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

At the outset of an AI-themed season, Diane Tavenner and I take stock of our prior assumptions, hopes, and concerns about the technology’s applications in education. We dive into where we see it being used to make adjustments to the current educational model and envision how it could be applied to revolutionize learning.Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. Good to see you.Diane Tavenner: You too. I spent the weekend on a tradition I think we have talked about before, which is we hold a holiday party every year for what are now old friends. Because I think this is our 27th annual, if you.Michael Horn: 27th annual. Wow.Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And it just, it makes me appreciate longevity and just like I have such gratitude for deep, long relationships that have built over time. And yeah, it’s just really, it’s a good fill-me-up for the moment.Diane and Michael’s AI PriorsMichael Horn: Yeah. That’s amazing. We’re obviously recording this as we approach the holiday season, if people can’t figure that out from that intro. That’s an amazing place to start. And the gratitude you have around that, Diane. So very, very neat. Let’s lay out what we’re doing for folks today. And as we get into a little series on the topic that we talked about in the first episode back, which is artificial intelligence. You want to lay it out, Diane, what we’re thinking?Diane Tavenner: Yeah, I think as folks know, like, we are now following our curiosity and we’ve been doing that for a while. And, you know, I don’t think either of us are just like 100% all in on AI, like huge evangelists. And I do think that we’re at a minimum, cautiously optimistic about the possibilities of it. And so we’re just curious about it. And I think we find ourselves kind of talking about it and asking about it. And so we are going to do a little exploration. We’re not exactly sure. We’ve got some ideas of the format and whatnot. We’re not exactly sure how long it will last for, but we thought we’d just kick off today with where we’re starting that exploration. And I think I, personally, I think you’re with me. I hope I end in a different place, quite frankly, I hope I end in a place where I’ve, like, learned some stuff and talked to interesting people and, you know, maybe think a little bit differently. Hopefully smarter than I am now. But today we wanted to just kind of lay a foundation of where we’re coming from based on what we know so far.Michael Horn: Yeah, love, love that intro. And what I would add is it’s obviously a hot topic in education. Everyone knows that. But I think what’s also interesting to me anyway has been how OpenAI and Google and, you know, Facebook, like, or Meta, I should say, whenever they talk about AI, they seem to show education use cases is like a major part of all their launches. I’m sure that’s not quite right, but it’s more than I can remember on most product launches outside of maybe the iPad over the last 20 years. And so it’s obviously getting a lot… Education and AI together, Diane, are obviously getting a lot of attention and I find myself anyway, and we’ll talk about this in a moment: I start out with a strong prior and then I read a couple things and I completely flip my opinion and then I have that opinion and I talk to someone and then I change again. And so like I find myself pretty malleable still. But like you, it feels like this technology enabler that could be really, really intriguing. And we need to explore more.Diane Tavenner: I agree with you and I think we’ll do that in a way that we always do. We’re always looking for sort of third-way solutions that are very practical and very pragmatic and very connected to what’s actually happening with young people in schools, with teachers. And so yeah, I think that, you know, people might be like thinking, oh my gosh, more AI. But I hope that we’re going to bring a, a sort of pragmatic approach to it that that is actually useful for people.The Teacher- v. Student-Centered Approach to AIMichael Horn: Yeah, no, perfect. And I will tell you, when you visited my class and showed off Futre with the students, they noted that you never mentioned AI in your talk. So we are certainly not leading with AI, but we think it’s intriguing. And so against that let me start out with the opening framing I’d love to propose to you and then you can sort of react to how that framing sits. But it’s one that I’m stealing from a friend of ours in the venture world. And it’s something though that I’m noticing in the field and I don’t know that everyone who sort of is launching AI education products notices it this way. But what I’m seeing is that there’s sort of on the one hand a lot of AI startups and AI approaches that are very teacher centered or teacher facing as their entree, if you will, into the classroom or learning environments. And then on the other hand you have the student centered or student facing applications. This might be like the Khanmigo or, you know, some of those things that we’ve seen out there. And so there seems to me to be a bit of a dichotomy in terms of the startup space, the investors approach, different entrepreneurial approaches, even teacher, frankly and school designer and educator approaches on how they’re thinking about AI. Is it first a teacher tool or is it a student facing tool. What, what’s your take on that framing before we dig into each side of this?Diane Tavenner: Yeah, so I think that sadly, and I will say sadly for me, I think most people are thinking about it from a teacher-facing approach. The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.And I think I sent you an article the other day or an op ed where I was like very frustrated with the premise, which was this exact premise. And I, as you know, I fundamentally disagree with that approach. Do I think we should be using AI as a tool to support teachers and to support students? Yes, but I think we’re just retreading the, the old way of thinking about schools. And let me just start, Michael, and say, like in this conversation, I’m almost exclusively going to be talking about high schools because I think elementary schools are quite different. And, and you know, so if we get into elementary school, let’s note that specifically. But for me, I’m very much thinking about high school, maybe middle school as well, but older students, and I just think that the world is going in a direction for many, many, many reasons where they need to be owning and driving their own education. Of course, this is not unique for me. I’ve been doing this for a couple decades at this point. This is my fundamental belief. There’s such a downside that we are not focused on how we enable students to own and drive their own learning. And AI is such a game changer. I think potentially in this direction it can help us do things we’ve wanted to do and can’t do. And we’re completely missing the mark when our total focus is on the teacher and how this is a tool that we’re going to build for teachers.Michael Horn: No, that’s helpful. And right out of the gates. We know where you stand. I’m going to try to make the argument for the teacher facing up front and then you can throw cold water on me afterwards if you’d like. But, but let me try it. And, and maybe the way I will try it though is more to explain it about why I think the phenomenon is happening. And so number one, I would say on the why is AI better for teachers than students? Say false dichotomy, but let’s go with it. I think part of the approach is, look, AI hallucinates all the time. It makes mistakes. And these tools are better in the hands of experts rather than novices who can, you know, catch those mistakes and correct them in some ways. So number one, there’s sort of like a risk aversion approach to it. And so, and I think this, you know, we could probably contradict this in certain ways. But I think the AI like as risk to students is maybe driving some of this. Number one. Let me quickly add on that that I do think that there is something to it in the sense of AI when used by Amazon to get you to buy something that maybe you’ve looked at online. If they move the dial 0.001% that is serious dollars to their bottom line and if they alienate you, they don’t really care. Right. Whereas in education I think the argument would be if we actually mislead a student or you know, tell them a narrative about themselves that is going to mislead them in some, you know, like we could do deep damage to their self efficacy and, and, and, and sense of self and even their agency right down the line. And so that’s the reason for a teacher facing perspective maybe. Let me pause there before I go to the other two reasons because I, I that like a meaty set of claims that I think you should engage with first.Diane Tavenner: Well, I think you’re uncovering one of the challenges that we have in education right now, which is a comp. Just a real lack of imagination about what is going to be possible because of AI. And so I think that many people, most, I don’t know, a lot of people at this point have logged on to you know, ChatGPT or one of the others and they’ve typed something in that little box maybe a few times and they’ve had or they’ve read articles about these hallucinations. But in many people’s minds like that is what quote AI is. Maybe some people now are playing with NotebookLM from Google. And you know, one of the really amazing things I think is that you know, it will produce a podcast.Michael Horn: It’s pretty remarkable. A little over engineered but pretty remarkable.Diane Tavenner: And it is like at first it’s like pretty mind blowing and then when you actually start to listen, yes, it’s getting all the right words. I did it the other day. Someone like loaded a chapter from my book into it and then it produced a 22 minute podcast. Man and a woman talking. And I was like. And they were like is this the conversation you and Michael would have had about your book? You know and like there’s pieces of it, yes, but it’s not us, it’s not human. It is, it’s like literally going, it’s read what is on the page and then it’s like making it, sort of bringing it to life. But there’s no thinking and nuance. And dynamism there. Anyway, all my point is that that’s not, you know, that product is the, is one of where they’ve taken what’s underneath it, the AI and they’re actually turning into something that is more user facing. So my assumption is that we’ve only just begun to see what’s possible. And so this idea that like, is that like chat box going to revolutionize learning for kids. No, it’s not. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about as a tool embedded in really well designed experiences in my view, products that will move the needle. And so I think you, you minimize or eliminate those risks that you’re talking about when you build it in thoughtfully. Certainly that’s what we’re doing on our team and so.The Sustaining Innovations of Teacher-Centered AIMichael Horn: Well, and you’re leading with the product design as opposed to the AI, which is also a difference. Right. So let me say the second reason. I think that we’re seeing a lot of teacher facing things, which is that frankly, relative to today’s classroom, it does not require redesigning today’s classroom. It is in our language, a sustaining innovation relative to today’s classroom. And let’s be honest, that’s where the market is, right? As in, if you’re looking for volume, it is not in. I mean, yes, microschools are taking off, but there’s still a small percentage Of the education landscape. Certainly in the US, even more so in the world. And so teacher facing sort of as gateway in teacher directed instruction is where the market is. And frankly most VCs, when they enter a market, they have a five to seven year time frame to get out of the investment. They’re looking for unicorns within that. And that pushes you to where the dollars are, not where perhaps the puck should be going. So I think that’s the other thing driving this dichotomy, if you will.Diane Tavenner: I think you’re right and I think this is the problem we consistently have every time we think something might help us transform schools, right. Is that the, it gets, it get the gravitational pull back into the box, the box of the school, the box of the classroom, the box of the teacher, the box of the course, it just, all the pullback to that is so strong and every time people try to unbundle it or disrupt it, we’ve had many conversations about that. You know, there’s a few outliers who sort of make it outside of that, you know, planet, orbit, gravitational. I spent a lot of time with a lot of them last week and it’s very exciting and inspiring with them and then you get back to the mass market is all still living inside that box. And so, so I mean, this is where I just feel like, I feel like I can’t help but get hopeful and excited, but I’m a little bit worried that I’m going to get my heart broke yet again about the potential changes that we might see. Because that’s what I want to have happen. I actually want to break apart that model and change this to be a learning experience, at least at the high school level, where kids are truly driving their own learning and learning in ways that are much more customized and personalized for them. And let me just be super clear, that does not mean they’re learning alone. This is still very group oriented. It’s actually quite real world oriented and that’s what I think is possible. So.Michael Horn: But it’s not to say, let me just modify this before we jump to where you’re going, which is, I think you’d agree, there are plenty of low hanging fruit use cases to like to, to improve. Right. Teacher practice with AI, whether it’s better lesson plans, more diverse ways of reaching different student needs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, frankly, assessment, probably to get more real time information where your students are or how they’re doing to. Or simplify a teacher’s workflow.Diane Tavenner: Yeah, and that might be the middle ground here. You know, I was the other day, I was sitting there thinking through how can we disaggregate the role of the teacher and what does AI enable? This could still exist in the box model of class, you know, but I do think it would be an improvement. So if we think about all the hats a teacher wears, which are impossible. The job’s impossible as you know, I know everybody knows the feedback we’re getting from the market is it’s impossible because no one wants to do the job anymore. People will get mad that I said that. That’s not true. Some people want to do the job, but here’s the job. So one, you are. And these are the main things that teachers think about and people think about. You’re planning your curriculum and your lessons and you’re delivering them. There’s a real argument that AI, that a single individual teacher should never be planning their own curriculum again, ever, ever, ever, ever. It’s like not time well spent. It will never be as good as what can be done, you know, more globally and with all the learning science and expertise that we have, and even quite frankly, the delivery a lot of it is not personalized and individualized. So that could very much be, you know, AI driven, technology driven. Then there’s feedback and assessment.Diane Tavenner: So I’m giving you like feedback. I know you’ve been grading some papers and assessing work. And again, like, again, we’ve done this for a decade plus at Summit where we took most of that off teachers’ plates. And the technology is absolutely capable of doing this now and better quite frankly, than humans. And so if we take that, that’s like the core of what most people think the teacher’s job is. So what’s left? And it’s the very human things, the things that I would argue matter. It’s the coaching and the mentoring of students. It’s helping them to figure out how they’re going to like sequence their learning pathway and what comes next and what happens when they get stuck and they need actual help in where they’re going. And so that coaching, that sequencing that, facilitating certainly a role in facilitating group learning and really cool real life learning experiences and giving real time feedback in those settings. There’s the social-emotional part of this. Like how do you, how do you become a person who understands a morning routine and actually, you know, knows how to manage your emotions and your relationships and all of those sorts of things. And then of course there’s like custodial care. That’s for younger, but to some extent older. Yeah, none of those things can be disrupted by AI, I do not believe. And for a lot of teachers, it’s the stuff that brings them real joy and it is really impactful for young people. So I think maybe the in between is a disaggregating of that role of the teacher.Diane Tavenner: If I saw products moving in that direction, I’d be happy.Michael Horn: So that that would be. So for all those listening, that’s the sustaining path we would like to see happen. And here’s the disruptive argument. Let’s get student facing here. Right. And student centered. And I think that is the argument. Right.Disruptive Applications for AIMichael Horn: Is that yes, tutoring today or student facing tools. And I’ll get into the second use case in a second. But like the more narrow ones first. I’ve seen all sorts of critiques and I think we’ll get some of them on, on the podcast as we go through this series around how it’s not, you know, it’s yes, maybe procedural knowledge, but not like the in depth, really emotion driven. Right. Learning pieces and other things of that nature and it makes errors, you know. Right. All the rest. The Wall Street Journal has done a few hit jobs on things and so forth. But if you get into non-consumption where the alternative is nothing at all, I don’t have access to a tutor if I’m, you know, however many millions of kids in the United States, let alone the world, clearly better than the alternative, nothing at all. There are some very interesting places to launch student facing applications in that area, number one. And number two, I think the argument for it, and I think this is where you also might be going is I see it as lifting the quality of work of what students are doing because AI now is a tool of work just like we use it in our workplace to better…so that they can create more in depth, more exciting, you know, things. Right. With spending a little bit less time on some of the mechanics and more time on the depth, if you will, of learning and evidence right in the product or performance or whatever they’re creating. And I’m being somewhat vague because trying to capture all the possible use cases one could imagine depending on what subject or grade you’re imagining as we’re talking. But I think that’s the other area is that like the sense of agency for kids where they can actually build professional level skills stuff as they’re exploring.Diane Tavenner: Yeah.Michael Horn: Has just taken a big step up. And it’s not to say that they don’t have to learn the knowledge and application and skills. They do. But then using AI to level up all of that is pretty interesting, I think. Go ahead.Diane Tavenner: Yeah. Let’s talk for a minute, Michael, about the broader context and why – because I think it’s so relevant here about what’s going on – I think in the world why this matters. So, so number one, it’s unequivocal. I just spent last week with people from the left and the right and like everywhere in between. And there’s a, there is an incredible agreement around the idea that school needs to be real world. It needs to be preparing young people, especially high school, for the real world, for jobs, for employment. It can’t be sort of this like theoretical, you know, thing anymore. And it’s not preparing them for that. It’s not preparing them with what I would just call basic professional skills. Like how do you actually like be an employee? How do you show up on time, how do you have agency, how do you do these things? And, and it’s, it’s not actually, if it’s not incorporating AI and how you use that in real work, it’s not going to be preparing them for the future that they’re walking into. And so I think that is happening. There’s a real move towards, you know, CTE, you know, career and technical education. As we know, we’ve got ESAs coming on in multiple states where people are going to be able to sort of more pick and choose their education. So you’ve got a lot of stuff happening where people are like, I don’t want to sit and get anymore and it’s not going to serve me to just sit there and take direction and then wait for you to tell me the next direction. And so I think what, you know. Do I think it’s a chat bot that’s tutoring me? You know, I think that’s super rudimentary. I think there’s so much better stuff coming, but you got to start somewhere. And I think that what’s more important to me is that like it’s, it’s breaking this dynamic of like 25 or 30 kids in a classroom, like waiting on instruction and the slowness of it and the exactitude of it and that. And so it’s moving us towards like this is the world we’re going to.Michael Horn: The waiting on is a really particularly interesting place I’d love to like pick up on because I see the same thing, no surprise perhaps in that one we’ve been pretty clear that more connection to real world is important. I also think the ability to codify and create like standard curriculum, given the fast changing nature of real work is going to be a fool’s errand. And so that pushes you more and more in the direction you’ve been around. Experiential. Right. And so as a result of that, like that’s going to be doing, which means not like you can’t be waiting on the sort of the one scarce resource in the classroom to come over to you, unlock the lesson plan for you and then you’re allowed to go learn that. That that’s not going to be the model that engages or works, frankly. And so it’s everything from knowledge acquisition to exploration. On the one hand we’ll put that like as a big bucket, right? To actually engaging with, connecting with and then doing the work. And AI is a really interesting portal, I think, into all three of those, I guess is the way I would think about it. Whether it’s up leveling the quality of resources on the front end or frankly up leveling the level of work that young people are able to do and they’re showcasing of that and problem solving to real professionals and getting real feedback on it.Diane Tavenner: Well, and I think this is so critical, Michael, because one of the things we’re seeing in the job market for, you know, post high school graduates, post college graduates is. And one of the things AI is doing is, is sort of competing with or removing those kind of entry levels. So no one wants to hire someone who doesn’t have experience anymore. You, you know, almost every job says you need a couple years of experience. So how are young people supposed to get experience? Well, their education is going to have to incorporate experience, if you will. It has to be experiential. It has to be a place where they’re going to be able to make the case that even though I just finished learning in some, you know, degree or credentialing program, I have experience. And so the, the act of learning and getting feedback and producing products has to be much more real world experiential if they’re going to have any hope of getting a job.Preparing Students for Success in the WorkplaceMichael Horn: This isn’t an AI point, but I just, I’m, I love that we’re getting away from credential based hiring and that skills based hiring is a phrase, but I think I find it overly technocratic and a sense that we’re going to be able to define skills in narrow ways. And the word you just used, experience, to me is the way to think about it of experience based hiring. And the way you show you can do and step into a job is through the experiences you’ve had where you’ve done that. And if we believe, let’s go to the equity question. If we believe we want to give everyone a chance at that school has got to be providing it because otherwise my kids are going to be able to find those opportunities, but a lot aren’t. And so I think schools are going to need to be. A long time ago there was a professor, either I think UCLA, but maybe USC, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, and he wrote about how like schools of experience were the right way to hire people to see, like, you know, have you led teams, have you, etc., etc. As opposed to like, gee, Diane built a great product by herself, now we want her to be a manager. Two totally different sets of skills underlying that. Forget about naming the skills, let’s just look at the experiences themselves and say, like, how’d you do what, what lessons did you learn? What would you do next time? How does it equate to the culture here? Those are the sorts of questions and conversations I’d love us to be having in hiring. And so what you Just said, I think makes a lot of sense for the schools to be stepping into that. And the challenge, right, if we stay with our teacher centered model is that to ask teachers to sort of be the font of all of that is, is crazy.Diane Tavenner: It’s not even, it’s not even possible by definition. You know, they are, they’re, they’re waiting on, the student is waiting on instruct. It’s not preparing them to be productive. No, no. And it’s not even neutral anymore. It’s negative because the incentive system in our traditional schools is actually counterproductive. It’s creating behaviors and incentivizing behaviors that are, are counterproductive when you’re going into the real world. And so, and I would argue the learning isn’t even that great. So it’s not like they’re coming out as masters of math or you know, and, and on top of it that. I mean, let’s just go back in time for a moment. We talk a lot about the industrial model and wanting to move away from industrial model schools. But I think some of the things that people forget is the design of the industrial model school was actually preparing people for…Michael Horn: An industrial model economy.Diane Tavenner: The factory. Like you showed up to a bell, you moved on a bell, you, you produced work at a rate and a speed in a way that was going to be very real world, very comparable to what you were going into. And our schools look nothing like workplaces at all anymore. And they’re not preparing young people for all of those pieces of it.Michael Horn: No, we’re going off AI but I’m going to make one more point and then maybe we’ll bring it back. Which is, I actually think when people think about higher education also, and they’re like, oh, the rarefied university experience that I want all 55 million people for some reason to have, that is, you know, Harvard or whatever else, they forget that that is also a vocational experience, which is to train people for the professoriate down the line to prepare them to get master’s and PhD degrees. So for what it’s worth, I think it all has echoes to your point of the world into which you were trying to prepare individuals. And that world has changed totally.Diane Tavenner: And I think that AI becomes a tool because I think a lot of the objections to changing this model, if you will, the box model, the classroom, the school building, etc, has been like, how can we actually do that? We have, you know, 55 million people in the schooling system. There’s a huge operational component like, how do you actually do that? And I do think that AI brings us a new set of tools in a very meaningful way if we deploy them properly. Not properly, if we deploy them, you know, interesting, smart, visionary ways that make that more and more possible.Michael Horn: Maybe let’s leave the conversation there and I’ll put out one more question that I’m really interested to get from folks, which is when…We’re going to talk to people who are skeptics, who are optimists, probably in between. And the questions that I’m curious about are many. But one of them on what you just said is like, how does it maybe make certain things that we thought were important historically less so in the future? Like, yes, it might ruin the ability to do X, Y and Z, because AI is going to do it. But also that thing is no longer that important either as an artifact anymore. And where is that not true? Where is it going to ruin that thing that actually still really is important? How do we think about that? I’m curious to hear what people think.Diane Tavenner: I’m curious about that too. I also will just put an invitation out, Michael. You know, we’re gonna do this for a little bit and we’ve got certainly a list of people we want to talk to and a list of questions. But we always love hearing from listeners. And so if there are people or questions you are curious about, send them our way and we’ll do the best we can.Michael Horn: Perfect. Ok so let’s leave it there. Lots of, lots of energy around where we want to see AI solve problems. And let’s flip, as we always do, to what we’re reading, listening, watching, basically anything outside of our day jobs. What’s on your list, Diane?Diane Tavenner: Well, I have one that’s legitimately outside of my day job, which is The Diplomat Season 2. And it’s just, that’s so bad.Michael Horn: I need to get on that train. I really, for a variety of reasons, I know I would like it, so I will try to catch up to you. Mine is less, is, is not actually divorced from my work. I’m reading student papers non-stop right now. The AI I’ve tried a couple AI tools, Diane, that grade, I will tell you they don’t because they don’t understand context and the content knowledge. They’re very good at telling me, you know, grammatical things. I am not an English teacher. I don’t, I literally don’t care as long as I, it communicates the point in this particular case. So as a result, it’s still manual labor for me, for the next few days.Diane Tavenner: Well, I’m so sorry. I hope that ends.Michael Horn: No, all good. Some of them are great ideas, and I’ll hold to those. But for all of you listening, thanks as always. We look forward to hearing from you. Look forward to hearing your thoughts about who we ought to talk to, what we ought to learn from. We’re excited to do this and do a deep dive on AI with all of you. Thanks so much. And we’ll 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.

Is it better for education solutions to have an interdependent, self-contained design or a modular one? Well, it depends. That contradicts the advice of a lot of CEOs and investors who adhere to one or the other view. In this video, I use music as a metaphor to help explain the tradeoffs and best uses of each architecture.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.One of the big questions that I often get is this: Is it better to be vertically integrated That is, you control everything you do. You make all the parts, you have a proprietary architecture.Or is it better to be modular, that is horizontally integrated? You're just one step or part that fits neatly into a whole that others also contribute to in clearly defined, predictable ways.And basically what we've learned is that, contrary to what Apple or anyone else might tell you, the answer is… it depends.The theory of interdependence and modularity says that when you're trying to improve the raw performance or functionality of a product, a system, a service, composition, you need an interdependent architecture. The reason is you can't specify in advance how one part works and functions and the way another part works and functions because they're interdependent with each other. If you make changes in one, it changes the other and vice versa. And so when you're trying to wring out every last ounce of performance from something, you need to wrap your hands around everything and really embrace this interdependent architecture.IBM mainframes are a classic example, highly interdependent product. IBM did everything. They built the logic circuitry, the operating system, the memory, they manufactured it, they did the sales, everything.But frankly, most Apple products are very interdependent as well.And we can make this idea of interdependence come alive in music as well, because it's a confusing concept. And I thought if we did something very outside of the bounds of how we normally think about it, it might come alive a little bit more for folks.And I'm going to do it by demonstrating something by Bach. It's his Fugue No. 2 in C Minor, and it's a great example of an interdependent architecture. And by having [that architecture] he really optimizes the overall raw functionality of the composition I'm going to illustrate it here on this keyboard—and I'll apologize in advance it's not a weighted keyboard, it's not going to be a beautiful grand piano sound, it's clunky here and there—but i think you'll get the idea. Essentially what Bach has done in this Fugue is that he's going to have three subjects come in you can almost think of them like melodies and then there's going to be counter subjects that respond to it with movement and opposition and he specifies in essence by writing down music everything in advance to create this incredibly rich composition together.It starts with this first subject, which is the alto part, which you'll hear here. And I'll just play it—it's very elegant and simple. We'll use a Steinway grand piano sound so you can get the idea.[Piano playing]Elegant. Simple. And then the soprano in the right hand is going to play that subject as well—the second subject—in the very next set of measures. And it goes like this.[Piano playing]And while it's doing that, we're going to have the left hand introduce the counter subject that's going to move in opposition.And at this point, it's still in that alto range, but I'll let you hear what it sounds like, and then we'll put them together.[Piano playing]Okay, let's put it together with the right hand so you can start to get a sense for how they're interweaving and responding and moving in opposition to each other to understand that interdependence. [Piano playing]So you can see how the counter subject—it's literally moving in opposition in many ways to that subject and it's starting to create this real richness. And just a bit later then we're going to get a third subject that's going to be in the base part in in the left hand again—it's that repeat of the melody if you will. And then the right hand of course will be doing its own counter subject at that time and you're going to start to get a really cool exposition as these three parts start to play with each other in intricate interdependent ways that optimize the overall composition. Rather than play each of the parts, I'm just going to play the whole together just a little bit of it so you can start to see the beauty of that interdependence.[Piano playing]You get the idea.Now, on the other hand, sometimes we're not worried about the raw performance or functionality of something. What we really in those instances want is speed and customization, personalization, and really the ability to improvise within all the different components.And there you need a modular architecture—where the ways that these different parts come together—the interfaces—are specified in advance in very tight ways. In other words, how they fit together, very predictable ahead of time. No surprises. But a lot of freedom within the different parts themselves on the other side of the interfaces to really freelance and customize and make sure that you can meet different demands and so forth.There’s no right or wrong way to be on these different spectrums—interdependence versus modularity.When we're talking about modularity, instead of an IBM mainframe, we're thinking about a Dell personal computer. Instead of an Apple iPhone, we're thinking about an Android phone. Much more modular architectures that allow for customization.Now, of course, we can illustrate this again through music.And in this case, you probably know where I'm going, but jazz—the ultimate in customization through improv. And I'm going to use a specific type of jazz composition to really show modularity. I picked out a piece here called Little Sunflower. It's written by the great trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. And it's what we call a modal piece—almost sounds like modular—in the key of D minor Dorian.And basically what that allows me to know is that in the bulk of the music, when we're in D minor, I can play any note in that D minor Dorian scale as I'm improvising. And the note, it's going to work. There's a clean interface, which gives me a lot of freedom to improvise with melodies in the scale itself and have some fun.Now, when I go into the bridge, there's going to be a D major for four bars and an E flat Lydian first for four bars, and then those will repeat.So I'll work through those.But just to give you a sense for how Hubbard really creates these modular interfaces, I prerecorded a simple baseline on the D minor Dorian, just so you can get a sense of the texture of that, what we're going to lay down over which we can improvise and what it sounds like.So let's go ahead and mute these drums and we'll play this baseline.[Bass line playing]You get the idea. Very straightforward, simple.And then we're going to just add some drums on top of that. It would really be a Latin, medium Latin sort of groove if you were playing it. But just for the sake of this, I just chose a simple rock beat just so you can get the idea of how these two parts come together. I put this together ahead of time. This is what it sounds like.[Music playing]You get the idea.And then the melody is going to go on top of that. And we'll choose a basic classic electric piano. And I'll do a little vamping in the left hand because the interface is clear. I know I can play different variations of D minor chords. And the right-hand melody is going to sound very simple.It's just... I'll play it in fourths just to give it a little bit more texture. And again i can do that with a melody because it's a modular interface. I know as long as I stay within the D minor Dorian no problem it gives me a lot of room for improvisation. And what I'll do is I'll play the basic melody with the drums and bass behind it and then I'm just going to start improvising earlier than you normally would just to give you a sense of how this modular architecture allows you to really customize, improvise in the different parts themselves and create a very cool piece, very different from Bach and that interdependence, but awesome in its own way as well and far more customizable.So let's lay those first eight bars down and then I'll start to improvise.[Music playing and fade]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.

Often, incumbent leaders recognize well in advance that they’re being disrupted by a new innovation but feel powerless to make the changes needed to survive.In other words, they’re held captive by their pre-existing business model. In this video, I use music as a vehicle for explaining why organizations respond to threats with such rigidity and how they can be more nimble when it matters most.One of the biggest challenges that successful organizations have is surviving disruption.When they see a disruptive innovation afoot, they know that if they don't do something, they're going to get overrun by it, potentially in the long run.But responding to disruption is hard because it just doesn't feel natural.Remember those newspapers we all used to read back at the turn of the century? They saw online news coming and they're like, we've got to do something.But they just didn't know what.And they were in essence held captive by their existing business model. We've seen what's happened to so many newspapers since then.So how do you survive disruption and even thrive or pioneer the disruptive innovation yourself? How does an existing organization do the disruption?Clark Gilbert did some really important research years ago, looking actually at the newspaper industry. And what he saw is that the first thing you have to do when you see a potentially disruptive innovation is that you have to frame it as a threat.Why is that?Because framing it as a threat will motivate you to throw resources at the problem and really take it seriously. So the first thing to do is to frame it as a threat.And the way I like to think about that so I can get in that threat mode is you think of like that disruptive innovation, it's coming at you. It's like the Imperial March from Star Wars. Darth Vader's coming at you and you have to do something. (music playing)You get the idea. But here's the problem.If you leave it in that threat framing, then the organization gets super rigid. So you're motivated. You have the resources to tackle the problem. You're ready to go against Darth Vader. But now you're also kind of like Darth Vader. You're trying to move in that hard shell, awkward suit. You're super rigid. And you see a lot of command and control behavior in organizations when they leave it in a threat framing. A lot of top-down leadership, classic Darth Vader sort of stuff.And Clark Gilbert called this threat rigidity.And the problem with threat rigidity is this: You see the threat, you framed it as such, and you're dedicating resources to it. I mean, after all, Darth Vader's coming at you. But if you become rigid with those resources, it's the exact wrong response.Because no one at this stage knows what the disruptive innovation should really look like yet. How should it work? How will it help consumers? How do we design it? How do we structure the business?And so to figure all of that out, you need to be the opposite of rigid. You need to be nimble. That means lots of fast testing of key assumptions, learning from those tests, and then iterating.So the question then obviously is like, how do you become nimble? And so it turns out that after playing the Imperial March and galvanizing the resources, you then need to do a reframe to see this disruptive innovation as an opportunity.Think A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman.Because the question should turn into this. Disruption is going to happen. So why don't we do it?And to frame it as an opportunity, Clark Gilbert found that you need to build an independent, loosely connected organization and empower that small group of individuals to go and explore and pioneer the disruptive innovation.Because why not close your eyes and see that the world will only wait for you if you go out and allow an independent group to seize the opportunity for innovation.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.

A false dichotomy has formed in the education world: rote practice versus project-based learning. As in music, it’s important to both drill the knowledge & skills AND pull it all together into a cumulative performance.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.I have a confession. When I was a kid, food fights, I kind of got the appeal. But as an adult, not so much.Yet we have food fights all the time in education. And we pit things against each other that I don't think are actually diametrically opposed to each other. Here's a classic one. Have you ever heard an educator say, no more drill and kill? It’s not good for kids! And while what they might mean is they don't want someone doing just busy work for its own sake on something that they've already mastered, what they also often mean is that they don't think it's important for someone to work repeatedly at a foundational skill to really ingrain it in their long-term memory.On the other side, you'll get the people who just say, no project-based learning. I don't want students learning projects, just direct instruction. None of this inquiry-based learning or anything like that. And what I think they mean is that there has to be something substantive in the learning. It can't just be a whiz-bang project masking as learning. They really also need to learn the knowledge underlying something and automate these things. But what they're also saying is that why you're learning something, its relevance, I'm not sure it matters, is what they're saying. That putting these things into larger context, not that important.And to think about how absurd these two poles are, all you gotta do is think about music. Learning piano, for example. Like, do you think that it's not important to learn scales? (music playing)Maybe it's not important to practice, say, your octaves? (music playing)You get the idea, right? But what about practicing some different patterns for jazz or something like that? (music playing)Is that not important? I mean, you know, yes, it's meat and potato stuff, but it's critical for foundations. And yeah, it's kind of drill and kill. And yet it turns out that it's pretty important to commit your times table to long-term memory for more advanced math and science and engineering.But now here's the thing, if you told most people, hey, the only thing that you're gonna learn this year is scales, because trust me, scales, like those are really important, they're not gonna do that. They want a project, they want a performance, they wanted the scales to be a part of a whole. And like, I'm willing to do the work, but most kids, not all, but most, they want it to be for a reason. They want that relevance. And that's the performance. They want to work on those patterns and scales and octaves so that they can play something like this. (music playing)Or so that they can play something like this. (music playing)You get the idea, right? And look, they don't want that performance or that project to be the dessert. No, they want it to be the main course. It's the purpose. The repetitive practice, the drill and kill—that's also so I can build the muscle memory and the muscles and automate my skill set so that I can then play those pieces and express myself.But it isn't one thing or the other. As with so much in education, rather than an “or,” we need to move to a both-and. And see that at some points, look for a novice, like one set of exercises to build a foundation, that's going to be critical. Like the performance for a novice isn't going to be one of those pieces I just played, but maybe something simpler like this. And look, maybe if, you know, I'm not an expert, maybe I'm, you know, or if I am an expert, maybe I'm not doing sort of simple exercises like this. (music playing)But maybe I am—even in the beginning just to warm up—because both the drill and kill and the projects are important.And let's be real. Tell me that LeBron James is not spending time drilling his free throws and working on his mechanics, but he's also scrimmaging and playing games.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.

Danny and I enjoyed recording this live episode on the Substack app last Friday. It was fun interacting with all who joined! To that end—to join us for our next live video in the app, click the link below from your mobile device.Paid subscribers also get access to the recording of the conversation—so enjoy!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.

Diane Tavenner and I have launched a sixth season of Class Disrupted! In our welcome back episode, we talked through my newest book, the bestseller Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career. We also mapped its implications back to K12 schools and students through Diane's startup, Futre.me.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! Please share this post with folks who will benefit from it!Here’s what ChatGPT thought were the top 5 takeaways. We look forward to your thoughts!* Schools must prioritize agency and self-discovery for students rather than seeing colleges or careers as something "chosen" for them* Help students identify what drives their energy and the capabilities they are developing as part of their education* Treat career exploration like a learning and design process* Teach students to evaluate return on investment of different pathways—in terms of money and time* Leverage tools that support lifelong career navigation, not just in-school navigationDiane Tavenner:Hey, Michael.Michael Horn:Hey, Diane.Diane Tavenner:It is really good to be back for a sixth season, and it's especially good because I'm recording in person with you.Michael Horn:We always treasure those times when we actually get to be face to face, not in front of the video cameras. And that's another perk because, Diane, the other people in the audience listening to us, they don't have to see us. That's a good thing.Diane Tavenner:So some folks have been wondering if we were coming back for the sixth season, given how late it is in the school year. We wanted to just be transparent about what's going on. And so two things. First, we've always wanted to come back. We get tons of feedback and questions and suggestions that are totally awesome and interesting, and it just suggests to us that there's a lot of people across the education spectrum who are listening and getting some value. So we want to be here. And our roles have been changing and our schedules have been changing, and they're a little bit less predictable. And so there are just some logistics we've run into.But here we are. And excited to be here.Michael Horn:Yes, indeed. We're figuring it out. You have taken a new job over the last couple years, which will be directly applicable to today's episode, obviously. I teach in the fall, and then I've learned teaching while putting out a new book that we're going to talk about. It's just really busy, and I don't know if I would have repeated that if I had the chance, but now we're here in person, we're doing this, so let's talk.I would say our curiosity is really leading us to focus on some books that not just me, but other folks have coming out. And also artificial intelligence. AI is everywhere in the education landscape. People are asking a lot of big questions. Frankly, we are asking a lot of big questions. There are a lot of hot, polarized takes, and I think that's never been our thing, Diane.Diane Tavenner:No, I mean, you know we've always talked about our original motivation. And the reason we started this podcast is because we wanted to think about third way solutions. We wanted to think about bringing groups together for really meaningful, purposeful engagement and education and solutions - things that would move us forward. And so, you know, I think that combined with the fact that we both share a very strong belief that schools are in desperate need of redesign, I think maybe growing more desperate every day.Michael Horn:Maybe that is our hot take. But we're different from the poles in that way…Diane Tavenner:Right, right. And, you know, they have to change in order to meet the needs of today's learners as well as our society. And when the pandemic began, we both thought it would be finally this catalyst that we needed to accelerate the change. We thought we could maybe contribute to that by highlighting what learning could look like and elevating sort of third way perspectives and solutions for how to get there. I don't think either of us are satisfied with the progress that's been made since we started this several years ago. But we remain optimists and determined and so here we are.Michael Horn:Those are good words to use, I think, to describe how we both feel. It's also one of the reasons AI is so interesting to us, because we do think it's an important tool. And I'll say that again. It's a tool, not the ends. So do not expect us to talk about AI for AI's sake, but rather in the context of learning and the learning environments we create. And I'll say in all candor, as we start this season, like I don't think anyone really knows its ultimate impact. Anyone who does, they're lying because it's a lot of theorizing right now. I remain incredibly curious about it. I would say I'm very malleable still in my thinking.Michael Horn:Maybe "Malcolm Gladwellian," if you will, if that's a phrase. I don't know if I'm going to reverse everything I've ever thought, but I'm really curious about where it will and won't have impact. What's positive and negative about that, the timeframe over which it will happen and want to learn a lot about that. I will also say I think it's important to note because it's on the minds of a lot of folks. We are obviously statement of the obvious about to have a change in federal leadership and the President and the administration. And there are a lot of questions, of course, about how that might influence or impact what's happening in education as well.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, and I think one of the things we do is we lean into topics that arise and certainly, you know, there's stuff that's going to be coming our way and when we think that we can bring a useful perspective or make a contribution, we, we get together and talk about it. And so I think we can expect some of that over the next year. We're not exactly sure what it will be, but I think we can expect it. And then I think finally, you've always spanned K-12 higher ed and workforce. My work continues to expand as well. And so I think we'll always or continue to center K-12.You know, we hope to help folks see all of the connections between these, you know, sometimes siloed elements of education and learning, because there really is a bigger, broader picture and set of connections.Michael Horn:I'm glad you've come over to the dark side of not just K-12, but, you know, look, K-12 at some level is a dependent system on higher ed in the workforce, and those are extraneous macro conditions that impact what K-12 is preparing students for. So it's a really important conversation to frankly set the context for our schools.Diane Tavenner:Totally. And so with all of that context studying as we launch this new season, I am really excited for this first conversation. Michael, your new book came out literally yesterday as of recording time, and I really wanted the opportunity to interview you about it. We had such a fun interview this summer with David Yeager around his. His book that came out 10 to 25.And I just wanted to do a reprise, you know, like, how do we do that again with your book? You being you, when I suggested this, you said it should be a co-interview. And I was like, I don't have a book coming out.But you rightly pointed out that your book is so related to the work that I'm doing and this is new work for me. At first I thought, you know, well, I don't know. And then I really read the book and I was like, okay, this. This could be interesting. Usual. You were right. So we're going to have this kind of hybrid book talk today.Michael Horn:Well, you actually were showing me a version of the product platform that you're building. And I was like, holy cow, we did it again! Unintentionally. We have wound up with a lot of similar insights. We come there different ways. We do, but we often find ourselves in these places of convergence.Diane Tavenner:Yes, indeed. It’s awesome.Well, let's start with some basics. Your newest book is called "Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in your Career." You have two co-authors on this one, so Ethan Bernstein and Bob Moesta. And the book was released on November 19th. And so I guess my first question to you is, why? Why do you decide to write this book and why is it so important, especially given this moment that we're living in? Like even more important than when you started writing it, I think.Michael Horn:Yeah so I will say there's a personal story to that and then there's like the story of why we think this is the right book for the moment. And I'll lean into that second one for a moment because what we saw obviously during the COVID pandemic was the great resignation in the United States. We saw literally unprecedented numbers of people leaving jobs, trying to make progress in their lives and then frankly, unprecedented numbers of them really dissatisfied with the moves that they had just made. And I'll say 1 billion people roughly every year worldwide switch jobs. In the US we switch jobs every four years. And we have a lot of evidence, according to Gallup, Pew others that at least 2/3 of the workforce in the jobs they are presently are completely disengaged, quiet quitting, whatever you want to call it. And so our basic sense, I think is that we make progress at some level by switching jobs, but it does not line up with how companies think about progression.And we want to help empower people to realize you get to hire your next job, treat it like product development, prototype what you could be doing and figure out the trade offs you're going to make. Like what's a better or worse fit for you so that you can get the progress that you're really prioritizing. So that's where we've landed and why I think it's so important. And we've obviously pitched. You know, we talked last year on this, on this season about your own switch. But like, just to remind folks, you started thinking, "Hey, college for all is not the narrative either." Careers in K-12 schools and the jobs and what people like doing is a really important thing to start figuring out. So maybe talk about that as well.Diane Tavenner:Well, first of all, all that really resonates for me and it's just, it's stuff I know, but when you just lay down all those stats that way, it just is a really profound, it's so important. That's why we're doing this work. So here's what I would say. One of the fun parts of being in a startup is that I get to spend a lot more time with young people than I did when I leading a much bigger organization. And you know, over the last year we've been working directly with high schools and their students to build Future, the Future Platform, which is a life navigation platform and it's really designed for right now, young people, ages 15 to 25. And you know, our small team is made up of college interns and recent college grads. We're building for this group.We need to, you know, be this group, except for a couple of us sort of older and grayer folks. And working with them has been so fun and inspiring and enlightening. And you know, we set out to build Future because we didn't think anything like it existed. So as you're going through your list, you're like, there's all this reality and we don't think, you know, when we look around we're like, how do high school and college students figure out what life they want to lead and what careers will enable that life and how to connect that to the day to day decisions and activities they're engaged in. Which, by the way, may very well be college. But college is a means to that end. It is not the end. And I think that's where we went wrong or went sideways for quite a while.And I'm saying "we" in the, you know, grander sense there. And so currently there's a bunch of technology that's designed to manage the process of applying to college. There's a bunch of websites, you can search for information on careers, but there's nothing that meets you where you are and kind of walks beside you for a decade plus as you figure out you are what you want, what the world has to offer, and where those two things intersect and meet. And so even though your job moves and future are focused on people at different ages and stages, one of the things I noticed immediately was that you identify four primary questions for why people seek to change jobs. And those seem to be so similar to the motivations of young people who I'm talking to and working with. And so let's talk about those four. Will you tell us about those four motivations and what you learned?Michael Horn:Yeah, absolutely. So we did the Jobs To Be Done methodology, I should say that, which is like, explains why people switch behavior. One of the big things is "Bitchin' ain't switchin." Just because you're complaining about something doesn't mean you're going to actually switch behavior. We want to see people who've actually made switches and then we code for the pushes and pulls. So the things that are driving them away from the status quo and I'm pulling you toward this new future. And then we cluster them. Okay, so four quests.First one, get out. These are people who are like, just ain't good. It's going nowhere fast. Managers, you know, we're not vibing. The job description is not working. I want to reset how my energy is being used and how my capabilities are being used. I need to find some place better and quick. The second quest is what we call regain control.And these are people who are really like. I actually like a lot of what I get to do on a daily basis, like how it uses my capabilities. But I don't like how it energizes or makes use of my time. I feel like that's out of control. This could be like I need more work life balance. It could be I actually want to figure out how or where I do like hybrid work. Right?Has become a big deal remote work. It could be that micromanaging boss. My energy's out of whack. The third one is what we call regain alignment. So these are people who basically say the opposite. I really like how my energy is being used in my time. But I'm feeling disrespected for the skills that I bring to the table and what they're being what I'm being asked to do. And then the last one, we call these folks to take the next steppers.This is I would say the closest thing to sort of climbing the career ladder or in our choosing college book, like get into the best college for its own sake. I have no idea why but like I just. That's what I'm supposed to do. And these are people that like actually I like my how my energy is being used. I like what I'm doing. Let's take that next step. I will say there's like U turns in this one as well. We profile some people where that is but it really is fundamentally for all these quests.And we'll get into this something that I've learned from you which is the “ings”—what you're doing, not what the title is and the perks in the surface level. Like does what you do on a daily basis really line up with the things that give you energy and are the skill sets that you're good at? And as you know, those are interdependent.Diane Tavenner:Totally. For those people who work in K-12 and specifically in high school, I and specifically with seniors in high school, I suspect they recognize a lot of connection there. So when I read these motivations I was like, oh my gosh. This is is describing high school kids. They want to get out. They're maybe not regaining or real control or realigning. They're doing it for the first time, really.Michael Horn:I think that's right. And we also, you've noted to me we don't really give high school students in our present design of schools the opportunity to, like, go deep in something and then be like, "Oh, I actually want to regain alignment because I've gone off somewhere." Right? Like, we don't actually give them those choices.Diane Tavenner:Right, right. But as you describe the energy, so many kids in high school are like, my energy is not here. This is not feeding me. Like, I. I could be out doing things, making money, you know, and I don't feel respected. There's tons of high school kids who don't feel like what they can do and are capable of doing are being illuminated or highlighted. So I just saw so many connections there, and I thought it was such a great way to start the book. We're going to get very practical here, but let's spend a couple of moments on the research.There's a ton of research. Oh, my go, gosh, buckets of research underlying your book. And the same is true for our platform as well. So let's just spend a couple of minutes on some of those key points that really matter to you and connect to those nine steps with the, you know, journey. And again, I'll. I'll point out, I bet there's going to be some intersections there. But let's do that for a few moments.Michael Horn:Sounds good. So I'll just say, like, we actually... Ethan's a qualitative researcher. He's a professor at the Harvard Business School. Bob Moesta is the "Jobs to be Done" guy. He created the theory. He loves to do interviews. Over the course of a decade plus, we collected data on over a thousand individuals making the choice to switch jobs.And then Ethan designed an entire course around it, which allowed him to coach literally hundreds of people in lots of different career walks. Not just like your HBS students, because it was an exec online course. So, you know, they're construction workers. Like, it's a pretty wide range to actually start to build processes and protocols. And then Bob actually, when the pandemic hit, Clay Christensen died. This is the personal side of the story. And the three of us agreed within a few weeks to write the book with each other. Bob started prototyping with cohorts, actually coaching them through the process.And so we built a first process. He then improved it in a second step. Then a third step. He tried to break it by seeing how fast. What if we limited time? Like, how are all the ways we can purposely break it and then the fourth and fifth were like, let's put it back together with what we've learned. And that's what's in the book.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. That's awesome. And again, so parallels. You're doing this in a more analog version.Michael Horn:Yes. And you get to do it in a digital.Diane Tavenner:I'm doing it in a digital. But so, so, so similar. And, you know, I think what I'm drawing on is the research around how young people develop, the learning science behind that. The power of purpose in driving. You know, the striving for a good and fulfilled life. And that's all present in what you're doing.Michael Horn:And I would. Yeah. On that front. Right? Like, I would say, we pulled in a lot of those unintentionally throughout or maybe intentionally. Of purpose was a big one. Progress is really what jobs to be done is all about. That's connected.And then Ethan, obviously, being a professor at HBS and sort of the HR person has a mountain of research on a lot of stuff around. Like he's the transparency paradox guy. Like, when is that actually a good idea, when is it a bad idea and things of that nature. And so we got to pull all of that in as we were building these.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's cool is that, and this is a thing we're both committed to is that research for its own purpose is not useful.Michael Horn:Not very useful.Diane Tavenner:So we want it to always be applied. And so, you know, what we have, what we are building is the app is embodies the application of that research. And so we're very committed to the research, but in that real way. So let's just jump into a few of the steps. I'm not sure we'll get through all nine.Michael Horn:Let's not do all nine. Let's focus on the ones that are interesting for your purposes as well.Diane Tavenner:Okay. So I love this [second] step. Energy drivers and drains. And you just sort of alluded to it. But let's dig in a little bit more. It addresses so many of the challenges I have with traditional career coaching. So. Yeah.Michael Horn:Oh, boy. So I want to hear this on the back end because it occurred to me we wrote a book, for people, frankly, who've had at least one job and then the backward mapping of into the K-12 and higher ed processes I actually think is your platform does it pretty naturally. But this big first one is not a new idea. A lot of people have written about understand what energizes you, what drains your energy, how that changes based on context. You know, Bill Burnett, design your life like a lot of this stuff. Right? But what I think we did uniquely here is we want you to look at your. Your actual experiences and reflect on times when you were in flow and your energy was really turned on and it was building and so forth.And at past work where it was draining that energy. Now, for someone in the job market, we're looking at past jobs, past roles you've had. My sense is if you're a K-12 student, it's looking at the projects you do, the times you're in classes, the extracurricular activities you're involved with. And then I think this is where your ings come into Diane, and where you've built around this a little bit.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, yeah. I mean, so I think you're exactly right. So one of the things I notice and observe both in K-12, but also in anytime people are sort of coaching or helping people figure out career paths is it's a pretty common practice that they give people sort of this, what I would call a black box assessment that is somehow going to figure out what your aptitudes are or, you know, what you're going to like. But ED is a black box. People don't understand what's going on in that assessment. And what it usually spits out is either some very high level things like, you know, you're a whatever, or I'm not even thinking I'm a good whatever because I never pay attention to these things. But you know what I'm talking about.Michael Horn:Yeah. No, you said you ship to my class. Right? Like, you know, these. This is your fixed personality, so to speak. Or this is your fixed, you know, aptitudes.Diane Tavenner:Right?Michael Horn:And therefore you should be, you know, communicator. Right? Or you should be. Mine is like writer, private equity, like three others. Right? And you're like, what careers?And I mean writer. I guess it landed. But you know, when I might.Diane Tavenner:Well, when they get mortician, they're like, what? What are you talking about? For the most part. And so I don't like that black boxiness because the whole point is we're empowering individuals to figure out the life they want. And so what I love about this is they're actually reflecting on and thinking about things they've already done to apply them to the future.Michael Horn:Well, stay with it. Right? This is the big flip in the book, which is that most places think of job seekers as the supply side, like the, the available pool of talent and the jobs out there as the demand side. Companies demanding workers. Our notion is you flip that. That the individuals, right, have to actually learn about themselves so they can figure out what they are demanding.Diane Tavenner:Yes.Michael Horn:As they go seek out work and that they are the demand side. So it's a flip from labor economists, but it's what I've learned from you about the importance of agency, frankly, building this metacognition about what really makes you tick and then being able to pattern match well.Diane Tavenner:And this is exactly the flip I want high school students to have is I want them to, whether it be applying to college or the career they're thinking about, I want them to see themselves as the people who are making the choice. And I think one of the, you know, challenges that the College For All movement and exclusive colleges have created is that young people feel like they're just trying to get someone to pick them and that it's very arbitrary. And they don't, you know, they're. It's not clear what to do versus feeling totally empowered to be like, no, I'm gonna decide who I am and what I care about and then I'm gonna go find the fit for that. Totally. So I love this. Let's. Let's talk about another one.So there's this idea, and it's very connected, this idea of the career balance sheet and the assets and liabilities, which in my view is such a positive kind of flip from what we normally hear, which is like strengths and weaknesses. So talk about that contrast and what you're doing here.Michael Horn:Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the big thing, right, is that again, this sort of strengths and weaknesses, which I like, I think is useful input and data, but it's a very fixed perspective on what an individual is. How many of you have taken Myers Briggs and like come out with a pro personality type and then realized, actually, in this situation I'm quite extroverted, and in this situation I get a little withdrawn and like, my introverted side comes out. And context is really important. Todd Rose talks about the context principle, right? And so our big thing. And then there's Carol Dweck's work around growth mindset that you can actually build capabilities over time. And so this is the big idea, right, is that we actually have these career balance sheets. Boris Groysberg, the professor at HBS, there's that research, came up with that idea.And basically what he said is that assets from an accounting perspective are resources that have future economic value that are acquired at cost. And so your capabilities, if you will, your assets are skills, your knowledge, your ability to do things, also your credentials and degrees and things of that nature that have value and they're acquired at a cost. And that's the liability side. What's the time and money it takes to actually learn that third language, if you will, to actually become a coder? These things don't happen magically, which is, I think, frankly, another weakness of a lot of these things is like, oh, you'll just learn these skills and do it and no one asks you, what's the trade off in terms of the time you have to invest. Oh, go be a doctor. Well, you gotta get through organic chemistry, at least in our present system.So is that gonna work for you, that investment? And so that, that's basically the idea. And then I guess the last thing I would say is we also want people to realize that these assets you build, they have a shelf life. They depreciate over time. Your degree will be a lot less valuable 30 years from now than it is when you first perhaps come out of college. Your technical coding skills, we know those are eroding faster than ever, thanks to AI, maybe even faster than that. And so what's the useful life of each of these assets you've built? And be like brutally honest with that and then really understand what are the trade offs of, like, where you want to go in developing your further assets? The last one, I'll say this, we talk a lot about the importance of social capital and network. It is, but those have shelf lives as well. Unless you're consciously reinvesting in them to build them up in the directions you want to go.Diane Tavenner:Totally. This is so aligned with how I have experienced some of the best folks across the country starting to talk to and engage with young people about their futures. And they're framing it in the language of ROI or return on investment. I think we're talking about the exact same thing here, which is this idea of like, we need young people to realize, like, whatever you're doing post high school, you are making an investment that is a liability.Michael Horn:When I saw that on your, in your platform, I was like, oh my gosh, like, alarm bell. I was like, this is the same thing. It's just a different age and stage.Diane Tavenner:It is. And so what we're trying to show them is like, think about not only your, your money, but your time, because that is your most precious resource.Michael Horn:That is your most precious resource. I mean, right when people talk a lot of times, and I'm now talking about adult learners, for example, about their lack of resources to, you know, they're working three jobs and they're trying to get the degree to get ahead. Time poverty is the biggest poverty they face.Diane Tavenner:Totally. Well, I mean, I feel that right now.Michael Horn:Right? We feel it right now. Yeah.Diane Tavenner:Literally. So we talk about that return on investment, like what do you, what can you spend and how quickly do you need to have that start paying off? Like what is it actually going to buy you? Buy a good return. Right? Like you've got to invest in assets that are going to get you the return you want. And I, I fear that a lot of young people don't even think about their time or their money into college as investments. And so there is no sort of plan to get a return on that. And as a result, so many are not getting a return on that investment. And so they're, they have massive debt, not just financial debt, but, but this sort of more skill, knowledge.Michael Horn:Yeah, I mean we call it like this is how careers go bankrupt when the liability side is bigger than the assets you've built and frankly are misaligned. And this is where these things are interconnected; misaligned to what gives you energy.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. This is so interesting. We could have a long conversation about how I feel like in education we've gone so far away from thinking about money and business that we've actually done a really significant disservice to everyone who's in it. And I kind of know why we maybe sort of went that way, but we went way too far. And I think we've got to, we've got to pull it back.Michael Horn:Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. I think it probably also explains some of the populations that have become more disaffected with schooling over the years. I'm thinking of males at the moment as one example, but I think these are all factors.Diane Tavenner:Yeah. One of the things I love about the book is that of course you're asking people to prototype the jobs and the careers that they want. And you know, you and I are both pretty obsessed with prototyping. We talk about it all the time. I was in your class yesterday, we were talking about prototyping and I think we're obsessed with it because it's so much smarter to spend time, you know, in a low stakes way, figuring out options and ideas and really sort of digging into them before you actually spend all this time and energy to get into them. And so talk about how you, how this comes to be and what it looks like in the job moves world.Michael Horn:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's exactly right. What you just said is prototyping is how we learn. And so what we really want you to do in the book is get away from one of the biggest mistakes I think people who are looking for new jobs make is they think like, "Oh, I'm chasing the one job." And instead we want you to create divergent prototypes, like really far afield. You know, next role, same company, totally different company, same role. And then like different careers. Things I've always dreamed about, like, really go spread them wide, A so that you can start to understand and learn about many different careers and how what drives your energy and your capabilities, like back to those ing is what you like doing actually maps onto these different types of roles and start to flush them out.And I, I guess this is the next piece of it. We really want to help people learn before they switch, not afterwards.Diane Tavenner:Yes.Michael Horn:And to do so, as you know, there's all sorts of things you could do. Job shadowing, you know, the expeditions. Right? You had in Summit, right? Where you're actually spending real time with real professionals. All that is great. It's not always accessible to people. And so the other way we do it is suggest is informational interviewing. And this is a very different kind of informational interview from the one at least as a kid I went on where like, you know, my parents would say, like, "Oh, here's a friend of mine, you know, they're a journalist. Like, go do an informational interview with them." I had no idea what to say or ask in those conversations. But here what we want to say is like, you've done the reflection on what you want to do and what drives your energy. So figure out is what they do on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. Where does it align and where does it not align? So you get a real sense of what it would be like to be in this job.And then the contrasts between these things start to create meaning about where do you want to go next? We, I guess we could talk about how to funnel it down. But I'm curious, like, you've built this out a little bit as well. Right? So how do you think about it?Diane Tavenner:Yeah, I mean, very aligned with what you're saying. And I think a key point I want to pick up on is like, people are really, you know, attuned to and focused on. And I think you're seeing more in high schools where people are trying to do More shadow days, more job fairs, more, you know, company visits or employer visits, more informational interviewing. And I think you just made a really important point that we're focused on, which is those things are all great, but they're not nearly as good if you go into them cold and not knowing what to ask or not what you want to learn for them from them.It's not as good for you. It's not as good for the people who you are with. And so one of the things we're doing in the platform is helping young people really do exploration before they get into those experiences so they can make the most of them. And I think your whole steps, your sequence, really helps people get ready for those experiences so they make the most of them. And in our case, you know, we have 868 careers that. And there are all these really thoughtful ways to explore them and figure out, like, what parts of this career are you going to like that match up with who you are and your ings and what you like doing. And so you go into those, those experiences and conversations with a lot more knowledge and with, with what you actually want to figure out coming out the other side and then reflect on. And I think then you talk about moving into ranking those prototypes, which is, which we're moving towards as well.And I'm curious, like, what, what does that look like? And then, you know, if people open up really wide, how do they then, you know, bring that back and converge, which is another concept you've got in here.Michael Horn:Yeah, absolutely. And I'll try to cover it quickly and then ask like, how you guys do it. But also one of the questions that's always on my mind about doing this in the K-12 environment versus where we are doing it, where like someone's theoretically anyway going to try to find a job within the next few weeks or month or something like that. So the way we do it is you have these energy drivers and you have these capabilities and we've had you bucket them right into the must have the ideally would have and like, okay, I can live without. But, you know, all things being equal, it'd be pretty sweet if it did this too. And then we have you rank these different prototypes and your current job on all of these dimensions. You can think about it of a scale to 1 to 10. And then we've got on jobmoves.com, this really simple Google sheet that will literally multiply it out to give you a mathematical answer.But I think a lot of people frankly have a gut feeling after they've gone through this and you start to realize one of these prototypes or maybe your current role really is hitting most of these critical must have things that you'll be doing. Again, emphasis on the doing, right? That is so important to you and that's how you learn to your point, I love that point. This learning agenda, that's how you start to learn, is you start to use the rank your prototypes so that you can converge and say, this is the one or two things I'd really love to get out in the market now and go find for what I could do next. So we hope the math helps. The force ranking of, you know, I'm on an, I'm an eight on working with people, but I'm a two on leading meetings. You're probably pretty high on leading meetings, I suspect.And so right? And we understand how that role, you know, fills in against it. You know, people should check it out. I didn't explain that correctly, but I think when they check it out, you'll start to see how it works and gives you information about yourself at this moment in time because it changes. So that's the question I want to ask you is like, how do you do the convergence but also how do you do the fact that like people are changing quite a bit when they're still in high school? And also the world of jobs is changing so rapidly. Like we have it easy, right? Because that job, presumably it exists. Yours, like it could be totally different in five years from now because of AI and automation.Diane Tavenner:It could be. And so that's why I think knowing yourself and who you are and what you care about will always matter a lot because then it's a matter of matching up with what a world is offering today, tomorrow, in the future. And so that underlying piece of knowing who you are and in a really granular level, like what gives you energy or what doesn't, or what do you like doing or, you know, all those things is so critical. But we've got a experience we call Compare. One of the things we heard is just let us take two careers side by side after we've done some exploration and then compare them to each other. And there's a couple of things going on here. You know, we're, we're sort of showing a framework for how you can do analysis about the exploration you've done, which it sounds like, you know, you're using some math and some ranking. We're doing something similar. And then the sort of head to head of one versus the other really does illuminate what is more important to me than other things.And it sort of gives some, some credibility to those gut instincts, like you said, or at least makes you talk through them and, and articulate what's going on for you there.Michael Horn:And so I think that's right. And this is, I think, the big thing that our book does. Like there's other books that have a lot of these notions in them. "Design your Life" is, I think, both of our, you know, one of our favorites. But I think what we really want to help people do is figure out how you make the trade offs because there's no job that's perfect. And so we want you to visibly see, oh man, if I take this job, I'm going to have to lead some meetings. But you know what? I'm willing to trade off on that because of all these amazing things I got that are at the top of my list. That's a trade off I'm willing to make.Or the one that Bob loves to always say is, man, I'm going to have to have an hour and a half commute, but it's more money or do I want less money and like it's five minutes from my door. These are real tradeoffs that like you've got to figure out and you have to do it relative to the things that you most want to get in your next role.Diane Tavenner:Totally. And so Michael, where do they go from there in your process after we're sort of converging and we've done this analysis, just bring us home.Michael Horn:Yeah, I'll try, I'll try to whip through the final few steps quickly for our, for our audience, Diane. But essentially this is all the demand side, right? We're doing a ton of demand side work around what you want and the trade offs you're willing to make. So now we switch to the supply side. What jobs actually exist. We're going to start looking at postings, we're going to use those interviewing techniques to actually talk to real people and use our network because it turns out 70% of jobs are filled by a network, someone in your network. And the reality, I think, with AI is that's going to become more in the years ahead. I think social capital is going to get more important.And so we then help you find those jobs, unpack what they really mean. Are they actually what you think they are? We teach you to tell your story through Pixar. All this reflection you've done you need to be able to explain it in an elevator pitch. We help you with that and then we help you. The final step is just a personal cheat sheet so that you know in a really easy way what makes you tick, the work environments where you're most likely to be successful. But it's also something that if it's not too Millennial or Gen Z, you can share with people around you so they know where you're excellent. And frankly, like, you know, you know, a bunch of my weaknesses, we all have them.Like, let's be honest with them. This is where I'm not as good. And can you build other people on the team that are awesome at it? Because frankly, my energy is such that I'm probably never going to really lean into that. Let's be asset based as opposed to deficit minded.Diane Tavenner:Yeah, I love so much about that. The, the last quick thing, I had an amazing mentor who always says, like, you know, people spend all this time trying to improve the things that they're not good at, rather than doubling down on the things that they are good at and being great at that, you know,? So I favor that approach.I will just say, you know, for those who've listened for a long time, you know that my son graduated from college in the spring and he spent the summer working for the Aspen Institute, and then he joined as a field organizer of the Presidential campaign. So he's just coming off of that. And I ordered the book for him, Michael, because I think it's like such a perfect moment and way for him to approach this. And it's funny because so many people really respect what he did. I mean, field organizing is no joke. And they're like, wow, he probably has a lot of skills and a lot of knowledge, and it's just like swimming around there.And I think this process is going to be really amazing for him to make sense of it and figure out where he wants to go next. And so I'll report back, but I'm excited to see how he progresses through that.Michael Horn:Well, thank you. I hope it's a positive one. And I hope for folks listening also that if they check it out for themselves or frankly, if they're trying to retain a team at a school or a nonprofit, they can use it that way. Or frankly, that they get to see how it maps onto what you've built at Futre at Futre.Me right? Because it's an incredible resource. Obviously, you are architecting for kids that they get to keep with them as they leave high school, which is so important. So let's use that as a segue.You bought the book for Rhett. I appreciate that. What are you reading or listening to or watching? Let's wrap us up there.Diane Tavenner:That's great. Well, I have read a ton since we last talked, but the thing I'm immersed in right now is "Nexus" by Yuval Harari. And I will say that I am a big fan of his writing. And because it really provokes me to think differently. I feel like he tells stories and that are very relevant and very current in a way that I'm like, "Oh, I hadn't really thought about it that way or looked at it that way. And this is no different. It feels like very appropriate to this moment in time. And then you burst my bubble a little bit and told me about how he was being brutally attacked for his research.And so I did some looking at that as well, and, you know, that's a longer conversation, but I'm going to stick with it. I think the book is really provocative, especially in this moment as we are coming off an election and into a new administration. And thinking about social media and the media in general and information. Super, super!Yeah. Making me think a lot. Yeah. How about you?Michael Horn:No, that makes sense. That makes sense. And look, I think at the very least, he helps us ask big questions.And that's the theme of what I was going to bring to you, which is that I've been trying to ask better questions, to listen, better not interrupt as much. It's sort of been a New Year's resolution of mine. And so I've read a trio of books around that. First is "Ask: Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You." You have it there for unexpected breakthroughs in leadership in life by our good friend Jeff Wetzler at Transcend. This is not about his work at Transcend, but it's an incredibly good book around asking questions and approaching problems with curiosity.And then I read Hal Gregerson's book from, I think it was 2018, where it's called "Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life." Great book as well.And then I'm rereading the book that I suspect you like as well, which is "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss.Diane Tavenner:Love, Chris.Michael Horn:So good. So good. And I felt like his Masterclass is amazing. I just felt like, okay, I need a refresher on this, because a lot of the stuff that, like Amanda Ripley and others write about in terms of deep listening and frankly, the jobs to be done approach that underpins job moves is all around that deep listening of, like, what is someone really saying and really understand on their terms. So that's what I've been reading.Diane Tavenner:So cool. I like how you got those all piled in. You know, you, you, you slipped three into one.Michael Horn:I'm going thematic, which gives me license. And, hey, it's our show, so we get to do what we want. But for all you tuning in, thank you for doing so. We look forward to the season to come, and we'll 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.

Geordie Hyland, president and CEO of the American College of Education, joined me to talk about how ACE is helping more educators earn degrees with less student debt. We discussed the college’s laser focus on learning, implementation of credit for prior learning, and the role of employers.Michael Horn:I am delighted that you're all joining us on 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 about this today, I'm delighted because I've got a longtime friend whose career I have followed through his different stops along the way. His name is Geordie Hyland. He's currently the President and CEO of the American College of Education, which we're going to learn a lot about today. But, Geordie, so good to see you. Thanks for joining us.Geordie Hyland:Yeah, thanks for having me. And I've been a big fan of yours over the years. I'm a big fan of your podcast and your work, so it's really an honor to be speaking to you today.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! Please feel free share this post so more can benefit from the insights from this conversation. The Founding Story of American College of EducationMichael Horn:So, you're the doer, so let's dive in. Tell folks about the American College of Education, ACE, what you do, you know, who you serve, how you do it. Because I suspect while it's a really neat story, I suspect it's not one that many people have heard.Geordie Hyland:Okay, well, appreciate the opportunity to do that. So American College of Education, we refer to it internally as ACE. I do think it's a unique institution in higher ed, and we're really trying to get the word out to students, but I think it also has a unique model that's relevant to other higher ed institutions. So it was founded in 2005 with the original premise of offering a Master's less than $5,000 to teachers. And there was a founding decision, not even though it's HLC accredited, Higher Learning Commission accredited, not to accept Title 4 loans. And so I think with. With the original premise and with that founding decision, we've really scaled over time with those guiding principles in mind. So we're at about 11,000 students right now, and we offer programming in education to teachers, but also in healthcare, nursing, and business. And we've really been focused on quality, flexibility, and affordability. And so that affordability combined with quality is key. And currently our Masters are less than $10,000. Our Ed.Ds are less than $24,000. We have a wide range of programming. For example, in education, we can take paraprofessional all the way to a superintendent and everything in between. And I think what is remarkable and something that I wanted to talk about today is the student outcomes. So we have about 85% graduation rate. We have, in States where our students are taking licensure exams, they meet or exceed the state averages. And one of the things that really differentiates us with our focus on working adults that are working full time while they're studying with us is the majority of our students pay as they go, and 85% of them come out with no debt. And in the larger context of higher ed, where there's $1.6 or $1.7 trillion, I can't keep track. There's a lot of federal student loans outstanding, and the average debt rates for a Master's degree student from studies I've seen is about $83,000 and PhD students is about $125,000. I think it's very differentiated and very remarkable that our students come out, 85% of them with no debt and in great standing to be able to proceed in their careers, receive salary adjustments, and really benefit from the experience.Disrupting Educator EducationMichael Horn:Wow. Okay, so there's a lot there that's, I think, super interesting that we can unpack together. But the under $10,000, right, for a Master's degree, the principled decision not to take federal financial aid, meaning students are by definition not going to go into certainly student loan debt from the federal government, maybe they have some private loans. But 85% of your grads graduate with no debt whatsoever, and you have an 85% grad rate. And you're an online program, which means you're much more convenient and accessible. It seems to me like you're sort of fitting into this definition of disruptive innovation that we think. Right? Lower cost, more accessible, more convenient.But you've done it not just around that, but around a value proposition where you're actually delivering on these student outcomes together. I'd love to just hear you sort of riff on that for a little bit. And you know, I guess the corollary is like, it's nice to be a disruptive innovation, but why does it matter? Why? Assuming you think it is.Geordie Hyland:Yeah, why? When I think about disruptive innovation, I go to Dr. Clayton Christensen's book and your important work in the area. And so seeing as you actually wrote the book or a couple books on this, I feel kind of funny talking about it, but I'll give it my best shot in terms of. So when I think about it with disruptive innovation, that the new innovation needs to be convenient and it needs to be affordable. And over time, it moves up market and starts to disrupt an incumbent that is less nimble. And I think another characteristic that's really important is that it brings more consumers into the market that wouldn't previously be interested in that product or service. So at a high level, that's kind of what comes to mind for me. I know there's a lot more behind the theory and in your analysis around it, but that's ACE to me. I mean, when I think about ACE, we've really had the discipline to remain affordable. We haven't raised our prices since 2016 in the larger context of huge tuition inflation. And then we're really committed to credit for prior learning. So we often can, where it's appropriate, provide college credit for professional development for students as they come in or for previous learning to further bring down the costs. And so over time, our net tuition has actually decreased over the last few years. And obviously with the fully online modality that's very convenient for working adults. So our typical student is a working teacher, a working nurse that's working full time, has family commitments that's able to do this while they have lots of life issues going on and then they receive a tangible benefit at the end, typically with more career opportunities and a salary adjustment. So that's very differentiated than the traditional model where a student would have to take time out, they'd have to travel into a bricks and mortar location. And it's just a very, I think a less convenient model traditionally. But I think we're also changing the paradigm with not accepting Title 4 loans and creating a model that's based upon pay as you go, keeping the prices down so our learners are able to do that and for the majority come out with no debt. So to your second question about why it's important. I think that within higher ed right now, I mean I'm a huge believer in the benefit of higher ed. I think that higher ed has such an important place in society. Lots of studies have shown that there's huge benefits to the individual, to society, to all sorts of things. But I think there's elements of higher ed right now that should be disrupted. And one piece of that is the reliance on debt. As I mentioned before, $1.7 trillion of outstanding federal loans, the average debt rates of $83,000 for a Master's, $125,000 for a PhD. Those debt levels can be catastrophic in terms of the impact on individuals lives as they build their career following graduation. There's life decisions like buying a house, starting a family that can lead to mental health issues. There's all sorts of knock down effects with those sorts of debt levels. And I think it makes it challenging for higher ed. Institutions to show the value proposition when there's this addition of the student debt. So one of the things that we've really been able to do in a compelling way is show the ROI for our students. We've worked with Lightcast, which is a market research firm. They looked at the earnings and the data on our graduates, and they calculated that for every $1 a student invests in our tuition, they receive $19.20 in future career earnings. And that's huge. I mean, that's a very tangible metric in terms of what students can expect. And I think that in my opinion, there's huge swaths of higher ed that really are focused on institutional ROI rather than the student ROI. They're not adequately tracking the graduate earnings and career pathways, and they're not as aligned to the, to the business community as they could be in support of their students. There's been a number of studies. I could point your listeners to a couple that I think are really interesting onthis. One is from the Wall Street Journal recently.It was called “Colleges Spend like There's No Tomorrow. These Places Are Just Devouring Money.” That's an interesting one. It studies the 50 major public institutions and it shows that with data looking at their financial statements that they're really not focused on - while the tuition has been going up - the focus in terms of their expenses hasn't been on teaching and learning. It's been on facilities, amenities, more administration, and sports coaches. And another recent study which is really interesting from Georgetown, it's called “Graduate Degrees:Risky and Unequal Paths to the Top.” And it shows that the graduate tuition has increased significantly over the last 20 years and challenges around that. So following that release, we actually called for higher ed institutions that are graduate granting to have a freeze on their tuition for the next five years. As I mentioned, we haven't raised our tuition since 2016. And I really believe there's a place for more higher ed institutions to focus on the teaching and learning, really bring more discipline to their expenses in the interest of the student to try to bring the cost down.ACE’s Secret: A Focus on LearningMichael Horn:There's so much there that's, I think, differentiated, stands out, right? Is really focused on the student and making sure that they get ahead. I mean, that ROI, you listed every $1 of tuition, $19.20 in return, I've got to ask, like, what's the secret sauce? Like, how are you getting outcomes like this? Because, you know, in other online programs, you know, if they graduate 50% of students, we say that they're doing an amazing job for working adults, you are at 85% and getting these sorts of outcomes, like, what's the secret sauce?Geordie Hyland:Well, so I think there's a number of elements to it. I mean, first of all, we have fantastic students that are great students that see the value in coming to us and are really dedicated to the academic, the academic journey. But from an institutional perspective, we really do focus on the teaching and learning. We're focused, since founding, on the value proposition of students. We have a centralized curriculum model. We spend a lot of time on training our faculty, on investing in the process for building their curriculum with our SMEs and with our internal instructional designers, and then on supporting the students throughout their journey. We also are very committed to continuous improvement. We leverage a lot of data to continue to over time, constantly and relentlessly looking at how students are performing and how we can better support their success. And the budgeting process with us is very rigorous. I mean, we're with not increasing tuition since 2016, but with growing over time. You know, we're growing typically 20% a year. We have ratios in terms of our staff to students for some of the positions. And we also have invested heavily in our platforms and our technology. But we really have a lot of discipline in terms of what we invest in and in terms of innovating and trying new things. We pilot a lot of things and then we have a succeed or fail fast approach where if things aren't working, we're proactive in terms of, okay, let's shut this down and focus on another pilot. And that's our approach to innovation.Striking the Balance with Credit for Prior LearningMichael Horn:Gotcha. No, it's just, it really does stand out. And I guess the other piece of that is you said credit for prior learning, your net tuition has decreased over time. Yes, I guess I have two questions on that. One, it strikes me that a lot of institutions, they'll give a lot of lip service to credit for prior learning, or frankly credit from credits earned at another institution, but it feels not really in their business model or their faculty's interest to do so. And so they sort of make it hard and complicated. But then the second question, I guess is the corollary, which is like, how do you make sure you're not just giving credit for prior learning and becoming a diploma mill. Right?And just giving out degrees because it sort of gets people through quicker. Like, how do you balance those two things?Geordie Hyland:That's a great couple questions, and there's a lot to that, but I appreciate the question. So I think first of all, it's very consistent with our model of being focused on the student value proposition to have a well thought out approach to credit for prior learning. So as students come in, we're looking at their previouslearnings and assessing credit as appropriate. But we also have corporate partnership with professional development providers where we've looked across their professional development and then for the professional development as appropriate, we've provided pathways for credit into our programs. And I think there's a lot of benefit there to the student because it can shave off time, which is a huge value proposition to student and tuition cost in their journey with us. And so it's in the interest of the student. And I've often heard that there are barriers set up in a lot of higher ed to doing this effectively, but I don't think those barriers are in the best interest of the student when the credit is provided appropriately.In terms of our approach to that, we've set up an internal team. We have individuals focused solely on credit for prior learning. They're following the industry best practices, they're working across our academic and other teams to make sure that there's comfort in how we're assessing and providing credit for the prior learning. And so we're very comfortable with the process and with the fact that it's solely in the best interest of the student. If they already know the materials in a given area and they've put in the time and invested in it, it makes sense to provide the credit for them.Michael Horn:Yeah, it makes sense. And obviously I guess you see it in the licensure exams. Your graduates are having no problem graduating. So you know, you're not like reducing academic standards or something like that?Geordie Hyland:No, for sure. And we also see it in the employer satisfaction, over 90% in terms of their satisfaction with us. And we see that in the career progression of our graduates. Our graduates self report their first year salary increases and the latest data on that is in the first year across our degree programs, the average is over $20,000 in terms of that salary increase. So we're seeing a lot of value for the student and we're seeing a lot of value for the ultimate employers. So the school districts or hospital systems in them supporting our students as they get their degrees and continue to go on their employment journey with the employers.The Role of Employers in Higher Ed.Michael Horn:Well, so that's the next part I wanted to talk about, which is like the, the employers, you're graduating students into them, sometimes they're working and you're sort of elevating them within. How do you think about employers and their place in the higher education ecosystem? Maybe more generally or at a level of like philosophically. Right? What's the role of employers in higher ed?Geordie Hyland:Sure. So I think that given that there's a challenge with the value proposition of higher ed, it's important that higher ed works closely with employers to make sure that there's a close connection between the learnings and the career pathways of graduates so that the school experience can provide a pathway for, that's relevant for students into employers. So what that means for us is, I mean, we work incredibly closely with, with employers. Obviously we're working with working adults. So the stakes are high. We need to make sure, so we have advisory boards, we have lots of feedback loops. We need to make sure that our, our curriculum is, is as relevant as possible and as close as possible to job experience to enable our graduates to get ahead. We also have in many of our courses, job embedded learning opportunities where our students can work with their employers on actual assignments and projects. So that's one piece of it. We need to be very relevant for our adult learners. But then there's lots of other pieces to it that we're focused on. So we have partnerships with thousands of school districts and hospital systems where employees can come to us and receive an education as benefit, pay for our degrees, and then be reimbursed by their employer. Those are really important relationships. And again, very, you know, we spend a lot of time with those partners to make sure that we're supporting those relationships. So that's another piece. The professional development partnerships that we talked about with credit for prior learning, that's another really important piece where we work closely with corporate entities and then we are fortunate to serve the teachers and nurses.And in those industries there's a lot of shortages. So everyone that's listening, I'm sure, has read about teacher shortages, nursing shortages, and so we are very passionate about doing what we can to contribute to helping to solve or being a solution to that contributes positively to those shortages. So we, in the spirit of that, we work directly with the leadership of school districts and also hospital systems to provide bespoke solutions to help strengthen the human capital and to help those institutions better attract, retain and upskill their employees. So there's a number of levels on how we partner and support employers. And so it's very important to us, and I think it's hugely important to the value proposition overall for higher ed.Leveraging Elements of the Apprenticeship ModelMichael Horn:No, it makes a ton of sense. Okay, we could finish up in a couple different places here, but like, it's actually two more questions. So it seems to me, as you're describing this that you are not an apprenticeship model, but you actually have a lot of the features of an apprenticeship model. And what I mean by that is the students you're serving, they're often employed, not just in general, but like employed at the place that they might then continue to work as they upskill.Geordie Hyland:Right.Michael Horn:And so it strikes me that like, and you're giving credit for prior learning and like if they do something on the job, you can, you can give credit for that or work based learning. And so I, you know, teacher, excuse me. Apprenticeship degrees are getting a lot more attention right now.Geordie Hyland:Yeah, no, it's great to see.Michael Horn:But it seems like you are actually doing a lot of the features of an apprenticeship without the name. Am I, am I misreading it or do you.Geordie Hyland:No, I think that's fair. And we're certainly doing everything we can to support school districts and hospital systems. And if you think about how we work with a school system, for example, I mean we have programming from a Bachelor completer to a Master's, a principal certificate, teacher licensure, Ed.D, and a wide range of different programs. And so we can really support the career pathway of an individual as they progress in their career. And our programs actually stack together. And so for example, many credits come through from a Master's into our Ed.D. And so I think you're spot on in terms of we're looking to make our learning come alive and be as relevant as possible. There's opportunities for individuals to work directly with their employer as they're in our programs.And we're also really trying to map what we do to the organizational help of the organizations that we're supporting. And I think, you know, one of the things that we're hopeful that we're, we will do over, that we contribute to over time and we'll be able to show over time as well is as we're working closely with the school district supporting the progression of the strengthening of the human capital that really helps with learning outcomes or likewise at a hospital system as we're supporting the progress of the human capital that can lead to better health outcomes. So we're very focused, I think on the strengthening of human capital and ultimately the communities that we work in.The Employee Experience at ACEMichael Horn:So a lot of mutual benefit there and then the other place it seems like you have mutual benefit is the people that make it happen internally at ACE, which is the employees. I know you have incredibly low turnover rates. People stay, they build careers at the college. Talk a little bit about sort of, you know, the employee experience at ACE, Faculty, staff.Geordie Hyland:Yeah.Michael Horn:And why that matters for what you do.Geordie Hyland:Yeah, no, appreciate the question. I mean, we are a people business, so we live and die by our people. And I think one of the aspects of ACE that's really important to call out is there's a very strong connection between the mission of the organization and our day to day operations. And so I think there's a close connection there where our teams and our staff and our faculty can feel like they're contributing to helping strengthen the human capital of school districts every day or hospital systems. And it's very tangible and so I think that really helps. We have a very mission driven team that really wants to make a difference and I think a lot of them, it's fair to say, really feel like they are making a difference day to day. So I think that's very helpful and really helps us to hire the best people as well because there's people that come in and feel like they can make a difference with us. We've been fortunate to be recognized by Energage as a top employer over the last three years. 93% of our employees feel like there's a strong mission and sort of believe in the direction of the institution. So I think that's important. And then also we're a B Corp and so that that is a separate process that we go through with B Labs that validates that we're having a positive impact on the greater good. And our staff can volunteer in their local communities 14 hours a year. That's supported by us as PTO. We call it Civic hours. So there's a lot of aspects of ACE that I think are helping people feel like we're trying to do the right thing by our students and by our communities. It's interesting.I've seen a lot of articles lately about employers bringing staff back to the office. We're actually fully remote. Our students are obviously fully remote. Our staff is fully remote. And I think that also helps us to attract the best people for any given role because we're not constrained to one specific location within the United States.Michael Horn:Super interesting. Geordie, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the American College of Education. What you do, the students you serve, the employers, districts, hospital systems, etc. That you serve and then the people at the heart of it really appreciate what you are doing for students. Last thing before we leave, folks who want to learn more about ACE, where should they go besides listening to your voice? Come on commercials while they're maybe on a rower watching the NFL Channel.Geordie Hyland:Yeah, no, I would recommend just going to our website, www.ACE.edu. There's lots of information there and I'm always available to answer questions if anyone wants to reach out to me as well. But I really appreciate your time. And as I mentioned, I'm a great, great fan. Congrats on your new book and love watching what you do.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.

Shiren Rattigan joined me to talk about her work as a founder of Colossal Academy and the Innovative Educators Network. We discussed the motivations, challenges, and opportunities of starting a microschool and connecting microschoolers in her area. We also dove into how Colossal is preparing students to be similarly enterprising through its entrepreneurship-focused curriculum.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! Please feel free to share this conversation with those who would benefit from it!Michael Horn:You're joining 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'm really excited because we have Shiren Rattigan. She's the founder of a school we're going to hear a lot about today, Colossal Academy, as well as the Innovative Educators Network, which we're going to discuss what that does and the ecosystem, really, that she has built around helping a lot of school founders build meaningful places for kids to learn. So first, Shiren, great to see you. Thanks so much for being here.Shiren Rattigan:Thank you so much for having me. You're one of the people. I have very little accolades, and you're one of the check marks. I'm like, I’m on Michael Horn’s podcast.The Origin Story of Colossal AcademyMichael Horn:That’s very kind of you to say, but you're the one doing the work. So let's dive into that. Introduce folks to your origin story of Colossal Academy. I'm excited to hear it.Shiren Rattigan:Yeah. So I am a fifth-generation teacher. My great grandmother, my great great grandmother was a one room schoolhouse teacher on a farm in Illinois. My great grandmother was a teacher. My grandfather was a superintendent of schools in rural Illinois. My mother, special education in an urban setting for 35 years. And then I came in, and I was like, no way I'm breaking the cycle, right? And all signs pointed always back to being a teacher. And so I finally submitted to the fact that that's my calling. And I went into public school because that's where you go when you're a teacher. You get trained. You become a public school teacher. And then I swiftly found out that it was physically dangerous for me to be there. I was breaking up fights. I was pregnant, and I was like, this is nothing… What I saw, I saw myself as Miss Frizzle. And we're going to go to the digestive tract, and we're going to learn all these things. And when we get there, it was like, mandates, here's your curriculum. How come they're behind the test? Here's the state. And it wasn't what I thought. So I said, okay, let me go to private school. It must be better there, right? Really elite, very expensive, top 2%, very elite. But there were bodyguards for different reasons, right? Cause these kids could be taken right? At the school that they had their personalized bodyguards.And I was like, this isn't it either. I'm still checking in badges. There were still some expectations there that I just was like, this isn't it either. Something's wrong. We're not outside. We're not going on field trips. We're not in the real world.Maybe Montessori is it. Let me go find Montessori. So I went to Montessori, and that was lovely, but I felt like something was missing for the future, that I felt like students really needed to have some future forward competencies in order to be successful. Computations, coding, programming. And I know that many Montessori schools do that, but I felt like it needed to be real and relevant and actual. The pandemic hit, and I decided I really love teaching. I didn't want to be a people manager and asking how long they're washing their hands for and mandating the mask and making sure it's up past their nose.It's not what I wanted to do. I don't know if I got fired or if I quit, but short end, I no longer had a job at my school, which meant that some of the families that wanted to be a pod hired me to be their full time teacher. And I said, okay, well, if they're paying a little bit less than what they're paying as tuition, they could pay me to be... All I need is four kids to make my salary. And then I started with four kids. We moved to six and 10 and 12. And so that's kind of the genesis. But what I found out there is like, I get to do whatever I want, and when I mean whatever I want, it's whatever the kids want, whenever they want in real time. You want drones? Look at drones. It'll be here on Thursday. Let me Amazon. What do you want? You want to learn how to code? You want to go surfing? Whatever you want. I can be that, and I can give it, and I can create those opportunities for you. And I was like, this is it. This was the Miss Frizzle that I had imagined, and it took me so many stops along the way to get there, but I found it, and I found where I was able to be the teacher that I knew I needed to be for young people.Colossal’s Education ModelThe Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Michael Horn:So cool. I'm just reflecting on what I heard, and my father's family is from Illinois, sort of a city, but not a main city anymore from there, so have some resonance there. And then I feel like I went to public schools. I was then in the independent school world, and the board of NAS for a little bit. Microschools have certainly spoken to me. My kids were in Montessori schools. The pandemic hit. We went into sort of this pod like thing very similarly, but they went back to Montessori because we couldn't find a different solution that would lean into some of the things you just talked about. To be clear, it's been beautiful, and I hear some of the excitement and passion you've introduced. So tell us a little bit more about the educational model itself from Colossal Academy. And as you do so, I'd love you to sort of reflect on, you know, kids desiring to learn about drones getting whatever they want versus, like, are there certain non-negotiables that you say, well, and this is really important that you learn through the experience? I'd love to hear you sort of walk us through that.Shiren Rattigan:Sure. So there are definitely absolutes. We really firmly believe in a deep knowledge in language, literacy, and numeracy. We deeply understand that. And we think that we're presupposing that we're going to need that in the future. Right? Even if we are replaced with robots, I still believe in, like, passing on knowledge. Right? As humans, that's what makes us different than any other animal, that we're passing on knowledge and we're teaching. We also firmly believe, and we're declaring that nature is a future competency. You have to be in touch with nature. You have to understand how nature works. You need to be able to identify plants and know how to grow some food. That is a part of our model as well. Entrepreneurship is really rich and deep. We understand that the traditional education system is outdated. And part of it, the reason it's outdated is it's not relevant for the future moving forward. We're not in an industrial era. We're in the future era. And so what is that? It's going to require people to be entrepreneurial, make their own jobs, problems, solve on a deep level, and consciously make money. And that's part of what we do. And what we found is we have amazing projects. And we took over this vacant lot next door and turned it into a food forest. We're in downtown Fort Lauderdale in the art district, and there was a vacant lot full of bricks and rebar and the kids themselves pulled it out. We got it. We had to talk about responsible dumping.Where do you put things like that? Where do you put a battery? Where does that go? Right? And so that was a beautiful project that we were able to do. And they love their garden, and they think it's amazing. And they eat from it. We have sugarcane and bananas and all kinds of local Florida native tomatoes and foods and roots. But what I find really unlocks them is when they have an enterprise. So when they are making money, that's where I find that it's like, oh, I got to understand how to work. Okay, what's the spreadsheet about? I'm like, I told you guys, like, you need to see your projections. What's your Q3 looking like, guys, how many more to get your $200 goal that you spend for yourself? Okay, once you make $200, what are you gonna do with it? Like, so those things, those skills, I feel, become super relevant when there's an actual dollar amount that they are earning. So all of our students own their own business. They learn to be CEO's of their companies. Right now we're working on a beautiful project.Across the Collosal Academy. We have an online school as well where they design T-shirts based on their identity. So they go into their identity, they build out t-shirts, and they all have their own drop shipping site, right? And so all of that goes into being relevant. They learn how to use Canva, they learn how to design. They learn how to ask questions. They learn how to, like, show their identity, find their core values, attribute those to colors, find the chroma hacks, all of those things. They have a brand kit, all of their brand kit, and that's theirs. And they have to justify why they're using Kelly green, right? Like kids, like, I'm Irish, I'm using Kelly green. I'm like, that's great. You have to be able to understand, why do those colors create that kind of reaction in you? And what is that doing for you? And how does that represent the brand and what kind of font do you want to use? Right? So asking questions like that, and then the skills that we're learning in it are transferable. They're able to have that. They can build portfolios. They have their own websites that they build. Every, every week they drop into their websites. They have their own LinkedIn accounts. They're meant to find and create connections with people because that's what elite private schools do. It's really your rolodex that you get from a private school. It's not that the education's any better or the quality of learning is any better. And in fact, I might argue the opposite. Don't come for me for it, but I think it's different. Some of it is the accountability piece. Right? When you have a lot of money, you can turn those Ds into an A, right? Those things happen at very elite schools. And so it's not that their models are any better. It's that they built a beautiful network of when you needed a job, who are you going to call? Right? And so we have to elevate who's within our network so that we can change our trajectory as far as who we're going to be out in the world. So that's kind of like the model itself. We center everything around relevancy. What is relevant for you? We have a very large waitlist. We have four locations, but at the downtown Fort Lauderdale location, extremely large. I could just get another building, but I'm not going to because once you go beyond 30, you become a people manager, and then you have to use those old systems of, like, bells and whistles and times and clocks. You have to manage people rather than, like, interact with people. And we just are refusing to be larger. And it might not be the best, you know, the old school, best business decision, but that's what we're doing.The Scale of ColossalMichael Horn:But it sounds like you're spreading. I'm sorry. There's so much to love and dig into here. So let me go in this direction for a moment. It sounds like you are spreading, though. You have four locations, if I understood correctly. 30 kids in each. You have an online school as well. Tell us, like, tell us, like, who the students are, how many, and, like, how are you staffed? You know, these are not traditional teachers that are working with them, clearly. So, like, who are the adults that get to interact with them? Yeah, who of them, maybe the right way to ask is who of them are on your payroll versus, like, they get to interact in the community as they build the social capital you just described, which is beautiful, by the way.Shiren Rattigan:Thank you. Yeah, it's been. These are all questions I'm answering, and we're building it as we do it. But who we serve are really the students who are on the fringes of the Internet, like the traditional ed. The kids with the largest adverse reaction to the traditional ed is who we're serving. And they're really the first generation of whatever education system is coming next. They really are the trailblazers. They really are the students that are developing the new model. Right? But what's profound about these students is, although they have adverse reactions to the traditional model with all kinds of symptoms that can look across the board like many different things, what we're finding is they're extremely talented and totally capable of so many other powerful tools. That skillset that's going to drive innovation forward, right? So they might not be great at sitting still and taking notes and doing, but what they're really great is powerful solving and collaboration and communication and figuring out a new business that's going to. I have a student who has costumes for guinea pigs, so she made wings for guinea pigs. Not a traditional student by any means where her talents lie is there. So that's, you know, who we serve. A lot of times parents are just like, I cannot stick my child in a traditional classroom. I don't know what it is. They're magical, I believe in them, they're dying in a traditional system, you know, in other matrices for us is joy. You should just, you can get to the same result joyfully, right? So we try to unlock the joy in everything that we're doing. So our online school, as you know, most of what's happening in the future is going to be digital. How do you practice showing up online if you don't ever have to do that? What is your background? I'm not actually the prime example, but what does your background look like? How do you dress for online interviews, online communities that you're going to be in, that's the workforce of the future. So the online school really helps us. All that learning, digital citizenship, how to show up, how to collaborate across screens, and that's allowed us to be with our students in Jacksonville and Miami and have all kinds of cross pollination. So our online school also serves 6th through 12th grade. Okay, so the beautiful thing about that is I as a micro school could not hire one biology teacher to come in three days a week for 1 hour. We just couldn't do it. So what we're able to do now is be able to utilize the same pool of teachers to make sure that our students have in the areas that they need to. We have partnered with ASU Prep and license some of their classes and then we “Colossalize” our other classes. So we use AI tools that help to help with research. They learn how to manage their projects and find collaborators across them. So to your initial question, yes, we have four locations, Miami, Jacksonville, and we have a school in Mexico, Marydo, Mexico, and my school in Fort Lauderdale. Teachers own, their school belongs to them, it doesn't belong to me. And the point is you serve your community. My community looks different from somebody else's community and you need to serve your community and call on the community experts to pour in because they're dying to come into our classrooms and teach something. So my job is to teach her to be a teacher for a day, for 45 minutes. Don't talk for more than ten minutes, sir. Do not talk for more than ten minutes. How are you going to engage them? What are they going to eat? What are they going to touch and engage their senses? And so I give them like a rap sheet of how to do that and then they build partnerships within the community. So our staffing looks like we have two amazing veteran teachers whose goal, I think most teachers goal is to like unlock the child within really deep discovery, joyful learning, play based learning, nature, nature, awareness. And they're, they're both veteran teachers. Those are kind of like our staples. And then we have the other teachers that do some deep depth and then we have specialists in Florida. We're so blessed with so many people that decided to leave education but stay, leave the traditional classroom but stay in education. Thank God for them. So that might look like just chess or home economics. You're able to bring back into the classroom or someone to do permaculture. And so these are our specials. Podcasting, t-shirt design. Right? Like those are the, those are the specials that we're able to bring in from teachers who have left the non-traditional classroom and decided to start their own.Michael Horn:Very cool. Very cool. And so, and then the online, if I understand correctly, that's older students. The in-person, is that younger and older? Just younger? Like what's the age? You know?Shiren Rattigan:Yeah, six to twelve grade. We're six to 12th grade.Michael Horn:Okay. Insofar as there's grades. Yeah, yeah.Shiren Rattigan:That could be a 7th grader doing algebra. It could also be a 7th grader doing fifth grade.Michael Horn:Got it.Shiren Rattigan:Whatever that looks like. But their age wise, it's about 11 to 18.The Policy Environment in FloridaMichael Horn:Very cool. And so now, as I'm jealous in Massachusetts of what you're starting to build in Florida. My turn to ask the next question, which is like, you were frustrated as a public school teacher with a lot of the requirements, restrictions, things of that nature. Right? But how is the policy ecosystem helping you here? And maybe where is it still leaving something to be desired as you're starting these new micro schools and serving families in these really cool ways?Shiren Rattigan:Well, the policy in the Florida has actually created more need for microschools. Right? So people are deciding that they want something that serves their family because unfortunately the public schools have become like a battleground of culture wars. Right? And so we've been able to build community schools or microschools however you want to like title them, in order to serve the communities that are needing that. So if that means you want to read African American history and take an AP African American history class, then you can design a school like that. And that's great.You want to be LGTBQI inclusive, build a school like that. And then the culture wars don't need to exist because you have a safe and inclusive space where students feel seen, loved, heard and can actualize. Right? And so the policy now, you know, we are open to having universal savings account, which really allows for accessibility so that students can make choices, families can actually make choices. The hardest part is really about the visibility, knowing that we're there because we're so tiny, which we can talk about with, but we're also just so tiny and we're all just in our own little orbit, right? So the ESA has really unlocked a lot of entrepreneurship. And in fact, Broward County spends $19,000 per pupil, our tuition is $15,000. And once I started to look at my budget, I'm like, where is all the money going? How are people? Every square inch of this place is accounted for. Every dollar is accounted for. If I had $19,000, Elon Musk and I would be putting kids in space. If I had that much money, where's all the money going? Right? So I think having access to funding that allows us to be sustainable has been amazing. Where policy and practical are kind of in dissonance right now. I have the same school zoning requirements as a 4,000 person high school. So the fire, which is costly. It's costly to outfit of school. The zoning requirements I have 4,026 sq. feet. That means I need a sprinkler system and a whole fire system. Some of the health department restrictions just aren't matching the micro environment. So where the opportunities for growth need to be. And I think we're working on it. Right? Like if you have 20 kids, do you really need to be zoned as a full fledged standalone commercially? It just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense.The Innovative Educators NetworkMichael Horn:Yeah, it doesn't make any sense at all. Okay. No, super helpful. So that's a perfect transition then, because the other thing you founded is this Innovative Educators Network.Tell us about what it is and its purpose and why you created that.Shiren Rattigan:Thank you for bringing that. So I'm going to just tell you, if you don't know, Surf Skate Science. Michael, the next podcast you need to do is. I'm going to email you after this. Tony from Surf Scate Science. Tony and Yuli already started this amazing program and our students utilize surfing and skateboarding on Fridays to learn physics, marine biology. We're out. They turn features and skate parks into classrooms. And it was during the pandemic. And Tony was like, would you want to get lunch or dinner? And I'm like, yeah, let's get together and just hang out. And we have the same issues, right? Like zoning requirements and where do we find this form and how do we, and so then we asked a couple more people, Tobin from Acton, Fort Lauderdale. Amazing. We have four kind of Fort Lauderdale locations here. And I was like, Tobin, Miss Suarez, Miss Ratchett, you guys want to have lunch with us? And so it just started to grow. And as we were growing, we're realizing we're all facing the same issues and so we just decided to do something about it. Tony is incredible about like super action oriented. I'm very grassroots. And so the two of us just have been such a beautiful partnership in making sure that microschools and providers, we have 120 in south Florida, which is West Palm Beach, Miami and Broward counties, serving over 8000 students. Tampa has opened up their own chapter and so is Jacksonville. And so our key, our key pieces, the key contributions that we do are visibility. So we have showcases to let parents know and bring everybody together into the same space. We do conferences and showcases, press, getting, helping, getting the word out nationally and locally. Local is always hard.What else are we doing? Oh, just entrepreneurship. How do you keep your books? How do you do marketing? What's a funnel? Like, who's a bookkeeper? Where do we get insurance for twelve students? You know, like those kind of shared resources that we're able to help each other out with and Tony's gonna kill me. There's a fourth one. Oh, yeah. Okay. Just like what this changes in education, in the platforms, like, what are the best practices so that we can share those better practices with each other. So we have guest speakers come in and you can choose to come to the webinars or not come to the webinars. And really what we are is a community. We show up to each other's open houses. We cry when we have to close our doors together. We help you play like we had a school that just closed and we helped all of us buying a chair, buying some kind of something from the school, showing up, passing the word around so that when this person closed, not only did she place the students in a better environment or an environment that would serve them, but just like helping her dissolve that business with love and kindness around the work that she's done. Wow.Thinking Macro on MicroschoolsMichael Horn:Very cool. I want to connect that work to something you said earlier, because you said that your teachers own their own school sites. You don't own the one in Jacksonville or Miami and so forth, because I think you said something powerful, which we often forget in my experience in education, which is that these are really local of the community, of the context, institutions, maybe we call them, that exist in that environment. And, yeah, they're things that are, like, common, just like the laws of physics transcend San Francisco to Boston to Miami. But how you build the bridge in each of those three places is very different because of the local terrain. And so, too, I think, as you build these schools, and I guess I'm curious because as I hear you talking and you've built this Innovative Educators Network, the thing that I keep thinking is, like, scale, I don't think is one of these schools growing from 30 to 100,000, but I suspect scale is like a lot of families getting the right option for their kid to make progress and sort of as a movement growing up over time with these principles underlying it. And I just. Maybe I'm leading the witness, but I'd love to just have you reflect on how we get to that greater scale. It's something that we think a lot about on my end, and Tom Arnett, my colleague at the Christensen Institute, he sort of has this belief that as a sector, we're going to have to be able to solve more complicated and different kinds of problems. Or like the kid that stays in traditional high school because they love football, even though the rest of the experience sucks, we have to sort of figure out how to bring those people in over time. I just sort of love you to wrestle with that question or tension or opportunity.Shiren Rattigan:Yeah, I see Innovative Educators Network and I see the moms, family members, aunties, caregivers, teachers. If you mess with our kids, which traditional ed has, we are endless, relentless. We will stay up till 4:00 we will drive 8 hours for our children. Right? And this is true for both teachers and caregivers. And so it's like, almost tirelessly, we're taking on this mission. Right? But the other piece I will say is, I feel like the independent microschool owners, and that's who ed focuses on. We're like the mycelium of this movement, and we're a network that's just kind of underground, and we move really swiftly, and we're supportive and super collaborative. Right? And I think that that root system is really going to keep us grounded. I can imagine, as we see schools closing, we can still have a sports program. We can. We can have micro schools within a larger school. We can have 20 micro schools in a large high school. Like, they're okay.There are schools now opening up in malls. I think we have to really reflect and think, what is school? What is schooling? Who has to go to school? Should you have to go? All these, like, underlying questions of, like, what is education? How should we be delivering education? What's compulsory? What's not compulsory as a society? Do we want educated population? I'm gonna say yes. That's my own standpoint, and I think we'll solve those problems as we come. And we see now we have, in our network, we have a coach, an Olympic coach, and he does PE for students and runs sports. And we have, because there was a need for homeschoolers to also still be able to do the sports. They have a competing team. They have competing teams. And so they're still able to compete and be in the. And go for a professional athleticism. We also find that professional athletes are using microschools and homeschooling as a real option because they get their school done, and then they do what they need to be doing. So they're training after school, they have private trainers, or they're joining in in a different way. So, yeah, I think that. I think where our challenges are right now are some of the, like, landmarks of graduation. And so I think we're just gonna create those. I think there's a problem. We're entrepreneurs. We'll just solve the problem. One of our micro schools is doing a prom this year, so.Michael Horn:Oh, wow. Okay. And you're modeling it, I guess, right? You're modeling it for the students. What it looks like to be entrepreneurial, to build something meaningful and lasting that contributes value to the community and those who participate in it. So let's leave it there, Shiren. This has just been really educational for me, and just beautiful, just beautiful stuff you are building out there, both within the schools that you directly support in this broader network. Thank you so much.Shiren Rattigan:Thank you. 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.

Bill Kerr, Professor at the Harvard Business School and Co-Chair of the Managing the Future of Work project, joined me to talk about his perspective on the present and future of business education. We discussed the hastening rate of skill obsolescence,  how HBS keeps their pedagogy up-to-date,  and the role of AI in the future of business education.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their human potential, and live a life of purpose and to help us think through that and frankly, the shifting landscapes in how we prepare managers and leaders to lead organizations in this world. I'm delighted to have Bill Kerr. He is the D'Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, Senior Associate Dean for faculty development and research. Long list of accolades, but the one that I also want to hit is he's co-director of Harvard's managing the Future of Work initiative, which is so critical in thinking about how we develop human talent and how organizations, leaders, managers evolve in this world. And he's Faculty Chair of the Launching New Ventures program. I could go on and on, but I'll also just add Bill's neighbor, friend, and used to be a CrossFit buddy. I think you still work out occasionally with my wife. But Bill, it is great to see you. Thanks so much for being here.Bill Kerr:Michael, thank you for having me for your work and for those listeners that don't know it. Michael is amazing at CrossFit. He smokes me every time.The Evolution of Business EducationMichael Horn:Not true when we get on a rower, but this will be fun. So look, so much is happening in the world of work right now. Big technology changes, automation, rapid changes in skills, demographic shifts, could go on and on. Haven't even mentioned AI, obviously, but I want to focus on the areas in which you teach as well as research and think about the future of business education itself, particularly at places like the Harvard Business School where you're training the next generation of managers, leaders, frankly, through the exec ed programs, people already in leadership roles. How do you see business education itself evolving, Bill?Bill Kerr:Well, I think there's a very robust future for business education, Michael. I would suspect that the future is going to have many more types of programs. They're going to be more granular. They're going to be fit for many different purposes. But all the features that you began describing, the world's kind of constant evolution and very rapid pace of change is going to require business leaders and business students to stay at that cutting edge. So I think our MBA program is going to have a robust future as people look to prepare themselves for careers that will be ones where they're going to change jobs a number of times. And they're going to be thinking about the impact that they could have on the world. If you go later in career, many companies and many individuals are going to need to retool, reskill themselves for that future. That's going to give us a lot of exec ed opportunities and gaps to kind of help there. And then you can go even back upstream. Harvard Business School doesn't teach undergraduates, but many schools do. And in that business context, if you're an engineering student, you're going to want to have some business school courses to go alongside that. We don't separate those two functions anymore in the corporation. And so likewise, education is going to mix across them.The Velocity of Change in Business LeadershipMichael Horn:Yeah. So I want to then focus, Bill. I'm just sort of curious because we talked about all these technical skills changing. You talked about more granular ways of educating leaders more on the job, in many cases adapting curriculum. But sort of at a base level, as you think about the future of work, and frankly, where we've been like, have the essential skills for business leaders changed all that much in recent decades? Do we see the same velocity of change in those skills that we do in the technical fields?The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Bill Kerr:Well, let me start the end part there. There has been some important work that describes the rate of change for technical skills, for digital skills and similar compared to more traditional, non-digital skills. David Deming, who is a faculty member in the Kennedy school, did a remarkable study where he looked at the same job ten years, so 2009 to 2019, same company, same position, everything was exactly the same and did this at scale with many, many job postings and quantified that digitally focused activity, had a faster turnover in the skills that were required, what the job ads were asking for compared to non-digital activities. So if you looked at what traits people or qualifications employers were requesting, if it was something that was closer to the digitally based world, it moved faster than, than otherwise. But that, you know, kind of how that plays out for the broader landscape of business success, like what helps a leader kind of move faster up in the career. I think we're still learning a little bit. My favorite study on this regard goes from Joe Fuller, who's my co director of the Management Future of Work project, as is Rafael Sedun, his co-author here, where they looked at CEOs and job descriptions and also what mattered most for CEO success over a 20-30 year period. And there was a lot more emphasis on social skills today compared to two decades ago or three decades ago. A lot more emphasis on technology and kind of products and sort of those relationships to consumers, less on things like finance and some of the more traditional strategy functions. Likewise, if we look at some of the, the profiles of people that have been most likely to kind of ascend up through the ranks and ultimately end up in the CEO role, they've been coming out of a different, a different set of line responsibilities than before. So we'll anticipate that continuing forward. And the question I think many of us are going to have to work with is in a world where it moves so fast, let's face it, sometimes the academic programs don't move as fast as we need them to be. And you're going to see some differences emerging both across fields, across schools and so forth, as to what's the gap of the recency of what's required in the workplace versus the syllabi and so forth that are being taught. Now there's some very interesting work that's being undertaken at Yale right now that's measuring that for the first time. Like actually measuring syllabi and what are they teaching there versus what are employers kind of saying is the crisp latest frontier skills that they're hiring for?Do Employers Know What Skills They’re Looking For? Michael Horn:So I want to come back to that in a moment, but I want to stay on what you just were talking about. Also about if you look at job postings and what employers at least seem to be requesting from technical skills, the rapid turnover that we've seen in the past decade now, plus there, compared to maybe other managerial skills, what some people call the softer skills, I don't always love that phrase of turn, but I know it is one. But I'm just curious, like as you analyze this space, how much stock do you put in the job descriptions and what people say they want? Leave aside the technical skills for a moment, but the softer skills, the social skills, the managerial ones, how much stock do you think we can really read into what's in a job description versus actually spending time shadowing managers and CEO's to see what they actually do? Because, and I'll betray my hand a little bit, it often seems to me, of course I'm going to write critical thinking and problem solving in the job description, but what that actually means on the job is not always as clear, if that makes sense.Bill Kerr:Yeah. Yeah. Let's, first off, we will label soft kind of a social skills because I think that at least captures a bit more of the essence there. Michael, you raise a great question that I'm going to broaden slightly, which is a lot of the ways we have been talking to employers at the Managing Future of Work project is to appreciate what is their expectations of new hires and what is it they are kind of most hoping to grasp with the new talent that they're bringing in. And there's one version of the world which is I am going to wait until I have a specific need. I'm going to write out a very exacting job description, and I'm going to expect a fully loaded, fully prepared candidate like Michael to show up and then, you know, offer his services to me at a very, very low rate, you know, and that really doesn't work for a variety of reasons, including the, you know, the overall challenges in finding the talent these days. But it also doesn't work in an environment where six months, 18 months after Michael joins the job, I'm actually probably gonna need to have him shift into different types of activities, like the pace of change is going to move where he is. And so what we would hope that the employers would begin to appreciate more is the willingness to go learn, the openness to new experiences, the capacity to learn on the job through that shadowing process, through the ability to kind of see both what others around me at the organization are doing, and then also what's the emerging opportunities that I should be learning as quickly as I can in ways to be useful for those tasks. So it's going to be both in the job ad, but it's also in the expectations of how we're hiring somebody for the next. If you're going to keep somebody for five years, ten years, which should always be your ambition or goal, then you're going to have to anticipate they're going to have multiple waves of the things that they're doing on the job. And so let's not overly, overly make ourselves rigid around what we're expecting on that very first assignment and task.Keeping Academia Up to DateMichael Horn:That makes a lot of sense. So let's go to then, the other part that you ended the previous answer with. That seems to me to link to something, which is you talked about given rapid velocity of change in job roles, curriculum, needing to keep pace historically, that's been a challenge from my perspective, that points to one of the big things that, you know, goes on at a place like the Harvard Business School, which is you're not just teaching and delivering, you know, obviously case study method in the case of Harvard, but you're also doing a lot of research, presumably so that you stay on top of the big changes and are able to adapt curriculum accordingly. Just talk about the interdependence and link between those two areas. Not every school, frankly. Actually, let me, before you answer, let me just say to the audience, there is no school that I've ever come across that cares about teaching as much as the Harvard Business School does, for a research institution. It is truly different from anything I've seen up close, but talk about the link between those and how that enables you, presumably, to keep curriculum up-to-date.Bill Kerr:Mike, this goes back to my sort of overall point of view as to where the world is, what matters for business success, and then what's the role that business education and business research plays into that environment? And you began the podcast by describing this rapid pace of change and the many, many things that are coming at us one after another, and that have material impacts on how our businesses operate, what our employees need to be tasked with, and how we can best guide and lead them. I think you have to be increasingly focused on where new information is coming from, new insights, new technologies, new opportunities, and then how you as a person, and also you as a business can be connected and learn from that. So it's a strong mindset shift from maybe where we were 15-20 years ago, where oftentimes you had this idea of, wow, we have a wonderful R&D division. We are accumulating a body of firm specific knowledge, and we're going to think about that as the asset that we take out into the world. And there's still certainly places and opportunities for research that happens inside companies to really push it into a proprietary advantage. But increasingly, you also have to be able to be close to these places where new stuff is springing forth, coming out. And I think business schools are going to play an important role in facilitating those types of connections. Being a conduit for an individual manager, or maybe even a broader company as a whole to have access to those pieces of knowledge. And where that then ultimately brings the faculty member into is what a concept we often call absorptive capacity, absorptive advantage. That if you're engaged in the research process, if you are out working in these new ideas and their applications, you're going to have, first off, some stuff that comes from you specifically. Maybe Bilker has a lab that is producing some of these insights, but it also puts you on the ground and gives you the tacit understanding of how to interpret many of the other things that are going on in a place like the Boston area, where you have MIT and HBS and Harvard and all these kind of different places. It gives you a way of kind of harnessing some of those and providing them into the classroom and into the lives of these business leaders for them to then work on and grapple. So I think this research teaching kind of combination is actually going to probably strengthen going forward due to this way that it puts you close to the frontier so that you can both appreciate it and then you can also help transmit it or help others understand how it could be useful for them to grapple with.Michael Horn:It strikes me that it also could increase the connection for experiential learning and sort of embedded, certainly the case study, but also simulation, anything that has the individual learning more closely connected to the case or set of experiences that they're actually going to be working on. It strikes at me that that'll be strengthened as well in this fast moving environment. Is that your view?Bill Kerr:Absolutely, absolutely. And it's something that many of us are going to need to be much more hands on in the future in our work lives as well as also in the classroom to support that. You hear phrases like hands on the keyboard, where it's not that management is just up there kind of architecting direction, but without direct hands on the keyboard type applications, you're not going to understand the technologies, you're not going to understand, you know, what they could do to the organization and build it, build it from there. It also has direct implications for how we think about, you know, the, the life of a person and what points we can connect into them. We're not in a world where there's going to always just be early education, be an undergraduate or an MBA, and then, you know, you're done, you're good. You can go work on this for 20-30 years and send us an alumni check every so often. We're going to have a lot more interaction with people on the way because, you know, the part of the value proposition was to be close to where these insights are coming, but they're going to keep coming. And so how can we be somebody's signal? How can we help them discern what could lie around the corner?The Lifelong MBA Program Michael Horn:I'm curious, in your view, does that like, maybe we start seeing business models and business education around lifelong learning models? Where to your point, do the MBA, come back a couple years later, get a two week course, get an online module here? Just a lot. Like does it open up to creativity around that?Bill Kerr:I think it's going to open up the necessity around that and then creativity will probably follow as we and other schools work. To that end, I don't have the one to one translation of this metaphor down, but what has struck me recently is the idea of hardware being built for software based applications. And so one of the cases that we've taught at HBS is around Toyota and has some sort of linkages here. But like the example of hardware for a hardware based application, you tend to be very exacting. So if you need 10gb of memory in that hardware, you don't put in 15. Like, you know, you put in exactly ten, you cut the cost right down. You're ultra efficient. If you're building hardware for a software based application where you're going to anticipate continual upgrades being needed into the future, you often overbuild the hardware. So 10gb would do right now, but you want to put in 30gb because the next software upgrade and the one that's going to follow after that, and the one that's going to follow after, they're going to be ever more memory intensive. And so you're trying to build the hardware in a way that can allow the product to stay more relevant, to stay more up-to-date into the future. So if I then kind of bring that into the business school world, and we agree that the lifelong learning concept and the rate of change is going to require us to have continual check-ins, maybe that means that we should be thinking about things differently, at the very first MBA level, early career investments. Are we overbuilding the hardware at that point with the notion that you're going to be coming back to campus every three or four years, you know, for one of these kind of software updates, and then you're going to come back again and that maybe the package that we provide to the people that are part of our community will engage in this kind of longer term. You're part of it. You're a citizen here. You know you are. Once you kind of enter into this world, we're going to be a way for you to stay at the edge of the new ideas and concepts that are emerging and that preferential access is what we're, what we're building for.Michael Horn:It's interesting because it's often said education is wasted on the young. And I know graduates of the MBA program often say, wow, that case study on X, 20 years later, that's when it all of a sudden I realized what it really meant and it was so valuable to me. It just occurs to me that as you describe this, really helping people see this is something that they can keep coming back to. It's a change in relationship. It makes probably, the ask from an alumni, you know, this is for schools more generally who are saying, how do we get donations? It's not a donation. I actually feel like I'm getting a service on a real-time basis. Does this also point to a lot more virtual education in your view, Bill? And what does that look like in the future?Bill Kerr:Yeah. Let me begin with the first part of your statement there, which is, you know, when you're an MBA here, Michael, I'm guessing you had approximately 600 cases or some crazy number over the course, and some of those are ones that have immediate applicability. Whatever you're going to do right after, you need to be able to interact with the team member and so is developing some of those skills. And then there's probably a case or two that had you as the CEO of a large organization, which nobody was going to go immediately into that task, but it was both a way of learning how the role operates and then also kind of preparing the almost like a future capacity to be in that spot. Like we want to open up these conversations earlier and awareness of the types of career dynamics that will later occur, knowing that by the time that a student actually becomes the CEO of one of these large organizations, the world will have shifted and they're going to need to have kept up to pace there. So sometimes, again, you want to kind of open the student's perspective to the bigger set of issues that are going to go into the future. And it's actually the, almost like the value proposition of business school. You may have been for three or four years really crunching numbers away at Goldman Sachs on the latest deal or doing something, you know, for Deloitte Consulting on its packages, but you didn't have the chance to kind of see the bigger picture of the world of business that you are going to be working in for some time. And we're trying to start that conversation just like in the entrepreneurship group where I've been, you know, for 20 years at the school, many of our students, in fact, the majority of our students who become entrepreneurs don't do it immediately upon graduation. Usually there's, you know, a few years maybe due to student loans or to other kind of desires of building a knowledge base before they launch business where they're, they're going to go do something and then it's five years later that they begin their enterprise. So we want to prepare them for what that journey might look like ahead, recognizing that when they get there, they're going to need to know the actual term deals that venture capitalists will provide. So we like to have that kind of capacity. This does think about, and again, it goes to this idea of the hardware and kind of continual software pieces. I used the phrase citizen a little earlier, and it's an interesting, I think, term of how we might think of our communities, because a citizen both has rights and responsibilities. You think of the package that somebody is participating in. We're in that relationship. And to your point, I think it does change how one thinks about being a citizen of a community over a longer horizon, and that this is not just, hey, as you think about your philanthropic giving, maybe you can spare some money for us as well as also for some other good causes, but instead kind of think about this is we want to be relevant to you. We want to be somebody that, you know, is on your short list of where you might go for insights on the following. And so how can we make that an attractive package for the future? I think the digital piece is going to be critical. That was the last part of your, of your question there, because, you know, even if I was to describe this idea that you're going to come to the campus every four or five years, you know, for one of these kind of upgrades, it's a lot of time that happens in there. If you were going to come to campus this year, the last upgrade until now would have been the introduction of ChatGPT. That would have happened within that window, and it probably would have been a little too long to wait until your next time on campus to pull that off. So I think we'll want some very high frequency digital outreach. Again, in part of the relationship to being at the cutting edge, that you have to be able to hear things faster, and that will be an important component to sit inside the broader suite of executive ed type activities.The Lifetime of SkillsMichael Horn:I want to get to AI in a moment, but something you just said triggered this, which was your colleague, my co-author, Ethan Bernstein, made the observation recently to me that no wonder Gen Z has this reputation of being so impatient to sort of rule the world and have these rights, because we constantly keep yelling at them, hey, your technical skills, your skills are eroding faster than ever before, and they're like, well, I want to put them to use. I guess when I hear you say all of what you've said, I wonder if it can put them at ease a little bit and make them a little bit more secure in, hey, you're going to have a progression and progress in your career, and there is some patience, and it's okay because we're going to be, you know, sort of rebuilding around your needs. It's not just sort of "come in for the MBA and you're out and gone."Bill Kerr:To, I guess my thought on that one is, it's a yes and it's a both. The atrophy of digital skills is rapid and to some degree, if you are trading off of your digital skills, you should be very impatient to get them to work. And I do the opposite. When I talk to large organizations, I basically say, you want to, you tell me you want to go hire all this digital talent? Well, let me tell you about the worst thing you can do is you hire, but then they can't put anything to use. They can't see progression. They are stuck at the bottom of, you know, a very, very long process that's in front of them. You have to have the escalators, the things that can allow them to put their skills to work faster and also stay up-to-date. Like the worst thing a company can, I think, do, well that’s not true, there are many even worse things a company can and have done. One of the worst things in this context that a company can do is have its employees feel like they're missing out on the next generation of skills. The company is stuck in what was maybe even very relevant in 2019. But the talent base doesn't feel like they are staying at the edge of the skills that are defining right now and will be relevant for the next two to three years. An organization that has that people look at it in that way is going to find it very, very hard to keep the talent that needs to be kind of always up-to-date and always refreshed with their skill base. So I want to recognize that dimension. But on the opposite side, to, I think the second part of your perspective there is to appreciate that the most durable skills, the most durable things that people are going to be able to build careers on probably go back to those social skills, probably go back to kind of their ability to coach young team members.Many of the things that are not the specific hard skills of this moment, but instead are the things that the organization most needs in order to activate the technologies that are available to it, to activate the talent that it has in place. The things that are, that are impossible at this stage and probably will be for some time to automate, but instead can be important for the employees to be able to realize the potential of the organization.AI Applications in Business EducationMichael Horn:Gotcha. Okay, so I've teased this AI thing, that we're going to ask you some questions about that for a while now. So let's get into it. I'm just curious how you all, as faculty, right, are making use of Gen AI by students and their work and the tools that you're developing for them to use or whatnot. But also, if you could reflect on the research side as well, how that might be changing the work or even the curriculum itself. It strikes me that building simulations, for example, that put someone in the shoes of a case protagonist, rather than just reading about it, those things might become more possible than a future imagined state. I imagine there's a bunch of things you can do with it if it's not feared. But I'm curious what reaction has been.Bill Kerr:Yeah, the reaction has been overall has been positive. I think maybe there's like a cautious optimism of us bringing into it. There's no, try to hold back the tide here. I think our stance from the beginning has been Gen AI is going to be here, it's going to be a tool in the workplace. You should use Gen AI. And if anything, I think more often than not, we have been kind of prompting students to actually use it more than they otherwise would. And even going so far as early in their MBA career, having them be introduced to Gen AI. And it can do this and it can do that because not everyone that comes to campus has been as immersed in ChatGPT as other people. And then the second is kind of making sure that in some classes the professors may be even very pushy, as I want you, for every class, to ask ChatGPT the following types of things about the case. Now, I was actually, as I was walking over to this podcast, I bumped into a colleague who was describing, however, in his class, how he's getting very disparate answers and the quality level's not right. And he himself is also using ChapGPT to see what he thinks that it would tell them as a potential answer, so that he can kind of think about like, what is their independent learning. So there's complications and things that we need to kind of work through in this level. But the overall stance has been that this is here to stay and we should make it work. We don't use it for, they're not that easy for exams, obviously. We have, even before the introduction of large language models, had a policy of no Internet use during the exams, and that continues to hold. So it's still, at the end of the day, Michael, and the case is going to be the final product, but it's important along the way. We're excited at HBS about the ways this can make faculty more effective towards the classroom. One of the things that we've always struggled with, and this isn't a live product yet, I'm just kind of putting it on the roadmap. One of the things we've always struggled with is if we're going to do case-based work, it's very, very time intensive for us to do a practice exam or to do anything. That's like taking Michael and his 93 section mates, have them write an eight page case that we're then going to, you know, provide detailed feedback about Michael and what he was getting right or less right on the exam. Large language models chat, that gives a lot of opportunity that if we can train the models, the models can help us provide this feedback to students early on, it's still going to be the case that faculty will grade the final exams, but nonetheless, we can provide a lot more kind of real time development along the journey. There you raise the idea of simulations and the like. I think our state of the art right now are bots that we have developed for specific classes, both in the first year as well as also in the elective curriculum that digest enormous amounts of material that is about the course. Like every case study that's going to be done through the course. Some background notes, some other things that within the walled garden that the instructor places in there, lets students then engage in Q and A. And sometimes they're doing some stuff that's about like, can you remind me what this acronym means? Or I want to, what was the concept that brought this and that can kind of bring all these sort of things, you know, to help make the student more prepared for the classroom environment. We're going to, I think, see going forward innovations on the material itself, using AI, as you're rightfully suggesting. I think the easiest kind of cases are going to be, let's customize our case library a little bit. So if Bill is going to Turkey for an exec ed program, maybe I can try to take a case and have it customized to the Turkish context, like, you know, kind of fill out a few of these extra pieces that make it more locally relevant than it would be if the case is set in Brazil. So we maybe some things we can bring across from there. Likewise, we'd already begun experimenting and building out some more traditional if then kind of bots that had been developed based upon data for things like venture capital, term sheet negotiations. I think there's going to be the next generation of those types of products that can take advantage of this power as well.Globalization and Business EducationMichael Horn:I mean, it's really cool, frankly, to hear where this could go and the tools that you can probably envision before it was sort of futuristic and science fiction feels like it's in the roadmap now. Last question as we wrap up here, I'd love to talk about the global picture and internationalization of business education. When I was at the business school, one of the most enriching things was not just that cases were worldwide and HBS had research centers all around the world, but also that my students. Right. My fellow, you know, my fellow peers were from all around the world. That's obviously been a big trend in higher education more generally in America over the last many, many years. It's also one that, as you know, not at Harvard per se, but elsewhere, has receded a little bit over the last, call it eight to ten years. And there's sort of winds blowing, right, Bill, in the political conversations about a retreat from globalization. I love your perspective. Like, international students continue to be a growth sector for us. Business education, is this something that retrenches a little bit? How do we think about this in the current context and what matters here?Bill Kerr:Goodness, Michael, you like to end with a big bang. A bang, yeah, a bang there. I actually related a little bit back to where we ended the last one with AI. And kind of, I'll start there because one version of hearing about all these new even phrases, kind of crazy simulation world that perhaps we could generate and live in and just the digital world would be, is that going to somehow weaken the need for a student or the desire of a student to come and be in Boston for a period of time with their studies? And I think exactly the opposite. There are probably going to be a large amount of synergies between what we can do in the digital world and what we can also do then in the physical world. And if we have the amazing content to help somebody work on their business problems in the time that they're away from the campus, what we can also then do is make it more valuable that they were a part of the campus and made some of those personal ties and connections at a period of time that we're kind of continuing to refresh and update from there. The analogy I've given, you know, and I think others certainly have given as well about this, is like when you think about phone calls and emails and Zoom, you know, those tend to be used mostly within organizations like, like my number one, you know, people that I zoom with or other HBS employees. The number one destination of emails is HBS, and yet it makes the campus even more important and vibrant despite the technologies being weightless. So if we kind of start with that premise, which is to say that there is a value to being on the, you know, on the campus, on the location, then yes, I think it's important and will be the case that international students will continue to want to be in the US for higher education. And recently, we've gone back up above 1 million total students. This is undergraduate, graduate, and so forth, which was, we're slightly less than where we were in 2019, but we're almost back to 2019 levels recovering from the pandemic in that way. So there's the demand there. There is pressure that is blowing in political winds. And it's not just the United States. A number of countries are kind of struggling with the questions about what's the role of immigration in our economy and in our society and similar. And I think, broadly speaking, I have a very long term enthusiasm and, again, support. I think we're going to recognize, especially for the most skill based work, countries are going to start competing like crazy for talent, like, as you think, as you look ahead to environments where there is an aging population, you have large fiscal imbalances, you have the need to stay towards the cutting edge of technologies and so forth, there's going to be a fight for talent rather than pushing it away. And that gives me the enthusiasm, the optimism for the horizon. Can we mess it up? Oh, we absolutely can mess it up. I think one of the scariest studies, and they didn't actually think they were writing a scary study, but it was scary for me, was a group of scholars that looked at H1B visa reforms that happened in 2002. And so, as a little bit of background, the US had its most expansive policy towards skilled immigration in the early two thousands. And in 2002, there was a sunset clause that basically brought the program significantly down in terms of, of its size and - perfect for researchers - there were, most countries were affected by that decline, but there are a handful of countries that weren't affected due to specific relationships they had with the United States or exemptions under the policy. So I gave a wonderful kind of treatment and control group to look at. And what this study looked at was the inbound students in 2002 to 2003, as this decline was happening. Now, let me again position this in time. They're not going to enter the labor market for another four or five years. These are inbound college students when the decline is happening. And they found that the treated countries had a 10% lower international student application and coming to the United States rate. And the ones that we were most likely to lose were the best students of the group. So the SAT scores also went down. And your listeners are education scholars, they're probably not interested in the minutiae of immigration policy, but this was not like an extraordinary change. And it was also something that if you had been a part of the policy environment at that time, you would have imagined we could easily correct or change. And yet it had that level of impact on forward looking students as they thought about I want to go to school at the place where I also want to have a career and work. And so when I come back to our current political environment, I always emphasize that choices around education are often an investment. And as an international student, I want to invest in being in the United States in many cases, because I also then want to anticipate working in the United States and whether or not we have direct policy change, whether or not we have a lot of animosity about the issue, it's still going to tarnish and then lead to weaker investments among the inbound students that we, that we could have competed for. So I hope that we can find a way to navigate through this and not have those tensions flare up the way that they have over the last decade. But it's an important, it's a very important topic for higher education.Michael Horn:No, it's super helpful, Bill, because I walk away thinking the war for talent is heating up, if anything. And so those countries that are the best at being attractors of talent, which starts in education are best positioned to come out on top. And I believe in positive sum worlds, but there is certain zero sum elements of where talent goes.Bill Kerr:Yeah, let me second that by saying, I think there are several what we call pathways that immigration operates. And in the United States context, arguably the most important pathway has been the education pathway. People that came here as a high school student, people that came here for college, people that came here for graduate school, their impact both while they were here. And, you know, there's various studies that have quantified the billions of dollars for the local economy, but even more importantly, like how they then connected to the United States, staying for work even when they went back home, the interactions that they facilitated with our economy were very important, and we absolutely must keep that alive for the future.Michael Horn:Beautifully said. He's Bill Kerr. You can see why he's terrific. And you should check out his Managing the Future of Work. What's the podcast name, Bill?Bill Kerr:Managing the Future of Work. We always stay on brand.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.

Jonathan Hughes, Associate Director of College Planning and Content Creation at the Massachusetts Education Financing Authority, joined me to discuss the organization's work of helping students prepare for post-secondary education. We discussed how MEFA has evolved over its 40 years, including the addition of MEFA Pathways, an initiative focused on career navigation.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education, the show where we are dedicated to a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their human potential, and live a life of purpose, and to help us think through how individuals navigate so that they can do all of those things. Delighted to have another neighbor to the show and our guest, Jonathan Hughes. He's the Associate Director of College Planning and Content Creation at MEFA, the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We're going to find out all about that and more in just a moment. But first, Jonathan, thanks so much for being here. It's great to see you.Jonathan Hughes:Yeah it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.The History of MEFAMichael Horn:Yeah, you bet. So let's start with just that. Like, you know, the history of the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, which in the state we call MEFA, but people outside of Massachusetts might not know the acronym. Tell us the history, how it's changed over the years. What does it do now?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, absolutely. So MEFA, as you said, is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. And we were actually created, we're a state authority. We were created by the Massachusetts State Legislature back in 1982, so about 42 years ago. And what we were initially created to do was to offer a loan. We were actually created at the behest of colleges. At the time, there was a limit on the plus loan, which is the parent loan for undergraduate student, at $4,000. And there was not a lot of educational loan options for families to go for financing.And so MEFA was created to offer that loan. That's something that we still do. However, as I like to say when I'm doing presentations, you know, since 1982, as you may have noticed, the cost of college has continued to go up. So we have a public service mission to help families to plan, save, and pay for colleges. Just offering that loan wasn't going to be sufficient to do that. So we expanded in the nineties to offer two savings programs. In 1995, we added the U Plan, which is a prepaid tuition program. And in 1999, I believe it was 1999, we added the MiPA U Fund, which is the Massachusetts 529 plan. So that takes care of paying for college and saving for college. The third part of that being planning. That really started to bloom about maybe 20 years ago or so, where we really started to flush out our guidance initiative. And so we offer hundreds of free seminars and webinars every year, you know, in person and virtual, on all topics related to planning, saving, and paying for college. So that's savings, admissions, college financing, et cetera. And now even further sort of branching out from just being college focused, like a lot of things recently, you know, we're sort of branching out to include college and career training. So we have MEFA Pathway, which we'll talk about later on. And we also were selected to offer the state's 529A, or ABLE plan, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it is essentially, it works in a similar way to the 529 college investing plan. It's for individuals with disabilities, so you can save in a similar way, tax deferred, and use those funds to tax free for qualified educational, I'm sorry, not qualified educational, but qualified expenses, which include educational expenses, but also health, assistive technology, transportation, daily living expenses, things like that. So that is a real change for us as well, and a real expansion of what we do. So I know I'm talking a lot, but it's hard to encapsulate everything that we do, and it takes a lot. But also, I think the backbone of who we are is offering that free guidance to people. So we are here for people in Massachusetts, but anyone as well.The Evolution of the OrganizationThe Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Michael Horn:Okay, so that's interesting. So I'm curious then state authorizes you, that's how MEFA is created. It's evolved a lot, as you said, not just loans, abilities to save, like the 529 Able Plan you just talked about, the guidance and so forth, is that, and then obviously, you said the big thing also not just college but also career guidance, is, you know, how does an organization like this evolve? Is this an independent set of decisions? Is this a state sort of mandates that help you evolve? Like, what's the interplay with the state at this point around those decisions?Jonathan Hughes:Well, I think it's a bit of both of those things. So we have certain things like MEFA Pathway, which was, and then we're going to talk about that later on. That's our college and career portal. That was an initiative from the governor's office at the time, Governor Patrick, and we set to work creating at that time, it was called your plan for college. But also, you know, we, in order to do the work that we need to do and be a resource for everybody in Massachusetts, we have partnerships with high school counselors, college administrators, and try to be a resource for them and for their population. So we hear basically what's needed. I'll give you a good example of this. We heard from our college administrators that they were seeing a lot of students who were confused at the point of when they were receiving all their financial aid award letters from colleges, and they needed to make that decision of where they were going to go. A lot of them were having a difficulty deciphering the letters and then comparing the offers among different schools. So, as you know, they're really confusing.Michael Horn:Yeah.Jonathan Hughes:Yes. It's confusing when you're looking at one of them.Michael Horn:Let alone comparing them. Yep.Jonathan Hughes:Right. And, you know, there's not a lot of uniformity between award letters. So we created this campaign called our paying the college bill campaign, where we go and sort of break down what you might see in award letters and also how you figure out what your balance due is at each. And we encourage people to actually bring their award letters so we can help them compare and figure out what they have due at each college. So a little bit of both. Some things come from sort of top down, and some things, a lot of things, I would say, are in reaction to what we hear from partners and what folks need.Building In-State NetworksMichael Horn:No, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, one last question, and then I'm going to switch to the MEFA Pathway. But I'm just sort of curious. In general, you have all these products, services. I didn't realize people outside of Massachusetts could use them as well. But within Massachusetts, does the relationship as a state created entity, even though you're a separate nonprofit, does that allow you to get better distribution, to have these partnerships with high schools? Or, you know, how does what you offer get in the hands of not just students, but frankly, the students who maybe need the most support and guidance around these questions that, you know, maybe they're a first gen potential college student, they might not have that knowhow in their household they really need a service like yours. They, you know, plausible.aren't getting the support given what the student to teacher, excuse me, student to guidance counselor ratios are something like what you offer would seem really important. How do you get that distribution and connection with schools, district students?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, and I think you hit it there. I think it is the relationship with the counselors, and it is relationship not just with counselors, but with CBOs, community based organizations as well, other agencies like agencies. For example, there's one called Mass EdCo, which is headquartered in Worcester, but it's also a free resource for students to use to file financial aid forms and help figure they can help them do a lot of things, basically. And I think so. Trust is key and ease of use, I mean, we are a free resource for folks to use. We do try to encourage guidance counselors or high school counselors rather, to reach out to us with any questions. We are happy to take calls. We do have free appointments that people can set up with us and we do, as I said, take that feedback from counselors.What are their students experiencing? We work with a sort of number of ambassadors that offer free financial aid nights. We will come up with materials, and a lot of this fits in with me for pathway as well, because high schools that use MEFA Pathway have access to us for free, and we're able to sort of hop on a call or run out to a high school to help them administer that. So it is just a lot of important partnerships that we cultivate, and that's why, as I said, trust and usability is so important for us.Michael Horn:Gotcha. And you're able to offer it free because the state helps fund that or how does that work?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, so we are, financing is done through our loans. So that's how we keep doing what we're able to do. And that's why the loan piece of it is very important to us. That's how we keep the lights on. That's how we keep going out to colleges and to high schools and to K-12 schools and to offering everything that we need to offer to our citizens in Massachusetts and elsewhere.MEFA PathwayMichael Horn:Gotcha. Okay, so let's get, we've teased it now multiple times coming up with another question, but MEFA Pathway, what is it? Where did it come from? What's the purpose and what does it do? And have you had to partner with folks to be able to stand it up? What does that look like?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, so MEFA Pathway, I said, was created by, through an initiative through the Patrick administration at the time, it was 2011, and it was meant to be a free college and career portal for students in Massachusetts. So that was your plan for college, as I said, and went through some iterations. It became your plan for the future later on, I think about 2017 was when it became MEFA Pathway, and it's just continued to develop. I mean, we work with, to build out the platform, a company called Folderwave, and we sort of have partner schools that we try to get. We're sort of enlisting schools in the effort to use MEFA Pathway in their schools as their college and career portal. Now, you know that there are other college and career portals as well for use in high schools and for middle schools. And so it's been, you know, a process over many years of trying to get more and more schools. And the thing I can say about MEFA Pathway, how it has changed, it has just grown more and more expansive I mean, every time I look, they're sort of adding something to MEFA Pathway. Um, so it's for use beginning in grade six. And of course, in grade six, you're starting to. I just have a son, actually, who just started grade six, so I can't believe he's at the point now where he can set up a MEFA Pathway account and try to figure out what he might want to do for a career. But, yeah, I mean, when you're in grade six and you start to use this, it's going to focus primarily on fun things, you know, things that you may want to do for a career. What are your interests? What do you like to do? What are you good at doing? What's your learning style, et cetera. When you get to high school, of course, it's gonna be a little bit more in depth, a little bit more planning your courses, et cetera. And the functionality of it has just gotten more and more in depth and comprehensive. So you can use it as a sort of just, any student in the Commonwealth can open up an account or anywhere, really, but it's mainly targeted towards Massachusetts can open up an account and do these things, or a school, a high school or school district can opt to use MEFA Pathway and use it for free and have sort of their guidance department use it as their portal. Different schools can use it at different levels. So some might use some parts of it and some might use another college and career portal for something else. So it has just continued to evolve and to get more in depth and to encapsulate more, not just college. As you can see, it started off your plan for college, and now it's the college and career portal piece, which is continuing to be built out more.Differentiating MEFA from Other Career NavigatorsMichael Horn:So it should be said in the interest of full disclosure FolderWave, who I've done some advising for, is the one that connected us together for this conversation. And obviously, then, as you just said, providing some of the technical infrastructure behind what you all offer. I love to stay with that journey that you just described where it's very, you know, what do you like doing? Fun,engaging. as you get into high school, more serious navigation questions around choices that have to be made based on those interests and understanding of where you tick and so forth. But help us understand how it's different from, you know, as you mentioned, there are a lot of tools out there. There's a couple of market leaders out there, right, that have big presence in more high schools than middle schools around this college. Navigation in particular, they’re starting to add careers as well. What really differentiates MEFA Pathway from the other things out in the market?Jonathan Hughes:Sure. Yeah. No, its a good question. And I think a couple of things make it different. The first I’ve mentioned a few times is that it’s free. So it’s a free resource for schools to use or for students to use. And so that is different also to be trained and support on this is also free. I know that that's not the case with other college and career portals.They might charge to be trained or for troubleshooting, what have you. I was just sort of in preparation for this, talking with some of the pathway team that goes out to high schools. And we did, I think, 150 or 160 visits or conferences with high schools over the past year. So that's one thing. The other thing is we do have that interplay with counselors. So we do solicit feedback and we do act on that feedback as quickly as we can. There's a relationship there that's really, really close and that extends to something we hear a lot about lesson plans that we can offer. So we have created lesson plans for teachers, counselors to use in their school. So we heard from counselors that, you know, we have all this great information on MEFA Pathway, but, you know, on top of classes and on top of everything else that students have to do, they're not really getting this information. So it would be great if they could use it in classes. So we developed lesson plans for advisors or teachers to use in class so that they know students are getting that information. And it's all sort of lined up with MyCAP guidelines, which are through the State of Massachusetts. So it stands for my career and academic placement. And so that makes us different also because we have that Massachusetts focus to us. So we are aligned with the MyCAP program. We have specific tools on our site on MEFA Pathway where people can go and see what their savings might be. If they go through a Massachusetts community college and use the mass transfer program, see what their savings may be versus not doing that, they can search careers and save those that are Massachusetts focused as well. So those few things I think make us different. And also the other thing is that, you know, as I said, we are, everything is done with sort of a human face. We're a small shop and we are very responsive to questions or issues.Shifting Mindsets towards CareerMichael Horn:No, it makes sense. So I actually want to stay on something that you mentioned because you had the career academic placement standards, you talked multiple times about how MEFA Pathway and you all in general, are not just sort of a “college for all” shop anymore. Career is a much bigger piece of this. This is obviously, you know, in some ways a back to the future moment for high schools across the country, but with the different emphasis that we want people to really make informed choices as they're navigating this college career, not just one time decision, but frankly, like interdependent set of decisions throughout their lives. I just love your perspective on how the state, the standards, you all have evolved to help people really think about the tradeoffs or questions that they want to be asking is they're thinking, hey, I'm going to graduate high school. Have I set myself up to go right into career first trade school, community college, four year college, gap year. There's a lot of decisions there. How have you evolved that to help? You know, pretty like, these are very different initial pathways, big steps that have big implications. How do you help people think about that?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, and I think, you know, that's a shift that you've seen across the industry and across the country in general. I mean, just hearing folks talk about college and career is different than it was 20 years ago. As I mentioned, and I'll mention it again, when we first started off, it was you were playing for college. And when I started working at MEFA a long time ago, we were completely college focused. And as that has changed, we have to grow to meet where people are and to adjust for other pathways as other people are doing. And it's hard. Everything in high school, counseling or counseling and postsecondary endeavors, it's all, like you said, interlocking sets of decisions.You have to get in front of people at the right time to get them thinking about the right thing so that their next step is the right step and putting them on the right path. I think how we do that through pathway, well, how we do it through MEFA in general, just start talking about these things and mentioning that there are other ways other than college. And it's not that everybody has to go to college. College will be important for many people. It's a great investment in many ways, but not everybody needs to go or goes to college. It's just whatever happens after high school, we want our students to be in a good position to succeed.So I think how we do that through MEFA Pathway is getting in front of them at a young age, in the middle school years, to try to see, to try to get kids thinking about what they might want to be and what they might want to do.This is also where the lesson plans for high schoolers come in, too. So a lot of these lesson plans are designed to get folks thinking about this. And this is what the MyCAP program is all about as well, to sort of let the student drive the process. And the first part of that is self discovery. The first part of that is knowing what the student wants to do for themselves, know what they want to do, and go that way. Now, that's not going to be the reality for everybody. And I know that I can only imagine myself at 17. You could have given everything, put in everything in front of me, and I still probably would have had a hard time. But to try to get that in front of people and give folks as many ideas as possible and to let them know that there are viable pathways wherever they may want to go, there is something out there for them. And then to the extent which they can use the tool and to try to carve these pathways out, there will be, as we were mentioning, a new focus on work-based learning. As there are more pathways for work-based learning in high schools, I always think of tech. That's the first thing I always think of when you talk about work-based learning is technical high schools. I've talked to a lot of technical high school students who go out to a job for, you know, one day a week or one week every month, whatever it may be. And I always thought that that's such a great thing to do. And I talked to a lot of them who love it. You know, I interviewed students on my pod, on our podcast at MEFA at a technical high school in Massachusetts.And the reason we got in there was because they were a pathway school. So they use MEFA Pathway to do various things. But this work-based learning is getting more and more notice from a lot of people. It's something that a lot of high schools and colleges are looking at. For our work-based learning, we have a portal where, well, not a portal, but a feature where counselors can list all the work-based learning opportunities that are available to their students. Their students can go on, if they log on to MEFA Pathway, see the options that are available to them, apply for those internships, job shadowing programs, whatever it may be, externships, and apply that way. What's coming soon, hopefully, is a employer portal where they can manage that part of the process as well. So this is something, as I said, that just giving students exposure to that and letting them know that there are other pathways out there and that they're valuable and they can lead to good outcomes and good salaries.Michael Horn:Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's part of the name of the game. And obviously, to your point, I probably was similar to you in this way. I would have been very hard for me at age 17 to imagine. But the flip side is, if I'd had more exposure to lots of different work-based learning opportunities, maybe actually, I would have known far more about what made me tick and what didn't, at least to the point that I could have started to rule certain things out in a meaningful way, which I often think we expect people to be like, oh, that's the thing. I think we're much better as human beings saying, that's not the thing, nor is that. And it might be these five other things.If you can help with that. I think it makes a lot of sense. What do you see in terms of utilization numbers and sort of, I don't know if you have quantitative ways of looking at impact, but at least qualitatively?Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, I mean, we do have some numbers in terms of accounts. I mean, there's about, I would say around 55, 56,000 accounts set up the MEFA Pathway. We have about 180 schools or so that are in Massachusetts that are signed up for MEFA Pathway, and they may be participating to varying degrees. Right. So some may use, you know, the lesson plans, but not use the common app parchment integration, for example, to send all of the transcripts and letters of recommendation to the colleges. That's a tool that we have on MEFA Pathway, but, you know, people can use it to their comfort level. And we are just, I think as high schools, you know, they have contracts with certain other college and career portal providers. They may sign up with me for pathway.These things take a long time, but, yeah. So, and from what we hear from counselors and from students, we know that it's really working out for people, particularly lesson plans, scholarship searches, and app applying through school. But there's so many tools, and the comprehensive nature of it is so great and getting greater all the time. I feel like I was talking about MEFA Pathways of its own, little sort of separate thing, and now I feel like it's, it's the other head on the shoulder, so to speak, so well.How Guidance Counselors Are Managing the ShiftMichael Horn:And it's gotten a lot of support from the governor's office, the current governor's office, obviously, with the public service announcement and so forth. And if I'm not mistaken, 180 high schools in Massachusetts is about 40, 45% probably, of high schools in the state is my guess.So that's, that's pretty good coverage there. Last question as we wrap up. It seems to me the other part of this equation as we move away from “college for al”l to a more robust understanding of what individuals can do to lead productive lives as they leave high school is that there's a fair amount of re education of counselors, like a lot of the guidance counselors, you know, for the last generation, it's sort of been college, college, college. That's a big switch on them. I'm just curious if you see, you know, how are they doing with that switch on the ground? You probably have a view of that. And I, I imagine a resource like the ones you provide is actually super useful to them, getting educated around other options beside the, you know, the ones that they've been focused on for the last 30 years.Jonathan Hughes:Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, it really is. To be honest, I'm asking them so much of what they're seeing from their students that they, they're the ones who told me, you know, because I asked them, are, are you seeing more students go directly into the workforce to college or you see them, you know, going the career vocational training pathway? And a lot of them say yes. And I think that there's a sense, too, among students and parents that, you know, this is, I think it's different from when you and I were going to college in a way, and, or when we were graduating high school that this is seen as more of a viable option for more folks than it was. So, yeah, I don't, you know, to be honest, I don't really know. I don't have an answer for you.Michael Horn:I was just curious because it seems like a stark shift. And so services that are maybe, you know, have bigger budgets, right, to do the work and resources that MEFA Pathway has and the lesson plans, it seems like that can be a real resource not just for the students but maybe for the counselors as well.Jonathan Hughes:Yeah. And I think that's where employers come in and other CBOs and other sort of industry partners and local partners come in to sort of shape that. But, yeah, I think that makes sense.Michael Horn:That makes sense. Jonathan, really appreciate you coming on to explain all about not just MEFA Pathways but MEFA itself as an organization. Where can folks who, you know, they, they finish this conversation? They want to learn more. How should they do so? Jonathan Hughes:Well, they can go to a couple of places. They go to mefa.org. they can go to mefapathway.org and they can follow us on our social media channels. They can follow, they can look for the MEFA podcast, but they can go to? Michael Horn: Where they get to hear your voice on if they lucky them, rightJonathan Hughes: They get to hear me. Yes.Jonathan Hughes:I would recommend folks to go to mefa.org or mefapathway.org for more information.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.