I'm not sure how much investment we're seeing that you guys may know more than I do, but that's kind of my vision of what the more time I spend with the tech, the more I see how much that could actually be feasible in a way that even 10 years ago, I think we all had sort of dreams of that. But the tech was a little bit clunky and was, you know, it could create a pathway. But the idea of flexible pathways that actually were adaptive in real world contexts felt a little more out of reach.Diane Tavenner:So let's stay here for just a minute, Julia, because I want to make sure people really understand what you're saying by infrastructure. We've had dialogue around and by the way, I'm working on this, you know, I'm working on this. Got one person in your corner. We're getting closer and closer, but like, we've had a bunch of conversations about sort of chat bots or agents or things like that. And when you're talking infrastructure, that's kind of in contrast to the experience that I think most people are having right now. So just illuminate that a little bit for us. Like make it, make it. So everyone can visualize what you mean.Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah. Let me name two pieces of infrastructure, one of which I know Michael has featured in some of his work, and then another of which I'm not sure if you guys have talked about. So one is a tool called Protopia. It's used in higher education founders Max Leisten, I believe. And the tool that Max has built, you know, he partners with alumni engagement offices. And the way the tool works is students can go onto their career services website, ask a question, and based on the content of the question, Max's tool will call through the alumni directory of that school, find the alum who is best suited to answer the question, and email them directly to their email. There's not a clunky app that you have to go through and if they answer that student's question, fine. If not, it will go to the next best alum to answer the question.So that's infrastructure. It's behind the scenes, it's facilitating an opportunity for learning. And in this case, obviously I'm highlighting it because it's facilitating connection as well. But it's sort of doing the behind the scenes manual work that is not like high quality human work, but is necessary if you want a system where students are moving beyond just a singular predetermined path and actually having opportunities or conversations beyond it. The other one I want to highlight that I actually think is illustrative of why this is exciting and also why I'm like a little bit getting labeled. The doomer is a tool called Project LEO that spun out of Da Vinci schools in Los Angeles. And it's designed to create bespoke individualized projects aligned with the principles of project based learning based on students' interests in they're like ikigai, which is that Japanese Venn diagram thing.What was so exciting in the initial version of this tool is that they were then not only did students get a personalized project aligned to their interests, that aligned also to the teacher's sort of core content that they were trying to hit on, but that it would also connect them to a working professional who would give feedback on their project. Now, as they've rolled out the product, the demand or the willingness to pay for that last feature has been quite limited. So it's not currently sort of part of the main product. And I say that to say like infrastructure for project based learning, that's exciting to me. Right. It's been perennially hard to scale project based learning that's interest based. Diane, this is like again absurd for me to explain, explain this to you, but that's really exciting, right, that it doesn't sit on a teacher's desk to have to create 25 unique projects.I would like to though see the market mature in a way where demand for that last mile connection out to the real world is also there and people are willing to pay a premium for real world experience. So those are just two examples of like it's the behind the scenes creation of stuff that students then do. It's not necessarily a student facing adaptive tool, which I'm not totally down on. Like I think there's a place for that. But that's the infrastructure conversation.Diane Tavenner:Super helpful.AI: Pessimistic and Realistic ConcernsMichael Horn:Yeah, yeah. So Julia, if you've painted that picture of what could be and frankly a layer of AI that's much more invisible, I think facilitating these sort of interactions, experiences, connections and so forth, I'd love you to take now the flip side. And you said you've been labeled a pessimist, so maybe it's. I was gonna say give us the skeptical take, natural side, maybe it's the realistic take. But, let me ask it in this way a little bit more directed because I. We want this part of the conversation which is what do you fear that AI is going to hurt and how and although I'm sure you could also offer like a real, you know, sort of steel man argument here as well. I think that your research has a lot to say around what you're seeing and what implications that might make mean that we ought to be wary or at least on guard about right now.Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah. So there's, there's two things I want to name here, and one of them that I could go on and on about, which is human connection. So I'm going to let me say the first one briefly, which is I'm worried about it harming the concept of experiential learning. And then we'll get to human connection. The concept of experiential learning is so exciting to me. It's what I want for my kids. It's what I want for all kids. And as much as I think that I just described two examples of infrastructure that could get us there, I think the market is much bigger for simulated experiences than actual experiences.And I think a lot of the hype around AI is like, these bots can simulate anything. They can be anyone. You can be pretending to talk to fill in the blank. And yes, that may be a context to develop skills in a more applied way, but it's not real experience. And I'm worried about that for two reasons. One, I think that you run the risk of young people becoming accustomed to sort of synthetic interaction. But two, because if you look at what employers are demanding of entry level work, it is experience, it's not just skills. And Ryan Craig has written a lot about this, the experience gap.As AI actually chips away at entry level work, Higher ed needs to step in and actually prepare students in new ways. But the piece of that I think we're not paying attention to in the education conversation is that that actually requires true experiential learning, not just simulated skills, not sort of performance tasks. And at least from what I'm seeing, and Diane, I'm right where you are at the beginning of the episode of like, I'm just reading all of this stuff through my little doomer lens now. But I just think there's so much more hype, partly because employers are willing to pay for like, simulation experience stuff in the L and D market. There's much more hype around simulation than around, what would it take to scale true experiential learning, which, by which I mean learning skills in an applied context with other humans. Yeah, so that's my number one.But now that was like, not my real rant. My real rant is, I actually think, Michael, that's something you probably thought more about than, than I have.Michael Horn:So yeah, let's hear number two then.Threat to Human ConnectionJulia Freeland Fisher:Okay, so number two, what I think it could hurt is human connection. And I want to put this in a context of what I said initially around bots being anthropomorphized. And this is happening across many different pockets of both the consumer and ed tech market. I think we should be way more worried about the consumer applications. So we're talking here about romantic companion apps like Replica, character AI where people in general and young people included are being drawn into parasocial relationships with bots that emulate and can even exceed sort of human behaviors in meeting those users emotional needs. That is emerging against the backdrop of a long standing loneliness epidemic, which is a lagging indicator of our underinvestment in human connection and inside of schools, it's emerging against the backdrop of what I have observed over the past decade of my research of a lot of sentiment about relationship, but very little strategy, very few metrics guiding whether students are actually connected, very little budget dedicated to human connection again, as a value proposition in its own right. And so it's really, and Michael taught me this, right, Michael taught me disruptive innovation theory.It is a classic disruption story in that loneliness is providing a foothold in the market for these bots to take hold. And there is very little stopping their upward march in the market. There is very little to hinder their growth because we as a society have basically said go get less lonely on your own, like go solve this loneliness thing by yourself. Which is ironic at best and really dangerous at worst. So that's my big concern again, I don't think ed tech is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Like if we asked over the last 20 years what technology most affected young people's lives, like, I'm sure some of our colleagues would like to be like Khan Academy, but I think many of us would agree, like, no, it was commercial tech.Michael Horn:Yeah, sure, yeah. In particular. Well, so let's stay on that because I think you've raised two very interesting challenges and the consumer. I mean, we also know from schools right now that frankly what plays off in the consumer space impacts how engaged teens are and so forth.AI's Impact on Human LearningMichael Horn:In the school experience as well. So I think something that has been on both of Diane and my mind's around the AI conversation is what AI hurts of that, like what will still be relevant, if you will, in the future. Right. And how much is this about replacing outdated structures? I'M going to guess that you think real human relationships and social capital and the like will still be important in the future. I'm hoping you're going to tell me that, but I guess I'd love you to play with this theme a little bit and get a little bit more nuanced, like, so take the experiential learning piece, right? If we're offering simulations as entry level to get someone information of, hey, is this something you want to explore more as an entry point to then get something different, you know, is that a bad thing? Or like, where's the slippery slope? And where is it really chipping away at something that's fundamentally what makes us human and that we ought to really be concerned about handing over to AI.Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, totally. I mean, I think let's look at the upsides real quick, both on the experiential and the human connection front. Like on the experiential, these simulations are a way to scale practice, which we know, again, we use the shorthand of skills, but it's actually we should always be talking about skills and practice. And so I don't want to claim that like simulated practice is a bad thing. It's a great cross training for like developing skills. I think I just worry that the market is so blunt that it treats that as the outcome of interest versus applied skills plus human connections. On the human connection front, you know, I've been looking at the navigation guidance space and there's really two stories emerging. On the one hand, we have the potential to disrupt the social capital advantage that has perpetuated opportunity gaps by giving students from all sorts of backgrounds access to resources, information and guidance that otherwise often travels through inherited networks.So that's huge, right? Like, democratizing access to information and advice is not something that we should devalue in some sentimental name of like preserving human connection. The piece of it, the slippery slope though, right is that what I found in my research, at least based on our interviews with the supply side, is that the demand side really treats navigation and guidance as an information gap, not a connection gap. And we know that an estimated half of jobs and internships come through personal connections. So if you just use AI to solve the information gap piece, you're not doing the last mile work of actually addressing opportunity gaps. You're improving, you're sort of. It's like a rising tide lifts all boats, but the gaps are still going to be there if you don't get the social connection piece right.So that's where I'm very wary of these like self help bots that, you know, tout democratizing access and opportunity but are actually sending the wrong message to young people about just how social the opportunity equation in America is.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. Oh, I could not agree more. Literally. Okay, let's, let's take a little bit of a turn here, Julia, you probably can guess this if you don't know it. One of the things I do for fun in my spare time is imagine the designs of new schools that I would be excited about teaching in or my child would be excited to go to. And so let's go there for a minute. Like if you had a magic wand, you could design the school to look any way you wanted to, presumably using this new technology we have.What parts of AI could you take advantage of and you know, what would you avoid because it's not going to work well. And like what would that actually look like in a school?Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, again, maybe I'll stick with the relationship theme partly because I'm like Diane, you just tell me your answer and I'll copy it as like the school designer in this conversation. And there's a lot of people in the field who I trust more to sort of think about the like whole school design. But when I think about like how do we design a deeply connected school experience for young people in the age of AI? I think there's three kind of main things I'm looking at. One is, and most of them are infrastructure, just to be clear. One is infrastructure to support high touch webs of support for each and every kid. So this is very clear in the youth development literature that young people don't just need one caring adult. Even though for some reason that term like, like people grabbed onto it and has stuck.Young people need webs of support and they are most effective when the people in those webs are connected to one another. This is research from John Zaff and Shannon Varga at BU. It's informed really great models like City Connects and Bar, but those are expensive to run and the data systems to actually make them highly responsive and even predictive of what a young person needs just like don't really exist. So that's number one, high touch webs of support. The second though is more diversified networks aligned with students' interests. And that's what we found in our own evaluations of particularly career connected learning efforts at the high school level that are trying to expand students' options. Young people were least likely to report that they were connected to people who shared their interests. And so I think there's a ton of opportunity there again to like use AI to detect young people's interests toMichael, to your point, to do some front end exploration of like future possible selves. Conversations and Confidence in NetworkingJulia Freeland Fisher:Diane, I know you're thinking a ton about this, but then to build the middleware so that you are starting to have conversations with people who share those interests. And maybe the best unit to think about there is conversations, not relationships. These don't have to be long lasting connections necessarily. But how is the high school experience a constant stream of conversations with other humans? And then lastly, you know, I, I do think that the one place I'm interested in these self help bots and I know I'm giving them that sort of derisive term and it's on purpose, I think we need to be wary of them. But I am really interested in something we see time and again when it comes to building and deepening and diversifying young people's networks is confidence is really the moderating variable that you can teach young people communication skills. You can do these kind of surface level, here's how to write a professional email. But confidence makes or breaks whether they go out and mobilize networks on their own, whether they even start having new types of conversations with people they already know.And I do think that's like a little wedge in the system where these self help bots could make a difference. A couple providers playing in that space now climb together, Kindred, Backers. These are all sort of startups that I think are keying into like what if AI could de-risk help seeking or reaching out, which for an adolescent can be like so daunting. So those are a couple thoughts of like those being in the background. So that high school, and I'm thinking mostly of high school is like an inherently networked experience. It's not just if you are outgoing or wear your ambitions on your sleeve or do an independent study, but for every student.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, that, that's so fascinating. You know, quick just personal anecdote here, I'm stunned at how reluctant sort of the younger generation is to ever make a phone call. Literally they don't call people. It's not a thing. And you know, my son worked on the campaign, the presidential campaign and he had a quota of 175 phone calls a day. And he actually thinks, and I agree with him, this is one of his greatest skill sets now like month after month doing that, like that ability to just talk to people is so missing in our world right now in that generation. So that really resonates with me.Let's do one more, if you're okay, I'd love to zoom out because I know given the work that you do, you're influencing people, how they're thinking about policy and procedure and, you know, all of those things, like, what's on your mind in this moment in time? What are you telling people that they should be looking at, thinking about, you know, wary of promoting in terms of policy, procedure, and, you know, you pick the level, whatever.Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, well, I'll riff on your last point about your son to answer that initially, Diane, which is something that came out in our research time and again. And this was talking to founders like yourself, but who are incredibly thoughtful about the design of their products and services. And time and again, and you were not one of them, Diane, because you are not pro chatbot, at least in what you're currently building. But time and again, folks would bring up, and again, this is in the guidance advising space. You know, sometimes students would rather tell a chatbot something than a human. And it's a safe space and it's a place for sort of less, there's less risk involved.Exploring Student Reliance on ChatbotsJulia Freeland Fisher:And I came away from that research being like, is that a feature or a bug? Like, how are we internalizing the fact that students don't want to talk to humans? And what is that a reflection of? And so I think that's number one. Like, what I hope at this, like, sort of ecosystem level people start thinking about is like, if students want to be talking to chatbots like that, let's actually interrogate that a little bit more. I think the second piece is around really starting to come up with language and some markers of what I'm calling pro social technology. So again, I don't think AI is inevitably going to disrupt human connection. But I think if bots are not trained to nudge students into the real world offline, if bots are actually trained to keep students engaged, if consumer tech, right, is making money on engagement, that is all moving in an antisocial direction. And I just think we need more language around that because, like, I was in a, like, off the record chat with someone from a, one of the big who recently left one of the big AI companies. And, you know, everyone's worried about like, national security and China and things that I know I should also be worried about while I'm like, lying awake about AI companions.But, you know, I said to him, like, what about the fact that these are being anthropomorphized and like, encroaching on what we sort of hold dear as human. He was like, yeah, everyone working in industry is, like, creeped out by that, but has no idea what to do about it. And that was revealing, right, that there's a real prisoner's dilemma here. That, like, there's a creep factor. But it's like bullet seven on slide four. Like, no one's really as worried about it as I think we should be. So that's number two. And then the last thing is really much more parent facing.Like, I think whether you agree with the, like, moral panic, Jonathan Haidt stuff around cell phones over the past year, he's tapped into parent anxiety that I'm like, this is the right anxiety in some ways around screen time and addiction. But, like, we're not even talking about what's coming. And, you know, if you think social media was designed to appeal to our deeply wired need to connect, AI companions, are that on steroids and so I am not myself, like, a parent organizer, that's like, not. I wish that was, like, who I was born to be. But I'm hoping that there will be more conversations around parent organizing around just like, not creating barriers to innovation. This is the tightrope we need to walk right, like, not shutting down the tech, but being super aware that, like, we have seen this movie before.Michael Horn:Yeah.Julia Freeland Fisher:So those are my big three.Diane Tavenner:Well, I got carried away there, Michael. Any other questions you want to ask before I take.Michael Horn:I think we asked the right questions. This been fascinating.Diane Tavenner:Okay, good. Yeah, I couldn't help myself. I so appreciate your thoughts, Julia. And we're going to ask you for one more. So we always invite our guests to join in our sort of end of show ritual, which is where we share what we're reading, listening to, watching. You know, we try to do it outside of work, but we often, you know, regress back into to work. But we'd love to hear what's been up for you lately?Julia Freeland Fisher:Yeah, so I just finished this, like, breathtakingly beautiful book called Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb. It's a memoir about her grandmother, and it's done really beautifully. It's like her grandmother is talking to her. Like, the form she chose is just stunning. And yeah, it was just intergenerational connection is, like, one of the most beautiful things. It was beautifully done. And I was actually thinking about it when I was.And then I'll stop talking, I promise. But I was listening to your guys's last episode on AI and you were talking about Notebook LM. And like putting a chapter of a book into that and just how much texture of like the brilliance of what she did would be lost listening to these, like, TED Talk adjacent fake voices, like, riffing on it. And like, our kids deserve to live in nuance and to detect it. And like, how do we. Anyways, that book in particular is just such a beautiful, like only a human could have written it. And I know all sorts of people in Silicon Valley will debate me on that, but. Highly recommend.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, for sure. I love that recommendation. I'm working on planning a dinner called Generations Over Dinner and so that might be a fun.Julia Freeland Fisher:Oh, my gosh, check it out it's beautifulDiane Tavenner:So I might add that in there. I will. Okay, what's up for me right now? Well, I'm gonna stick with my biases that I introduced at the top of the show and say that we just finished the second season of the Foundation, which is a series on. I forget one of those. I don't know. It's on something. Anyway, based on the writings of Isaac Asimov, you can tell how good I am at tv. Not very.And yes, one of the big plot lines is all about AI. There's no doubt about it. And so I'm seeing that literally everywhere. I will say it's for me, having not read the books, unlike my kiddos, it's a little bit hard. It's a lot going on there. It's hard to follow. I don't remember everything. I was glad I had some guides, human, actual guides, sort of coaching me through it, and it came together for me at the end and felt worthwhile. So it's certainly beautifully done and well acted and. And all of that. How about you, Michael?Michael Horn:This may be my entree, Diane, into it. Because I've struggled with the books. Sal Khan has actually tried a couple occasions and I just I cannot get into them. So I like that. I will also stay with biases, but on a totally different front. I feel like I'm going to stereotype myself here or everyone listening is going to be like, yep, that's Michael. So I just recently finished The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer by Christopher Clarey. My tennis fandom, I think, continually comes out recently on this podcast. So beautifully organized book. Really enjoyed it. I will say I'm like, there's Rafael Nadal people. They're Roger Federer people. I'm a Nadal, Pete Sampras sort of vintage person. But I was really glad I read the book, gained a deeper appreciation of Federer, and frankly, actually picked up some tips that I wish I had known much earlier in my professional career from practices that he would employ at the tournaments that he would show up at with everyone around the tournament, not actually the playing itself, which was not something I expected. So we can offline about that later. But it's all about relationships, it turns out.Diane TavennerSo you have me curious now. I wasn't expecting to be curious afterwards.Michael HornBut it's all about relationships. It's comes back to Julia's thesis. And with that, a thank you, Julia, for joining us and taking us through this fascinating conversation that we're going to be reflecting on for a while. I know. And thank you to all of you, our listeners. And we'll see you next time on Class Disrupted.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. 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James Rhyu, CEO of Stride Inc., joined me for a thought-provoking conversation in their 25th-year of operations. Rhyu shared his journey from accountant to CEO of Stride, Inc. He emphasized the importance of viewing students as customers. We then delved into the potential of online learning to overcome stigmas and serve diverse student needs, including safety and flexibility for those struggling with their mental health. We also explored Stride's investments in technology and career skills, as well as personalization. Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there, I'm really delighted that we have James Rhyu, the CEO of Stride Inc. For those of you that don't know, you may remember Stride's former name, K12 Inc. Back in the day, when I got in this world and co-authored Disrupting Class, K12 was the big player on the block, if you will, helping to think about how digital learning could really open up opportunities for individuals that had not had it in the conventional school system. The company's continued to evolve quite a bit, rebranded as Stride, has a number of offerings. We're going to get into all of that and more because this is Stride's 25th birthday, if you will. 25th anniversary. So, James, thanks so much for joining me and having this conversation.James RhyuThanks for having me, Michael. Appreciate it.Michael HornYeah, you bet. So let's just start high level because I suspect people tuning in will know some of the history, but maybe not your history. And so tell us about your own path into becoming the CEO of Stride.James RhyuYeah, sure. At first, I would say this is the first time I've ever been CEO of a company. So I'm still sort of a rookie at the job, you know, learning as I go. You know, I mean, I started as an accountant, you know, tell people the only real profession I guess I'm really qualified for is accounting. I was, and I was probably average at best at that maybe. But, you know, so I sort of obviously said, then I came up through the finance, you know, end of the company. And I always like to tell people I was not a very good student. I was sort of a C student and, you know, so running an education company, I don't even know if it's a bad thing, but I take us maybe a slightly different lens to running the company.Having been sort of not such a great student, I've never been an educator, which again, I don't say necessarily think is a bad thing, but it certainly puts a different lens on how to run the company. I think, you know, the education system in this country hasn't produced, I think, the outcomes societally that we want, probably. And so I think coming from a different angle or a different perspective, you know, has some benefits, I think, you know, so anyway, So I came to the company 13, 14 years ago and I came on the financial side. I was the CFO. I had come from previously that to that I was with a company called match.com. I think a lot of people have heard of Match and I was very fortunate to be there when we started this little app called Tinder and sort of helped sort of explode online dating. And I always say that it's somewhat relevant that experience because people maybe of my generation remember, but a lot of people don't remember it, online dating used to have a huge stigma to it.Like it's now very commonplace and you know, you don't really have a lot of stigma associated with anymore, but it used to have a lot of stigma associated with it. And I think online learning or different modalities of learning, certainly different angles to take at education, they have some stigma associated with it. And I think the ability to overcome that stigma is one of the things that I think is important for Stride, certainly, in K12. And I think that you know, just like in online dating, it can produce amazing results for people if we can overcome some of that stigma. And so I was a CFO here for a number of years and there was some CEO transition. And you know, most, most companies go through like sort of succession planning. And about a year before, more than a year, almost, probably almost two years before I became CEO, the then CEO at the time, who's a mentor of mine, Nate, continues to be a mentor and friend of mine, he approached me on behalf of the board and said, would you consider being the CEO? And I actually said no for a fairly long time.You know, like I said, I was an accountant. I was very grateful to have been the CFO. You know, a lot of accountants don't even get to reach that professional summit, I guess, and, and I just never thought of myself as a CEO. I really thought of myself as a finance professional. And it took some number of months before I sort of convinced myself to throw my hat in the ring for the job. And obviously I ended up getting the job. I think what the board saw at least, and you know, I'm now four years into the job, hopefully they continue to see is one is I have a real passion for the job. Meaning, you know, and I really consider this job a job where irrespective of the company, we have a set of current and potential future customers.And our job, my job is to try to meet the needs of those current and future customers. And I think that will in enure great benefit for our shareholders and stakeholders. And so really that's sort of how I view my lens to the job is really sort of a customer focus. And I say that very specifically. And in this company, when I became CEO, I really, I'll say it sounds weird, but I introduced really the word, the term customer into this company. And I think, I think largely it should be introduced into the education vernacular more broadly because, and specifically In K through 12 education, you know, we think of them as students. That's fine. And by the way, you know, they are students, but they're also customers.Rethinking Education as Customer ServiceJames RhyuAnd I think if we thought of them in that way, you know, the establishment of K through education has long thought, I think of their customers largely as an entitlement. And structurally there's a reason for that because you've got one school in a geographic area and that school really has dominion over the students in that area. And so you didn't really have to work for your customers in a way, right? They were an entitlement to you because you live in that area and historically you live in that area, you go to that school and that's still sort of pervades today for 90 plus percent of the population in the country. And so you can see why that framework established this entitlement sensibility, if you will. But in most other aspects of our lives, we want to be treated as customers. And the reason we want to be treated as customers is because when you're treated as a customer, there's this, there's a sort of two way dialogue, if you will, it's not always explicit, but you know, there's this push-pull of what's best for the customer. What does the customer want? What does the customer need? What outcomes does the customer want? Right. Like if you're running a restaurant and you're a dietitian running a restaurant, you may be like, okay, well I know what's best for the customer. You know, low calorie, high protein, you know, low fat, right.Michael HornWe're cutting out those sugars, we're going to get the right oils, et cetera, et cetera.James RhyuYeah, but if you listen to your customers, your customers might say, you know, actually the reason I eat out is because on a special occasion or whatever, I want to indulge maybe a little bit, or I want to try something that I can't make at home or that's different for me or whatever. And maybe health isn't the most important thing in that circumstance. And as the customer, you know, restaurants listen to that and obviously you have this wide variety of offerings and choice that enables what customers want and the outcomes that are important to them. And I think that's really important. If, you know, if you sort of put that lens on, on education, then you have some different perspectives, I think maybe than historically we've had. And even when you think about, you know, and I know you're probably going to maybe get into this further along, but you know, if you think about the outcomes that people want and you think about my restaurant example, I don't know, like a lot of the educators and people are going to say, oh, you know, but you know, eating is different than education. Of course it is. They're all different.Every customer experience is different. But I would argue health is pretty important and education is pretty important. So, you know, we're talking about, I think, comparable outcomes, you know, healthy people and educated people, you know, and I think that if you think about that sort of analogy, sometimes what the customer wants isn't actually a healthy diet. And in our country, if we listen to our customers, unfortunately a lot of families aren't in the position where the most important thing to them is getting an A and going to Harvard. Sometimes the more important thing to them is survival, is actually the high school diploma which allows them entree into a job or a field that requires a high school diploma that helps them put food on the table for their family. So the outcome often that we think about is, oh, well, you know, you have to get good grades maybe. And of course that's important. And of course learning is important.I say more importantly, learning is important and learning skills is important. And hopefully real world skills that you can apply later in life are important. But in some families' cases, I think we have to remember that the grade, and particularly high achieving grades, A's are not always the most important. And I think again, just taking that lens of like, what does the customer really want, what's important to the customer, how can we deliver for that customer is really important. And so go, sorry, I know I drifted a little bit, but going, yeah, this is helpful. Yeah, yeah, about how I got into the job. So, you know, like, whatever, I, you know, I almost begrudgingly accepted the job because I thought I could take a little bit of a different lens to what we're trying to do and expand how we think about our customers. And I think that sort of was important to me.Michael HornYeah, well, I want to lean into that angle because I think there's a few things there that you said that, that I just want to key off on one sort of, you labeled yourself. And I don't know if it's true or not, but as a C student. But it certainly gives you a window into the people that are not being well served by the traditional system, maybe being taken for granted. Maybe they are motivated by other things. Right. Engaged by other things.From our research on what customers want and motivation and so forth, I don't think there's anyone who's unmotivated. They're just not motivated to buy what the system is offering.James RhyuWhat family doesn't want their child to succeed, I mean, in whatever. However they define that.Michael HornYeah, I totally agree. Yeah.James RhyuHowever they define it, they want their child to succeed.Michael HornYeah. And I think that's a big thing. And I guess let's follow that energy because as you know, like one of the big criticisms, I don't think you're hearing it as much at the moment, but certainly five, seven, eight years ago in the field of the virtual schooling in particular, that you all helped define that landscape was that large numbers of students weren't being served well. You could look at student outcomes on test scores and things of that nature and make certain assertions. And then people had different explanations for what's going on. Right. They ranged from, oh, you know, virtual schooling isn't good for folks to, oh, some of these companies maybe are not investing enough in teacher professional development or you know, the teaching experience to, uh, what else was there? You know, something, you know, things around the curriculum and stuff like that. Right.And so I'm just sort of curious. You've made the point that individuals, when, you know, and families, when they come to a virtual school specifically, you know, their top priority might be help my kid get out of a bullying situation. Right. This is no good right now. And yes, we want them to learn, but we just need to get them back on course right now. How do you think about those as competing with, say, the learning outcomes that critics like to point to? And how do you think we ought to be measuring it?Politics in Education: A ConcernJames RhyuUnfortunately, I think sometimes we let politics creep too much into our education system, and I think it's really unfortunate political agendas, you know, when I hear people talk about the, the education system and the students in, in terms as if they're like the afterthought, you know, because there's this other agenda here that's more important. I think it's troublesome to me, I would say. And, and by the way, all those critiques that you mentioned, I'll also say I think many of them are fair. Like, I think also, like as a society and as a company, I don't think we should be. I don't want to lean into that sort of political dialogue where, okay, well, now I've got to figure out, I've got to frame the way to like say it in a way that make, you know, sort of like subverts what they've said or end runs what they've said. Like, the reality is we're certainly not perfect.I think that there's a lot of things we can do better. A lot. I mean, the list of things we can do better is actually longer than the list of things I think we do well. Frankly, I think that again, the customers that choose our types of programs. You mentioned an element of a category. I think that's a much broader category, which is safety. Right. Bullying is an aspect of child safety that parents are worried about.Gun violence is an aspect of it. There's a lot of aspects of child safety that, where virtual learning is for that family, that customer, that's the most appropriate choice. And I don't think that we should be dictating to those families what's the best choice for them in their particular circumstance. Now I also think that while the criticisms of this company have often been fair, I think that some of them are not completely accurate. And I also think that they're often being levied by the same system that I could easily say .Michael HornThrow the aspersions at it as well.Investing in Teacher DevelopmentJames RhyuYou know, they have some of the same issues, I think, you know what I mean? So, you know, so I think sometimes it's a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black and, and that to me feels more political than it does so like figuring out what we can do for, for families. We've invested more in the past. I've been the CEO for four years. We invested more in the past four years and in any other four year period in the history of the company across whether it's, you know, our teacher professional development or, you know, new curriculum or new technologies or new platforms. And I think that a lot of what we try to do is also invest in things like the professional developments. Maybe teach professional development is one example where, you know, the, the in person model of, you know, the district professional development days where, you know, the kids get off and the teachers come in, you know, they have people come in and when I talk to teachers a Lot of them say that the subjects aren't often hitting the mark, the day isn't well utilized often. So what we've tried to do is actually invest in an online teaching platform that gives teachers some empowerment to maybe choose the types of professional development they want. You know, not everybody maybe has to do the same thing.Michael HornSo their own choice to break out of the one size fits all sort of way.James RhyuThey may know better where their areas of improvement are and what they need to sort of lean into and what they're struggling with in their classrooms or you know, whatever the situation may be. And so some of our investments are more towards those types of things than maybe, you know, trying to do it the traditional way. So again, some of the criticism may be fair, like, yeah, oh, they don't do it a certain way. That actually true. Maybe we're taking a different angle to it. And by the way, maybe that angle isn't even perfect yet. Maybe that angle, it has a lot of room for improvements still. But, I do think taking maybe a different lens to them, some of these things is important and I think those are a lot of things that we're trying to invest in.Michael HornGotcha. Let me ask you this because that's obviously the virtual school conversation, but over the last decade plus really you all have become a much larger company with larger suite of offerings from digital courses for students to career options or career connected learning options and things of that nature. Just like how do you all think of, you know, when you think of what Stride Inc. is today? We've obviously been geeking out in the virtual school portion, but how do you think about it and the portfolio or suite of things that you all offer?James RhyuYeah. So I think about it just in terms of what's the market we're really trying to address here. Right. And to me the market is the 55 million K12 school age kids in the country that may or may not want something different, by the way, I think many families are actually very satisfied with their situation. But I think that the way that the established system works has probably evolved less than most other sort of large scale categories, if you will, in the country. You know, whether, whether it's, you know, retail or entertainment or you know, whatever it is, it's evolved less. And so I think Stride is a company that really is what we're trying to do is see how can we improve the overall customer experience and outcomes that they want, those customers want across the landscape of 55 million students.And that is everything from, you know, we're investing now in a, not just a curriculum, and we've been investing in curriculum for a long time, but the platform to deliver the curriculum that allows for just, you know, a little more easier, more intuitive experience. You know, if you can think about like a Netflix type of experience, you know, where, you know, it gives you recommendations based on what you know, what you like in, in an educational sense. More of like recommendations maybe on what you need, what your sort of next step is in, in there maybe a little bit working away from the traditional like chapter 1, 2, 3 of a textbook and more, you know, towards an engaging type of, of experience. I think it's a little more in line with what the customers experience in other parts of their lives as well. Where, I mean, of course, just like I guess everybody else in the world where, you know, we're, we're really thinking about how to invest in AI. I mean, you can't sort of, I think, say anything these days without at least mentioning it. I think our approach to it's a little bit different in the sense that AI, I don't think is actually the answer.I think including elements of AI in an overall user experience solution is more the answer. You know, you've been in the industry probably around the industry a lot longer than I have actually. So you know, how long have we been talking about like personalized learning and, and how like really today after we can talk and by the way, you know, there's been, you know, tens of billions of dollars of investment in VC money that have gone into education company. How personalized is the actual learning today in schools?Michael HornNot super personalized at all.James RhyuI mean, if you, if you really walk into a classroom, right? I mean just walk into any random classroom and you hopefully you can't just walk into any random classroom.Michael HornYeah, but when I get to visit and so forth. Yeah, for sure.James RhyuBut if you just walk into a random classroom, I mean, I happen to, I live near a school and I have a dog and so I walk my dog actually around school and I, you know, I'm interested, I peer in, you know, there's windows, I peer in, I look. The personalized level of learning that is happening is not, I think, what we thought would happen 15 years ago. Right. And so. Well, how can you personalize learning? I mean, you can't put 30 teachers in a classroom. There's a teacher shortage. I mean, you were barely putting one teacher in every 30 person classroom, let alone, you know, putting 30 teachers in I mean, that would be the real way to personalize it. Right. If you, if you sort of think.Michael HornAbout the tutor for every child. Yep.James RhyuRight. You can't do that, though. So as much as I know some people really don't like the technology in the classroom and technology taking over education. If we're really going to personalize learning, I think, I do think we have to do it through technology. But I don't think it's just, oh, AI. You know, then everybody says AI. I don't think it's just AI. It's, you know, if, imagine if the student goes into the classroom and the first thing that they, you know, they turn on the computer and the first thing they see is some prompt, though, that says, oh, good morning, Michael.James RhyuHow are you feeling today? I mean, that, that little level of personalization, by the way. I mean, if you go, if you're, you know, if you live in a rich place and you know, you're really wealthy and you send your kids to private schools, the private schools, the first thing they do is the headmaster stands out. The school greets every kid, good morning, how are you doing today? Right. That's the first greeting those kids get. Right. And if we can make that part of the opening of every day of every student through technology. And by the way, Michael may say, you know what, I was up late studying for an exam or I was up late watching the super bowl or whatever they were doing. I'm a little tired.Engagement Through Personalized LearningJames RhyuAnd if the interaction could be, oh, well, in that case, why don't we just take three minutes, watch this video and get up and stretch a little bit before we get into the lesson. That's personalized learning and it has nothing to do with education yet, by the way. Right. But I think that personalizes, and again, that's a more customer centric view of learning, I think, than what maybe the educational norm would suggest is about personalized learning. Right. Because we do know that a kid who's more engaged learns better. And by the way, a kid who can pay attention better is going to be more engaged. By the way, a kid who's tired needs to get, you know, some blood circulating to be able to do that.So I don't see. There's nothing wrong with having that engagement through the computer. Get up, stretch your arms a little bit, get, you know, get your blood flowing a little bit. Now let's dive into the lesson. And when I say technology and thinking about your customers, it's more those kinds of experiences I think we can bring into the classrooms. And those are the kinds of things that I think Stride would like to invest in and help that experience for those customers improve.Michael HornNo, it makes a ton of sense. I mean you're preaching to the choir on a number of fronts as you, as you may know. But among them, as my wife likes to say, when she visited our kids current school and she saw a kid in the middle of a lesson pop up, go outside, run around, take three laps and then get back in. And she was like, what was that? And they were like guess he chose he needed a brain break. And she was like, we're going here. So, I totally dig that example. I'm curious because you all are servicing a lot of curriculum.There's teacher professional development. You're helping in some cases change the structure of classrooms in traditional schools. You have the virtual school. You've also invested, I think in some career training platforms. You purchased Galvanize right before the pandemic if memory serves correctly, there's a whole bunch of chatter about how coding boot camps are no more or they, they crested and they fallen. I'd love to hear a little bit about the career connection of what you all are doing. And the reason I ask also is just to put my prior out there.I think we have, in an effort to not lower expectations for kids, we have sucked out the connections to careers and the building of social capital for basically everyone to the detriment of helping people find reason to engage in many cases with the learning and explore and be prepared for the world. So I'm sort of curious how that has filtered in and where things are.James RhyuYeah. So years ago, before I was a CEO, we strategically saw an opportunity in the career space and specifically in the K through 12 more high school, obviously high school, middle school type for careers. Because you know, and if you think and just put sort of, I'll say career learning, the name we use aside or whatever. But like skills, you know, I think that's really the, really the thing that we're after here. Right. Is providing students the ability to acquire skills at younger ages that are useful in real practical ways post high school graduation. Right. That's, that's the real objective.If you think about like what we're really trying to do right now in some, in some instances I think that can be a direct correlation of acquire a skill or set of skills leads to maybe a certificate, that certificate leads to a job. And therefore after high School either you don't want to, you're not well qualified for your financially can't afford college, you can go out and earn, you know, a standard of living that can support your family. Right. And I think that's really important, at least strategically for us is to, is to really lean into those skill development side of it. And I think on the flip side of it, I think some people are maybe critical that it's trying to maybe de-emphasize, you know, going to college or the college experience and things like that. And I don't think it has anything to do with that. I think it really has to do with whether a child decides to go to college or not.Here's one thing we categorically know. Most kids who go to college don't use their college major in the job that they're in. Right. So either way they're going to have to obtain skills for some career that they're going to pursue. And I think the earlier they can acquire those skills, it's going to be better for their lifelong professional journey. And so whether they go to college or not, whether, you know, whether they go to a four year college or a two year college, whether they go right into the workforce and later go to college, there's so many permutations of this. But I think the base level, and by the way you're seeing now led by I think tech companies, but sort of more broadly across industries, companies that are really doing away with the four year college degree requirement and you know, really prioritizing skills and, and I think that that's a trend that's already started. I think it accelerated a little bit during the pandemic.Enhancing Student Skill AcquisitionJames RhyuI think it's going to continue to persist. And so our view is that we want to be able to offer those skill acquisition opportunities for students starting at younger grades. Virtually all of our programs now have that opportunity. What I'll go back to where we started with some of the critiques of us, which is I think what we haven't done, so those are available, I think what we haven't done a good enough job of is really ensuring that the holistic view or the holistic support necessary to really enable those students to embrace that we haven't done yet a good enough job of. And I think that's sort of where we'll make some future investments is, you know, they need better guidance and you know, traditional guidance counselors, they usually are focused on, okay, so what credits do you need? What college do you want to go to? And what credits do you need to go to that college? And you know, I think, and if that's what they want, we should provide that to them. But also, I think we should supplement that with, hey, also along the way, you know, if you're interested in cars or, you know, maybe you should take some things in mechanical engineering or whatever.We know, whatever the thing is, you know, the boot camp specific stuff. We did buy a couple of companies in that space and they were bad acquisitions, unfortunately. I think the, like when we were looking at that space, there was virtually nobody in the entire industry that was making money, by the way. It was entire industry that was losing money. But they had a lot of sort of fanfare and popularity. And we happen to own and operate one or two of the only profitable companies in an industry tech elevator. And there's been some, I think, broader market shifts moving away from those programs. I think the other CEOs that I've spoken to that are participants in that space have all said, you know, volumes are down dramatically.I think, you know, what they publicly say, maybe what they privately say are a little bit different. But I will tell you that our volumes are down dramatically. I don't necessarily see a recovery, I think because the, I mean, say AI again, but I mean, AI, I think, has at least in the psyche of a lot of people, suggested that maybe those types of jobs, and particularly at the lower levels are not going to be needed as much. And I think that's probably directionally right at some point. So, you know, so I think there's a shift in the marketplace and I think that we got that sort of bet wrong in where that was headed. So shame on us, I think.But I think that broadly speaking, there's still tremendous opportunity in skilling kids, whether it's through the boot camps or not, or particularly in computer science or not. I think that's sort of the secondary importance. I think the primary importance is kids need to get skills. They need to get skills to give them job opportunities. And we, and I think our country needs to do a better job of focusing in on that. And I think we're going to continue to invest in that. I think it's really important. And I think parents, and if we get it going from a customer perspective, customers want that for their kids.Educational Choice and Parental PrioritiesMichael HornYep. That's where I was going to wrap up is like, as you think about, you know, 25th anniversary Stride Inc, you all have a number of, you know, irons in the fire, if you will, different priorities you've named here. What are you hearing from parents? Right. As we, I think it's fair to say in many states we're shifting to more and more, not just school choice, but educational choice. I think the next few years we'll see a continuation of that for sure. Many of the parents I talk to, I agree, they're fine where they are. And many of them are saying, I'm not relinquishing this choice at this point, but what are their priorities that you're hearing at this point as we wrap up this conversation and how that may impact what Stride Inc. focuses on over the next however many years?James RhyuYeah, okay, so I, I'm hearing a lot of the same things you are, by the way. I think the research supports it. I think, I saw research recently said something like upwards of 70% of families have considered at least some alternative. But I also hear safety continues to be a big concern for parents. Again, that sort of broad category, whether it's bullying or gun violence, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Mental health is a big concern that I keep hearing from parents. I mean, our customers.Michael HornStay on that, stay on that for one second because, like, the mental health thing is being so pinned on technology right now. How does that interface for you guys? You're obviously not a smartphone app company, but I'm just sort of curious. Yeah. How do you think about that?James RhyuI don't want to comment on the root cause of our mental health issues in this country because I'm, I actually just don't have the expertise to, and I don't have enough data to really, frankly, to synthesize, to really understand it well enough. But I do know that an increasing number of families that are in programs that we help manage state mental health as an issue with their child. An increasing number of the children themselves are stating mental health you know, and I say set up as a broad category.Michael HornSure, there can be any number of things underneath.James RhyuExactly.Michael HornBut the point is they're coming to you.James RhyuIt is an issue. And I think part of the reason that virtual learning is very attractive for families that have some of these issues is sort of some of the flexibility. Right. So if you have some mental health issues, maybe you can't deal with some of the structure, or maybe you can't deal with some of the social interaction, or maybe you can't deal with the rigidity. And so the flexibility that's offered through virtual learning, sometimes it just, it helps families deal with some of those issues. And, you know, whether they're because of technology or not. Again, I don't really want to delve into that. I think that the reality is unless the government steps in, which, you know, I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, but unless the government steps in and regulates the use of technology for children, which by the way, some countries are doing, the use of technology is only going to continue to increase unless the government steps in and regulates it. So while we may have differing opinions on whether it's a good or a bad thing and kids should be using technology or shouldn't be using technology, the reality of our customers is they are using technology and in increasing ways. And whether the result of that is some of these issues or not.Michael HornYou take them as they are,James RhyuThey're also using it to help with some of the solutions.Michael HornGot it. Super interesting, James. Just a fascinating conversation. You guys are touching your hands in so many of the cutting edge things. But I think I'll take away from this the voice and intent and motivation of the customer and personalizing around that being two major thrusts as we as, as you all continue to go into this next chapter of growth for Stride Inc. Fair to say,James RhyuAbsolutely see you in 25 years. We'll do it again.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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Andrew Clark, president of yes. every kid., joined me to discuss the current landscape of educational choice in the United States. The conversation delved into the rise of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), specifically their widespread adoption and impact on public schooling and education spending. Clark shared insights from his experiences as a lobbyist and argued for the popularity of universal ESAs and the importance of ensuring their successful implementation. The discussion also touched upon accountability within the schooling system, potential pitfalls, and the importance of empowering families to make educational choices.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live a life of purpose as they define it. And to help us think through what that looks like and how we get there, I'm delighted that we have Andrew Clark. He's the president of yes. every kid. We'll learn more about that and their vision for how we advanced truly this learner-centered future in this conversation ahead. But first, Andrew, great to see you. Thanks for being here.Andrew ClarkThanks. Thanks for having me.Michael HornYeah, no, you bet. So, like, before we dive in, right. And talk about the work you do, just like think it'll help folks to understand the journey you've taken into this conversation around educational choice, specifically working in education along with the work of what, yes. every kid. does, which of course, it's a 501c4 organization. You don't see those quite as often in education. We see a lot of C3s, so we'll dive into that in a moment. But your purpose really is unleashing the extraordinary potential of every kid by treating them with dignity, empowering them to make decisions for themselves and give voice to every parent, student and teacher who shares that goal. So love to hear your journey into that work and what that work itself looks like.Andrew ClarkYeah, of course. So, yeah, 501c4 is a lobbying organization and I am a lobbyist by nature. I'm not an education guy at all. And I like to say education came looking for me. I didn't go looking for it. But the way that that happened is I was working in Arizona, working on state budget issues, and at the time, ESAs were being hotly debated. So there was a small ESA program in the state, one of the very first that have ever passed, in fact, the first. And the debate over the expansion of that program had people thinking it was going to go to the ballot and be a big fight.Andrew ClarkAnd so people were asking if we'd be willing to fund that initiative. And I just didn't know a lot about education. And so we started doing a lot of research to see if that was worth getting engaged on because the implications of education spending are significant on state budgets, as you know. And in doing that, what shocked me is when you put together what I'd consider, the more classically Democratic arguments about education and the more classical Republican arguments, the public essentially rejected both arguments pretty soundly.Michael HornSay more.Andrew ClarkYeah. So, you know, the traditional argument from Democrats has essentially been public schools are grounded in the community. They just need more money. Right. And if I can just have more money, they'll be fine. And you know, public's great with investing in public education, but they don't think that's the end all be all and they don't think that things can go unchanged. Whereas the Republican argument was essentially like, hey, public schools are terrible and they just need a whole lot of competition. That competition is going to force excellence and test scores and that's what we want.And the public is dubious on test scores and they don't like the kind of competitive nature of it. Like none of that really resonates either. And so put those two arguments up against each other, there really wasn't any constituency being like, yes, that's what I want.Michael HornSuper interesting.Innovative Policy Strategies NeededAndrew ClarkTo me, that was eye opening going, how do you have a space in which the two competing ideas are both unpopular? As a lobbyist, that's a really weird phenomenon. It just made me say, hey, I think what's going on in this space actually doesn't make any sense. And there's an opening to do something much more innovative and novel that people will actually enjoy. And so that's kind of what led to ultimately starting to run some experiments on different types of policies that we could talk about. But I can give you two examples. One of the things I saw early on is if a program in education was universal versus being low income, it was way more popular with the public, like 35% more popular. And essentially no advocacy group was working on that to the degree that I would have expected. And so I was like, hey, why don't we start working on bills that are universal and just saying, if it's a low income bill, we're just going to reject it.We're just going to be opposed to it, even though we support more freedom generally. And as you can imagine, for a lot of school choice advocates, that irritated the crap out of people. But I'm like, I'm going to reject your bills. That was novel at the time. And there's a couple other policy areas like that where I just over index to saying like, why don't we just do things that people like and that make good economic sense and good educational sense? And let's just bank on the fact that if people see benefit in it, they're going to vote for it, they're going to re-elect people that do that and that's going to have a more transformational effect than advocating for something people don't want. Which sounds intuitive, but it was relatively novel at the time. And that ultimately led to me working with some other people and together we all created yes. every kid. And that's what we do. We just lobby for laws like that and try to get them in place.Michael HornSuper interesting. And you do the work beyond Arizona now it's nationwide, right?Andrew ClarkAbsolutely. Yep. We work in about 36 states right now.Michael HornYeah. And I guess the reason it's counterintuitive, as I would think about it, is a lot of folks might say like, yeah, we agree, you know, universal may be the goal or yes, that's going to make it more popular, but we have a win right now. We can impact this population, let's go for it. And they accuse you, I guess, of being against incrementalism toward that goal or something like that.Andrew ClarkThat's certainly my reputation in the space. I would argue everything we're doing is incremental. It's just a question of where you're going to draw those lines and what you're going after. And I think education is particularly influenced by this rise of Taylorism, which is this philosophical backdrop to the industrial revolution that basically said people, people don't matter, processes are what matter and we can optimize processes and everything just becomes a top down exercise. I think the people that go into education carry that mentality or that culture into the space. And that's true whether you're on the programmatic side, you know, you're trying to actually put schools together, or if you're on the advocacy side, you think I'm going to do this thing because academics think it's wise or think tanks thinks it's wise. And I'm going to impose that. Whereas in most spaces that are bottom up, you go the other way.You're like, what do people see benefits in? What are customers going to gravitate to? And you design around that bottom up feature that just there's just not a lot of people that have that ethos in education.Michael HornSpace, from a job speed on landscape through my work that I hear the logic there for sure. So one of the big things that you all have been working on and pushing, you mentioned it briefly, these ESAs, education savings accounts, this notion not just of school choice, but educational choice more broadly. It's something that my audience is certainly familiar with. We've talked a lot about it in the show, so. But I think, you know, 2025, we're having this interview, beginning of the year. Where are we nationally on ESAs? What's the state of choice? I think there's like 11 states maybe with universal choice. But is that right? Who are they? What does that even mean?Andrew ClarkYeah, I would say the world is transformed in my view anyways. So the original thesis for a lot of this is hey, we've got a very again Taylor top down education center today where the government says in law you as a family will put your kid in the public school or we will send you to jail. And then inside of that school we're going to dictate how the day goes for you. And it's all very carefully orchestrated. And what we said at the time when we started back in 2018, 2019 was we just need a way out, just an exit, a right of exit to go try something else. So if that system doesn't work for you, no problem, let's get out. And that was the, a lot of the premise for these original universal ESA accounts, which is now up to a dozen states.Michael HornA dozen states. Okay.School Choice Programs Surge NationwideAndrew ClarkYeah. And I would say, you know, you've got about 40% of kids in America that have access to some kind of private school choice program. This is booming. It's not just happening in legislative, it's also having huge political impacts. Like the idea is very popular, it's 75, 80% popular. And so when opposition has come out and tried to take people out in Texas or Arizona or Iowa or Arkansas, what has happened is the people have advocated for school choice, have won and won by pretty wide margins and then that just encourages the next group to go after it. And so now it's kind of sweeping. I think it's not crazy to think you're going to have 18 or 20 states that have school choice programs by the end of this session and you could have 60, 65% of kids in the country having access to private schools through these programs.Michael HornAnd so it's public dollars. Yeah, yeah.Andrew ClarkWith subsidized dollars. Yeah, it's a pretty massive change in the country.Michael HornAnd so if we hit 18 or more by the end of the year, I assume you're thinking like Texas, Tennessee, like states like that are the ones that tip next. I'd love to hear your crystal ball on that. But are we talking about educational savings accounts specifically in all these states universal, or are we talking about different forms of tax scholarships or vouchers? Like where are they landing in this choice landscape as we're seeing this sweep of legislation?Andrew ClarkYeah, so certainly Texas is going to be the point of contention for everybody just because they've got north of 5 million kids and the entire country has 55 million kids. So you're talking about a significant portion of the total student body population in the United States is grounded in Texas and it's one of the few states that's still growing. Almost everybody else is on the decline. So the fight for Texas will be significant. I think the macro trends you're talking about is most states are still going for ESAs, which in policy terms just means I'm going to take a subsidy, I'm going to put it in a government controlled account, I'm going to create a bunch of rules around that account and then a family can come in and dictate where the money gets spent out of that. So most states are still needing to do that. But you're starting to see this, what I would consider the next wave coming out, which is these personal tax credits, which is just basically saying if you don't take your kid and put them in a public school, if you decide to do something else, we're just going to give you your money back.And so Oklahoma already has this in law. I think you'll see this in several other states emerging this cycle, maybe three or four of them, where they're just literally like any other, tax credit, child care tax credit, child tax credit, et cetera. They're just going to give you your money back and you'll have the freedom to spend that however you will. So I don't think it'll be nearly as much money as you see in an ESA. It might be 3 or $5,000 as opposed to 7 to $10,000 in an ESA, but it will have significantly more regulatory freedom.Michael HornInteresting. So essentially we're saying you do not avail yourself of the public school. Sure, people without kids don't either, but this is a way of giving you some of that money back so you can make a different choice with your child. Is that essentially the theory?Andrew ClarkThat's exactly the logic, yep.Michael HornOkay, so I want to come back to some of these strands in a little bit, but I want to know in particular, there were three states where at the ballot box it seemed like there were some pretty big defeats of choice in terms of referendums, namely Kentucky, Nebraska and Colorado. What happened in those three states, because my impression, I'll lay out my priors, was what yours is that like, yes, this is a red state phenomenon for the most part, but, but it seems incredibly bipartisan support for it within those States, people of all stripes seem to really like the Education Savings Accounts in particular. So like what happened in those three states, because of that referendum. A lot of the stuff you've talked about has been policy at the state house level.Andrew ClarkYeah. So I'd say strategically there's two big inflections in policy design choices that have huge impacts on the the way that the public perceives them. So one is this question of who is eligible, Is it going to be eligible for every kid in the state or is it just going to be eligible for some kids? If it's eligible for every kid, it is about 30 percentage points higher than if it's just some kids. And some kids could be low income kids, special needs kids, it could just be an overall cap, whatever. But the difference in political popularity is massive on that one line alone. And the second part of it is if it's just a private school choice option, people are way less inclined to be supportive of it as opposed to if it is agnostic to whatever works for the kid. So an ESA is designed to say, look, if you want to put your kid in public school part time and private school part time and tutoring a little bit, and we don't care, you pick whatever you want. That's a very popular idea.People want all the options. They don't want to be pigeonholed into just private schools. That's not a very popular option. And so the mistake that I think a lot of these very well intentioned advocates have made is they think, man, if I just go put a $10 million program on the ballot, which is the Nebraska proposal, that's going to be fine because it's not going to scare anybody. And who would oppose $10 million? It's so small. But what happens is teachers unions aren't idiots, right? They're going to go after a small threat just as hard as they're going to go after a big threat. And if they go after a small threat that's not very popular, that small threat's going to die. And so if we could rewind the clock, I'd love to sit down with the advocates doing that and saying, hey folks, there's no reason to walk in with an idea that's 30% popular just because you think it's good.Talk to the customer, the customer wants everybody to be eligible. $10 million isn't going to get that job done. Go bigger, actually be more ambitious. And what you'll find is when the public's with you, then you'll actually win at the ballot. So I think in all three states we go through it, but they all three made that mistake essentially in crafting policy that wasn't politically savvy.Michael HornAnd so the big, just to reiterate what you just said, the big issues universal, not for some. And two, it sounds like a voucher that is like essentially a ticket to a private school and that is your only choice. That is not popular either. People want a more expansive set of I get to direct my kids' education and including public options that you know, ideally, and we heard this in Florida, they start innovating, right? The public options as they start to see different ways to structure education as well through these different funding mechanisms over time.Andrew ClarkWhat the parents are upset about is they want control. It's not that they want a different tax status for the school. That is not right.Michael HornIf it's the private first, public is not what's driving this. I want control. Okay, all right, let's flip to implementation. That's a good gateway into this because you are not just advocating, as I understand it, for policy, you're also advocating around implementation as well and thinking about this. And there's a lot of debates about how ESAs are put into place specifically. The first one is maybe where it lives and how we manage it. Are we using, you know, a third party technology like Odyssey or something like that to help distribute funds step up for students? Is the Department of Education trying to stand up something? How do you think about the where it lives and how we manage it, how we disperse funds, et cetera questions?Andrew ClarkYeah, I think on the first step you're right that most advocacy groups come into legislation, they're like, I have a big idea. And they give the big idea to politicians. The politician puts the big idea into a law and the law just says here, here's the big idea. Give people money essentially, right? And then they give it to a department who's like what the hell are you talking about? What am I supposed to do with this? And at that point most of the advocacy groups are gone. What we try to do that is different is we want to stick around and say, hey, here's what the intent was, here's the thinking behind it and here's how you could actually apply that. And I think that's really important to carry that through line all the way down because the passing the bill is just the very baby steps. All the real work happens after that. And there's a moment for choosing in the aftermath there on what are these going to look like in practice? And I'll just give you maybe two mental models to think about what this could look like.One way that this could play out is going to be like health insurance. So if you think about the way that health insurance works in health care, those companies, those third party companies are basically tasked to ration your healthcare. They're there to think through like what's the appropriate use of the healthcare system and how do I make it as cost efficient as I can and safe. So that's one option. I'll give you another design option which would be like Social Security where we're trying to eradicate senior poverty and we just send people a check and we say this is for you to take care of yourself, I wish you the best. Right? These are two very different approaches. They're both welfare programs, but very different policy designs and ESAs are going to run into that. Those kinds of choices.ESA Decision: Customer or Third Party?Andrew ClarkAre we going to make it more like a health insurance model or we're going to make it more like Social Security? So when we say we're trying to empower parents, both could empower parents. But one model, there's going to be a decision maker that's a third party. And then the other model, the decision maker is going to be the customer, the end user, which one are ESA's going to decide? And for us we have a very clear point of view which is the customer ought to make the decision. That doesn't mean there's no regulations. It's pretty reasonable that any public funds given are going to have some regulations. But there is a very binary choice between who the actual decision maker is. Is it going to be the government or a third party or is it going to be the customer? We think it ought to be the customer. Most people in the space think it ought to be the third party.And I think that's a very bad idea. You just look at how popular health insurance companies are, right? I mean you just watch the poor CEO got shot and half the country cheered. I think that tells you just how unpopular that idea is. But I think that is a very real possibility of where education's headed to if we don't head this off.Michael HornSo let's play that out on a few things. I had never thought about that mental model with ESAs because I think of it as fundamentally a consumer powered choice, more akin to say a health savings account than a health insurance plan. But it's interesting when you frame it that way. So some of the downstream decisions of that, I guess in the health insurance model would be restrictions around what you can spend on, restrictions on pricing perhaps of the schools and things of that nature. Just sort of play that out. What are the implications where you see that taking hold based on what some people are advocating for and how you would do it instead?Andrew ClarkYeah, I think health savings accounts are probably like if I give you the two extreme wings there between Social Security and health insurance. Yeah, Health savings accounts are probably somewhere in the middle ground and maybe probably more tilted towards the customers. So I think they're a fine model. Right. If I go see a chiropractor, I can pay with my HSA and I don't have to get that pre approved. I might have to submit it afterwards and maybe the HSA company would reject it. There's some rules around it, but for the most part I can pay for pretty wide latitude of whatever I want to. That is different than like if I go see a doctor with my insurance company, they're going to call Blue Cross, Blue Shield or United or whoever and say, can this person get this treatment? And if the answer is no, they're going to say no.Right. Like, doesn't matter what you and your doctor negotiate out, that insurance company is going to make the decision. And that's the way most of these ESA programs are working right now is I say, okay, I want to buy, you know, Bob's textbook. If the department hasn't pre approved that purchase and or Class Wallet or Step up hasn't pre approved that purchase, you're not going to be able to buy that book. I think that's the bad model and the one that we're running the risk of slipping into. We want to be much more in the HSA mold where it's like, hey, I can buy textbooks, that's what's approved. And then as a consumer, it doesn't really matter what textbook I buy, as long as it's a textbook, we're all okay with the fact that that's on the net, that's going to be a positive for society.Michael HornSo it's interesting you say that because I've seen accreditation pop up as a requirement in some of these programs, which I have to be super honest, has like shocked me on a number of levels. And maybe that's speaking toward that is like, okay, if it's accredited, we say that's pre approved and therefore you're good no matter what. If not accredited, we're going to have to have another conversation. Is that.Andrew ClarkAbsolutely. And this is where, you know, most people who advocate for ESAs and other kinds of freedom are really, really offended when they get attacked by critics who say, like, oh, this is going to raise prices and send in grifters and cronyism, I actually welcome the criticism, like, bring it on, because it keeps us clear on where the risks are and they're not wrong about the risks. So the risk is you get somebody who comes grifting along. Let's say you have a textbook company, they're going to say, man, only my textbook should be approved. Those guys, textbooks that's full of crazy garbly gook and kids will learn God knows what. So you got to make sure you only approve my books and not their books. Right? And that's. This is just classic government. You can only buy my therapies, not theirs.You can only buy my tutoring service. You got to make sure that my employees are approved, not their employees. That's just what happens when you get a regulatory environment is you get regulatory capture. People want to make their business not providing customers some benefit. They want to make their money by getting the government to get rid of their competition. And so one of the reasons that you want to try to make sure you don't have that is think of the higher ed space that you've talked a lot about. Higher ed space does that exact problem. They say, like, you can't create an alternative.You know, the folks at the University of Austin, people are all excited about that. That's unaccredited right now. You can't use your 529 or your Pell or any of that public subsidy money to go to that school. And why isn't it accredited? It's got some of the best professors in the country, maybe in the world, working there. Why isn't it? Because they've made it a 5 to 10 year process to get accredited. Well, what happens? That means no competition can come into the space. That means higher education goes sky high all the time and it never stops. There's no incentive to bring it down. The same thing will happen in K12 if we allow the same kind of regulatory barriers to exist.If it's hard to come in and sell a textbook, well, then the existing textbook guys are just going to jack the prices up. It's going to be really hard to get in. So this is kind of why these debates matter so much, is if we want to get to a world that is low price, high quality, happy customers, you have to give people freedom to come in and enter the market and freedom to buy in the market really easily. And most of the advocates and lobbyists in the space they're being paid to try to capture the market for some regulatory space. And so both politicians and just normal people have to be outspoken, loud advocates for the ideas of freedom and markets or education is going to stifle and do what it's always done historically in this country, which is it's going to get captured by the special interest.Michael HornJust to play that out. The counterargument I suppose would be, well, if we don't have lists, we're going to get, you know, hacks and frauds coming in and taking dollars. And I think I'm going to anticipate your argument back would be like, well, we have some of that anyway and it's going to be discovered a lot faster if individuals can make these choices than we're hoping that government somehow discovers it. Right. Because in some ways that's a feature, not a bug actually of more choice. Am I anticipating the debate correctly?Andrew ClarkYep, you got it. I mean, this is, you could think of it in Milton Friedman's vernacular. Right. When it's, when it's me spending someone else's money, I'm much more prone to spend it maliciously than if it's me spending my money. Right. And so depending on how you think about it, if it's you spending the government's money, your incentive is to spend as much of it as fast as you can. And, you could be relatively reckless. If you're spending your own money, you're going to guard it very carefully.Most people, most families want what's best for their kids and they're going to make hard trade off decisions. I think that's one of my favorite things about your job to be done research. It's showing, it's illustrating the trade offs. Right. That's what we want people to do. Yeah. And that's again why you want the market dynamics to flow.So yeah, public schools spend money on all sorts of crazy things. Margarita Rosa at Georgetown has essentially made a career out of the crazy things people have bought inside of public schools. You're not going to get rid of waste fodder abuse, but you can put in reasonable mechanisms without corrupting the market.Flexible Spending with Educational Savings AccountsMichael HornAnd so that's, I mean, in my mind that's been the, one of the biggest arguments for ESAs is it really is putting money in a wallet that is yours and you don't have to spend it all in one year. You can save it over time. And so that doesn't introduce, it doesn't just introduce the notion of choice. It also introduces the notion of value and trade offs as opposed to a voucher, which is like a ticket for one thing, regardless of economic value and, and doesn't have those trade offs and choices and fractionalization and value assessments that an individual might make. Let's go on, just to stay on this though, on what you can spend on. Do you think there should be categories of things or like how do you, you know, where do you draw the line or, or no line. Right. Because you know, I obviously we've seen the headlines, equine therapy and you're like, actually it's a really important thing for some families and kids, so probably a really good thing.And by the way, you know, schools send their kids to field trips to Disney World and stuff like that. So like where is the line and where isn't the line in your view?Andrew ClarkYeah, and I, my personal view is the best case is like the child tax credit that we saw issued during COVID There were a list of uses for that. They were pretty broad and you know, the IRS reserved the right to come in and audit and make sure you spent the money on your child. Makes sense. Pretty reasonable. Didn't prohibit anybody from doing what they wanted to do for the most part. But it also made sure that if there was fraud that the government had a mechanism to come in and enforce it.Michael HornCome back in and unfold it. Okay.Andrew ClarkThat's the best case scenario.Michael HornGot it. Okay, so let me ask this question which is a lot of these ESAs, even the ones that are universal, meaning access to it is open, they're not fully funded, as in that there's a line item, as I understand it, that could cover every single person in the state and it is double funded in many cases in the sense that there's an account for the public schools and then there is also an ESA. That introduces an interesting sort of case of rationing or choices around who do you market this to first perhaps you can't foreclose people, but maybe you can if there's waiting lists, like how do you navigate that focus, access, set of questions in these environments? And maybe I just named the corollary up front, which is like at what point do we say, okay, the dual sort of funding structure was really important so we don't, you know, get their ire up front. But at some point like there it has to be replicative of, you know, what was there. How do you, how do you think about that?Andrew ClarkNo, I think, I think the original strategy we had of let's just give people an exit was a good one for its time. I think the problem is if you leave that old system in place, exactly what you're saying is happening. One, you would hope that the money, you know, that was 15 or $20,000 in the public school system would now be the 7,000 in the ESA. And we would say, great, the government has now saved $13,000 and it's a win win and everyone's happy. But what happens in reality, we've created a lot of dependency in the current system. They don't let go of a dime and then it becomes additive. So that's a problem for the government in terms of its overall spending, but it's also a problem for the market because what happens is you get New York City spending $40,000 a kid, what do they do? They just start spending money on every crazy thing you've ever imagined in human history, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. And people begin to expect that level of service even if it doesn't make sense.So it's like, why does this school have a climbing wall? And why does it have a restaurant? Why does it have crazy things? I have the money and if I don't use it, I lose it, so I've got to keep spending it. Well then what happens is when an alternative comes up and says, hey, I'm gonna now give your kid a better education at a significantly lower cost, they're like, yeah, but where's the cool climbing wall? Right, right. And so now the expectation level for service gets higher. So the promise of like bringing the cost down, which then increase access for everybody, it starts to diminish because the service expectations are higher, which is a little, a little bit wonky. But it's to say that if we don't get the, the existing public school system transformed as well into a place where it has to care about what families want and be responsive to what families want, the promise of this idea to transform education, it's not going to deliver. And so I think the next big wave is we have to go back to public schools and say, hey, it's time for you to also come back to a system like esas where parents are going to decide, do I give you all $15,000 or do I peel a thousand of that off and go use it for a tutorial when you don't meet my needs? I think we need to, we must get the definition of public schools redefined from the public system owns and operates the dollars and the families comply to a system where the families own the dollars and the school meets their needs. And if we can do that, all sorts of good cascading effects will happen. And if we don't do that, I think we'll stall out again.Michael HornAlso interesting off that right. Is this notion of overserved and that is critical to disruptive innovation. And one of my arguments around why we can't disrupt schools at the present, you know, traditional system in the United States is there's no non consumption and there's very little sense of overserved. But it's my argument about why have ESAs have emerged, I actually think some of the most well off families that are like, you know, I don't need the 10, you know, English as second language instructors and the football team and the this and that. Like I just want this, this, this, this, this boom. Thank you very much. I'm great. And that's sort of where the disruption will really start I think if we're going to really see a revolution of how education, learning, schooling occurs in this country.Andrew ClarkYeah. And maybe if I just double click on that because you and I do the same research methodology which is this jobs to be done. And we asked the people who have left the public school system, why did you leave? And almost universally what they say is I just wanted basic life skills. Like I just want to be able to do math and read and just, you know, some fundamentals: wash their clothes, pay bills, like the easy stuff. And so what they go and search for in the market usually costs about $5,000 a year. So they're leaving a free service that costs $15,000 a year to go to a paid service for 5,000. But they're doing it because they want less, which is really remarkable to watch. So I'm with you.I actually think we probably in a space where 65, 70% of the current offering in a public school, people don't actually want to buy. And if they were given the choice, they wouldn't buy. Which is a pretty fascinating intellectual thing to get to doodle through.Michael HornNo, I think that's exactly right. I mean look, it's the classic case why iPhone, new iPhone sales are slowing down and spreading out. People are like, I don't need the extra whatever gimmick. I'll hang on for another year to my phone. Right, exactly. So, let me go to this, which is accountability. I think it's implicit in a lot of what you said. But it seems to be another place where there's a lot of opinions on both sides of this.And on the one hand you sort of say, actually the quote unquote accountability of no child left behind, etc. Etc. was more transparency, perhaps less accountability because not clear always what happened out of that. There were some punishments attached to it, but for the most part there were ways to ward them off. This is perhaps true accountability, goes the argument, because families say, you're not serving me, I can leave, I'm going to move to another option. And I have control over that. Whether it's mid year, mid month, end of the year, right? So much faster cycle times. The flip side of it says, sure, but these are public dollars and we want some sort of layer of are kids actually learning how to read? Are they actually learning how to do math? Things of that nature.And so we want some minimum set of baseline assessments, maybe, perhaps they could be more growth based, but we want some sort of public mechanism still in place. How do you think about this question? What do you see happening?Andrew ClarkSo I think the way you framed it up I would vigorously agree with, which is we don't have accountability today in public schools, we have transparency at best. And we could go through a litany of examples. But Chicago, Baltimore, New York, you know what you see is enrollments dropping wildly, right? Like people are just straight up walking away from public schools and on these standardized test scores, you've got tons and tons of schools, just Google it. Chicago proficiency rates. You'll be like, wow, there's 30 schools where not one kid is proficient in English or reading or English and math. And then you'll be like, great, so what happened, you know, the next year nothing changes, right? Year after year the behavior stays the same, but as they lose kids, their pure pupil dollar amount goes up. So if anything, they're almost getting more money for, for not changing at all, for being resistant.That is not accountability. That is again, at best, that's transparency. But it's not actually changing anything. So I'm with you. The idea that somebody could actually then say, like, if you're not helping me, I'm going to go somewhere where I can be helped and my money's going with me. That's actual accountability. That has teeth to it. So I think that if you value accountability, and I certainly do, that's the accountability you want.The standardized test score isn't going to get you there. Now that said, I do think, look, reading is good, math is good, right? And if you're investing in this as a taxpayer, you want to have visibility into it. I think when you mandate testing on every single kid, it's not useful for parents, they don't want it, they're not asking for it, they wouldn't buy it. That's not a great way to do it. I think the way that we do it with NAEP, which is just this randomized group of voluntary participants, makes way more sense because then you get visibility into what's going on without anybody being forced and without teachers trying to optimize to the test. So I think that's the kind of thing we should do. And you could do it across a broad range of things, micro schools, private schools, whatever. It's voluntary.You can get much more transparency, much more visibility into where kids are actually learning and where they're performing without anybody being forced into anything. So if I were the state, I would invest money into a NAEP style system, if not NAEP entirely itself, to try to get that visibility without coercing people.Michael HornIt'd be interesting. I hadn't thought about this before, but one of the challenges is, I understand it that NAEP faces is frankly budgetary, it's all from the federal government. But if the state were to say, hey, we're going to contribute X amount in because we want, you know, to leverage the sampling mechanism and this well regarded assessment that's already structured, but do it every single year, say, or you know, maybe that's a way to get the funding up to be able to do something like that. And then I imagine this is a question though, but I imagine your second statement would be like, and some parents probably do want assessments to know, hey, how's my kid doing against on this or that or whatever else. And so they could pay for, or they could choose schools that administer. And then I guess the question is what becomes public or not in those choices. I'm curious your take.Andrew ClarkYeah, as you know, the philanthropy community gets really obsessed on this idea of navigation where they're like, we're going to tell people what they want and we're going to tell them what good and bad is. And when you ask people like would you pay for any of the services that government or philanthropy suggests? And the answer is always no. So it's like, would you pay for this testing service the way that we do it today? The answer is almost, yeah, uniformly no. So what I would do is say, hey, in your ESA or voucher, tax credit, whatever you're designing, testing is one of the things you can pay for in whatever you want. And then you, as a family, you decide what's actually creating value. And that way, you know, if it's a Google review Or a Yelp review or it's a standardized test or it's whatever, I don't care. Right. You as an entrepreneur, come up with whatever feedback mechanism you think families will be like, yes, that's going to help me decide where to put my kid and why and whether they're succeeding.Great, go out and sell that. Is that worth $20? Is that worth 200? Is that worth 2,000? Right. Let's find out what the value of that is. And that way we actually start getting real products and services that families value and use as opposed to the ones philanthropy or government's value that nobody finds value in and nobody uses and we just hemorrhage crazy amounts of money on for no particular reason other than making people irritated except for academics who love it.Michael HornWell, it occurs to me as if certain places write in provisions and policy around navigation requiring a coach or something like that to help advise. Frankly, like the AI tools that are coming out right now that are going to know your situation are going to make that so cheap and easy and to say nothing of social trust and so forth, that if they're, if those policies are not written at an extremely sort of like outcome level as opposed to process level, they're going to be outdated within days, right.Andrew ClarkYeah. I think this is the overarching argument I'd make is Taylorism. I'll give it a lot of crap, but I actually think it was great. The industrial revolution was awesome. It made things super cheap. But it's made for machines and people are not machines. And so when you're dealing with the people business, let the machines do the machine thing. But if you're trying to say, what's the right coach for my kid? There's no process to tell you what the right coach is.It's you sitting across the table from the coach having a conversation saying, is this person going to love my kid? Are they going to resonate with each other? Are they going to understand each other? Is this relationship of trust? There's nothing that you can do to replace that kind of just authentic relationship that goes back and forth. And s I think you're not going to design a law that says, hey, let's optimize for that. The only thing you're going to do is empower people and let them make their own decisions. And that's why, you know, freedom almost always beats some kind of top down control.Michael HornAnd presumably someone could pay for that navigation or counseling or whatever else.Andrew Clark100%.Michael HornOkay, last question as we wrap up here. This has been a pretty wide ranging question, or conversation rather on how these things should look in practice. I'm curious, are there other implementation questions on the ground that you think are not getting enough attention or are really sort of bubbling up right now that we haven't talked about that we ought to focus on as we wrap up this conversation?Andrew ClarkYeah, I would bucket the implementation thing kind of three waves. There's the how do you sign up for it? Which sounds really stupid, but there's a million debates on like, how do you sign up for these programs? And kind of who gets qualified and then which time period. We could nerd out on all of those. But this is one of the reasons why we advocate for universal, not just for because it's good policy and good politics, but because it's good implementation. So if it's a low income program, you have to go ask people, how much money do you make? Please submit all your form forms. And then somebody has to process. It takes forever. Whereas if it's universal, it's just, are you a person who lives in the state? Great, you're approved.Streamlining Government Program EnrollmentAndrew ClarkOff we go. But there's a ton of fights on the how do you sign up for? So I think it should just be easy to sign up for. It should take seconds, right? Verifying your taxpayer should be stupid simple. The second one is easy to use, which is where I think we spent most of our time talking here, is like, how do you use these darn things once you're approved? And then the third part that is there is in an ideal world, people should love these programs. It's free money. Who doesn't love free money? Right? Like, I think there's all sorts of good arguments against free money, but if you're gonna do it, it should at least be enjoyable. The fact that we torture people is kind of crazy, but there's almost no feedback mechanism to see if anyone cares, because nobody cares about the family in government, which blows my mind. So one of the big arguments is, hey, you actually need to circle back with the family and say, was this experience enjoyable? Did it meet your needs? Right.Jobs to be done? Was your job hired for? If yes, cool, we're probably doing something right. If no, where did we break it? Let's go back and fix it. And until we can get that kind of feedback loop going and get incentives aligned, it's going to be hard for these programs to work in practice.Michael HornAll right, I lied. I want to stay on that last one for a moment because one of my arguments to folks like Joe Connor and other entrepreneurs in the space, building systems to help with the disbursement of dollars is that as they move up market. Right. Part of the feature set that they probably will have to have is some of those feedback mechanisms, as well as, frankly, navigation supports, because they'll sort of become. I hate the Yelp analogy, but I'm going to use it for a moment, like sort of the Yelp, like, marketplace, if you will, for me, helping to figure out or find things that I might not even know about otherwise. That's my own opinion of how they might evolve naturally. I don't think there needs to be policy to do it. I just think it's part of the feature set.But I'm curious, is that how you're thinking about this, or do you have other ideas in mind?Andrew ClarkNo, I think if a marketplace is allowed to thrive and it's out. What you see in these early days anyways, of school choice is people start by saying, I don't even know what my options are. I've always been told what to do. So they just default to essentially a private school, or what you'd think of as a bundled solution. It has all your products and services in one place. And then as they get more comfortable, they're like, I really want to do math over here and I'd like to do athletics over there. And they start to unbundle. They start to pull off services and go to different places and different vendors for them.And so somebody who's been in a program for two, three, four years looks very different than somebody who's there the first time. But my expectation is just like, you know, when we transitioned from cable companies to Apple tv, it got annoying really fast. You're like, my God, I'm tired of having 32 subscriptions. I just have one again. Yeah. So what happens is you start to rebundle. And my guess is you're going to, you know, any.Any good market has this process of bundling and unbundling, and that's what drives innovation at its core. But I expect you to see we've had 100 years of a tightly bundled system. Now we're just starting to have the first two or three years of unbundling. But the natural evolution of economics would tell you it's going to rebundle. So somebody's going to say, hey, you just tell me what your kid is like and I'm going to come back to you with suggestions. And you just, you pay me and I'll take care of transportation, I'll take care of everything. And you know, you might end up paying a premium for that service, but it might be really worthwhile.And then somebody will get irritated and break that model and we'll just turn and turn and turn until, you know, the experience and education is the greatest thing that none of us have ever imagined, which is the way that that all again, all human experience goes.Future of Customized Service BundlesMichael HornWe should wrap up there. But I will say I think it's a really good point and that rebundling will be around different spools, if you will, from the current one, which will be the real magic. And to your point, figuring out the right mix and sort of services and so forth and trade offs that individuals will make saying like, well, it's still not 100% but nothing in life is. It just reduced the friction of me having to make every single choice. It's a lot of work picking all the summer camps as parents we have to do. So if there's a couple bundles from which I can choose and the more it can be customized around, you know, this is my circumstances, my kid, all the better, right?Andrew ClarkAbsolutely. That's what we all want. We all want an EZ Bake Oven. That is also exactly the way we want it. Right?Michael HornWell, with that is the final word. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a fun conversation. I've learned a lot and just appreciate the work you're doing.Andrew ClarkOf course I appreciate the work you're doing. It's excellent.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

In this episode of Class Disrupted, Diane Tavenner and I chat with Siya Raj Purohit, who works on education initiatives at OpenAI, about the transformative potential of AI in education. Siya shares her career journey and how it led her to focus on bridging the gap between education and workforce development. Highlighting the immense value of AI tools like ChatGPT, particularly in university settings, she underscores its potential to personalize learning, reduce teacher burnout, and enhance classroom interactions. Siya also addresses concerns around AI by emphasizing that while AI can elevate thinking and productivity, the irreplaceable human element in teaching—such as mentorship and personal inspiration—remains vital.Michael Horn:Hi there, Michael Horn here. What you are about to hear is a conversation that Diane and I recorded with Siya Raj Purohit from OpenAI as part of our series exploring the potential impact of AI on education from the good to the bad.Now, here are two things that grabbed me about this episode.First, I was struck by how much Siya uses ChatGPT in her daily workflow already. Yes, she works at OpenAI, but it has seemingly revolutionized her life. As she said, it's a massive productivity tool. From using it as a tutor to helping her figure out what projects to prioritize, what to learn, this is just part of how she works now. Second, I was struck by how much she's really on the ground level with universities, particularly professors, helping them figure out how to make it part of their workflow as well for teaching and learning, and how deep she is in specific use cases as a result, and how she sees this, frankly, as an important tool to free up teacher time, elevate student thinking, and the like.As the conversation wrapped up, I've also been reflecting on a couple things.First, what would it take for ChatGPT to be a massive productivity tool for me personally? And if that's the framing, what does it mean this technology can and can't be used for in education?I was also struck by how OpenAI has decided to go deep on supporting those in college and beyond with their tool, but they haven't yet created their own products or services for students who are under 18. Candidly, that's not something I had really realized or reflected on before this conversation. So I'm excited to reflect a lot more with Diane after we talk to a number of people about this topic. But for now, we'd love to hear your thoughts about this conversation. Please share it with us over social media or through my website, michaelbhorn.com. And with that as prelude, I hope you enjoy this conversation on Class Disrupted.Diane Tavenner:Hey, Michael.Michael Horn:Hey, Diane. Good to see you.Diane Tavenner:I confess I am really excited about today's conversation because the first two we've had about AI have been super interesting and have been raising some big questions for me around the assumptions that I had coming into these conversations and AI and schools, and in particular how we organize schools themselves around new technologies. But it's made me even more curious to talk to other people and get other perspectives. So I'm really, really looking forward to talking today.Michael Horn:As am I, Diane. And I. I agree that the first two episodes have piqued my attention on different things, and I'm looking forward to digging in on more at some point. But whereas our last episode featured someone who is, I think it's fair to say, largely skeptical about AI, I suspect we will get a very different take today, given our guest actually works on Education at OpenAI, the company that of course developed and operates ChatGPT. Her name is Siya Raj Parohit, and she has been focused on supporting ed tech and workforce development in the startup community and at AWS over the past decade before she more recently joined OpenAI to work specifically on education. We're going to get to hear about all that up front. But first, Siya, welcome. It is so good to have you.Siya Raj Purohit:Thank you so much for having me.Michael Horn:Yeah, you bet. So before we get into a series of questions, questions starting to dissect AI and its impact, or not on education, I would just love you to share with the audience a little bit about how you got so deep into AI around the question of education, perhaps specifically, and maybe you'll also humor me as you do so, because I'm curious OpenAI's interest in all this because it seems like more than maybe any product launch other than the iPad that I can remember anyway, I can't think of any other consumer tech product or service that has made education such a cornerstone of all of its announcements and sort of promise and potential for the new technology. So maybe you can tell us a little bit both about your journey, but also how OpenAI sees education.Siya Raj Purohit:Absolutely. So I've spent my career at the intersection of education, technology and workforce development. This all started when I was 18. During college, I published a book about America's job skills gap, talking about how American universities weren't teaching the skills that students needed to land jobs in industry. This stemmed from my own experiences and the fear that I may not be able to land the jobs that I aspire to. And that's something that I think a lot of young adults relate to. But I've spent the next 10 years from that just trying to help bridge that gap. I worked at early stage startups, venture capital funds, and most recently Amazon, trying to bridge that gap between learning and opportunity, helping make economic mobility more possible for different types of learners.I joined OpenAI about 8 months ago to help build up our education vertical. As you all might remember. November 2022, ChatGPT launched and suddenly became like such a used product around the world. And what was interesting for OpenAI is that learning and teaching was one of the most common use cases on why people were engaging with ChatGPT. So this year we launched a product called ChatGPT EDU is designed for universities and school districts to be able to use an enterprise grade version of ChatGPT. With that, it brings all sorts of different types of benefits. There are all sorts of network effects that can exist on a campus once all students, faculty and staff have licenses.I will share a couple of examples of what that looks like. But a big part of my job is to help education leaders, educators and students start using AI more effectively on different types of campuses.Michael Horn:Perfect. Perfect. Go ahead, Diane.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, I mean, I think it sounds like, rightfully so, Michael and I are both operating under the assumption that you're probably biased towards seeing AI as something that offers real opportunity to improve and transform education. And clearly your personal pathway and journey is leading you to that impact. And so one of the things we're interested in is having you sort of make the best case for how AI will impact education in a positive way. And we have a lot of things in our minds that we've thought about, but we're really curious to be expansive in our thinking and have you make that very best case for us.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.ChatGPT: Revolutionizing Personalized LearningSiya Raj Purohit:So I believe for education as a sector, personalized learning was always the holy grail. We always said that if we achieve that, we have made it, like we have accomplished a lot of education goals with that. And I think that with ChatGPT, it exists. I have a personalized tutor that I talk to every day. It knows my projects, the skills I'm developing, like my aspirations. And it helps me become a better knowledge worker every day. And I think that in education, it's making high quality tutoring available to anyone with an Internet connection and supporting educators by automating a lot of the time consuming jobs that they do to let them focus on what matters a lot for them, which is like mentoring and inspiring students.Diane Tavenner:That's interesting. Let's stick on that one for a moment because, and we'll get to this a little bit later, but like I wonder, does that mean that the schools don't actually end up changing very much because the tutor and the sort of automated assistant just allow students and teachers to do things the way that they have been doing them, just better and more efficiently? I'm curious what you think about that.Siya Raj Purohit:So right now the most interesting examples we're seeing is that educators accrediting ChatGPT for reducing teacher burnout, which as you both know is a big problem in America. Teachers who used to spend so much time doing lesson planning, quiz grading, like all the preparation for classroom activities are able to outsource a lot of that work or kind of use ChatGPT, do a lot of that work. And so then they can focus on those classroom interactions and the engagement within different peers in the classroom, which I think is much more valuable. As far as the classroom dynamics go, I think that it is a big compliment in the way that it brings personalized support and tutoring to individuals. But at the same time I do think that there's still value in students being grouped with others that are of the same age as them because then you develop a lot of social skills and you learn how to interact more. So I'm not of like mind that like people should just do online school and have ChatGPT because I think that social component is becoming increasingly more important.Diane Tavenner:Got it. I'm thinking back to your 18 year old self who wrote a book, which we could spend a lot of time just even talking about that, but having we've both written books, we know what it takes. We weren't writing them at age 18, I don't think. And your whole premise there that like I'm not learning the skills that I'm going to need to be successful in the jobs that I want to have or the careers I want to have. How do you see AI and what you're doing with ChatGPT contributing, you know, making that not true or improving that. What is the intersection there of your personal sort of passion?From Personal Struggle to System ChangeSiya Raj Purohit:The reason I wrote that book and I felt so passionately about that and I guess that passion still, like it's so deep in me is because at first I thought it was a Siya problem. Like Siya was not able to be learning engineering skills to be able to land a job that she wanted. And then I did enough research by speaking with some really accomplished individuals to then realize this was actually a system problem. And the book was like my attempt to capture like the scale of this problem and also prove to myself that this is not just like the thing that I'm struggling with. And then I think the next part of that was like, how can I free other people from the struggle? And that's when like, this journey to try to make economic mobility more accessible has become like my life passion. So I think with ChatGPT one thing that it does really phenomenally, which I hope the students will take advantage of, is it helps elevate our thinking. A lot of times I share my thoughts on a project and I'm like, how can I elevate my thinking? How would a COO of a rocket ship company approach this? And it helps kind of expand my thought process much more.Siya Raj PurohitAnd I think while doing that, it helps us feel like less alone in a lot of these things that we encounter a lot of the problems because we can find the right examples, we can think bigger about this, we can find our own gaps. And I think these things are very powerful.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. One of the things that's interesting about talking to you that I'm observing is when we ask other people to make the best case scenario for AI, it's a little bit detached from them. But what I hear in you is literally this is what you're doing. This is how you're working every day. It sounds like you are a true believer. Am I missing anything or am I hearing that right?Siya Raj Purohit:I used to work really hard at AWS, but I accomplish about three times more every day at OpenAI just because I have AI now. I use it a lot to up level myself, but also to uplevel the project outcomes I provide.Diane Tavenner:Interesting. Awesome. Well, this next question might be more challenging for you.Michael Horn:It's a massive productivity tool for you. And I'm interested in your book. There's this common theme, right? You used "me search", as we would say, not just research around your book. And then you were doing the same thing with this tool because you're living it in terms of your massive productivity boost. But I guess I'm curious, like the flip side of some of these things because I, you know, there's a lot of skeptics, as you know about, oh AI might not even just like not have these transformational impacts, but also might undermine certain things. And so I'm sort of curious where you come out on some of this stuff. And I'll Just name two. And then you can go wherever you want on it.Michael Horn:Which is one, you said in some ways it actually makes you feel like you have a companion alongside of you to elevate your thinking. Some people said that actually could be dangerous because maybe you'll be in isolation. Right. And not feel like you have to connect with others. And then you talked about elevating thinking. And I think that's the other big worry that people have is that it'll actually do the thinking for you. Right. And we won't do the difficult, effortful work to learn about how to construct an argument and, you know, critical thinking and build knowledge so that we can analyze it and so forth and so on.Michael Horn:And I'm just sort of curious, like I kind of want you to steel man the argument and make the best skeptics take, but I almost more want you just to start to dig into these different use cases, you've heard the ones that I just named and others and sort of talk us through how you think about them.Human Connection in EducationSiya Raj Purohit:Yeah. So let's first talk about the human connection piece. It's really interesting because a lot of educators come talk to me about their own doubts and concerns about the future of their profession. They're like, will I still like be a teacher or educator given that ChatGPT exists and it's getting so good? And this question honestly surprises me a lot because the reason that I remember educators that have influenced my journey is because of who they were and how they made me feel and who they told me I could become. Right. These are things that ChatGPT doesn't do, because ChatGPT and AI know about me what I tell it, right? But great mentors can see things about me that I don't even know about myself. And I think that's a really important distinction. And I think that educators have this really unique opportunity in this era to double down on those things, they got into teaching to mentor and inspire and find these connections.Siya Raj Purohit:And now they have the opportunity to do more of that because if they can help increase the potential or vision for more people, that's the true power of education. I'm really excited about that. And I don't think that ChatGPT will replace human relationships. I think it's just gonna become like a support system. So like, the reason, like how I use ChatGPT on my personal career front is that I tell it like the things that I might want to become, like, this is like my 5 year goal, this is my 10 year goal. Can you create a really robust roadmap on how I can get there. And it gives me really, like, precise instructions as I join these types of organizations, publish this type of content, think about taking on these types of projects at work. It's really detailed.Siya Raj Purohit:But what it misses out on is, like, when my manager comes in and goes like, hey, this is your superpower. You should double down on this. You know, like, forget, like these type of strategic projects. They just hone in on what makes Siya, Siya. Right. And that's what we need more people to do for other people.Michael Horn:Super interesting talk about the other part of this. The you mentioned elevating thinking, giving you a personal roadmap. It's amazing. Again, the other fear that I hear a lot of is people say, well, it's actually going to cause people to not do the effortful work to actually learn or even get to the questions that you're able to ask of it. How do you think about that concern?Siya Raj Purohit:I think educators need to show more about what an extraordinary outcome looks like. And we need to just be able to showcase what amazing end products look like in different verticals and different domains. And the reason for that is that if you give a generic input to ChatGPT, you'll get a very generic output, which a lot of students are realizing, because they're just like, okay, I'm going to plug in my homework, get a very generic output, submit that. And that's not what professors are looking for. So I think one of the most creative use cases I've seen is a professor at the Wharton School. He always had an essay as a final submission for his MBA class. And he says, he's like, what is the value of an essay? The value of an essay is not necessarily in its output, but in the conversational skills and critical thinking skills that go into getting to that output. So now he requires the students use ChatGPT.Siya Raj Purohit:He's like, they are going to use it anyway, might as well make it a requirement. And now he measures the number of prompts they use to get to an essay that they're really satisfied with. Some students are so good at prompt engineering that they take like two or three prompts and they have a really good essay. And some students go back like 18 or 19 times to get to a good essay. And he uses that as their ability to clearly articulate what they're looking for, which he thinks is a really important skill. So if he can teach students how to communicate those skills, like in terms of communicating that output that they want to see, and also be able to visualize some really extraordinary output, then they're going to be able to use AI as just a tool to get there.Michael Horn:So maybe this is the last question in this section that I have because building off that, I think it's almost an implied set of knowledge and awareness, right, that students need to have as baseline to be able to have those expectations or hopes for outcomes and things of that nature. I'm sort of curious, you also mentioned that what the purpose of an essay is implicit in all of that is that some of the artifacts that we have used historically to gauge, you know, thinking processes and argumentation, et cetera, et cetera, like they might change in the future. Right. The example we've used a few times at this point is Brorr Saxberg, one of our friends likes to say Aristotle worried deeply that the written word would mean people didn't memorize Homeric epic length poems anymore. And he was absolutely true.Michael Horn:And I don't think any of us regret that. And so I'm sort of curious, your take of like, you know, sort of how we do work or the artifacts of what we think of as representing learning, how might those change even in the future? And maybe some of these concerns, they won't all be that relevant because we will show our knowledge and skill development through other means.Siya Raj Purohit:So I think a lot of like basic calculations, basic strategic work, all of that is going to become much less important. I think a lot of listeners would probably relate when their teachers told them they wouldn't always have a calculator around, so they needed to learn basic math early. And now we do. So it's just like these kind of like, the basic elements of strategic thinking, I think are gonna be less important than they used to be. But the things that are going to be more important is like, like critical thinking, but also emotional reasoning and the ability, like emotional intelligence to be able to these outputs and make sure that they match the type of Persona that you're serving. So right now in my current role, I do a lot of like, I guess, partnerships and BD work and those kind of things. And like, yes, I use AI to create the different types of documents and slides and those kind of like assets that we share. But the way that I communicate them to the end user to kind of inspire confidence or interest is like the unique ingredient here.Siya Raj Purohit:And we need to be able to teach that. So when the strategic work, as our reasoning models get smarter and do more of that strategic work, that human element helps people distinguish their work and stand out.Diane Tavenner:Interesting I'm so curious because I think you maybe more than other people have started to maybe personally see some changes happening in schools because of AI and like how it looks different and how it feels different and/or I bet you can imagine them a little bit better than a lot of people. And one of the things that I think we suffer from is just imagination in this space, right? Like we all know what school looks like and we have a really hard time breaking out and imagining something different. So can you just take us there? Like what could possibly look different, feel different for a teacher, for a student in a school? What are you seeing? What are you predicting?AI Revolutionizing University ExperienceSiya Raj Purohit:For this one, I'm going to actually focus more on the university setting because that's where we're seeing the fastest changes happen. Our current thinking around what an AI native university looks like is that every campus will have multiple AI touch points across that help enhance the student/faculty/staff experience on campus. So basically the idea is that we're going to take the knowledge of the campus, make it conversational and more accessible to these users. So when students come on campus, they're going to have these orientation GPTs which, where they can ask questions like where's the best pizza place in town? Or how do I change my roommate? Or any of these kind of preterm questions that they have. Then they're going to come into classrooms where professors will have designed these custom GPTs that are just basically that have learned from the professor's material and help answer questions. So a professor at HBS, Jeffrey Buskyang, was telling me that most of his class uses custom GPTs between 12am and 3am when like a human tutor is not available. And they can ask questions like which CEOs handle layoffs well and get the exact examples to help understand these kind of concepts. So classroom conversations will become much more in depth because of this.Siya Raj Purohit:But also students will be able to do things like I have a statistics exam coming up, can you give me some practice quiz questions that relate to the same like level as my professor provides and just be able to go back and forth in classroom content that way. They'll go to career services where they'll be able to use the university's proprietary data to practice interviewing with a McKinsey partner and McKinsey recruiter, all with like AI. So like all of these experiences will happen, student clubs, career services, classrooms, and it's going to happen seamlessly for students. So they'll be able to navigate between this very easily as they try to like grow as students and professionals.Diane Tavenner:Super helpful I want to dig a little bit more and this might be surprising to you, but I actually think a number of people who listen to our podcast, maybe fewer that listen to our podcast, but sort of in education, have literally never even used ChatGPT yet. They haven't logged into it. So let's spend just a moment helping them picture what it means to have a GPT. Is it on their phone? Is it on a computer, Is it on a kiosk? What does it literally look like if I'm a student when I'm engaging? And what makes it seamless?Siya Raj Purohit:I saw a meme recently which I thought was really funny in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry starts writing in this diary and it's like Tom Riddle responding at the other side. But I really liked that example because your first experience of ChatGPT feels similar to that. You just start writing. It's a blank screen and you have a conversation and it converses back with you. And it's actually a very magical feeling because you're able to have conversations with the super intelligence that exists outside of our brains, which is very powerful. So I think that it's really important to be able to first start having this conversation. You can use chat.com, you can use your mobile app, you can start actually on WhatsApp now or even call in.Siya Raj Purohit:There's a 1-800 ChatGPT number. So any of these mediums that make sense for you, you can start and you can ask basic questions. What we see most people do is start with very basic questions and kind of start building up as they gain more confidence in the back and forth interactions of this and then they're able to do more and more complicated jobs. So how we think about transformation for organizations is the very first step is at an individual level. So when individuals start writing emails better, they start doing better, like project planning or activity building. Then it shifts up to the department level. That's when people start collaborating together on different projects. One of the best examples I saw of this is that a school district told me it takes 40 people several weeks to assign which class goes into which room on campus.Siya Raj Purohit:And now ChatGPT can do that in a few minutes. So hugely empowering at the department level. And then finally get to that organization wide level, which is when you'll have so many different AI touch points and make that experience much easier as you navigate different levels of knowledge on campuses.Diane Tavenner:I think the other thing that you're saying that I'm not sure everyone will pick up unless we call it out. So I'm going to ask you to call it out is the reason, this is not like going to be a generic GPT. The intersection with the campus is that you're actually taking the data and the information and the expertise of the campus and well, you'll tell me the right words, but like mixing it with the power of GPT to make it sort of a customer customized experience. Did I get that right? What does that look like? What's going on there?Siya Raj Purohit:So basically there's ChatGPT, which is accessible to everyone. Everyone will have slightly different experiences as they go through it, but it's basically a knowledge base and a conversational platform. Custom GPTs are specific instances of ChatGPT which are basically trained to do very specific tasks. So a professor can be like, this is my six months of curriculum. This is all the case studies I provide. Just reference these when answering all student questions. So now that super intelligence is focused. So it doesn't like look at the web, it doesn't research answers, it focuses on the six months of curriculum, goes very deep and helps students be able to learn from that more effectively.Siya Raj Purohit:And you can use these custom GPT instances for any type of knowledge base. One of my favorite examples of this is that a professor at the University of Maryland told me that they created a custom GPT of themselves. They uploaded about 24, 25 pieces of research work that they've done. And like there are different pieces of writing and now they talk to what they call Virtual Dave and get good ideas on what their next research project should be. So it's like having a thought partner which is only limited to a finite amount of information that you share, but it's super intelligent itself.Diane Tavenner:Interesting. And let's just stay here for one more quick beat because you're leading us into what, maybe the work looks like for the teacher or the professor, but like just get a little bit more concrete. So that professor literally like copied and pasted his stuff into GPT? Tell it, tell us a little bit about what that, what's his work now? What's he doing?Siya Raj Purohit:Yeah, so it takes about 15 minutes to build a custom GPT. You upload PDFs or documents and so you don't need to copy/paste and you give it instructions. Again, this is where the assistant piece comes in. You explain to the custom GPT what his job is. So in this case, this professor is like, you are going to be my virtual thought partner. As I think about my next research papers. As I think about my next book or my LinkedIn posts, I need you to sound the same as I have in my career so far. So maintain the same tone and professionalism, but help me ideate on what the next iterations of these projects can look like and give me like very honest feedback.Siya Raj Purohit:So these are the instructions it gave and then the professor just has conversations with it. It's just like, could I go in this direction? And custom GPT is like, no, it's a little bit like overdone. Why don't we look at this path and it just becomes a good like research assistant for you.Diane Tavenner:Awesome. Michael, here's the jobs to be done at the moment, I think.Michael Horn:Seriously, right. What we're going to flag that for coming back to Diane?Diane Tavenner:For sure. So let's now bring in. I promise we will stop really soon as soon that we're getting to the end here. But I know that OpenAI you think a lot about, you talk a lot about, you focus a lot on policy and you're engaging with the policy, you know, field and whatnot. You know, what are you learning about the intersection of education policy and policy around AI? Like what, what should we be looking at, looking for, watching out for, paying attention to from your perspective as educators, as people who are leading schools and school systems and universities, you know, what, what do you see coming? What's important, what should we be thinking about?Siya Raj Purohit:So right now universities are in a couple of different groups when they're thinking about AI policy. Some have like very established guidelines and clarity in terms of where AI plays the role in their student journey. So like, I think some of the most forward thinking education leaders that I'm working with are like, okay, like AI is accessible. The cat is out of the bag, it's going to happen. And now I need to think about how I change my curriculum at the university to be able to use AI and help students prepare for the future. The best examples of this is Harvard Business School, there's a professor named Jake Cook who teaches a digital marketing course and he's mapped out what a digital marketing marketer's journey looks like now in the profession and the seven different jobs that a digital marketer does and where does AI enable each of those jobs? And he's turned all of his projects,AI Integration in Education EvolutionSiya Raj Purohit:So now you use AI to do competitive research, AI to create marketing assets and images, AI to help you with the copy and website and all of these kind of elements of what he thinks the students will graduate into the workforce and need to know, and like policies that enable this kind of forward thinking nature are really helpful for students because then they go into Enterprise and have ChatGPT Enterprise and actually are able to use that effectively. And then there are other institutions that I think are still trying to figure it out. They're concerned about how it might change their former assignments, how they can't use the same kind of syllabus they might have used in the past years. And a big part of our job right now is to help kind of showcase these examples of the forward thinking institutions and help these other universities learn, kind of grow their own thought process. At the end of the day, universities are the ones best suited to make these decisions for their students because they understand them the best. And it's so interesting because when you like speak with a state school, you realize they care a lot about like navigation of tools and being able to help students find the right information on a campus that is 50-60,000 students whereas a small liberal arts schools are just like, how can I help the student be able to voice their opinion more effectively? And all of these things have AI solutions. But it's universities that need to kind of figure out what they want to become and how AI can help with that.Diane Tavenner:Interesting. I could ask 27 more questions, but I'm going to ask Michael to rein me in and either wrap up with something something orMichael Horn:No, I think this is super helpful, Siya. I guess my last question is you're clearly spending a lot of time with colleges and universities. Are there others in the OpenAI team? Are you spending similar amounts of time with K12 institutions or how do you think that's going to evolve over time? Because clearly it seems like the colleges and universities are, not all as you just said, but many of them are wrestling with this yesterday. Are you seeing similar movement among K12 schools and districts or not? In which case that also tells us something.Siya Raj Purohit:They have a growing number of K12 customers. But the big caveat is we don't have an under 18 product right now. So it's not for students, it's for like teachers and staff members in K12.Michael Horn:Gotcha. Okay, super helpful. All right, well let's maybe wrap up there. Something we love to do, Siya, though, before we let our guests go, is to wonder what else you're reading or watching or listening to outside of your day jobs. And so maybe ChatGPT has recommended you reading lists or watching lists. But I'm just sort of curious, one thing outside that maybe you could point us to.Siya Raj Purohit:It's interesting to say that I've actually been asking ChatGPT a lot for book recommendations because I think it's very magical when you find the right book at the right stage of your life. And I want to see if ChatGPT can help make that happen more often. It's mixed results so far.Michael Horn:Okay.Siya Raj Purohit:One book that I'm reading right now which is super fascinating, it's called Say It Well, it's written by one of President Obama's former speechwriters, and he intertwines, like, how to be a good public speaker with stories from President Obama. And it's just super fascinating to read about how, like, things that President Obama slipped on in different talks, which make him much more human and accessible, but also like the ways that he thought about providing great speeches and connecting with audiences around the world. So I'm finding the book really interesting so far.Michael Horn:Very cool. What about you, Diane?Diane Tavenner:Awesome, thanks for sharing Okay. Well, I am going to turn to TV because we've been talking so often. I've exhausted all the books I'm reading right now, and I'm a little slow on this one, about a year behind. But we just watched the series on FX, Shogun, and I was. I must say, I was a little skeptical going in. I was a young kid when the book came out and then the miniseries on tv, and I was like, there's no possible way this could be done well or without some real issues.Diane Tavenner:And you all may know it's won 18 Emmy awards, the most ever for a single season. It's truly extraordinary and really thought provoking. Yeah. Highly recommend.Michael Horn:So I was gonna say, you could imagine it winning awards, but someone who'd read the books being like, it still didn't quite deliver, but it delivered for you, it sounds like.Diane Tavenner:Well. And I never read the books or watched the original series.Michael Horn:Okay. Okay. Okay. So.Diane Tavenner:But I just had this image in my head, and as I understand it, the current version is very different from the old ones, but it's. It's great.Michael Horn:Very cool. It's been teasing me for a while, so that is a good endorsement. For mine. I. I guess I, I want to say, like, the NFL football playoffs or Australian Open, but I feel like that gives away when we're recording, but too late, I've given it away. But I'll give you one other. I've actually really been enjoying or I enjoyed because I finished it in a day, a book recommendation that one of my daughters gave me, or she actually ordered me to read it.Michael Horn:She had finished, it's called the Girl with the Secret Name by Yael Zoldon. And I'll apologize if I've mispronounced her name. But it's a historical fiction, takes place during the Spanish Inquisition and it was fascinating. It was a history that I knew at a high level, but not with any depth at all, I will say, like literally zero. And so my daughter was teaching me quite a bit. It was fun. So, that's mine.Diane Tavenner :I love when that happens.Michael Horn:Yeah, no, know you've had that experience with Rhett giving you many recommendations. So now maybe this is the first of many for me. But I'll, let's, let's wrap up there, Siya, a huge thank you for joining us for shedding light on this topic, for sharing frankly how you are using it in your daily life to both on your learning journey but also in your work itself on, on a day to day basis. So really appreciate it and we hope you'll keep staying in touch so we can stay ahead of the curve as well alongside you. But huge thank you. And for all of you tuning in, we will see you next time on Class Disrupted.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Ron Matus, the Director of Research and Special Projects at Step Up For Students, joined me to discuss the evolution of education choice in Florida. We talked specifically about the significant growth and impact of education savings accounts (ESAs) on the landscape. And Ron shared insights into the trend of unbundled, à la carte learning by highlighting its rapid adoption and the factors driving it. We also touched on the accountability debate surrounding ESAs and the innovative roles districts and programs like Florida Virtual School are playing.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education. I’m Michael Horn. Delighted you are all joining us at the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there, I am delighted that Ron Matus, the Director of Research and Special Projects at Step up for Students, which was founded as a nonprofit org to administer scholarships for Florida school children to the school that most made sense for them. I'm delighted that Ron is joining us today. Ron, first, good to see you. You've been a longtime friend and follower on both sides of the equation in this space. So how are you?Ron Matus:Good to see you. I'm great. I am amazed and grateful and honored to be on your show. I feel like I'm in a dream. So thank you so much for inviting me on.Michael Horn:As always, you guys will learn as you listen that Ron is nothing but flattering and over with the praise of others. But why don't you start before we get into some of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you, which is getting a view of the landscape in Florida, specifically. But first, give us sort of an overview briefly of your own background, how you came to the world of education and, and perhaps how, you know, Step up for Students, how it intersects with that story and how Step up for Students has actually evolved over time into its current set of operations.Ron Matus:Sure, sure. Well, I guess the most boring part would be my story, but I am a longtime former newspaper reporter. That's what I did really my entire adult life until I joined Step up back in 2012. I was at the Tampa Bay Times, which is the biggest and most influential newspaper in Florida. And back when newspapers had a little more juice, I mean, they were pound for pound, one of the best newspapers in America. I was there for 10 years, and for eight years I was the state education reporter. And so there's a direct connection between what I learned as a reporter and what inspired me to move over to Step Up. You know, over that time, writing a lot about issues with public education, seeing how choice was making a difference, and I started covering education, during Governor Bush's second term, of course, he did a ton to accelerate choice in Florida. So I was there in the early days as choice was ramping up, and I came to see how absolutely vital it was to an education system that I thought made sense. And at some point back around 2012, I got a chance to move over to Step Up. One of my former colleagues, a really remarkable guy named John East, who was a longtime editorial page writer at the Times, had moved over to Step Up. And a few years down the road, he reached out and said, hey, if you want to actually make a difference, instead of writing about problems, you want to help solve them, you might want to consider Step up and best decision I ever made.I'm not one of those reporters who left the profession because things were crumbling around me, and I had to go, you know, reinvent myself as a PR flack or something. I left because I realized that choice was going to be the new normal, and I had a chance to shape that a little bit, and I had a chance to watch it unfold from just an incredible perch, which is Step Up. So the second thing that you were asking about how Step Up has changed, I think Step Up has changed remarkably over the time that I've been here. And in some ways, that change is representative of the change as a whole in the public education system in Florida. So when I got to Step Up, there were, like, 20 or 25 employees. We have 20 times that now. We have more than.Michael Horn:For real.Ron Matus:For real. We have more than 400 employees now.Michael Horn:Wow.Ron Matus:When I got to Step Up, we were serving about 50,000 students on scholarship. Today you probably heard this big announcement from Governor DeSantis last week. We've now reached the 500,000 threshold in terms of scholarship students. So the number of students we're serving has increased tenfold. And then, as you know, because you pay such close attention to this stuff, we're not just serving students on school choice scholarships anymore, which was the way it was when I got here, which is relatively simple. And I want, you know, my colleagues do a lot of incredible work. So I don't want to say it was simple, butMichael Horn:Emphasis on relatively. YeahRon Matus:Yeah, compared to what it is now. You know, these scholarships are technically now all ESAs. And so the volume of transactions that we have to process, it's gone through the roof. And so we have been right there the whole time, as Florida has moved from a system of district schools to school choice, and now from a system of school choice to education choice. And, and that's where we are now. And that next phase of going from school choice to education choice is exciting and we're right in the middle of it.Expanding Education Choice DiscourseMichael Horn:Yeah, I think that phrase from school choice to education choice is a really good way to frame it, of course, because ESAs are not just, and one of my biggest pet peeves is when people call them vouchers, and I'm like, it's not just, it's, it's very different in a lot of, in a lot of respects. And I love how you introduced yourself the same way you introduced yourself to me over, you know, probably, I think it was right before you maybe you formally joined Step Up for Students is the first time we connected and you said, I'm just a journalist trying to figure this out. So here you are, having learned quite a bit and for, and figured out quite a bit. And I guess the intersection section where I want to go in is about a year ago, maybe a little over, I wrote a piece suggesting that as education choice grows, meaning not just school choice, but we should start to expect more unbundling of what we think of as schools. Right. Students aren't just going to go to one school.They'll have tutors, they'll have a variety of options. But I didn't expect to see a great unbundling en masse. And, and I base that frankly on two things. One, our theories at the Christensen Institute around how innovations tend to start as very bundled over time before they modularize and unbundled. But I also based it, frankly, on data from Florida that you all had published about how individuals were in fact using ESAs. But then fast forward, and you all came out with this report, a taste of à la carte learning. And it seems that things on the ground are changing quite a bit. So in that report, what did you learn? What is the data showing in terms of how people are using education savings accounts and how perhaps the nature of choice and schooling and learning is evolving?Ron Matus:I think it's changing pretty rapidly. So when you say, you know, you expected there to be an unbundling, but not a great unbundling, I guess it depends on, you know, what your definition of great is.Michael Horn:Sure, I got some latitude in the headline writing. Right.Ron Matus:So, I mean, I think there's a lot going on and things have changed very quickly. Your analysis was absolutely correct in that the vast majority of money at this point is still being used for private school tuition, even though technically these are ESAs. The vast majority of families are still using the ESAs like the old school. And I say old school even though most of the country hasn't even gotten these yet.Michael Horn:But I was going to say you're well ahead of the curve there.Ron Matus:We are ahead of the curve. And so, but, but most families are using it like a voucher in that they're using it to access the private schools that they want. And for what it's worth, those private schools are also changing pretty dramatically. I mean, I think there are a lot of dynamic things going on in the private school choice space too, and I don't want to diminish that. At the same time though, even though most of the money is still being used for private school tuition, we do have growing numbers of families who are doing completely customized, personalized, à la carte unbundled learning. And it's not, it's happening pretty quickly, but it's happening maybe a little less quickly than people realize because the first ESA is 10 years old. I mean, we got our first ESA program 10 years ago that was for students with special needs. But very quickly, thousands of parents were using that ESA to pick and choose from multiple providers and programs.Rise of Personalized Education ProgramsRon Matus:They were the pioneers, the early adopters, you know, whatever you want to call it. And they really started showing the rest of us what was possible. So, there were pioneers and there have been for 10 years. And then you fast forward to 2023 when we got this new scholarship program called the Personalized Education Program Scholarship, which is an ESA for a broader group of families who are not enrolled in public school. They're essentially homeschool families, although there are some legal distinctions there. But Michael, we went from thousands of families doing à la carte learning to tens of thousands in a snap between those two programs, between, you know, the ESA for students with special needs and those in that program who are unbundling doing à la carte, and this new program at this point, we have probably about 80,000 families doing à la carte learning this fall. I would bet a decent amount of money that we would be in excess of 100,000 because the cap on the PEP program alone is 100,000 plus we are seeing more and more of those, the scholarships called the Family Empowerment Scholarship for families with unique abilities, students with unique abilities.But that program has a bunch of à la carte families too. So between those two programs, we'll be beyond a hundred thousand this fall. So when you say great unbundling, I mean that's a pretty big number that's materialized in a short amount of time.Michael Horn:That's a huge number. I just put it in context in two ways. One, overall K12 student population in Florida. And then two, just so we have a percentage sense. And then when you say like they're à la carte, like, you know, what are their days or, or sort of spend look like what, you know, what's the range of categories you see that they're cobbling together?Ron Matus:So overall in Florida we have about 3.3 to 3.4 million kids. So, you know, 80,000 or a hundred thousand do an à la carte, that's still a relatively small number in that bigger mix. And I don't know what the ceiling is. You know, if I ever had a crystal ball, it was shattered into a gazillion pieces five years ago. Things have changed so rapidly. I never would have foreseen what we're experiencing now. So it's still a small percentage, but it's growing rapidly. And then in terms of what those families are doing, it's remarkable. I mean, they so quickly have figured out how to maximize the use of the ESAs to cobble together these programs from multiple providers. So to give you just, I mean, just one example, this one mom who I wrote about in conjunction with the à la carte paper, she's probably picking and choosing from a dozen different providers. So she's going to outschool for a writing tutor, she's going to two different micro schools to get à la carte classes. In one case for science and engineering classes, in the other case for art and drama classes. She's using the ESA to do lacrosse for her kids at a recreational league. She's using it for a chess club, Lego robotics competitive team. Oh my gosh. What else is she using it for? Oh, her kids are dyslexic, so she's got a dyslexia tutor which she accesses online because the tutor is in Iowa where they were originally. So she can continue to use the same tutor and then on and on. And then, then she supplements all of that with a variety of homeschool materials. So she's got like 20 different things that she's juggling to put together for her two boys. And that is not unusual in the least. There are families all over the place doing that.ESAs and Special EdMichael Horn:It occurs to me one, the lack of parochialism is admirable in the state that you would allow dollars to be spent for a tutor in Iowa. Right. I can imagine other states putting in education savings accounts and being like. But it has to be spent within, you know, so that strikes me. But a second thing strikes me about the special ed origins, which I, for some reason, had not put that together. The opportunity, I think, for ESAs, like, of course special ed families should be on the front lines of à la carte unbundled, because their needs are probably the clearest to those parents and the need to source it from lots of different places rather than assume a one size fits all, like they've been crushed under the weight of that for a long time.But B, it also could bring some real exciting, like from a, you know, not just from a service delivery of getting the right services, but also from a cost perspective I would think, the current incentives in special education across the country are to like, ramp up dollars as evidence of serving. Here's actually a way to make it more efficient, I would think, because the parents are thinking about what's the right mix and value across. Across a budget, in effect, which I think is pretty exciting. The other thing that your report did, and again, the name of it, A Taste of à la Carte Learning, came out in June. You all talked about how this was also really happening in certain regions within Florida. I think South Florida was one of them that you fingered, if memory serves. What's the context? So, like, if part of this story is special ed, what's the context of South Florida? Why is it, why do you think it's perhaps happening there more?Ron Matus:Well, it's definitely like happening in a huge way down there. I mean, there are folks down there who have just created an alternative universe for education in a short amount of time. It's really remarkable to behold. Shiren Rattigan, who you just had on your show recently, who I just find to be completely inspiring, she's right in the middle of that. But there's like a hundred of hers down there doing these amazing things. I think there are several things happening that make sense as to why South Florida is a particular hotspot. So number one, you know, there's the density down there. There's a lot of people. I mean, there's 6 or 7 million people between three counties, you know, Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. And, you know, when you have that many people, even a small percentage who want to do something different can be a lot. And I think that's what we're seeing down there. There's a small percentage who want to do something different than traditional education.But they've got numbers because there's so many people down there. The second thing I think is it's incredibly diverse down there. I mean, Florida would be one of the most diverse states in the country, right and South Florida is even more diverse than the rest of Florida. So you just have this incredibly dynamic mix of people. Many folks down there would be first generation immigrants. So you have that, like, immigrant drive. I think you have very much a ton of people with an entrepreneurial mindset down there who want to do something different, who want to, you know, shape their own destinies.And if they got the opportunity, they're going to do it. And then last but not least, and I hope I'm not, like, gonna sound disparaging here, I do think that these folks, particularly in Broward county, which is the heart of this, are particularly driven because of the situation with the school districts down there. It's kind of interesting that you have, side by side, one of the most dynamic school districts, a district that has made a name for itself embracing change and embracing choice. And then right next door, which is Miami Dade.Michael Horn:I was gonna say that must be Miami Dade.Ron Matus:Yeah, Miami Dade. Certainly under Alberto Carvalho, who's now the superintendent in Los Angeles, they did remarkable things, and that has continued under the new superintendent. But then right next door is Broward, which is, you know, kind of more like your traditional big city school district, fairly or not, it has, you know, a disproportionate share of negative headlines about board politics and, you know, financial issues with projects and cost overruns. And that's been kind of the Broward story for a long, long time. So there were many frustrated families down there. Not to say that it's still not serving a lot of families well, because I don't want to take that away from them, because they are. But I think there was more frustration down there because it's kind of a stereotypical big city district.And then the last thing I'll say, and then I'll quit rambling. Parkland also happened down there in 2018, and I don't want to, I don't think we should diminish, like, the psychological impact that had on a ton of families. So between the frustration with, like, a typical big city district and then the horror of Parkland, people wanted something different. And it's not a surprise to me that the biggest growth, both in raw numbers and percentage in homeschooling in any big district in Florida was in Broward. And so it's also no surprise to me that parents there and educators there took the opportunities they got with ESAs and ran with it. And that's what you see happening.Michael Horn:Is your sense that the folks who have taken ESAs and gone into homeschooling are most of them in micro schools at this point. Like how micro schools are in the state of Florida?Ron Matus:You know, nobody has a good number, but it's easily hundreds.Michael Horn:Okay.Ron Matus:There is a group called, you know, the Florida Micro Schools, which has a couple hundred members and I don't think they've captured them all. I mean, Michael, they crop up all the time. I mean, it's amazing. But nobody has a good number on them. Some of them you can track because they are technically officially state registered private schools.As you know, the definition is kind of fuzzy. So there's a bunch of schools that aren't registered private schools, but are still like these little micro environments, essentially micro schools, either hybrid home schools or kind of their own little homeschool setup. So nobody has a good number, but I would say easily hundreds.Michael Horn:Super interesting. Okay, so let me ask you this question, because you brought up the districts and where they are more effective, perhaps you see less folks looking outside the district and where they are perhaps less effective, you see some more pent up demand for other options. You know, you talked about the special education history in Florida also. The other history, of course, is the Florida Virtual School, which goes back almost, you know, 30 years ago, I think, at this point. And Florida Virtual School is interesting because it's literally à la carte online courses for the most part. And it was also sort of like in this interesting way, like a tool of districts to provide bespoke options. So I'm just sort of curious, like in your view, has that made school districts perhaps more able than maybe we'll see in other states to be able to respond and offer, you know, unbundled education options themselves or sort of be the quarterbacks, if you will, for these, for families, you know, taken a little bit here, taking a little bit there, you got the Tim Tebow law. Like you have sort of, it seems, ingredients that would make districts more nimble.But I don't know if that's true.Ron Matus:I think it very much is true. And I'm so glad you brought up Florida Virtual School, because as amazing as they have been for 30 years, I don't think they've ever gotten fully the credit they deserve for being just the pioneers, of course choice. Right. Like you're right, they were, they're like the original à la carte provider.Virtual Learning Expands in DistrictsRon Matus:And they've been here in our backyard, and I think what they did was show people a model and they also kind of prime the pump because, you know, for, I don't know, at least a decade now, maybe 15 years now, it has been a graduation requirement that kids take at least one virtual school class. And so hundreds of thousands of families have had a little taste of à la carte learning because they've had to, like, take a single class from a different provider. So everybody's experienced that. I think what we're seeing now is families can still go to Florida Virtual School to access à la carte classes. But we're also seeing, and this is a super amazing development to keep track of going forward. We're also seeing districts now offering unbundling of their own, apart from virtual classes, and so there are six districts. I think that's correct,There may be even more now. There are six districts that I know of who are now official providers in the system who can get paid with ESA funds. And they're doing that so families can access one or two or three classes, whatever they want to supplement the rest of the programming they're putting together for their kids. There are at least a half dozen other districts who are in the pipeline. So there are districts who are seeing the times have changed. Some families don't want our whole package deal. They just want some of the pieces,Why don't we offer that to them? And so Florida Virtual School primed the pump for that. But we're seeing districts on their own offer in person, à la carte classes too. And that's a trend I expect to continue.Michael Horn:That's fascinating. I mean, I think it's really cool also, because it also gives lie to this sort of storyline that I think is lazy from people that say, oh, ESAs are just a way to undercut districts. No, like districts, come on in, innovate, compete, you know, do better things for students. You got evidence that maybe they're doing it?Ron Matus:Well, they're doing it. And it's also not unexpected to me anyways. And I want to give everybody credit who deserves credit. And I don't think this is an either or thing. It's not us versus them. And even though people don't recognize this enough, the fact is districts in Florida, most of them, not all of them, but most of them did respond to the first wave of choice. They did respond to school choice.All those charters and all those private schools that, you know, parents were accessing with their vouchers or tax credit scholarships that did inspire districts to rev up their own choice options in a huge way. I don't know what the exact latest numbers are, but I would say they are either the biggest engines for school choice now in Florida or among them, because all those magnet schools and career academies and IB programs and everything else they created, made them leaders in choice, too. And so I am not entirely surprised that now that we're moving from school choice to education choice, and they see families wanting that, that they will find some way to adapt. And I think we should give them credit for the extent to which they are adapting to the new environment.Florida Education: Innovation and ChallengesMichael Horn:Super interesting. And of course, it's not just choice, right? With the innovation and choice and range of things you're seeing, you know, test scores, everything else have risen in Florida. It's one of the real bright spots in the nation. I want to end our conversation on maybe the downer, but maybe you'll give us the silver lining, which is you have this section in the report around remaining challenges. And so I'll quote it, you say, to ensure the sustained growth of à la carte providers, policymakers must continue working with parents, providers and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the possibilities, better define success and accountability, and thoughtfully strengthen processes for everything from determining eligibility to facilitating payments. Now, I don't have to tell you this touches a big nerve around accountability and it's a flashpoint. As you know, in this space there are some who say public funding, therefore we need, you know, publicly determined accountability for every choice a student or family might make, whether that's school or piano lesson or equine therapy, I suppose. And the other side says, well, families choosing is in fact the accountability, because if it's not working for them, they can go elsewhere.So they're really empowered in this world of ESAs and education choice. Help me understand why you all highlighted this as a challenge in your own perspective or observations around this tension or looming question.Ron Matus:You know, I think we had to put it in there because it is an important question. It is a totally fair question, and, you know, nobody should dodge that. And I, and I don't think it's a downer. I think it's an opportunity for us to better explain one, that it's not either or, but two, that, you know, accountability isn't just regulations. Accountability is on a continuum that also includes, you know, consumer choice or parent choice and that end of the accountability spectrum, and this is something I've learned a lot about over the past 10 or 15 years, is pretty exacting. You know, parents make good decisions, they do drive quality.And I think we need to help people understand that accountability isn't just regs. I think we have an opportunity to help people understand that there is evidence, including from our other scholarship programs, that when you have a light touch with the regulations and you put the bulk of the accountability on the parents to drive quality, you get good results. I mean, what we see with the other scholarship programs essentially are better outcomes at far less cost, with much higher customer satisfaction, even though those systems are far less regulated than the traditional systems. I suspect that will hold true with à la carte learning as well. One other thing to mention is that, you know, going back to the not being either or so there is a regulatory accountability piece on the PEP program as well, which is, you know, the à la carte program that's blowing up. Those students do have to take a norm reference test just like their counterparts who are using the old school school choice scholarships. So at some point, not too far in the future, we will have data from those students and that will tell us something. And you know, maybe it'll tell us that just like with the school choice scholarship kids, that light touch on the regs is working pretty well.Maybe it'll tell us something different and we'll have to, you know, adjust. But somebody in their wisdom, I think, you know, and I know testing can be controversial, and I know plenty of families don't want to take any test, but I think that somebody in their wisdom decided we should at least have that piece so that we can check going forward whether this is getting, you know, the results and the outcomes that we want and taxpayers want and the state wants. So I'm rambling now, but we had to put that question in there. Accountability is a huge question. It's a fair question. And I think we have an opportunity to better explain it to people so that they see the setup that we've created so far makes sense.Michael Horn:So sorry, lightning last question on this one then, because I'm curious. You all Step up for Students is almost a portal that's processing ESA dollars and helping people get to the schools of choice or education programs of choice, whatever it might be. What role do you all play in sort of showcasing the data, whatever that means, whether it's test scores or consumer opinion or whatever else, to help, you know, people have more information. Are you all thinking about, almost Yelp like providing more of that information?Ron Matus:I think that is the hope that eventually our systems will be able to have that consumer posted information so that families can get some kind of. Now, I don't know where that's at and sure, I want to be careful here. I don't know exactly where that's at or what it's going to look like. But that has been something that's been talked about for a long time. You know, essentially having the parents themselves, the consumers, like we do with so many things nowadays, put their two cents in as to whether this provider or that school was a good deal. So I suspect that that is where we're headed.Michael Horn:Well, these are things that we'll have to stay abreast of and you'll have to come back at some point and tell us how it's evolved over time. But just really appreciate you all, you coming in and your team and I didn't realize 400 plus amazing growth, you know, the work that you all are doing on behalf of Florida students. Appreciate it, Ron.Ron Matus:Well, thank you so much. And a big shout out to, you know, all of my colleagues, all 400 of them, most of whom I have not met. I haven't met them, but they're incredible. And they're making this all happen. I mean, they're making it so families all over Florida can have exactly what they want for their kids. And it's a cool thing to be part of. So thank you so much for giving me a little bit of a spotlight and asking these great questions. I really appreciate it.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

In this latest episode, I got to join forces with my colleague Ann Somers Hogg, who leads health-care research at the Christensen Institute and hosts the podcast, Life-Centered Health Care. Our guest was Craig Sprinkle, CEO of MedCerts. We discuss how MedCerts trains health-care professionals, from how it delivers hands-on learning through remote instruction to the savings students have incurred and future innovations on the horizon.Michael Horn:Welcome, everyone. Michael Horn here. And I'm thrilled for today's episode of our podcast, which will be different from what we've done in the past. And that's because we're doing a joint podcast, if you will, so that this episode will actually air in two different places. There's, of course, my podcast, the Future of Education, where we're dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And then we're partnering today with Life-Centered Health Care, a podcast that my colleague at the Christensen Institute, Ann Somers Hogg, produces. And Life-Centered Health Care delves into what disrupting health care really means. Not the buzz phrase, but what does it really look like and how do we do it? And how do the innovation theories that we use at the Clayton Christensen Institute shed light on the evolution of the broader health-care ecosystem to inspire others seeking to transform health care? So first, a welcome to my co-host for today. She's a senior research fellow at the Christensen Institute, Ann Somers. So good to see you. Happy New Year.Ann Somers Hogg:Great to see you. Happy New Year. Thank you for having me today. I'm excited about this.Michael Horn:Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad we're teaming up together on this. And for those wondering why we're doing a joint podcast, I will say the reason is because those who fill the jobs in health care, of course, do so through forms of medical education. And that's a place in sore need of innovation itself as we think about that broader ecosystem. So with that, I'll introduce our guest for today who's going to shed light on all this. Craig Sprinkle, CEO of MedCerts since 2022, you're an InStride company. And of course, Craig joined MedCerts in 2018 in a combined role as the CFO and COO and has served as the CFO since 2020 before stepping into the CEO role. So, Craig, great to see you. Thank you for joining us.Craig Sprinkle:Yes, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here. So thank you. Great to see both of you.The MedCerts Origin StoryMichael Horn:Yeah, you bet. So I want to start actually, you know, predating you at MedCerts, but what led to the launch of MedCerts, You know, what's the market need you all were fulfilling and the credentials that you're really helping fill in the health-care system. I will say, like, I had the chance to watch some of the formation of it, but I've never actually heard from someone at MedCerts how they view the opportunity and market needCraig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely, so as you said, it kind of predates me a little bit, but I'm happy to share that. First of all, we just celebrated our 15-year anniversary a year ago. MedCerts originally was founded and frankly still operates very similarly today, in a way that we saw a lack of quality online health-care training that existed 15 years ago that would quickly elevate students to be able to gain new skills, be job ready, and be ready to step into a job or a career. So we saw that gap, we saw an opportunity to ultimately fulfill that. At the same time. And what still carries forward today is that we're addressing a skills gap in the health care and IT industry. Employer needs are continuing to grow. They're looking for more out of job candidates and people that they want to fill vacancies that they have. And there's just a lack of available talent. So we saw a need not only in terms of delivery of that curriculum and delivery of that education, but also fulfilling a need on the employer side to really train towards skills that employers are looking for and making sure that those students are ultimately job ready when they come out of that training.Ann Somers Hogg:Yeah, you mentioned that there was a lack of quality online medical training. Could you tell us a little bit about how do you compare with other market offerings in terms of thinking about your business model? So what are the resources and processes that you have in place to educate your learners?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know that we'll probably talk a little bit more about delivery models and things like that as we continue the conversation, but if you kind of rewind 15 years ago, you know, a lot of things that the experience that a student would have is mostly like in classroom instruction, there wasn't a lot of hands on experience being taught. There wasn't a lot of applicable skills being taught inside that classroom experience. And that was ultimately leading to a gap whenever a person would walk out of that training to ultimately be ready to step into a job. We saw that, and I don't think that it was perfect at the time 15 years ago, whenever we first started delivering this, but bringing more of those applicable skills into an application environment where the student is not only listening to instruction on screen, but they're also learning on how to apply those skills as they're learning and going through that training. So that's a little bit of the difference, if you will, between the delivery of something that we were doing at the time online versus more traditional in classroom instruction. Not as much hands-on experience and not as much interactivity, if you will, within the classroom itself.Providing Hands-On Learning in an Online EnvironmentAnn Somers Hogg:Got it, got it. Thanks for explaining that. And this is probably going to sound like a silly question, but I want to dive into it because if it's an online based education program. You mentioned the importance of the hands-on training and a lot of medical training involves that hands-on experience. So how do you provide these hands-on learning opportunities for students in that online environment?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of our programs first and foremost involve a clinical requirement. So there is hands-on training required in order to even obtain the credential to begin with, in many of the programs that we train towards. The way that we accomplish that is a couple of different ways. One, we have a lot of partnerships with employers whereby they have agreed to allow our students to come on site, in their environment, work alongside someone else and ultimately obtain those skills. So they're not only taking what they've learned in classroom, if you will, through our didactic portion of our training, but also taking that into a live environment and applying it alongside someone that's already working in the job or the role that they're ultimately seeking to be a part of. So some of that is through those relationships that we have. We also work with a lot of local training facilities that ultimately host students to allow them to come into a simulated classroom environment, or, sorry, a work environment to where they can do the same thing, it's just not on site with a particular employer. So we do that in both ways. We do it through partnerships that we have with employers. Then we also do that through training sites that we have relationships with, whether that's regionally or locally based, to where our students can go into those facilities and ultimately complete those clinical requirements and hands-on requirements that they have. The third element of that is that we also have skill assessments built into our training itself online. So as the student goes out on site, they get some of that hands-on experience, they come back, if you will, into the virtual classroom. We have assessments that we will walk a student through to ultimately test their proficiency on how well they understood some of those things that they learned. And they're going through assessments on a regular basis and getting feedback on areas where they can and need to improve.The Student ExperienceMichael Horn:It's super interesting to hear you sort of break that down, Craig, because what is coming across actually is that you weren't just innovating in the area of online education, but you were also innovating against the traditional model, as you described, to create a much more interactive experience, a more active learning experience it sounds like. Just talk us through what a typical student experience looks like over the course of their certification program. But also maybe Ann Somers, we can ask the question about business model in terms of program costs relative to other options in a moment but Craig, just focus on like the interactive learning experience itself and how that differs and how you facilitated that over the course of their certification.Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, sure, absolutely. And I guess I'll preface this by saying that obviously every student experience is a little bit different. But by and large, when a student first enrolls in their program, first and foremost they're looking for that alternative route in order to get a fast track into a career. That's sort of fundamental to what we do, is that we offer that affordable training. It's something that we can offer in a fast and rapid way for them, it's much more affordable at little to no debt to that individual at the end of the day. And it provides that faster path into a career that they're ultimately looking for. Remember, the end goal is not the training itself, it's the job or it's the career that they're trying to build towards that we're really trying to help them with. Generally speaking, our students, once they enroll in one of our programs, they're typically going through a three to six month process, depending on the program, whereby they're completing initially a didactic portion of the training. That's the virtual online piece of it, typically that's built around quizzes, virtual assessments, interactivity, there's gamification if you will in a lot of the training that we do, there's real time feedback that they're getting through avatars and things on screen that they are interacting with and then that's followed up in some cases depending, on the program of course, with a clinical component that we were just talking about where that student will then go out on site, complete a lot of the hands on training that's required associated with their program and learn a lot of that in person either through an employer or training facility that we were talking about. They're taking regular assessments along the way, so they're getting continuous feedback around areas that they're doing well in, areas that they need to improve upon. And there's one to one support that we're ultimately offering them as well. They have an advisor that's assigned to them from day one. That advisor follows them all the way through, providing support, providing encouragement. As you can imagine, in an online environment it's very self led, self paced, it's sometimes very individualized and there can be an element of loneliness that comes along with that. So having someone that they can connect with on a regular basis, we feel is critically important to that success of that student. Along the way as well, they get connected with a career coach. That career coach is also helping them begin to develop a resume, begin to go through skill development as it relates to having a successful interview, getting connected with employers. While we certainly don't guarantee employment at the end of a program, we help students as much as we can get connected with job opportunities and openings that may exist in the geographical area that they're a part of. So that gives you a little bit of a window into, I guess, more of the specifics of how we deliver the training, but also the support and the service that we give along the way as well.Access and AffordabilityAnn Somers Hogg:Yes, that's really interesting, especially how you pointed to the connection to the advisor and how they're really helping them through the process, so that there is that feeling that people would probably be getting in the one on one or sorry, in the in person environment where they have that one on one connection with a teacher or an advisor. So one of the things you mentioned towards the beginning of the explanation about the typical student experience is it's an affordable training and it's a fast and rapid way to get a certification with little to no debt. So could you talk a little bit about how your program costs and maybe the options for student payment differ from traditional models? What sets you apart and makes it more affordable or makes people able to get through with little to no debt?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. So I think I mentioned a minute ago that typically our programs are structured to cover training that goes around either between three weeks up to about six months. From a pricing perspective, those programs range as low as $2,000 for a full certification program, all the way up to $6,000, but generally the average is around $4,000 at the end of the day. And whenever you kind of stack that up against, you know, a traditional undergrad program or even course hour costs at the four year college level, it's much more affordable and less expensive whenever you start to compare it on that level. At the same time, the speed at which someone can move through that training, first and foremost is self paced, which is a huge advantage to an adult learner who has a lot of distractions in their life at the end of the day, they do want to dedicate the time to getting the additional training, but they may not be able to sit and dedicate 8, 9, 10 hours a day to doing it. So we allow that flexibility in their scheduling to do that at their own pace. The funding and the ability of someone to be able to pay for their programs actually comes from a number of different places. Number one is that a lot of our students come through relationships that we have with employers. So there's typically a tuition reimbursement policy behind a student or other funding that's available through their employer, that from a student's perspective or that employee's perspective, it's basically no out of pocket cost for them at all. They're simply utilizing those benefits that they have through their employer. Some of the students that we ultimately interact with are also eligible for either state or federal level grant funding, depending on the program, depending on where they're taking advantage of that training, and they're able to tap into some of that funding as well. And then lastly, we also provide very affordable tuition assistance programs, payment plans, that allow a student to effectively take out a loan for their program. But it's a relatively low payment in the grand scheme of when you think about traditional student loans and the cost of tuition and things like that, it's a much more affordable monthly cost for them that they're paying for as they go through their training. And by the time they frankly complete their training, they have none of that debt left at that point in time. So they're walking out not only with a credential, but no further debt or payment obligation as it relates to the program that they just took advantage of.Michael Horn:Super interesting on a few fronts, Craig, I have a set of questions around outcomes and success. But before going there, just to double back on something that you just said as you were describing the loan, you know, when the few circumstances where people are taking out loans, it sounds like it's not federal student loans. So do you all not participate in the Title Four, you know, federal government, right, funding of higher ed?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, that's correct. So we don't actually take advantage of any of the Title Four funding that's out there today. The loan programs that I'm referring to, those are programs that we've structured internally ourselves. So if you think about it for a second, we are ultimately underwriting, you know, the default risk, if you will, associated with a lot of those payment plans. But quite frankly, we find that the performance is very, very positive. Because at the end of the day, you do have students that enroll in these programs that are very motivated. They are looking for an opportunity to take the training and very quickly move into a job and a career in a very short time period. So we see the performance of those payment plans, frankly, being much better in a lot of cases than what you would see through some of the other funding sources that you mentioned. And that allows us to continue to just do more of that, you know, over time.Evaluating OutcomesMichael Horn:Super interesting, because it strikes me that that does a few things, right? One, by not participating in Title Four, you all save cost in compliance, but you also get permission to do a lot more innovation in terms of program delivery, distribution, cost of acquisition of students, so forth. But secondly, I would imagine because you're doing the loan programming, your incentives are actually well aligned with your students because you are bearing the risk just as they are which is a central problem right now of the higher ed financing, right, is that the institution doesn't have any skin in the game on that. Let's talk about metrics of success and value and so forth. I know this a little bit because I was at Guild, I think when MedCerts became one of the providers for helping employees be able to move into health-care roles, depending on where they were with their employers. And a big thing for the Guild was we want to choose online programs that serve adults well. We want to choose programs that have good outcomes. How all do you measure outcomes? What are they, and how do they compare to traditional models?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, first and foremost, I mentioned a minute ago that the end goal and the ultimate outcome that we're looking for is the student's placement into a job. And again, that can take different forms when you're talking about relationships that we have with employers, because some of those students and those learners are already existing employees of that particular employer, but they are looking for upskilling or reskilling opportunities so that they can move into that next role or move into the next step in their career ladder. So ultimately, that is the end goal that we're looking for. Beyond that, it's more the traditional outcomes that you would see, regardless of it being MedCerts or any other training provider or education institution, you know, number one is whether you call it a graduation rate or a completion rate, that is something that we look very closely at in terms of how the rate at which our students are completing successfully their training and their programs. I would say the next largest or equally most important one is ultimately the employment rate. And we look at that very regularly. We are surveying our students on a regular basis. We stay in contact with them post graduation after they've completed their certification training, to stay in contact with them to make sure that either A, they did get the job that they were looking for or B they are looking for something different and if we can be of assistance to them to help connect them with other employers and other opportunities, we definitely want to do that for them. I will tell you that comparatively, and I'm certainly biased whenever I say this is that I believe that our outcomes are ratably better than what you would see in more of the higher ed space. Our completion rates or graduation rates are well in excess of 70% across all of our programs. That's blended by the way, some are a little bit lower and certainly some are much higher. But that's the overall average. And the way that we ultimately look at it's not traditional placement at the end of the day, but we look at employment and our employment rates of all of our graduates again are upwards of 70% or higher. And again that to be fair, that's a blend at times of both in field and out of field. But the vast majority of the employment that we're typically reporting on and looking at is infield associated with that. So there's other outcomes certainly, but those are the biggest ones that we definitely look at.Michael Horn:Yeah, go ahead Ann Somers.Ann Somers Hogg:Oh, I was just gonna say when you're looking at employment rate, is that employment rate at completion of the program or is that at one year, six months? Is it at a certain time period?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, it's actually over a time horizon. So it's at the point that they have completed their program and then 12 months following that time period. Because you have to remember again, depending on the program, there are clinical requirements that still have to be completed. That student still needs to sit for their certification exam. So it's really getting them in that employment opportunity in that time period immediately following graduation.Ann Somers Hogg:Great, thanks for explaining that.What’s Next?Michael Horn:Yeah, it's super interesting. Just one more question before I turn it to Anne Somers for sort of a final question, if you will. But when you talk about those metrics, those are actually stunning metrics for on ground programs, for an online program, those are astronomical. As you know, when you're talking about excess of 70% graduation rate in particular. And obviously the ROI to the student is very clear because these certifications have very clear labor market value. So the return is very clear. I'm curious, I guess a two part question as we think about where MedCerts maybe goes from here. Apprenticeships are becoming a very hot topic in the education career space, particularly in health care, is one of those places being identified for them. I'm curious if you're doing anything there and then the second question is what are you doing with AI in terms of program delivery as well? Because that's obviously another hot area. So AI, apprenticeships, things that we ought to keep an eye on there.Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. So let me address the first one first. So I would say in terms of a traditional apprenticeship, we are doing a little bit of that, but not significantly. What we do a lot of frankly, is more of like externship placement. So again, in terms of an employer and ultimately what they're looking for from our graduates, sometimes depending on the program of study, the vacancies that they have, they may not look to fill that vacancy right away, but they want that person to come out on site and almost do further on the job training with the employer in an externship type setting, and then that leads to a job for them at that point in time. Apprenticeships can get a little bit complicated, to be quite honest, about what it takes to manage that at the employer level. It's not that we shy away from that. It's just a little bit more difficult to execute. At the end of the day, we find that again, to change the word a little bit, you know, a traditional externship provides that faster and easier path to where it's a little bit of like test driving from the employer's perspective and test driving from the employee's perspective. And we find that that works out pretty well.Michael Horn:What about in terms of AI before I turn it over?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, yeah. So I would say probably 12, 18 months ago, we really started in earnest to start to embed elements of AI into a lot of our training. The best examples that I can give you today is that we have a mental health support specialist program that we train towards today. And part of that training, a good core of the training, quite frankly, is on the screen interaction with a persona that an individual learner is interacting with. A patient that is already pre wired, if you will, with a certain personality and based on the nature of the conversation, obviously intelligent large language models, and we start to build up that intelligence in the interaction that starts to build that relationship and that conversation as the person navigates through, through that interview process with the patient. So that's just one example of that. I will also tell you that we're actually leveraging AI quite a bit from a product development perspective to just help expedite how quickly we can move through new product development and bring new offerings to market as well. So I don't want to diminish that fact, but we're, I mean, we're finding every way possible that we can leverage AI in the most positive way.MedCerts’ Work With High SchoolersAnn Somers Hogg:Great. And as Michael mentioned, I'll try and close it out with an all encompassing question here. So is there anything about what makes MedCerts unique that we didn't ask you but you wish we had? And if so, what's the question and what's the answer?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, I mean, I think we had some really good conversation by the way, so thank you for that and I really appreciate all the questions. I think the main thing that we maybe didn't talk about, that I'm particularly excited about, is that what are the additional things that we're really doing to have a material impact on the vacancy crisis in health care? And I would say one of the bigger things among many, quite frankly, that we're doing is really focusing on early talent development and early skill development. And what I mean by that is that we're accomplishing that by really reaching down into the high school population and working with K12 providers to really bring our training into like juniors and seniors in high school, so it becomes part of their path towards graduation. And we kind of look at it as like a triple benefit at the end of the day. And what I mean by that is in many cases a student will have the opportunity to walk out of high school with a high school diploma. They will have a nationally recognized certification, and in some cases they will also have credit for prior learning associated with that certification at the college level if they choose to go down that path. And if you think about that, that is a massive cost saver for that learner at the end of the day where they may get credit for upwards of a semester's worth of education at the college level, which saves them a tremendous amount of tuition costs downstream, not to mention the skills that they've already built before they ever came out of high school. So that's just one path, if you will. But for those that are maybe not going down the four year college path or the two year college path, they are ready through that certification to step into a job that ultimately an employer is looking at that skill set and saying they're ready to be hired at the end of the day. So that's an area that obviously I'm really excited about, you can tell by the tone of my voice at the end of the day. But it's really something that we've seen a really large movement towards in the last 12 to 15 months.Ann Somers Hogg:Absolutely. I'm so glad that you brought that up. A few of the interesting models that I think I've sent on to Michael and another one of our education researchers at the institute have really piqued my interest when I see that a large health system is partnering with local high schools in order to do what you were talking about, in order to help those juniors and seniors really have a career path as soon as they leave high school.Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, that's a great point. I think to your point, employers are also seeing that opportunity where they can ultimately tap into talent earlier as well and not necessarily be solely relying on a training provider, you know, to bring all of that talent to them. They can find that through that partnership with that local high school district. And then we simply become an element of allowing or enabling that training to get that student job ready.Michael Horn:Yeah. It seems to me also I like it for all the reasons you guys have said, but it's dual enrollment with a lot more teeth in it because it's a meaningful credential that's backed up by a certification. So it's not just sort of the high school said you learned it. You can actually show that they've learned it and it has value whether they go labor market or college. I think that's going to be much more meaningful as a set of credentials.Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely.Michael Horn:Perfect. Well, look, thank you, Craig, so much, obviously, for the work that you're doing, for joining us on both Life Centered Health Care and the Future of Education today. You get two for one out of this conversation with us. And for all you tuning in, thank you for joining us. Ann Somers, great to see you. We'll look forward to more conversations on both of our shows. Thank you so much.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Techno-optimists have high hopes for how AI will improve learning. But what’s the merit of the “bull case”, and what are the technology’s risks? To think through those questions, Diane Tavenner and I sit down with Ben Riley of Cognitive Resonance, a “think and do” tank dedicated to improving decisions using cognitive science. Ben evaluates the cases made for AI, unpacks its potential hazards, and discusses how schools can prepare for it.Diane Tavenner:Hi there, I'm Diane, and what you're about to hear is a conversation Michael and I recorded with our guests, Ben Riley. It's part of our series exploring the potential impact of AI in education, where we're interviewing optimists and skeptics.Here are two things from the episode that I keep thinking about:First, our conversations are starting to make me wonder if AI is going to disrupt the model of education we've had for so long, as I think Ben perhaps fears, or if it's actually going to strengthen and reinforce our existing models of the schoolhouse with classrooms filled with a teacher and students.The second thing that I was really thinking about and that struck me was that Ben's sort of one case for what could be beneficial about AI is something that's directly related to his work and interest in understanding the brain. And kind of how learning occurs. To be fair, there's a theme emerging across all the conversations we're having with people where they see value in the thing that they value themselves. And perhaps that's an artifact of the early stages and who knows, but it's making me curious.And speaking of curious, a reflection I'm having after talking with Ben is about the process of change. Ben is a really well reasoned, thoughtful skeptic of AI's utility in education. He comes to his views at least partially from using AI. I would consider myself much more of an optimist and yet I'm finding myself a little bit annoyed right now, that every time I want to write an email or join a meeting or send a text or make a phone call that I've got AI pretty intrusively jumping in to try to help me. And it's really got me thinking about the very human process of change, which is one of the many reasons why I'm really looking forward to sense making conversations with Michael after all of these thought provoking interviews.In the interim, we'd both love to hear your thoughts and reflections. So please do share. But for now, I hope you enjoy this conversation on Class Disrupted.Michael Horn:Hey, Diane. It is good to see you again.Diane Tavenner:You too. And I'm really excited to be back. Coming off of our last conversation around AI and education, it's making me even more excited about what we're going to be learning in this series. And I think today will be no exception in really stretching our minds and our thinkings about the possibilities, the limitations, the potential harms of AI and its intersection with education.Michael Horn:Yeah, I think that's right, Diane. And to help us think through these questions, today, we're bringing someone on the show that I think both of us have known for quite a long time. His name is Ben Riley. He previously founded the Deans for Impact in I believe 2014. And Deans for Impact is a nonprofit that connects cognitive science to teacher training. And then Ben stepped aside a couple years ago, and has most recently founded Cognitive Resonance, which is a think and do tank, in its words, and a consultancy organization that's really, its focus actually is on this topic of AI and learning, which is perfect and makes Ben the perfect guest for us today. So, Ben, welcome.Ben Riley:Thanks so much for having me. We'll see if you still think I'm the perfect guest by the end of it, but I appreciate being invited to speak to both of you.Ben Riley’s Journey to the WorkMichael Horn:Absolutely. Well, before we get into a series of questions that we've been asking our guests, we'd love you to share with the audience about how you got into AI so deep, specifically because I will confess and I'll give folks background, I've been reading. I've actually been an editor on a couple of the things that you've submitted into Education Next on AI, and I found them super intriguing. And then somehow I had no idea that you created this entire life for yourself around AI and education. And you have some language on this that I think is really interesting on the site where you say the purpose is to influence how people think about Gen AI systems by actually using the lens of cognitive science. And you believe that will help make AI more intelligible, less mysterious, which will actually help influence what people do with it in the years to come. And then you write that you see it as a useful tool, but one with strengths and limitations that are predictable. And so we really have to understand those if we want to harness them in essence. So how and why did you make this your focus?Ben Riley:Yeah. Well. And thank you for clearly having read the website's cognitiveresonance.net or the substack Build Cognitive Resonance, in many ways, the organization reflects my own personal journey because several years ago I started to become aware that something was happening in the world of AI, and at the time it was called deep learning, and that was the phrase that was starting to emerge. And to be completely candid, my focus has always been, and in some ways still very much is on how human cognition works. And so AI, artificial intelligence, is considered kind of one of the disciplines within cognitive science, along with psychology and neuroscience and linguistics, philosophy. There's like it's an interdisciplinary field. And for me, quite honestly, AI was sort of like this thing happening somewhere over there that I had maybe a loose eye on. And I got in touch with someone named Gary Marcus at the time, and we'll come back to Gary in a second, and then just said, hey, Gary, can you explain deep learning to me and what it is and what's going on? And that, you know, sort of began that conversation. And then quite frankly, I just kind of squirreled away and didn't think much about it. And then, like it did for all of us, ChatGPT came into our lives. And I was stunned. I was completely stunned when I first sat down with it and started using it. And what really irked me was that I didn't understand it. You know, I was like, I don't get how this is doing, what it's doing. So I am now going to try to figure out how it's doing, what it's doing. And that is not easy. At least it wasn't easy for me. I don't think it's even now. I don't think it's easy for those who might have spent their entire lives, much less those of us who are coming in late in the game or just trying to make sense of this new technology in our lives. And what I was able to draw upon was both sort of the things that I do know and have learned over the last decade plus around human cognition and frankly draw on a lot of relationships I have with people who are in cognitive science broadly, and just start having a bunch of conversations, doing a bunch of reading, and really trying to, you know, build a mental model of what's taking place with these tools and with large language models specifically. And when I finished all that, I thought, well, geez, it seems like, you know, that took a lot of work. Maybe it would be helpful to sort of try to pass this along and bring others into the conversation. So that's really the thesis of Cognitive Resonance.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.AI’s Educational UpsideDiane Tavenner:Ben, everything you just described is just so consistent with my experience with you over the years and the conversations that we've had and what my perception is what you care about. And I'm so glad you brought it together in that way, because I'll be honest, when I was like, wait, Ben is doing AI? Like, that didn't totally land with me. And so what I'm hearing from you is like, well, I'm super curious for this conversation because I'm. I'm not getting the vibe that you're a total AI skeptic. I'm not getting the vibe that you're a total cheerleader. I'm guessing we're gonna have a really nuanced conversation here about this right now. So let's start there. Like, let's start with kind of that polar, and then see where we go. Can you make the argument for us of how AI is going to positively impact education? And I'm not saying it has to be your argument, but can you just stand up an argument for us based on what you've learned about how it could. Like, what's the best case to be made for AI positively impacting it?Ben Riley:Yeah. So this is what people are now calling steel manning, right? Like, can you steel man the argument that you may not agree with. I had a law school professor who taught me that the best way to write a good legal brief is to take the other side's best argument, make it even better than they can make it, and then defeat it. And you all gave me this question in advance, and I've been thinking about it since you did, and I don't know if I can make one best case. What I want to do is make three cases which I think are the positive bull cases. So number one, one that I think should be familiar to both of you because we've been having this debate for nearly a decade, is sort of personalized learning, a dream deferred, but now it can be real. When we said we were going to use big data analytics and use that to figure out how to teach kids exactly what they want to know, when they need to know it. Like, what we meant was we needed large language models that could do that. And now, lo and behold, we have that tool. And as Dan Meyer likes to joke, it can harness the power of a thousand suns. It's got all of the knowledge that's ever been put into some sort of data form that can be scraped from the Internet or from other sources, not always disclose what those sources are, but nonetheless, there's a lot of data going into them and using these somewhat mysterious processes that they have of autoregression and back propagation. And we can go as deep as you want in the weeds on some of those terms, but we doing that, we can actually finally give kids like an incredibly intelligent, incredibly patient, incredibly, some would even say loving, some have said that, tutor. And we can do that at scale, we can probably do it cheaply. And boom, Benjamin Bloom's dream, two sigma gains. It's happening finally. There we go. All right, so that's argument number one. Call that personalized maximization argument. Argument number two, I think, is the sort of AI as a fundamental utility argument. And the argument here is something along the lines of, look, this is a big deal technologically in the same way the Internet or a computer is a big deal technologically, and it's one of those technologies that's going to become ubiquitous in our society, the same way the computer or the Internet has become ubiquitous in our society. And we don't even know all the many ways in which it's going to be woven into the fabric of our existence. But that includes our education system. And so some benefits will accrue as a result of its many powers. Okay, so that's the utility argument. The third argument would say something like this. It would say the process of education fundamentally is the process of trying to change mental states in kids. And I mean, frankly, doesn't have to be kids, but we'll just talk about it from teachers to students.Michael Horn:Sure.Ben Riley:And, there's some really big challenges with that. When you just distill it down to the act of trying to make a kid think about something. One of the challenges is that we cannot see inside their head. So the process of what's taking place, cognition or not, is opaque to us, number one. And number two, experiments are really, really hard. They're not impossible. But you can't really do the sort of experiments that you can do in other realms of life the same way. It's just for ethical reasons, but also just frankly from like scientific, technical reasons. Because again, we can't see what's happening in the head. So even when you run an experiment, you're getting approximations of what's happening inside the head. Some would then say, well, now we have something that is kind of like a mind and we can kind of emphasis on kind of, see inside it. And we definitely can run experiments on it in a way that doesn't implicate sort of the same ethical concerns and others. That argument, and I'll call that the cognitive arguments, human and artificial, would say that can use this tool to better help us understand ourselves. In some ways it might help us by being similar to what's happening with us, but in other ways it might help us by being different and showing those differences. So those are the three arguments that I see.Evaluating the Case for AIDiane Tavenner:Yeah. Super interesting. Thank you for making those cases. Which of any of them do you actually believe? Now you, I'm curious about your opinion and why?Ben Riley:Yeah. So I have bad news for you. The first one, the personalized maximization dream, is going to fail for the same reason that I would like to say I predicted that personalization using big data analytics would fail. We could spend the entire podcast with me unpacking why that is. I'm not going to do that. So I'm going to limit it just to two arguments. Okay. The first would be that these tools fundamentally lack a theory of mind. Okay. So that's a term that cognitive scientists will use for the capacity that we humans have to imagine the mental states of another. And these tools can't do that. There's some dispute in the literature and researchers will say, well, if you run these sort of tests, maybe they're kind of capable of it. I'm not buying it. I don't think it's true. And there's plenty of evidence on the other side as well saying that they just don't have that capacity. Fundamentally, what they're doing is making predictions about what text to produce. They're not imagining a mental state of the user who's inputting things into it. Number two, I would say, is that it obviously misses out on a huge part of the cultural aspect of why we do and why we have education institutions and the relationships that we form. And I think that the claim that students are going to want to engage and learn from digitized tutors the likes of which Khan Academy and others are putting out, I think is woefully misguided and runs counter to literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of human history. Okay, so number one, doomed. Number two is to me like a kind of like, so what? Right? So I use the example of computers and the Internet as ubiquitous technologies that AI might join. So, like, let's say that's true. Let's say that comes to pass. So what? Like, we have the Internet now, we have computers now. We've had both of these things for decades. They have not, I would argue, radically transformed education outcomes. The ways in which technologies like this become sort of utilities in our lives, transforms our day to day existence. But just because a technology is useful or relevant in some way or form does not mean emphasis, does not mean that it is somehow useful for education purposes and for improving cognitive ability. So I have absent a theory as to in what ways these tools are going to do that. Whether or not they become, you know, ubiquitous background technologies is kind of a, so what for me. Number three, the argument, the cognitive argument that this tool could be a useful example and non example of human cognition, I have a great deal of sympathy for. I am very curious about. There's a lot, a lot that has changed just within linguistics, I would say, in the last several years in terms of how we conceptualize what it is these tools are doing and what that says about how we think and deploy language for our own purposes. We may have just scratched the surface with that. The new models that are getting released that are now quote unquote reasoning models have a lot of similarities in their functionality to things in cognitive science like worked examples and why those are useful in helping people learn. A worked example being something that sort of lays the steps out for a student as to here, think about this, then think about this, then think about this. Well, it turns out if you tell a large language model, do this, then do this, then do this, do then this, or just sort of program it to do that, their capabilities improve. So you know, without sounding too much like I'm high on my own supply, this is the cognitive resonance enterprise. It's sort of to say, okay, let's put this in front of us and instead of focusing so much and using it as a means to an end, let's study it as an end unto itself, as an artificial mind, quote unquote, and see what we can learn from that.Michael Horn:Super interesting, Ben, on, on that one. And I'm just thinking about an article I read literally this morning about where it falls short of mimicking, you know, the true neural networks, if you will, in our brain. So I'm pondering on that one now. I guess I, before we go to the outright skeptic take if you will, I'm sort of curious on like other things that you think AI won't help with in your view, beyond what you just listed in terms of, you know, this broad notion of personalizing learning or AI as utility, if you will, and, and the so what question, like are there other things that people are making claims around where they think AI is really going to advance the ball here. And you're like, I just, I don't see that as a useful application for it.Ben Riley:Well, you know, we launched into this conversation and we didn't define what we're talking about when we talk about AI. Right, sure.Michael Horn:There's different streams of it. Yep.Ben Riley:Yeah. And I think that, like, when I'm talking about AI, and least have been talking about it in this context thus far, I'm talking about generative AI, mostly large language models, but it includes any sort of version of generative AI that is in essence, sort of pulling a large amount of data together and then sort of trying to make predictions based on that, using sort of an autoregressive process or diffusion in the case of imagery, but sort of like trying to essentially aggregate what's out there, and as a result of that, aggregation produce something that sort of relates to that. If you're talking about beyond that, like, who knows? I mean, there's just so many different varied use cases. There's, I was mentioning off air, but I'll say now on air, there's a great book, AI Snake Oil, written by a couple of academics at Princeton, which talks about sort of the predictive AI, which they put in a sort of separate category from generative AI, and they're very skeptical about any of those uses. My fundamental thing is that to the extent people think like the big claim, right? And unbelievably, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, just a few days ago declared that, like, we've already figured out how to create artificial general intelligence. In fact, that's like a solved problem. Now we're on to super intelligence. I think people should be very, very skeptical of that claim. And there's a lot of reasons why I would say that, which again, could eat up the entire podcast. But I'll just give you one. What we now know is true, I think from a scientific perspective about human thought, is that it exists, it does not depend on language. Language is a tool that we use to communicate our thoughts. So if that's true, and I would argue in humans, it is almost unassailably true. And I can give you the evidence for why I think we think that or why we know that, then it would be very strange if we could recreate all of the intelligence that humans possess simply by creating something like a large language model and using all of the power of all the Nvidia chips to harness what's in that knowledge. Now what people will say, and frankly, this is where all the billions and the leading thinkers on this are trying to do is okay, well now we can only go so far with language. How about we try to do it for other cognitive capacities? Can we do that? Can we create neuro symbolic, as it's called, AI that is as powerful, powerful as generative AI with large language models and sort of start to piece this together in the same way that we may piece together various cognitive capacities in our own brain and then loop that together and call it intelligence. To which I say, well, good luck. I mean, honestly, good luck. But there's no reason to think that just because we've done it with large language models that we're going to have the same sort of breakthroughs in the other spaces. So don't know if this fundamentally answers your question, Michael, but I would say that it's sort of like, you can have progress in this one dimension. It can actually be quite fascinating and interesting. But I would urge people to sort of slow down in thinking that it just means that, you know, all of science and humanity and these huge questions around whether we will ever be able to fully emulate the human mind have suddenly been solved.The Skeptical TakeDiane Tavenner:Yeah. Wow. So fascinating. I have so many things coming to me right now, including my long journey and experience with people who make extraordinary com, you know, claims and then kind of make the work a little bit challenging for the rest of us who are actually doing it behind them. But let's turn now, we're kind of steering in that direction, but let's go all the way in on the skeptical take. And so I feel confident you've got some good material here for us. Like what is AI going to hurt specifically in education? Let's start there, and how's it going to do harm?Ben Riley:Yeah, well, I don't think we should use the hypothetical or the future. Let's talk about what it's harming right now. So I mean, the big danger right now is that it's a tool of cognitive automation. Right? So what it does is fundamentally offer you an off ramp to doing the sort of effortful thinking that we typically want students doing in order to build the knowledge that they will have in their head that they can then use in the rest of their life. And this is so fundamentally misunderstood. It was misunderstood when Google was starting to become a thing and the Internet was becoming a thing. You would hear in education, well meaning people say, well, why do we need to teach it? If you can Google it. Right? That was a thing that many people said, put up on slides. I used to stop and listen and look. It makes sense if you don't spend any time with cognitive science and you don't spend any time thinking about how we think. And so I don't, I don't want to throw those people too far under the bus, but just a little, because now we know. We know this. Like, this is a scientific, like, as established as anything else is established. It's like our ability to understand new ideas in the world comes from the existing knowledge that we have in our head. That is the bedrock principle of cognitive science, as I like to describe it. So suddenly we have this tool that says, you know, to the extent you need to express whether or not you have done this thinking, let me do that for you. You know like, this exists in order to, to, to solve for that problem. And guess what? It is very much solving for that problem. Like, I think the most stunning fact that I have heard in the last year is that OpenAI says that the majority of its users are students. Okay, the majority. Now, I don't know what the numerator and denominator is for that, and I'm talking to some folks trying to figure that out, but they have said that at the OpenAI education conference, Lea Crusey, who some of you may know who was over at Coursera, got up and said, and they said, and I think they meant this is like, they were happy about this, that their usage in The Philippines jumped 90% when the school year started. What are those kids using it for? Yeah, you know, what are those kids using it for? Like, I don't think, like, we need to stop pretending that this isn't a real issue. And for me, people sort of go, well, it's plagiarism, you could always plagiarize. And it's like, not exactly. Not exactly like. And I think it actually is sort of both overstates and understates the case to talk about it in the context of plagiarism. Because again, the real issue here is that we will lose sight of what the education process is really about. And we already have, I think, too many students and too much of the system sort of oriented around get the right answer, produce the output. And I think teachers make this mistake, unfortunately, too often, I think a lot of folks in the system make this mistake of we just want to see the outcome and we are not thinking about the process because that's really what matters. And building that knowledge over time. And you've got now, I mean I literally sometimes lose sleep over this. You've got a generation of students whose first experience of school was profoundly messed up because of the pandemic. And then right on top of that, we have now introduced this tool that can be used as a way of offloading effortful thinking. And I don't think we have any idea what the consequences are going to be for that cohort of students and the potentially, like, dramatic deficiencies in a quality education that they will have been provided. That's one big harm. There's another. I mean, there's many others, but there's another that I'll highlight here, too. I don't know if you, either of you watched, I imagine you did, the introduction of ChatGPT multimodal system last year, which included the family Khan, Sal Khan and his son Imran were on there. I thought it was fascinating and speaks again to the amount of users who are students that OpenAI chose Saul and his son to debut that major product. If you watch that video closely, and you should, you'll see something, I think, that is worth paying attention to, which is at multiple points, they interrupt the multimodal tutor that they're talking to. And why not, right? It's not a life form. It doesn't have feelings. And we know that, it's a robot. You know, to a degree. I don't think we've really grappled with the implications of introducing something like human like into an education system and then having students who are students who are still learning about how to interact with other humans, that's another part of education and saying, you know what, it's okay to behave basically however you want with this tool, right? Like the norms and the sort of, you know, ways in which schools inculcate values and inculcate, sort of how it is we relate to one another could be profoundly affected in ways that we haven't even begun to imagine, except in the realm of science fiction. And I think it's worth looking at science fiction and pointing to how we tell these stories. I don't know if either of you watched HBO's Westworld, particularly the first season before the show went off the rails. But if you watch the, if you watch.Diane Tavenner:Season one was a little intense, too.Ben Riley:Season one was intense, but it was good. I thought it was good. And, and, but it was haunting. And one of the things that was haunting about it is it's like for those who haven't watched the show, it's a It's filled with cyborgs who are quasi sentient, but they, you know, people come and they're at amusement parks and it's like the old west and what can you do? You can kill them. You can kill them and people do that or worse.Diane Tavenner:Right, yeah. Well, talk about the other bad thing.Ben Riley:Right, right. I mean, but, you know, but it's sort of like the fact that we now can imagine that sort of thing being a future where you could like humans, but not. The philosopher Daniel Dennett, who passed away, talked about the profound dangers of counterfeiting humanity. And I think that's the sort of concern that is just almost not even being discussed at any real level as we start to see this tool infect the education system.AI’s Impact on How We ThinkMichael Horn:I suspect that's going to be something we visit a few times in this series. But you've just, you've done a couple things there. One, you've, I think, more articulately answered, you know, a lot of the bad behavior we've seen on social media. How that actually could get exacerbated is not through deep fakes per se, but in terms of actually how we relate to one another. But you also answered another one of my questions that I've had, which is I can't remember a consumer technology where education has been the featured use case in almost every single demo repeatedly. And you may have just answered that as well. I'm curious, a different question because I know you and Bror Saxberg have had sort of a back and forth about, you know, where is certain things that maybe it's harming going to be less relevant in the future. And he loves to cite the Aristotle story. Right. About we're not going to be memorizing Homeric length poems anymore. And maybe that's okay because it freed up working memory for other things. I'm sort of curious to get your reflection on that conversation at the moment because I think Diane and I would strongly agree. Replacing effortful thinking, thinking that you can just, you know, have people not grapple with knowledge and build mental models and things like that, that's going to have a clearly detrimental impact. Are there things where you say actually it's going to hurt this, but that may be less relevant because of how we accomplish work or something like that in the future? I don't know your take on that.Ben Riley:Yeah, I don't think you'll like my answer, but I'm going to give you my honest answer.Michael Horn:I don't know that I have an opinion. Like, I'm just curious.Ben Riley:Yeah, I mean, I'm not a futurist and I've made very few predictions ever in my life, at least professionally. One of the few that I did was that I thought personalized learning was a bad idea in education. And I'd be curious, I don't know in this conversation another, whether you two reflecting back on that would go actually, you know, knowing what we know now, there were reasons to be skeptical of it and the, the I'm annoyed at the turn he seems to have taken because I used to like to quote Jeff Bezos. So with all the caveats around, you know, Jeff Bezos and anybody right now from big tech, he has said something that I think is relevant, which is he said, he's asked all the time, you know, how the, what's going to change in the future and how to prepare for that. And he says that's the wrong question. He says, you know, the thing that you should plan around is what's not going to change. He's like, when I started Amazon, he was like, you know, I knew that people wanted stuff, they wanted variety, they wanted it cheap and they wanted it fast. And he's like, that, as far as I could tell, wasn't going to change. Like, people weren't going to like, I want to spend more or take longer to get to me. And it's like I said, once you have the things that won't change, build around those. So I said it earlier, I'll say it again. The thing that's not going to change is fundamentally our cognitive architecture is the product of certainly hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years of biological evolutionary processes. It is further, I think, the product of thousands of years, tens of thousands of years of cultural evolution. We now have something, we have digital technologies that can affect that culture. So it does not mean, and I am not contending that our cognitive architecture is some sort of immutable thing, far from it. But on the other hand, it would suggest that what we should do is A, not plan around changes that we can't possibly imagine, but B, maybe more importantly, and I would say this to both of you, not try to push for that future, you know, that we should fundamentally be small c, very small c, conservative about these things, because we don't know, you know, I don't know what the amount of time that took place back in Socrates and Aristotle's time in terms of the cognitive transitions that took place, but they took place. My strong hunch not so much as the product of any deliberate choice, but to get a sort of social conversation about which ways in which should we talk to one another. And it was clearly the case that writing things down proved to be valuable in many dimensions. It may prove to be the case that having this tool proves very valuable in many dimensions. But let the time and experience sort that out rather than trying to predict it.What Schools Can Do To PrepareDiane Tavenner:Super helpful. I love where you're taking us, which is into actual schools. So I appreciate that you're like, let's talk about what's actually happening right now. And, you know, that is where my, like, heart and work always is, is in real schools. And so given what we are seeing, what you're articulating about what's actually happening right now in schools, and given that, well, I won't say it as a given. What do schools need to do to mitigate the challenges you just said to, to recognize this as a reality that is coming our way that maybe can't be put back in the box. Now, I'm going to say that with a caveat because I'm reading in the last day or two too, that it's people declaring, you know, that they've won the cell phone war and cell phones are going to be out of schools here pretty soon. So maybe, maybe you actually believe it's possible to kind of put it back in the box in schools. But, like, what's the impact on schools and what do they do literally right now, given what you're saying is actually happening already?Ben Riley:Yeah. So great questions, all of them. So, I mean, thank you for bringing up the cell phone example, because I cite that often and even before there was this sort of wave now, both at the international level, national level, state by state, district by district, to suddenly go, these tools of distraction aren't great for the experience of going to school and having you concentrate on hopefully what the teacher is trying to impart through the act of teaching. So we can, it's not easy, but we can take control of this. Nothing is inevitable. So, you know, people always say, well, you can't put it back in the box. You know, AI will exist, but how do we behave towards it? What ethics and norms do we try to impart around it? These are all choices we get to make. I like the phrase, and I'm borrowing this from someone named Josh Break, who's a professor at Harvey Mudd. He has a wonderful Substack called I think It's Just the Absent Minded Professor. But he writes a lot about AI in education. And his phrase is just you have to engage with it, but that doesn't mean integrate. Right? So what I do think, you know, Diane, you kept saying schools. I just think it's teachers, educators need to engage with it. That can still mean that the answer after you engage with it is no, not for me, and also no, not for my students. I think that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say. And look, maybe the students won't follow it, but that, you know, you've done what you can, right? And, and that is all you can do. There's a teacher out there who I'm desperately trying to get in touch with, but she made waves. Her name is Chanea Bond. She teaches here in Texas. She made waves on Twitter a while back by saying, look, I've just banned it from my kids because it's not good for their thinking. People are like, what? And it was like, she was like, yeah, no, it's not good. Like it's interfering with their thinking. So I've banned it. So that's a perfectly reasonable answer. I also think that, you know, once you start to understand it at a basic level, I'm not talking about getting a PhD in back propagation and artificial neural networks, but just starting to understand it, you'll start to understand why it's actually quite untrustworthy and fallible and that you know, if you just think that everything it's telling you is going to be accurate, you have another think coming, you know, and one of the things in the workshops that I've led that I've been very satisfied by is when people come out on the other side of them, they're like, yeah, okay, so this thing isn't reasoning and it's not this all knowing oracle. And once you have that knowledge, once you've demystified it a bit, I think it gets a lot easier to sort of grapple with it and make your own choices and your own decisions about how you want to do it. I will say that right now, in the education discourse, it's like, you know, things are way out of balance between sort of the hype and enthusiasm versus the sort of, hey, pump the brakes, or at least have you thought about this, if you'll forgive me, but again, sort of, you know, it's a, it's a free resource. But if you go to cognitiveresidence.net we've put out a document called the Education Hazards of Generative AI, which literally just tries to, in very bite size and hopefully accessible form, sort of say, here are all the things you really need to think about and might be some cautionary notes across a number of dimensions, whether you're using it for tutoring or material creation, for feedback on student work. Like, there's a lot of things that you need to be thinking about and aware of. One of the things that frustrates me is that I see a lot of enthusiasts and this ranges from nonprofits to the companies that make these tools, sort of saying, well, teachers, fundamentally, it all falls to you. Like, if this thing is not factual or it hallucinates, like, it's your job to fact check it. And it's like, well, come on, like, A, that's never going to happen, and B, like, not fair, you know, like not fair to put that on educators and just kind of wipe your hands clean. So I do think that's something that, like, we're still going to have to sort of sort through society on a, you know, social level as well as within schools and well as like individual teacher and ultimately students are going to have to bear some agency themselves about what choices they make around whether and how to use it at all.What We’re Reading and WatchingDiane Tavenner:I'm so appreciative of this idea of agency here. And I do think that that's like, certainly a place that I've always been and is core to my values and beliefs as an educator is the importance of agency, not only for educators, but for young people themselves. And so, I love that this is such a rich conversation. We go on and on and on. But I feel like maybe leave it there. Like really real people, real teachers, real students, real agency. So grateful for everything that you brought up, so much to think about. And we're gonna pester you for one last thought, which is Michael and I have this ritual of, at the end of every episode, we share what we've been reading, watching, listening to. We try to push ourselves to do it outside of our day jobs. And sometimes we seep back into the work because it's so compelling. And so we want to invite you, if you have thoughts for us and to share them.Ben Riley:So I told you I had a weird one for you here. So I was just in New Orleans and when I was in high school, for reasons that I won't go in detail here, my family got really into the Kennedy assassination and the movie JFK by Oliver Stone came out. And I don't know whether either of you have watched that film in a long time. It's an incredible movie. It's also filled with lies and untruths, and it's much like in large language.Michael Horn:I think we watched it in high school, but keep talking.Ben Riley:Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing that, the reason I bring it up is because Lee Harvey Oswald lived in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. And that movie is based on the case that was brought by the New Orleans District Attorney, a guy named Jim Garrison. But there's a bunch of real life people who are in that movie or portrayed in that movie. And I just started to think about accidents of history where all of a sudden you could be, you know, just a person of relative obscurity as far as, you know, anyone broadly paying attention to your life. And all of a sudden something happens and now you become sort of this focus of study. And trust me when I tell you that every single person who had any connection with Lee Harvey Oswald in his life has become this object of study to people and books have been written. And so I'm trying, this is very bizarre, I know, but what I'm trying to do is think about and understand what it is like for people in that situation. Like what it is like to suddenly have your story told that you don't have control of it anymore, you know, and if you know where, this isn't supposed to be work related but in a way I think it does connect backup because it goes back to the fact that these tools are taking a lot of human created knowledge and sort of reappropriating it for their own right. And we haven't got touched on that. I don't think we need to now. But it's sort of like it's, there are a lot of artists who feel a profound sense of loss because of what's happening in a our society today. That's another thing I think worth thinking about.Diane Tavenner:Wow, you're right. I didn't see that one coming. But it's fascinating. Thank you for sharing it. I am unfortunately not going to stray from work today. I can't help myself. Three of my very good friends have recently released a book called Extraordinary Learning for All. And that's Aylon, Jeff Wetzler, Janee Henry Wood. And it's really about the story of how they work closely with communities on the design of their schools and in a really profound and inclusive way. And so I'm deep in that, been involved in that work for a long time and think it's just a really powerful kind of inspiration slash how to guide of how communities can really take agency over their schools and own them and figure out what they want and what matters and what they need and how they design accordingly.Michael Horn:So I was gonna say now, Jeff has appeared twice in a row in our book recs, I think, on episodes or something like that. So love that. Diane, I'll wrap up with saying I'm gonna go completely outside of, I think, the conversation today. But, Ben, you may say it actually relates as well, because I've been binging on season two of Shrinking. I loved season one and season two, with the exception of a couple episodes in the middle has been no exception, I think. So I'm. I'm really, really enjoying that so far. And I suppose you could connect that back to.Ben Riley:What is Shrinking? I don't know. I have to. I don't know what it is.Michael Horn:Okay, it's.Michael Horn:It's basically about three therapists in a practice and one who's grappling with the deep personal tragedy. And Harrison Ford is outrageously hilarious. Yeah.Diane Tavenner:So good. It's so good. Okay, well, I'm gonna tag on to your, you know, out of work one and say yes, we love Shrinking as well.Michael Horn:Perfect. Perfect. All right, well, we'll leave it there. Ben, huge thanks for joining us. For all of you tuning in, huge thanks for listening. We look forward to your thoughts and comments off this conversation and continuing to learn together. Thank you so much as always, for joining us on Class Disrupted. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

We wouldn’t ask a piano student to attempt an advanced concerto before they had Mary Had a Little Lamb down pat.So why do we do the equivalent in schools?In this video I use a comparison to music instruction to illustrate why tying school curriculum to students’ ages rather than their skill level doesn’t work for anyone.(music playing)Oh, hey there. I was just brushing up on a piece that I have not played in a long while. It's Schubert's Fourth Impromptu, and it's a piece that I'd actually mastered a long time ago on the piano.But now I'm trying to get it up to speed on a keyboard—and it's a very different experience. But you can imagine that if I was just starting piano—I'd never played before or maybe just a couple lessons and my piano teacher said—well, Michael, you're 44 years old and it's August. So that means our lesson plan says it's time for you to be learning Schubert's Fourth Impromptu. So let's get started.That would be insane. Why?Because I wouldn't have mastered any of the foundational building blocks to be able to play such a piece. More appropriate for me would be trying to learn something like this. Right?So it would be literally crazy for someone to say, sorry, it's time to skip on to what the pacing guide or the lesson plan says you should be doing based on your age.Now, to be fair, that maybe wouldn't be a classical piece of music.Maybe they've taken some of my level into account.But still, maybe it'd be something like this. (music playing) Or maybe even this. (music playing)But the point is that it's pretty obvious that I should be moving on to something more advanced only once I've really shown that I've actually mastered or at least become proficient in the current piece and the set of skills that I'm working on.No piano teacher worth their salt would do otherwise.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.Yet here's the rub.Our traditional schools, they do this all the time and every single day. And we—the public, parents, even educators—most of us don't even bat an eye. We accept that that's just how school works.Even though we know that's not how learning works.Even though, of course a kid who has not mastered double-digit addition is going to struggle if they move on to double-digit multiplication before they're ready. It's crazy.And it's time that we had people—students, kids, all of us—learning at the right level for them, just above where they've achieved mastery, so they aren't bored and there's some struggle and effort required to really engage them, but also so that they aren't discouraged, as there's too much struggle and too much effort required.So let's wake up and move to mastery based learning and embed success for each and every child—not what we currently have, which is failure for most.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

On this episode, John Bailey, who advises on AI and innovation at a number of organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more, joins me and Diane Tavenner. We discuss AI’s potential to democratize access to expertise, weigh the costs and benefits of its efficiency-boosting applications, and consider how it will change skills required for the workforce of the future.Michael Horn: Hi, everyone. Michael Horn here. What you’re about to hear is a conversation that Diane and I recorded with John Bailey as part of our series exploring the impact of AI on education, from the good to the bad. Here are two things that grabbed me about this episode that you’re about to hear. First, John made the point that this technology is really different from anything we’ve seen before. Specifically, how these large language models could, from the get-go, produce artifacts of work that would rival what an entry-level person in a variety of professions would create. And how we’re just scratching the surface of their capabilities. And most people don’t even realize that yet. So what could this mean for education? Second was John’s observation that just because we can do something faster doesn’t mean it’s being done better. Said differently, making the wrong work more efficient isn’t necessarily the right solution. Now, when we finished up the interview, I had several reflections. But one I wanted to share with you now is this. John’s big framing is that through AI, everyone now has access to an expert in virtually every field. So if the internet democratized access to information, the analogy essentially is AI is democratizing access to expertise. But I’m curious if someone isn’t as skilled or knowledgeable or experienced as John, would they know what to do with or how to use such an expert at their fingertips? I’m excited to be in conversation with Diane for more sensemaking after we’ve talked with a number of people. And we’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections. So please, please share, whether over social media or by dropping us an email through my website at michaelbhorn.com. But for now, I hope you enjoy this conversation on Class Disrupted.Diane Tavenner: This is Class Disrupted, season six, and the first. I know. Can you believe it? The first of our AI interviews. And we, in this case, we have the first best person, John Bailey, as our guest. Hey, Michael.Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. Good to see you.Diane Tavenner: It is always great to see you. There’s so many things we could talk about. But I’m really eager to jump in today to our topics. We’re going to go there right away. When we kicked off last season of this podcast, Class Disrupted, we said that one of the things that we really wanted to delve deeper into was our curiosity around AI. And it’s hard not to be curious about AI right now. In our most recent episode, we were pretty straightforward about kind of where each of us are at this point in time and our understanding and our perspectives. And we overviewed some of the kind of current debates that are taking place specifically around education and AI. And today we get to go deeper with someone who, I think you’ll agree with me, frankly, knows a lot more about AI than both of us.Michael Horn: So I agree with that. I think it’s very fair. It’s one of the many reasons I’m excited for this conversation, because, as you said, it’s going to be the first of many where we bring folks on who, frankly, have very different views from each other around the impact of AI, sometimes from ourselves as well. And so to start this, we’re welcoming back someone to the show who’s been with us, I think, twice before. So this is like a three peat, if you will. So he’s clearly one of our favorites. None other than John Bailey.John Bailey: It’s so, so good to be on. Congrats. Six seasons. That’s huge.Michael Horn: Yeah, we’re still kicking, right?Diane Tavenner: Thank you. And just in case anyone has missed John previously, quick, quick background here. John’s served in many, many posts in the state and federal government around education and domestic policy more generally. He’s a fellow at AEI. He holds numerous posts supporting different foundations. I could go on and on and on, but what some people might not know, John, is that you originally entered education as an expert on technology and ed. And, you know, we’ll hear that expertise coming through because you have gone deep in the world of AI and how it’s going to impact education, and so, welcome. We are so excited to have you back.John Bailey: Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited to be here, and I just admire both of you and I’ve learned so much from you. So it’s so good to be on the show today.John’s Journey to Education AI WorkDiane Tavenner: Well, before we get into a series of questions we have for you, we’d love to just start with how, I guess how. And maybe it’s a how/why did you go so deep into AI specifically? We know you have a lot of experience with sort of frontier models, and maybe you can describe that term for us as well as we sort of begin this conversation. But tell us how you jumped into the deep end and come to this conversation.John Bailey: It’s such a good question. And it’s also like, my point of entry into this was interesting because, as you mentioned, I’ve been involved in a lot of technology and policy intersections for a number of years, including in education. And if I have to admit, like, I’ve been part of a lot of the hype of, like, we really think technology can personalize learning. And often that promise was just unmet. And I think there was, like, potential there, but it was really hard to actualize that potential. And so I just want to admit up front, like, I was part of that cycle for a number of years. And. And then what happened was when ChatGPT came out in December of 2022, everyone had sort of like a moment of ChatGPT, and for me, it wasn’t getting it to write a song or, you know, a rap song or. Or a press release. It was. I was sitting next to someone with a venture team and I said, what is, like, what is an email you would ask an associate to do to write a draft term sheet? And she gave me three sentences. I put it in ChatGPT and it spit back something that she said was a good first draft, good enough for her that she would actually run with it and edit it. And I was like, oh, this is very different. And then it just sort of started this process of seeing, like, what else could it do? And it just became insanely fun to kind of play with it. And then I was posting a lot of this on Twitter, and that caught the attention of some of the AI companies. And then they gave me early access. So I got to play with something called Code Interpreter for OpenAI, which was the ability of analyzing spreadsheets and data files, and then did some work with Google beta testing, Bard, and a handful of other things as well. And so I get to work with some of the companies now on safety and alignment testing, but also seeing kind of a little bit what’s over the horizon, Google Notebook LM I’ve been playing with for the better part of Over a year and giving them some feedback on it. So I think what’s happened though is that for me this feels very, very different from all the other technologies I’ve been exposed to at least over the last 20 years. And that has caught my excitement. I’ve rearranged my entire work portfolio to spend more time on this, just because it’s rare to see something that I think is going to be so transformative. I don’t think that’s going to be immediate. I think that’s going to play out over years and over decades. But also just the pace at which this technology is improving and new capabilities are being introduced is something like I’ve never experienced. In just the last two weeks of December, you saw so many announcements from OpenAI and Google that you can’t even wrap your heads around it. So better models that do deeper reasoning did not get a lot of attention. But OpenAI released Vision Understanding so now you can use your camera. And so I walked around a farmer’s market and it analyzed all the produce and the meats and it was giving me recipes on the fly.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.Diane Tavenner: Yeah, we were playing with it at the holiday dinner table. Yeah. And just like what, what’s on the table and what are ,you know, and, and I think the amazing thing was with my 82 year old mother in law who was like into it and so, and wanted us to get it on her phone so she could go show her friends.John Bailey: Oh yeah, it’s. Yeah. I mean it just feels different. It feels like something I want to just dedicate a lot more time and attention to understanding it. Both the benefits, lots of risks, lots of challenges on it. But it just like I’ve seen, you know, my mom’s using it to your point, like it’s just an advanced voice and the style of. Is just great entertainment for kids too with telling stories and whatnot. So anyway, so that’s my journey into this space.The Best Case Scenario for AIMichael Horn: My kids have started to leapfrog me by just taking their search inquiries right to ChatGPT themselves and then get frustrated with some of the answers. Let’s dive in then John, because you’re getting to see a lot of these large language models clearly up close. You’re getting to experiment and help advise these companies that are at the leading edge in many cases. And I think what we want to do in these conversations, frankly is have both the advocates for and skeptics of AI and you clearly have a little bit of both from what you just said, make the case for both sides. You know, how’s it going to impact positively, how’s it going to impact negatively? So we can start to unpack the contours and figure out where the puck’s really going in classrooms and schools. And so I’d love you to start with this, which is to make the argument for how AI is going to positively impact education first. So leave aside your concerns and skepticisms for a moment and in your mind, like what’s the bull case, if you will, for AI?John Bailey: One is, I think you have to do a lot, I’ve been wrestling with this a little bit. I think most of the other technologies up until this point have been about democratizing access to information. So that’s everything from the printing press to the computer, like CDs and with disks to then the Internet, the Internet democratized access to Wikipedia and you could get any information you want within your fingertips for almost no cost whatsoever. What I think is different about this technology is that it’s access to expertise and it’s driving the cost of accessing expertise almost to zero. And the way to think about that is that these general purpose technologies, you can give them sort of a role, a Persona to adopt. So they could be a curriculum expert, they could be a lesson planning expert, they could be a tutoring, and that’s all done using natural language, English language. And that unlocks this expertise that can take this vast amounts of information that’s in its training set or whatever specific types of information you give it, and it can apply that expertise towards different, you know, Michael, in your case, jobs to be done. And so for the first time, teachers have experts available at their fingertips, just typing to them the way they would type to a consultant. So give me a lesson plan. Here’s an IEP of a student, help me develop three lessons that I can use for that student that’s based on their learning challenges and the interests that they care about. So I think that’s going to unlock both, it’s going to be an enormous productivity tool for teachers potentially. I think it’s also going to be an amazing tutoring mechanism for a lot of students as well. Not just because they’ll be able to type to the student, but as we were just talking about, this advanced voice is very amazing in terms of the way it can be very empathetic and encouraging and sort of prompting and pushing students, it can analyze their voice. And then this vision understanding which was just sort of introduced. Google’s had this in a studio kind of lab format for a couple months now, but I think that’s going to just unlock, imagine a student to be able to do a project and presentation and having an AI system give them feedback and encouragement. That is like science fiction two years ago. And it feels like it’s very much within the realm of possibility. Maybe not right now, but you see the building blocks for where that could actually be assembled into a pretty powerful set of tools for both teachers as well as students.Diane Tavenner: So John, when you, when you step back from everything you sort of just described of what’s possible in schools, teachers. Well you didn’t say schools. So among teachers and students, I sort of mental mapped a school on top of that concept. What part of that do you actually believe is going to be real, you know, for students and teachers and why. And maybe I think you’re probably going to put a timeline on it too is my guess based on what you’re saying.John Bailey: Yeah, I think, I mean if other industries are a bit of a roadmap here, what you’re seeing in almost all the other sectors is that where AI is getting deployed first is a lot of back office functions. It’s in their IT shops. With coding, we don’t have that in education. But there are other, a lot of back office things where again the benefits can be pretty high and the risks of it being wrong are a little bit less than if like it’s engaging in a tutoring lesson with a student and hallucinating. That’s like high risk. Right. And so, you know, I suspect we’ll see a lot more sort of back office improving parent communications. I think we could see this, you know, beginning. There’s already been, you know, decades of legacy of trying to use AI or technology computer based scoring for assessments. I could imagine that. And then I think you’re going to see it roll out with a handful of tools for teachers. You’re seeing companies like that already with like brisk teaching. But also, I mean all these capabilities we were just talking about with Google, I mean they, if the moment they flick a switch and roll that out over Google classroom, that’s bringing AI into 60, 65% of classrooms and teachers around the country. And, so I think what you’re going to see is a lot of teacher productivity tools and then over the next, let me call it two to five years, a lot more sort of student facing things. As those technologies mature and as we build more robust products around it that have some of the safeguards that you want and need that ensure accuracy and quality as well as safety, I think for students as well. So I think there’ll be a lot of potential, but I think we’ll roll it out to students over a longer period of time. Meanwhile, like the teacher productivity, you know, enhancements for this could be pretty huge immediately.The RisksMichael Horn: It’s interesting to think about building off that Google classroom platform and just the access. Right. That solves in terms of distribution that perhaps historical products have struggled with in schools and gaining access to teachers and students. Let’s turn to the other side for a moment, John, and just like, where is AI not going to help things with teachers, students, schools, learning, you know, what’s sort of the, the place that people are dreaming up right now that AI is going to do something and you’re like, I just don’t buy it.John Bailey: Oh, it’s interesting. Don’t buy that’s a different I, where I was going to go. I worry a little bit of, just because something done faster doesn’t mean it’s done better. And I know like, if any of the white papers are like, teachers should always be in the loop and teachers should always use their judgment, but teachers are also human. And I think one of the aspects of human is that if you’re overworked and you’re tired, sometimes the fastest response is the one you go with just because you’re just, you’re trying to maximize your time. And that’s one of the reasons we see teachers using like not great instructional quality resources from Pinterest, you know, and from Teacher Pay Teachers and from some of these other websites. That is a problem that exists now that I worry AI will exasperate. You know, if you’re a teacher and say, give me a lesson plan on literacy or reading something of reading in the third grade, you have no idea if that’s based on the science of reading, if it’s based on, if it’s aligned to your curriculum, if it’s adding coherence. And so there, there could be a sense of this instead of really augmenting a teacher’s judgment it could lessen it. In the same way that I think we worry about this with students, that part of the way you learn is through struggle, and struggle comes with not writing a perfect first draft. It comes from the first draft, the second draft, and the iterations and revisions on top of it. And I worry that the moment like students have just have a button that can automatically improve a paper, a paragraph or a sentence, they’re atrophying a muscle that is really critically important for this going forward. And then lastly, you know, we’re in the midst of this national discourse and debate right now about social media and phones and is that leading to more social isolation, loneliness and mental health issues with young people and inject into this these AI tools that I think as much as people say this will never happen, the risk of an AI companion where you’re talking, literally talking to an AI that’s empathetic and warm and adopting Personas and that’s going to be easier than the friction of talking to real life people. And so I worry that there’s a scenario where this AI companions will start leading to exacerbating the social disconnectedness and divide. And that is something that if you look at kind of the headlines that we’ve already had a couple cases with some tragic situations with kids who have committed suicide, I don’t think it was because entirely of the AI, but the AI was a contributing factor in that. And that’s something I think if we want to get ahead of where we are in the social media debate now, that’s something we should be thinking about researching and adding some guardrails to as well.Diane Tavenner: John, I’m wondering, as you’re sharing these perspectives, how you think about. I guess what’s coming up for me is I feel like the main structures of school and education are still in place. And I agree with you, like the efficiency plays are the first places people go and does AI sort of risk reinforcing the existing model of school and education because it will make it more efficient? So like if teachers were just like barely, barely holding on and now we can keep everything sort of the same but just give them this like boost of efficiency we can keep things the way that they were. And obviously I’m biased because, you know, I want to, yeah, change up the way, pull apart everything but I’m curious just how you think about that, especially as things will unfold over time and like the easy places to start and the asymmetry of adoption too, you know, I mean, not every teacher in America has even ever logged into ChatGPT before. And then there’s some that are like power users at this point.John Bailey: Yeah, I mean a common theme for both of your works and including over the six years you’ve done the series too, has been, you know, we have this system and institutions within the system that are remarkably resistant to change. And I think what we’ve seen is like technology doesn’t change a system. The systems have to change to accommodate and harness and leverage the benefits of whatever technology or sort of new innovation has been introduced to it. So I’m a little skeptical there. I think you’re going to have capabilities of AI outpacing the institution’s ability to harness that. It’s going to take time to figure out what that looks like and what that means going forward. I do, I come back though to this idea of like it’s access to expertise and I wonder if that mental model starts unlocking things as well, that if you’re a school principal, all of a sudden you have a parent communication marketing expert just by asking it to be that Persona and then giving it some tasks to do. And if you’re a teacher, it means all of a sudden every teacher in America can have a teaching assistant like a TA that is available to help on a variety of different tasks. And going back to what Michael’s point was saying with like Google Classroom, imagine if you’re a teacher, you’re in Google Classroom and you have your TA that’s able to look at student folders and just answer questions. You have. Like, I see like John and Michael really struggling in algebra what are some ways I could put them in a small group and give them an assignment that would resonate with both of their interests and help them scaffold into the next lesson? That was impossible to do before. Like that those three sentences could easily do that. And, and that’s why I think you’re going to see this idea of assistance very much kind of entering not just the education narrative but also the, the more sort of broader corporate landscape as well. Where you see that also by the way, is, is a little bit in how OpenAI is thinking about the pricing for this. There is an OpenAI model. Most people probably didn’t see it. The most robust, smartest and the one that has the most reasoning and they’re charging $200 a month for that. And most people are like oh my gosh, like I would never pay $200 a month for software. And that’s because it’s the wrong way to think about this as a software. The way to think about it is will you easily spend that much on a consultant or in a part time staff person. So OpenAI is even adopting almost like a labor market pricing strategy or the expertise that they’re giving you. And so I think this is an amazing thing for schools to think about at time of tight budgets is, you know, again, if you want to maximize your teachers, how can this fill different types of labor market roles in the education system to enhance and support teachers in the limited staff, given budget tensions that are going to be coming out in the next couple of years here.How AI Is Changing the Skills LandscapeMichael Horn: It’s interesting hearing you say that and draw that analogy, John, because actually Clay Christensen, before he passed away, one of the big interests he had was how do you scale coaching models in education, in health care, in lots of these sort of very social realms as the recipe, if you will, for sustained behavior change and success and things of that nature. Never got to really dig into it and write about it. But as I’m hearing you talk about this, it suggests that maybe a disruption of that might be afoot. I guess that’s the question I want to lean into though, as well, which is you named a few things that this could hurt. And so the flip side of it being a great coach is that it might take away social interaction. Or you talked about essay writing and that, you know, actually the learning is in the process of doing it in revision and sort of pushing the easy button, if you will. Right. Jumps you ahead to the product, but not necessarily the learning and the struggle from it. I guess what I’m curious about, and I’m going to borrow an analogy that Brewer Saxberg, former chief learning scientist, I think was his title at CZI Chan, Zuckerberg Initiative and you know, Kaplan and K12 and a variety of places. He talked a lot about how Aristotle back in the day worried a lot about as the written word became a thing, that people weren’t going to be able to memorize Homeric length epic poems anymore. Aristotle was absolutely right. And I don’t know that we regret the fact that most of us.John Bailey: Speak for yourself, Michael.Michael Horn: Two of the three here could do it, but I, so but the question I guess would be, you know, of these things that might hurt, which are really going to, are they still going to matter in the future or are there going to be other things that we, you know, other behaviors or things that are more relevant in the future? And how do you think about sort of that substitution versus ease versus actually like really, you know, frankly, I think when you talk about social interaction that could be, forget about disruptive, that could be quite destructive.John Bailey: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s a great question. It’s a good point. It’s also this is an area where some of the best studies of this are happening in the labor market and looking at like, how is AI changing? There was just one study I was just reading today with Larry Summers and Deming from Harvard that are looking at, you know, AI, one of the things that they’re finding is AI is chipping away at some of the entry level jobs. It is for the same reason that, you know, you don’t like, if I’m in Congress, now all of a sudden, I don’t need an intern to just summarize legislation. I have something could summarize it for me better in five seconds. And that actually hurts that intern because they’re not developing the skills of reading legislation and analyzing and summarizing it. But it also means the other thing that they’re talking about in labor market sort of terminology is that it’s really raising the skills for those entry level jobs. Now you’re not expected to summarize, now you’re expected to do more and a higher level cognitive functions with it. That, that’s interesting. But I also mean that’s going to place a huge strain on our education system. Like if you’re looking at just the results of TIMSS and NAEP and where kids are, they’re not in that higher cognitive function in terms of being able to ask those questions or do those capabilities. And so in many ways I think if this is going to change the future of work and going to raise the level of what’s expected, that’s going to put more strain on our education system to make sure that we get kids that are capable of doing all those different things. I think about that with myself. Like I’m not like, there are many people who are Excel gurus, very good at analyzing data and they do P tests and other things that statistical things that are very important and I would not be able to do. And this was one of the first experiences with code interpreter, with OpenAI is that all of a sudden I had again an expert, a data analyst who could do that for me. But what that meant is that for work I can no longer say, well that’s not something I can do. Now I could do it because I had an analyst that could help me with it and that in some ways don’t tell my employers this, but like now that could like raise their expectations for me as well. But I have to get smart on the type of questions and the type of direction to give it in order to get the answers that I can use to synthesize into some sort of response. So anyway, I think this is going to be a very messy way. It’s going to change the labor markets, but it feels like it’s lowering the floor in many respects and access to these higher cognitive tasks, which in turn then raises expectations in a lot of different ways. And that’s very powerful. But it’s also, I think it probably a huge strain on our human capital systems. Did I answer your question?Michael Horn: Yeah, I think it does. Before I think Diane has another set of questions. But before we go there, just one quick follow up, which is it strikes me that then you knowing that you can ask those sorts of questions and sort of having a sense of the contours, right of like what are relevant questions, what are. What is knowledge base that is out there, that I could ask this in meaningful ways and how to structure it. Like those are topics that I might not need to know all the mechanics of how to do it, but I need to know that they are questions that can be asked and, and the relevant place to ask them is that a…Where am I on or off on that?John Bailey: Yeah, I think that’s right and also again, this is where AI is amazing. Like you could give it a spreadsheet and say what are 20 questions you can ask with this? Or give me 20 insights that you glean from it if you don’t know where to. Like I’ve started again, treating a lot of AI people will tell you not to do this, but if you treat it, if you treat it a little bit, almost as if you’re talking to a person, it does unlock a lot of capabilities. There’s risks of doing that. But also I just find sometimes like I want to do X, like give me the prompt in which to do that or I want to do Y. Like what are. Ask me all the questions you need to be able to answer that. And then it asks me 10 questions and then spits back an answer. I just helped someone with, she’s coming up with a name for her social impact advisory firm and so we created a little GPT and AI assistant that was a brand advisor and it asked her questions the way a brand advisor would and then it spit back 20 names and one of them she’s going with. And so that’s like incredible. But again, she had expertise that could ask questions and facilitate a conversation to unlock some of her thoughts and preferences and then spit back an answer from it.The Interplay Between AI and PolicyDiane Tavenner: So much there especially given my current focus of sort of 15 to 25 year olds and who are going to be intensely impacted by, I think every, are already intensely, I think impacted by everything you’re talking about. I want to flip over to policy and I want to come at it from the angle of, you know, most people think about AI policy around safety and you know, what are we controlling and what are we, you know, protecting people from, et cetera. But let’s come from the other direction that you sort of introduced a little bit ago about the structure of education in schools. We’ve got some pretty interesting policy movement happening in education right now. We are seeing the rise of ESAs or educational savings accounts, which, you know, puts money in the hands of families to spend it where they want to spend it. We’re seeing a lot of states adopt sort of portraits of a graduate or graduate profile that are these more inclusive, holistic views of like what someone should be able to graduate knowing, doing, being able to do and an openness to how they actually get to that place and the different pathways. Talk to me about like those things going on sort of in the policy world and AI happening over here is that kind of the intersection where we could sort of start seeing some structural differences. And again like a more user centered approach to educate, you know, a student centered approach potentially. So I’m curious your thoughts there.John Bailey: No, I think it could, I think it’s a yes. It’s a yes, but in some ways the yes is, you know, I think there’s a whole class of ways of using AI that is about navigating and navigating really complex systems. And ESAs are one of those. And I think, you know, I. One of the first GPTS I built on OpenAI to demo this was, like if you go to Arizona’s ESA, it’s like two websites, there’s a weird random Excel file of expenses and then PDFs that like a 78 page PDF. And again that was the best that team could do with limited resources and also with the limited technologies. And I just put that into a GPT and all of a sudden it was a bilingual parent friendly navigator. And if you said can I use funds for Sony PlayStation? It didn’t say no, you’re a terrible parent. It used warm empathetic letter answers to say like no, you can’t and here’s the reasons why, but here’s what you can do. And it was all conversational. And I think this friction of dealing with education systems and education policy could be immensely improved by using AI. Another example, I have a friend, she has kids in a school district and they send these terrible absentee reports and I say terrible. It’s like her daughter’s name is capitalized. So it’s like shouting. And then it’s like has missed six days of school. It’s very, it is reading, reading like a hostage like script. It’s like your daughter’s missed six days of school. It’s very important for her to go to school. We are here to help you. And then it does this weird bar chart at the bottom that’s like meaningless and like I just gave it to ChatGPT as an image and say make this better and give three questions a parent could ask their kid for why they might be absent. Amazing. It was like. And that I did in an Uber ride crossing the Key bridge in Washington D.C. like, you know, that’s an amazing set of powerful tools that can remove friction and help improve the system to make it work better for parents and for kids and also teachers and administrators too. So the but on all this is like, I think that’s going to be powerful and it’s going to make policy easier. I’m still, until we create more flexible ways for teachers to teach, for students to learn and students to engage in different types of learning experiences, I just think we’re going to end up boxing and limiting a lot of this technology capabilities. On the portraits of a graduate. I do think like again, an easy navigator on this is to take student work and student interests and student grades and say I’m not really sure where to go, like help me, Ask me the 10 questions I need to figure out. Should I pursue an apprenticeship program, a two year degree or a four year degree. It feels like again, we’re very close to being able to do something that, you know, it may not be perfect, but it’s much better than what the vast majority of students have access to right now. And if it helps them make a better decision in this process and pick a better path that’s based on their interests and their passions and their skills and their abilities. That’s great. Like we should do everything we can to help maximize that.Diane Tavenner: Awesome. Maybe just to round out anything. What policy do you think we should be keeping our eyes on as we focus on education in relation to AI? What should we be worried about? What should we be thinking about? What should we be paying attention to? I know you spend a lot of time thinking about policy.John Bailey: I do, yeah. A little bit. A little bit of policy. So one is that Congress is going to move very slow. We thankfully though, in this day and age of such polarization in so many of our politics, there are two remarkable bipartisan roadmaps. One from the Senate, Senator Young and Senator Schumer introduced. And then there was a House report that got reintroduced right before break that is also bipartisan, remarkably good. It’s 218 pages and they have a lot, I take great comfort in the fact that there’s a bipartisan, durable consensus. It’ll take time to enact that. That’s okay. It’ll take time. At least we have a little bit of a pathway on that. The thing I think for most of your listeners to really pay attention to is what’s happening at the state level. And there, I mean, just last year we saw close to 400 something bills that were introduced at the state level. Everything from dealing with deep fakes to copyright issues to regulating the models themselves. The most famous one was in California. And those don’t on the surface look like they have anything to do with education, but they do. If that California bill had passed, that limits in many respects the types of models that would be available for teachers and for students. There’s another bill, similarly in Texas right now that’s being debated. And so I think we need to pay more attention to what’s going on at the state level because that is going to either restrict or enable access to a bunch of these different types of tools in the models. I think, Diane, you had mentioned too in one of the previous questions, like most people haven’t used ChatGPT, and I think that’s exactly right. But I think what’s going to start happening is ChatGPT and Google Gemini are going to come to where people live already. And you’re seeing that with ChatGPT being integrated into Apple’s iPhone, that, you know, I think for the vast majority of people in the country, their first experience of ChatGPT is going to be through their iPhone. And I think for a whole other set, especially teachers, their first experience is going to be using one of the AI tools on Google. And that’s okay. But again, what’s going to either restrict or expand access to those different types of tools are going to be these laws that are either restricting or adding more scrutiny to the models themselves. And what I will say there is, I don’t think anyone’s cracked the code on how to best regulate this. Whatever policymakers think they have the models improve or they’ve done something that they didn’t think was possible. And for the longest time, policymakers are like, we have to restrict these powerful models and it’s based on computing with some astronomical number. And then on December 24, China announces something called Deep Seek that is pretty much as good as ChatGPT4 and Llama3. And they did it with far less computing power. And so that would slip in underneath as like an exception. And I think policymakers are really wrestling with the best way of thinking about this and restricting it. So anyway, I would do more of that. You’re going to see a lot of other attention to AI literacy. I tend to be. I think these literacy efforts are great, but I have lived through, we need tech literacy, we need media literacy for everyone. It has felt like it. This is by no means to disrespect folks that are approaching this that like every new technology gets attached to literacy component to it. It is not really clear we got much from tech literacy back in the 2000s or some of the other things. And so maybe there’s a way to make sure that we get right what we got wrong before. But I don’t think that’s going to be the quite the silver bullet that we need it to be.Diane Tavenner: I think that’s right. This has been really such a good way to start. Michael, do you have anything else you want to.Reading, Listening, or WatchingMichael Horn: No, let’s. Thanks, John. This has been a really tremendous overview of a number of currents that I know both of us have been making notes on the side as you’ve been talking and we’re going to want to dig in more. Maybe let’s pivot away from the topic that we’ve been delving in as we wrap up here and just, John, what have you been reading, listening to, watching outside of the AI education conversation? Hopefully AI is not dominating every single thing. Although I won’t be surprised if you give us some movie or fiction or something like that with AI coursed in its veins. So what’s on your list?John Bailey: Oh my gosh, what is? Unfortunately, it is like, it’s not unfortunate. It’s just I have. I found myself waking up at like 5am like 2 years ago just thinking about this. So like all of a sudden you’re reading books on, you know, intelligence and human expertise and human psychology because you’re trying to understand like intelligence and what is, what makes something intelligent and that. So anyway, that’s nerdy stuff. The new Henry Kissinger book with Craig Mundy, the Genesis book has also been good. I’ve been reading David Brooks’s book How to Get to Know Someone, which I sort of have missed the first time it had come out. But I think also it has an AI play too because that’s trying to get to know the essence of someone and the humanity of someone. And so it’s been great kind of reading through that in light of kind of everything that’s happening kind of around then what am I watching? I don’t know. Some great series on Netflix, the Lioness. Yeah, it’s good. Oh, and all the Landman too which has also been quite good. Coming out of Yellowstone.Diane Tavenner: Cool.John Bailey: I don’t know.Michael Horn: That’s good. I’m impressed with your range. Diane. What’s on your list?Diane Tavenner: Well, my new exciting project for 2025 is we are planning a trip to Greece. And as Michael knows, when we sort of plan these trips, one of the big parts of it is spending like six months reading and learning and exploring before we go. And so I actually had a conversation with ChatGPT like you have advised John. When I flipped to just talking to it like a person changed everything to structure a reading and listening list and like all the things I’m going to do. So I have started in on that list that we co constructed and built together, which is pretty awesome. With the Greeks by Roderick Beaton. And this is on the nonfiction side. I have fiction too, but this one rose to the top because I really asked Chat to say I, I need you to find history that’s like engaging and that’s going to keep my attention and you know, give me all the, the way that I want history, the sort of the big swaths and so, so far so good.Michael Horn: Very cool. Very cool.John Bailey: One other thing, this summer when I did a vacation, I actually created a GPT with all, the travel itinerary, the PDF and everything else into it. And then it was awesome because I could just ask it questions, but it would give me, it would also speak phrases if I needed it to.Michael Horn: Oh that’s next level, that’s very cool.John Bailey: It was kind of, it was just kind of a fun little, little thing. But I’ll share the prompt with you later. Yeah, yeah.Michael Horn: Because we used it for itinerary planning for, for all the different interests in our group, but did not jump to that level. John, that’s, that’s a good one. Mine has just been a book, so I feel boring compared to you both. I polished off Israel: A Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby, which has remained in my mind quite heavily. And so I highly recommend it. I thought it was quite good and quite humorous and quite engaging the way she wrote about it. So I enjoyed it. And that’s what I’ll, I’ll recommend for folks, and I think we’ll wrap there. But John, huge thanks for joining us again, kicking this off with a lot to chew on for all you listening right in with your questions, thoughts, things that are on your mind coming out of this conversation. We’ll look forward to the next one on Class Disrupted.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

There has been a national discourse around the wave of anti-semitism that has swept across higher education since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in 2023. But what has it looked like at the K–12 level—and what can that teach us about combating hate more generally? To tackle those questions, I sat down with Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the largest collective voice of Jews in the Bay Area of California. We discussed how anti-semitism has manifested in schools over the last two academic years, the challenge of balancing free speech with protection from discrimination, and how to better equip students and educators to combat hate.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education, where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. Since October 7th, 2023, in this country, we've seen an outpouring of hate and specifically anti-Semitism across schools. The story has been well-known and well-told in higher education and our colleges and universities. It's also occurred in our K-12 schools and districts, and we haven't covered that nearly as much on this particular podcast, and so I'm glad we’ll get to delve into that today.But before we do so, I just want to address what some folks have asked: why are we covering this as a topic for the Future of Education? And I think the reason fundamentally is that hate, anti-Semitism, so forth, raises big questions about the discourse and behaviors in our schools in the future. It raises big questions around free speech in our schools. And to the point of the work here, it raises big questions around how we support each and every single individual in realizing their full human potential, regardless of their race, creed, beliefs, on and on. And so I'll also admit, as this has begun over the past, now, year and a half, this is personal as well for me as a Jew, but I think it raises larger questions.And to help us think through them, I'm delighted that Tyler Gregory is joining us because Tyler, you actually know something about this much deeper than i do. You've been on the front lines of this as the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the largest collective voice of Bay Area Jews in California. Under your leadership, JCRC pushes for a just world where Jewish identity is embraced and all people can thrive. And I think it's important to note before you jump in, you all have mobilized multi-ethnic, multi-faith coalitions to fight back, not just against anti-semitism, but to show up for lots of groups who have felt marginalized or experienced discrimination—from Black communities, the Asian Pacific, Asian-American Pacific groups, obviously, anti-LGBTQ, sorry, I cannot talk today, anti-LGBTQ+ groups, and so on and on. And so this is an incredibly important set of topics, not just in the narrow prism of anti-semitism, but much more broadly, of course. So Tyler, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here.Tyler GregoryIt's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me, Michael.Anti-Semitism Prior to October 7thMichael HornYeah, you bet. And I'll do my best to talk a little bit better as we get going on, but you get to do most of the talking, fortunately. So I just want to have you give us the ground state of things. If we go back to October 6th, 2023, what was the state of anti-Semitism in California K through 12 schools specifically? There was a lot of conversation, I will say, around a proposed ethnic studies piece of the curriculum that some people felt had anti-Semitic efforts. So I'd love you to sort of give us what was the state of play prior to Hamas's attacks, and maybe how that's been similar or different from other states in the US that you've observed.Tyler GregorySo thanks so much, Michael. I would say that the October 7th attacks accelerated a trend that we had previously been seeing, which is an increasing amount of anti-semitism in K–12 schools, both environmental as well as in curriculum. You mentioned the ethnic studies course that is now going to be mandated in California schools and other states are following suit. We had a wake-up call almost five years ago when the proposed state model curriculum included anti-semitic rap lyrics that were references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was our community's wake-up call. And this discipline historically has not included Jewish Americans, Jewish studies departments and higher ed have been separate from ethnic studies departments, Asian Pacific Islander, Latino, African-American, indigenous communities in ethnic studies. But they started writing about us in derogatory ways, and they decided that the Middle East would be a disciplinary area that should be included in ethnic studies. And so that experience was a wake-up call for us that we needed to play catch up and also figure out how we wanted to fit into the story of ethnic studies. And so that's been a hotspot for us, but so too has been casual anti-Semitism on the playground, in the classroom, and often more of dog whistles and overt forms of anti-semitism that maybe your or my parents, Michael, might have experienced as kids. And so we have a lot of work to do to help teachers and administrators recognize those dog whistles and how that leads to exclusion for Jewish students today. So then, I mean, that's obviously a disturbing state of affairs that had been escalating.Responses to the AttacksMichael HornI assume it goes into overdrive, sadly, starting October 7th, but just talk to us about what the last school year looked like before we get into this school year. Just, you know, in the schools themselves, I suspect you have stories of parents and students who've reached out to you and told you things. Give us a sense of the state of play, whether that's through stats or the stories, to really help us understand what was going on.Tyler GregoryYeah, the challenges have evolved. So in the days after the horrific attacks, the main issues that we saw were from parents that felt the response from school districts to their communities were either inadequate, non-existent, had implicit biases, or there were other problems with the way they were communicating. And you talk about belonging on your show. This is really a moment for Jewish students, parents, families, teachers to feel like they belong as part of that district. And I think a lot of folks listening might not understand how these terrorist attacks impact Jews in America. This was the single deadliest day for the Jewish community since the end of World War II, since the end of the Holocaust. And that collective trauma, that generational trauma was felt across the Jewish world, whether we had direct connections to Israel or not. And so for a kid to show up on October 8th after that, whether they had a direct or indirect relationship to what happened, that was a traumatic event for all of us. And that was a time for them to be seen, felt, heard in the same way the response from school districts that we saw after the murder of George Floyd with Black Lives Matter, after a wave of Asian hate, particularly here in San Francisco where one out of three residents are Asian Pacific Islander, we saw the response from school districts to those acute moments for those communities. And we had the same expectation that school districts would hold our community in the same way. And sometimes there were insensitivities. Sometimes Muslim and Jewish students felt pitted against each other in these communications. And so that led to a lot of concern, if not disturbance, depending on the communication in terms of how administrators were communicating to their constituents about the issue.Michael HornDid you see like in the classrooms themselves, teachers lash out in different ways and districts, how did they respond if that happened? Because I mean, right on higher ed campuses, I think a lot of people saw the protests, right? They saw the sit-ins and basically encampments in many cases. And then the administration saying, yeah, it violates a policy, but we're going to sort of look the other way. What was going on in K-12 school districts themselves, in the classrooms, on the playgrounds around this outside of the district initial response?Tyler GregorySo as you can imagine, things got more complicated as Israel responded to the attacks and went after Hamas and Gaza, which is an incredibly challenging condition to conduct a war. You go after terrorists that are hiding under civilian populations. Gaza is one of the most dense places in the world. And a debate, and I don't think this is the place to give my personal opinion on what's happening, but there is a robust debate and differences of opinion. And no matter what school district setting you're entering, you're going to have a multitude of opinions about what's taking place for the war. So once Israel's response started, it got much, much harder for administrators to figure out how to hold everybody, including places where you had Israeli and Palestinian families, both in that district. And you saw activism, much like on higher ed campuses, we saw Gaza walkouts in Oakland and San Francisco Unified School Districts. And most administrators were woefully unprepared on how to handle that, because you'd have a set of activists, students, and in some cases, teachers, which in our mind crosses the line, call for their fellow students to walk out. So what happens if you're a Jewish student that's sitting there and you're not participating? You feel vulnerable. You see that you are being judged by your peers. There is not a good way for the teacher to address the situation in the moment. I would say there are some bad actors and we can talk about that. But for the most part, what we're seeing is a lack of competency on how to hold Jewish and Muslim students through this traumatic time.Holding Divergent ViewpointsMichael HornSo maybe actually, let's jump into that, because I'm super curious. It sounds like it's more of a story of we just don't know what to do to handle these challenges. Obviously, JCRC has been providing resources, I imagine, to help educate district leaders, school principals, et cetera, about what the proper response is. How have you all thought about how to hold these two divergent, two is actually probably the wrong word, right? Two Jews, three opinions. So it's probably multiple, multiple opinions and divergences in a community. How have you recommended people start to respond or lead their schools and districts given those conditions you just described?Tyler GregoryWell, one thing we quickly discovered is that in diversity, equity, inclusion programs or in diversity trainings, the Jewish American experience is lacking. And you could say the same thing about Muslim Americans. And so the first thing that we worked on was retooling our anti-Semitism and Jewish identity training to support administrators and teachers to make sure that they had the core competency to understand what a Jew is. And Michael, you know this as well as I do, Judaism is our religion. Jews are a people. We have peoplehood. But in many places, and this is not something to criticize if you're not fully versed in this. People conflate our religion with the rest of our identities, our culture, our nationhood, our relationship to Israel, or our secular nature. You can be an atheist Jew, right? And I think that our identities have been flattened in this Christian country such that teachers and administrators don't quite know how to put us in a box. And that's a very complicated thing to work through. So if you don't know who we are, how are you going to hear the dog whistles that weaponize various parts of our identity? And that's the way that we try to educate K-12 leaders, to make sure that they understand and can better listen for the ways in which our religious, cultural, political connection to Israel is weaponized in ways that echo forms of anti-Semitism that have existed long before the modern state of Israel, for example.Including Jews in Ethnic StudiesMichael HornYeah, it's super interesting as you get into that because Rabbi Wolpe, he's long made the point, right, that Jewish as a construct predates the Western constructs around race, religion, and so forth. It was sort of an amalgamation of a lot of these things, and you just described them. Even if you go to Israel now, you'll see secular atheist Jews, deeply religious Orthodox Jews, and everything in between, traditionalist and so forth, that doesn't even get into the divisions we think about popularly in this country around reform, conservative, and so forth. It's much, much deeper and multifaceted. So the trainings, it sounds like, is actually fundamental ground level education of just even understanding what is going on and what you're seeing in your context. I'm curious. That sounds like it would not provoke maybe the backlashes that some of the DEI trainings we know historically have done, but I'm sort of curious about the effectiveness maybe more to the point because we also know DEI trainings, but also frankly, Holocaust trainings have not been super effective often in protecting the populations that they're intended to. How do you all think about measuring that or protecting against it?Tyler GregoryWhat I would say is too often when we think about longitudinal students' experience with Jewish identity and anti-semitism, when they have an ancient world history course, they learn maybe there's a couple lines about ancient Israel and the Israeli kingdoms when we're talking about the Roman Empire, and then maybe we talk about the Jewish American experience the Holocaust, and there's certainly a Holocaust education component that is from 1933 to 1945. But Jewish history spans 3,000 years. And so that's why we think that Jewish identity should be a part of ethnic studies and that we do need to educate people about the multiple elements of our identities and talk about not only the bad things that happened to us, but to celebrate what we have contributed to this country. Jewish sports heroes, Jewish elected officials, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, people should understand how we celebrate being Americans as the Jewish community and the ways in which we've contributed to this country. And without ethnic studies, really, we're only talking about bad things that have happened throughout their history. And Michael, you know that most of our Jewish holidays are about overcoming the bad things that happen to us. And at the end of our holiday, whether it's our Passover Seder, we usually say, and let's eat, let's celebrate, l'chaim, right? But we can't just be in this victimhood mentality. We have to talk about who we are, what we believe in, talk about Jewish joy and what we mean to this country. And that's why I think whether we're newcomers or not to ethnic studies, there is ameaningful place for us in this story about what it means to to be Jews in this country. And that's something that I don't think takes away. For those that don't want Jewish Americans to be a part of ethnic studies, we're not trying to take away any other experience from being a part of this. We just think that the Jewish kid in the classroom that's going through an ethnic studies course could equally benefit by being seen through this discipline in the same way that we touch on Holocaust studies or helping kids understand what anti-semitism is.Michael HornSuper interesting. It's a very similar answer to the one Dara Horn gave me when I asked a similar question. I'm just curious, and I'd love to dig one level deeper, as I did with her, actually, on this, which is how do you make sure, frankly, for ethnic studies in general, but also, you know, the Jewish component of it, it's not just one more thing on a long list of items that schools should do because there's limited time. Right. There's lots of competing interests trying to get their segment in. Why does this rise to the top in your view or in inclusion? Right. Or are there other ways to go about this maybe that get the principles across but create more freedom for, OK, what's the precise knowledge or specific standards we're going to study as we learn about principles of, frankly, not dipping into anti-semitism, but hate more broadly?Tyler GregoryI think you've got to tackle both layers, Michael. We, as a community, are often the canary in the coal mine of a health, of a democracy, of society, as the Jewish community. And so to help students understand that a multiracial, multiethnic democracy, when one community is targeted, it often leads to other communities being targeted. And if you look historically to Jewish communities around the world, 1920s Germany was a golden era for Jews in Germany in that democracy. I'm a gay Jew. There were gay clubs in Germany. And we saw how the Jewish community was a canary in the coal mine for what was happening in the steady march to fascism in that country. And so we don't think anti-Semitism is only a Jewish problem. But if you if you zoom out and you look globally, oftentimes we're a scapegoat that is a harbinger of things to come and a measurement of the health of the society that we're living in. And so we think that we can talk about this in a much broader lens where we're helping people understand historically what some of the consequences can be when the Jewish community is targeted. I also think there's not a one shot to this. I don't see a silver bullet. The more ways we can integrate our very small minority in the context of America, two to two point five percent, depending on the day, the better chance we have of reinforcing what our community means.The Free Speech QuestionMichael HornSuper, super helpful and interesting. Let me ask you this, because one of the contours of debate that has come up in the higher ed context. Right. So we lay the education piece. People still have different viewpoints. How do we think about the line between free speech? You know, students expressing viewpoints about Israel or say, you know, maybe less savory ones around support for Hamas, even Tinker V. Des Moines, you know, stuff right. Supreme Court case of the ability to express your views freely. You don't lose those when you enter the school doors. But how do you think about that tenant, if you will, of the American experience? And when this crosses the line into blatant discrimination, bullying and stuff that is not OK, how do you think about that, I guess, in general?Tyler GregorySo for better or worse, anti-Semitic speech is free speech. I think when universities uphold free speech as their gold standard, we ask them, OK, if you're going to allow this kind of hate speech where Israel is the the scourge of the earth and responsible for all these ills that extend beyond what a tiny economy in the scope of global affairs could possibly achieve, we ask, where are you exercising free speech? If this is such an important value to you, why are you staying silent when Jews are not allowed to go to the library because they're being blocked? When are you staying silent when terrorism is being glorified by certain campus groups? We can respect their their value, but where we lose faith in their abilities is when they don't practice what they preach. And too many universities and since we're talking about K-12, unfortunately, too many districts are staying silent in the face of these discriminatory acts. And so that's where we would like to see education leaders step up right now.Michael HornDo you think there's a different line from K-12 to higher ed in terms of how teachers, you know, you mentioned the ethnic studies curriculum, obviously, and getting Jews included in that curriculum and an understanding, frankly, of Judaism more broadly built into it. You know, in higher ed, there's this sort of sense of academic freedom, right? Professors, they create their own courses. I get to lecture as I as I view. Do you see that extending into curriculum in K-12 as well? Or is there a different way we ought to think about academic freedom, slightly different from free speech, but still, you know, related and these noxious viewpoints that you just talked about that perhaps we're not calling out as clearly as we might?Tyler GregoryIt's a it's a tough question. And I think teachers have a right to bring their own lived experiences into the classroom so long as it does not target the experiences of other students. And unfortunately, we're seeing too much of that. We're seeing and this is a tough issue to talk through, but we're seeing Palestinian flags. If a teacher is a Palestinian American into the classroom and there's a Jewish student sitting there not knowing how to feel, are they going to be graded poorly? Are they are they safe being in that environment? And that gets really tricky because we don't want to deny a Palestinian their identity. But these symbols that for some people are personal are otherwise political. So I think we have a lot of work to do to figure out how to massage those issues. But we also don't want to deny the lived experience of teachers, which can be so rich for students to learn about. So I think it's a balancing act. And I wish I had a clearer answer for you.The Road AheadMichael HornNo, no, this is good. I mean, frankly, I think delving into the shades of gray is what's going to make us stronger over time. And as you said, you know, your mission has really been these trainings around the education to get awareness into the schools. I'm curious what you're starting to see the fruits of that. What does the school year look like? You said some of the anti-Semitism has morphed maybe over time. Where are we now? How are we doing? What else do we need to do as we think about charting a path forward for all students?Tyler GregoryYeah, so we did a poll a few months ago of Bay Area Jews, a random sample public poll, and we found that only 28 percent of Bay Area Jews are satisfied with how K-12 schools are tackling anti-Semitism. We also found that one out of three Bay Area Jewish residents have personally experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism. And then we asked those folks, where did that happen? And about 30 percent of them said that that happened in a school setting. Second, only to social media. So we think that it's a prominent source of the challenge that our communities face. And we have a lot of work to do still. What we're seeing this year is more of the incidents that we're getting calls with are classic anti-Semitism rather than weaponization of the war. So classic anti-Semitic tropes about Jews having too much power or privilege. And I don't think that we're quite to the bottom as to why that is. But the level at which we're getting those calls is clearly inspired by what happened last year. And so in the same way, I don't want to get too political on here, but after the initial election of Donald Trump, we saw a Pandora's box open on the far right with anti-Semitism. October 7th seems to have led to a Pandora's box opening with far left anti-Semitism. They look and feel differently. There are different types of threats. But that permission seems to continue to exist. And our job is to make sure that those forms of hate stay on both extremes and not creep into the mainstream of our society. And unfortunately, it seems like public and private education is one of the most important battlefronts in which we're dealing with this problem.Michael HornNo, super helpful. Tyler, as we wrap up here, just any other thoughts that we should be thinking about work that you're doing that you want to spotlight or conversations that we ought to be keeping an eye on as we progress through the rest of the school year? One thing that we think is really important to lift up, but I will not give any illusion it's easy. It's important for students to see Muslim and Jewish leaders talking to one another. And I think districts see, OK, we've got to have our anti-Semitism module, we've got to have our Islamophobia module, we need to have an assembly dedicated to Jewish Americans and Muslim Americans or Palestinian Americans. That's great. But if there are divisions in a classroom or in a school or even among parents, what better way to get them to change the tone of the conversation and lower the temperature and tensions than to see Muslim and Jewish or Israeli and Palestinian leaders talking to one another with civil discourse? And that's a broader conversation just in the context of this civil discourse. But if they can see role models talking through differences about how despite the fact that the war is six thousand miles away, both of our communities are in pain and trauma and that actually we have a lot more in common culturally and as immigrant communities than we do our divides over what's happening there. Maybe we can start to build bridges and change the way that we're having this conversation. And so we work with a Muslim organization both to provide joint trainings and to model civil discourse. But there are a lot of amazing organizations both in Israel, Palestine and here that ard trying to bring Jews, Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians together. And to model that in front of students goes a very long way. And so that's something that I think we need much, much more of as this issue plays out. That's a very hopeful note to end on.Michael HornLet me ask you a final question. How can people find out more about JCRC and follow your work?Tyler GregoryYou can follow us JCRC.org and learn much more about our education trainings. We'd be delighted to work with you.Michael HornPerfect. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us. And for all of you, we'll see you next time on the Future of Education.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.