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

Readers of this newsletter know that a little while back I published a piece titled “Why System Transformation Is Likely a Pipe Dream: But I’m for System Replacement.” That piece referenced a white paper by Thomas Arnett of the Clayton Christensen Institute titled “K–12 Value Networks: The hidden forces that help or hinder learner-centered education.” Tom collaborated on that white paper with our friends at Education Reimagined.After publishing my piece, they both reached out to dig deeper into the conversation and its implications. That conversation is what I’m bringing you today. Is school transformation possible without replacing the existing education system? In addition to Tom, Kelly Young of Education Reimagined joined me to argue that it’s not. In an educational landscape that constantly seeks marginal improvements, my guests spoke to the importance of embracing new value networks that support innovative approaches to learning. The conversation touched on the issue of programs that remain niche solutions, rather than robust, learner-centered alternatives. In exploring the concept of value networks, they both challenged the notion of transforming individual schools or districts alone. They argue for the creation of a new value network to truly revolutionize the education system. Of course, they admit that achieving this is no small feat, as it requires a paradigm shift in mindset and a careful balance between innovation and existing structures. In this conversation, we wrestle with the full implications of their findings and more. For example, I asked them if we just instituted more growth-based measures of learning as opposed to point-in-time and deficit labeling accountability approaches, would today’s schools and systems really not be able to respond? And if the answer is no, how separate does a new model of schooling really have to be? Can districts do this work? Their answers were illuminating.As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:Today, we have two folks who been at this work for a number of years in reinventing our education systems and our schools and rethinking a lot of the fundamental assumptions really that undergird them. We have Kelly Young, who is the president and founder of Education Reimagined. Kelly, it's good to see you.Kelly Young:It's great to see you. Thank you for having me.Michael Horn:Yeah, especially fresh off vacation, to have you here is a luxury for us. And then we have Thomas Arnett. Tom, you've been on the show before, so it's good to see you again. Obviously, Tom is a senior researcher at the Christensen Institute. He and I have been colleagues for many, many years now. I think you just passed your 10th year anniversary at the Christensen Institute. Tom Arnett:I did.Michael Horn:So congrats and good to see you as well, Tom.Tom Arnett:Yeah, great to see you, Michael. Great to see you both. Two of my favorite people to chat with, so I'm excited for this conversation.Morning WarmupMichael Horn:Well, hopefully you'll still feel that way by the end. But as folks who listen know, we separate this show into four segments, and we're going to dive right into our morning warmup. And I'll start with you, Tom, and I'll give a little bit of background and the reason we wanted to have this conversation. You all had collaborated on a paper a number of months ago that came out that I used in my class at Harvard. It's a great paper called “K–12 Value Networks: The hidden forces that help or hinder learner-centered education.” And the big argument, I think, if I were to summarize it, is that schools are a part of a larger systems surrounding them, whether that's the school boards, the unions, the policymakers, they exist in an ecosystem and a network of different organizations that are impacting them in different ways. And that if you really want to transform, it's not enough to just transform an individual school or an individual district. You kind of have to tackle the whole system itself. And that often means creating a new value network entirely. And so then I followed this up some months later because I was frustrated, I think, coming out of GSV, where I saw both of you and everyone was saying, like, how do we change the system? And I was like, we don't change the system. We replace the system with something completely new. And so I wrote this piece, why system transformation is likely a pipedream, but I'm very in favor of system replacement, and we thought we'd geek out and talk a little bit about. So, Tom, I want to start with you, which is like, I did my best to summarize the paper but I'd love you to give a little bit more of the basic argument behind why you really need a whole new value network if system changes what you're after and the logic behind that conclusion.Tom Arnett:Yeah, well, let me dive right in, Michael. I think all of us on this conversation share this common view that education could be a lot better than it is and that it's not just about tweaking curriculum or tweaking the professional development we give teachers that there's some fundamental things that should be rethought about the idea of single paced, classroom based, teacher driven instruction. Now, folks have been calling out the conventional model of schooling for probably close to a century, know Dewey. But we also can look and see that folks like Larry Cuban and David Tyack for decades have been pointing out that, yeah, people tweak the system on the margins, but that fundamental, what they call the fundamental grammar of schooling or the fundamental our language in the paper would be the fundamental organizational model of schooling hasn't changed. And so this paper really draws on insights from outside of education that are super relevant here. Clayton Christensen, when he was studying organizations was asking this question why is it that large, successful, well resourced companies consistently fail to adopt certain types of innovations? And what he ultimately landed on was the idea of value networks being a key driver of that phenomenon of why companies often don't innovate. So in a company context, the value network is your customers, your suppliers, your distribution channels, your investors. But in education, we look at the value network as being made up of things. It's essentially the context of individuals, other organizations, institutions and regulations that interface with and establish help an organization establish its model. So for a school, the value network often includes local, state and federal education agencies, policymakers, learners and their families, employee unions, voters and taxpayers, the post secondary education system, community organizations, vendors, teacher preparation pipelines, philanthropic donors. That context that value network for schools then becomes the dominant influence on its priorities and it shapes what types of innovations will you do? But it also determines what types of innovations just don't pass muster, don't get traction because they don't align with what that broader context demands. So we wrote this paper to really point out if we want to get to new models of schooling that break free from the conventional grammar of schooling, we can't just do it by trying to take existing schools and tweak them, adjust them. Because not only do their models have a lot of inertia that's hard to overcome, but the value networks, they sit within the expectations that policymakers and parents and others have of what those schools are supposed to offer and how they're supposed to work. Those forces just push schools back into a more conventional model. So again, the high-level takeaway is if we want new models, we have to find ways to assemble new value networks around those models to support those models.Michael Horn:Super helpful description. And Kelly, I think for all of us it rings true. But your background is one where you came into this question of reimagining education through this organization called Convergence, which, in essence, if I tried to summarize it, would be you take sticky areas where there's two sides, broadly speaking. Or multiple sides, perhaps, that don't necessarily agree, and you take them through a process to come up with convergence, like a new set of views, if you will, that all sides can take to. So I hear that and I'm like, okay, these folks think that they can somehow get system transformation by getting all these different stakeholders in the value network to speak the same language. And indeed you came out with this incredible statement that undergirds education reimagined about what education could look like. And then here you are writing a paper with Tom and espousing a lot of these same ideas that it's not going to happen in the existing value network. So I want to know, that feels like an evolution, maybe it's not. You'll tell me, but how did you come to that conclusion?Kelly Young:Yeah, it is somewhat of an evolution. It was an evolution watching transformational efforts over the last ten years when we came out with the vision. So rather than ask people to come to common ground, we actually asked them to set aside the legacy system and imagine what you would invent today, what we know about kids development, society, learning, education, et cetera, and ask them to really imagine the future. And there was no question that there was agreement on what that future was. And it was what we call learner centered education. And it really is around about human thriving as opposed to consumption of knowledge, right? And rather than compliance, it's about agency. So even at the time, if you read the vision document, it goes through everything that would have to be redesigned from the preparation of adults, the adult roles assessment, credentialing of learning, funding models, you name it. It would have to be redesigned because in our current system, it is all designed for standardization, compliance and knowledge transfer. So we knew all of that to begin with. And in some ways it's not a radical shift. What we're proposing, what we've always known, is that you have to find the people who want to do this invention of a new system and that it is invention at this point. It's not about taking something and scaling something. There are models that exist. Montessori, for example, right, is a learner-centered model of education. But until you have systems transformation where that would actually enable that model to thrive and exist and be incentivized, you are not going to see those models significantly spread inside of public education. And our mission, just to be clear, is about creating a public education system that a learner-centered public education system. So we have watched people trying to do it inside the system and outside of the system. We are really about finding people who see this vision and are making instances of it for children, whether it's in charter district, out of school time homeschooling, et cetera. And we kept seeing this tension that people were trying to do it in system because that's where the money and the kids are. But they were highly constrained in what they were able to do because of the values networks. Then we were watching people going outside and seeing that they could actually assemble values networks that were aligned to what they were doing but they had no funding and they had no enabling infrastructure to do it. So if you think of microschools and pods and other interesting things that are happening outside of the system so we just got really clear that without creating a values network that is aligned to the work, some element of it is going to pull you back. Whether it's the school board, parent views, funders, state regulatory bodies, teacher certification, there's just too many whack a moles to get them all. Unless you're able to actually assemble a group of people who want to invent this future together.Work CycleMichael Horn:No, that's super helpful. Super helpful and that evolution makes sense. I think in light of that list that you just provided, that's a daunting list to move any one of those, let alone all of those. Let's move into the work cycle where I want to give you all a bunch of the yeah, buts that I get when I've come out with my piece or that I hear often and have you react in essence and see sort of how you frame it. Kelly, I'll start with you because I think one question we often get, at least I get, is like yeah, that may be right, but do we really need to change the system? If we just keep improving on the margins, that'll be fine. So is system transformation really the thing that's needed? I'd love to have you react to that one.Kelly Young:Yeah, I mean, I wish it wasn't because systems transformation is really difficult. But the reality is I was just looking at the stats and I apologize. I can't cite the report, but the instances of mental health, for example, and how dire that situation is for the youth of this country now and that comes from not having a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of what they're learning makes a difference. That they make a difference. And adding a handful of things, moments of silence, social and emotional learning, adding a project here or there is not going to fundamentally shift that sense for them. And so it is unfortunate that systems transformation is necessary. But we have been trying for decades now to take this system and get it to marginally move on. Even the things that the system recognizes are critical, like NAEP scores or state testing. And it can't move it, let alone on social and emotional learning, sense of purpose, employability access and sustainability through higher ed. So if we really care about kids getting the results, systems transformation is really the only way we've got forward.Michael Horn:Yeah, it's interesting hearing you just say that and I'll just riff off of it before I go into the next question, which is, if you think about all those you said, moments of silence or meditation or social emotional learning or whatever, these add-ons. Not that any one of them is bad, but fundamentally, the system is still if at the end of the lesson, you still move on to the next one, regardless of whether you've mastered it. And agency and purpose is at the heart of your challenge. Well, you've just told people, like, actually, you don't have agency over whether you can keep working to control something. And so the system keeps unambiguously sending these signals that undercuts a lot of these well meaning activities, I think fundamentally, and you just laid out, I think, a nice list of, yeah, those are wonderful things, but they're still not changing the fundamental gears of the systems. So I want to go to the next one, which is like but surely there are anomalies to this idea or that we can do something differently. And the one that I often hear and Tom, I'll start with you on this. But Kelly, I'd love you to weigh in as well, which is if we put in competency-based learning policies, like we wiped out Carnegie units and seat time and maybe we changed the incentives. Kelly talked about incentives so that a Montessori model as an example could really thrive. And so we moved to maybe more growth based measures of learning as opposed to point in time and deficit labeling and things of that nature, then surely if we change what we pay for, these schools and systems could start to respond. What's your take on that one?Tom Arnett:So my initial reaction, I have so much sympathy for district administrators because their value networks are really messy. They've got a whole populations and communities of parents that want somewhat similar, somewhat different things. They've got state policymakers that are pushing them on different angles, federal policymakers that are pushing them on different angles. They're teachers unions, they're community stakeholders. And the nature of their institution is they're expected to serve all of these groups and give them all what they want and all what they need. And it means that they're in this tug of war where I often look at the status quo and I think, well, this is the natural equilibrium that you get when you have all these different forces from their value network pushing and pulling on them and they're doing the best they can to appease all these forces. So then to get to your question around like, well, why can't we just change the policy, change the incentives. I think what's often problematic is that we end up passing a policy that just layers one more force into that messy set of forces that are pushing and pulling on them within their value network. So you may get like a little nudge. There a little nudge here, but it doesn't have the ability to fundamentally realign the value network. I think of New Hampshire, my understanding is they've had competency based policy for a while and there are some really cool programs in the state of New Hampshire like VLACS that we profiled in our paper. But by and large, the competency-based policy hasn't fundamentally led to the redesign of widespread redesign of the districts across the state. And I think it's no one's fault. It's not that anyone's trying to become a nuisance or a hindrance to change. It's just the nature of the value networks that a conventional system sits within. It's really hard to tweak a policy or tweak an incentive and actually get a complete realignment of the organizational model and the priorities that that model is set up to pursue.Michael Horn:Kelly, what's your take? I mean, maybe we just need more patience with that change.Kelly Young:So the other part about for at least learner-centered education is that it is a paradigm shift. It's designing a system for a different purpose than our existing system is set up for. So when we talk about values networks, we're not talking about slight modifications like the experience of a child learning math for example. That would be a reform that you could institute. There are five elements that the vision document laid out for what learner centered is and competency based is one of them because you need to be able to credential learning no matter where it happens, wherever it happens, at whatever pace it happens with, whoever it happens with. And we actually thought at the beginning we have a star in the vision document and we had competency based at the top because we thought if you change that one, you change everything because that's a structure that we thought is keeping the whole thing in place. It turns out a, there are many structures keeping it in place but mostly there's a mindset keeping it in place. And so a structural change is not sufficient to cause a mindset shift. You need the mindset shift first and then to employ the structural change to support that mindset shift so you can find places where they are using competency based legislation to totally redo single sites learning like Iowa Big for example, in Cedar Rapids or many places that we all know. But the mindset shift for us is a shift between that we are preparing kids for the future, they are living now and they have contributions to make now. And that the idea is that we're not trying to help them fit in to a preexisting slot. We are helping them be lifelong learners so that they can create their lives and live fulfilling lives. And those two trajectories are radically different. And so it does take competency based ways of learning to fulfill on the new paradigm. And competency based in the existing paradigm for our existing system is actually just a lot of busy work to allow for self paced learning. And so it does add value to have self-paced learning. But it's a lot of work to do it and insufficient to actually change the experience of kids more than marginally. There's a whole host of other things that you would need in addition to competency based. So that's part of what's been a radical shift in our thinking. We actually realize that the mindset shift and that is really around agency and relationships have to be at the core of things first before any structural change will suffice.Michael Horn:Super intriguing point. I want to come back to that in a few moments and maybe once we end up we'll end with that thought because I think that's a very powerful idea. I want to go to another yeah, but that I get first though. Which is but look at this great thing have and you Kelly, you mentioned Iowa Big, right? I got one in higher ed recently. I made an argument that sort of these policies that states try to pass and different foundations try to fund of getting colleges to accept transfer credits from other colleges. It's not really going to work because fundamentally, we're still not credentialing learning. At the end of the day, we're credentialing seat time and asking these recognitions and there's business model issues and there's questions of faculty saying like, well, what you learned over at that college over there is not equivalent to what I teach here. It's not good enough for my major. Or like they have all their ways, right? And a few folks, several folks reached out and were like, you're wrong. Look at this great demonstration project we have here. Or look what we did in Florida. Or look at this. And I'm like, yeah, again, you're pushing on the margins. That's great. But I don't think you're not going to fundamentally change the system was my thought. But I want your thought because like pointing at the great thing. I'll give you another example. There are 500 public Montessori schools that are public schools, right? So there does seem to be room for them. Why can't those great things just sort of grow and thrive and prosper and change people's mindsets over time? Kelly, why don't you take this first and then Tom, you get it next.Kelly Young:Yeah, I mean I was definitely in the camp that thought if you find the models, they can spread. And if you network the models together to work on systems transformation, systems transformation will happen. Turns out it was not true and for a variety of reasons, but mostly because without that, systems transformation is a critical component because these things are roses and concrete now it's not as though they are growing in fertile ground to continue to multiply. Their seeds fly off but they land in fertile context. So the question is how do you get to systems transformation? And I guess our thought was people will rise up, they will shift the context that they're operating in and begin to shift systems but the reality is that is not what they are tasked with. Even if you are a single model that is not your job to figure out how do we do assessment credentialing of learning in alternative ways at scale that takes a completely different skill set, a different set of people to be involved with it. And until you have those things that make this an easy shift, that make this a scalable shift, things are going to stay in small pockets and it led us to have a radically different strategy going forward from simply identifying pioneers and networking them together. Tom, actually we are now about how do we pilot and demonstrate alternative public education systems in a handful of places because we believe that until you can invent systems that actually would enable this that's what will spread. The models can't spread until you have the enabling systems and tom date we really have been uninterested as a country in what would it take to invent those new systems that are scalable.Tom Arnett:Well, I'm going tom add nuance in that I'm going to recognize I think the marginal improvements are worthwhile. I think as folks are trying to create a new system shift to another paradigm, the work that other folks are doing of trying to improve the system we have is not without merit. The second thing I want to call out is that I'd be really curious to go look at those yeah but for instances and see how many of those actually have accomplished what they accomplished because they have a different type of value network supporting them because that's what I've seen and a lot of the examples. One thing to point out is that new value network does not necessarily have to mean outside of public education or outside of school districts. There's places within school districts, we profile some of them in the paper where they are coming up with very different approaches to education. But they found a way to kind of assemble a different type of value network within that public education landscape, which often means they find kind of exceptions or loopholes in policy or just places in policy where they can do things differently. It means that they're often serving different types of learners and different families with different expectations about what schools should be. And so their forces align, their value network forces align around doing something different. All that being said though, I will say that often those programs get stuck and one way in which I see them get stuck is that you create a new program that's kind of cool niche on the margins, but it never improves. It's like we created this really cool program for alternative education, for dropouts, and we are now checking the box that we've got dropouts back engaged with the system. But it's not becoming a really robust, learner-centered program. It's just kind of this niche program on the margins that no one's expecting to become more than just this stop gap. So that's one problem is I think you need leaders with vision to say, no, let's use this as a ground to invent new models of schooling, not just let's plug a hole and then walk away and go back to our day jobs. The other problem I see, though, is sometimes these programs do improve and they become really compelling, and then they get throttled. So a couple of programs I've seen within districts where they've created really compelling, learner centered versions of education, and they're getting really great test scores. And they'll often say, yeah, the district loves to feature us when people come to visit, they take them on a tour and they show them our site, but we can't grow anymore because our building only holds 200 or 400 kids. And the district has said, we don't want you to grow. You're a cool program, but we don't want young to affect the enrollments in our conventional schools. So we have to limit you and kind of keep you caged in that space. So that's where I hope that some of the impact of the work we're doing is to help superintendents, state policymakers, help them have the vision of look, not only how can we create the context where new programs and new value networks can emerge. But how do we also protect them and give them the runway they need to improve and grow and not just be relegated to these really neat boutiquey niches of the system, but never allowed to become mainstream alternatives to conventional education?SpecialsMichael Horn:So I want to jump in, and I'm going to jump ahead now of where I was going to go, and we're going to go into our special section because this is where I want to push you both a little bit. And See is carving out an area within a district. Kelly separate enough? Like, how separate does it have to be? And the reason I'm asking it is because isn't that still in a value network of the district board or the colleges or whatever else? And what I think I often see and Kelly, I think you alluded to this a little bit also, which is like, yeah, maybe you see that great example. It's not their job to rearchitect the system, and frankly, over time, they sort of fade out or there's a regression to the mean, if you will, because the system still has its underlying incentives, and you can pick the five that pull it back, but that's five of 50 that could have pulled it back.Tom Arnett:Right.Michael Horn:So I'm just sort of curious, in your viewpoints, how separate does it really have to be? And are some of these examples that you've cited within districts, are those really the right mental models for us to pin? Tom tom, why don't you go first on your view and then Kelly?Tom Arnett:Yeah, well, as backstory, Michael and I have had some back and forth on this one. I think it's a real challenge. I think of it kind of like a gravitational pull, right? Like if you can get out of the Earth's gravitational pull, there's a place where you can be a satellite to the Earth and you can do things a little bit differently. But some of the things we want to see it takes really escaping that gravitational pull beyond just kind of being in orbit of it. And I think that's a challenge. As you launch a program within a district, there's a poll to bring it back to where it's at. And that's real. I think the counterpoint to that is the stuff happening in what some folks refer to as permissionless education. I mean, permissionless is about getting totally free of any kind of conventional value network. I'd say though, there's its own set of challenges over there. In terms of open, there's a lot of open space to do stuff. But in terms of finding the funding and finding the support, it's got its own set of challenges. I actually think it's an interplay of both that we need innovation happening both within districts and in the spaces outside of districts. Both to see the different versions of what's possible and to push each other a little bit to try things that are different.Kelly Young:So our view is I would love to believe that it's possible inside of districts and that you could carve out the space. And for all the reasons we talked about, those value network that are very volatile, they're constantly in flux. It is very hard even if you get something going to sustain it long enough. But that's not the only issue with it. In every other industry we have R and D space where we know that you do not invent something new with the people who are tasked with producing the existing resources, whatever it might be, right? You just wouldn't do it. You don't go to the car manufacturers and say let's invent flight because they have to continue to make cars. They have the tools to make cars, they have the incentives, all of those things exist. And yet, for some reason we think going to the people who are tasked with administering the existing system, they are going to have the time, the space, the funding, the resources, the talents. Because to invent a new system of education is not an easy task. You really have to be standing in a very different place. And if you're also tasked with administering the current one, you're always intention. So to. Me. It is not because of the lack of will, the lack of talent, the lack of vision for lots of people in districts that are trying this. It's that it isn't the right conditions to actually do this work. And it's also a misplacement of what we are doing or a miscategorization of the stage we're in. I keep talking about invention, and it's because so often in education we see a model and then we say, let's scale that model. Rather, what we have to do is create the conditions for models like that and many others like that. To be able to spread and to create those conditions is a very different task than creating a model. So I'm not willing to say, no, that you couldn't do it that way. We are just looking at education. We imagine what are the conditions and how can you get those conditions. I am very skeptical that you could get them in a district without significant resources going towards it and really examining how separate it is. I do think it would need separate governance because of the value networks. It would have to have people who are completely opting in from the educator perspective as well as the families and youth. And that the existing system that's sitting side by side with it is not administering the funds to the new because that's the other issue. As one begins to grow, as the new alternative grows, there's a lot of incentive for the existing system to also thomas's earlier point throttle it right to pull it back. So you also need to know that the funding of it is not controlled by the people who have an incentive to kill it.Michael Horn:No, that makes sense. Okay, so let me go into my penultimate question then, from there, which is I love that phrase, create the conditions. Kelly, that you just used. I think that's a really good one. And Tom, you mentioned the permissionless space and this is the zone of Education savings accounts and some of these other efforts to create, I think, more room for permissionless education, but still with public financing. And I'm curious your views of that theory of action, both of you. Kelly, maybe you can go first on this one, but is that what we're pinning our hope on right now, to have the space to reinvent and do systems change or are there other ways or mechanisms that you would see us creating the conditions to have a novel public education systems?Kelly Young:Yeah, one, I believe if you can get state funding and federal funding to support the R&D, that's where we want to end up. Whether at this stage we could get it free from the constraints of the existing system seems very difficult and it has not happened to date. And so I think it's going to have to be philanthropically led in the early stages to actually develop the R&D for this. And it will be important to have the philanthropic support because if it's only done on parent tuitions and parent support, you're going to be building a system that is only designed for some and you will not actually be designing something that works for all children. And I think if governments are risk adverse, right, policymakers are risk adverse and so they are not typically the places where you get the cutting edge ideas from. It is usually from, at least in industry, right from the marketplace. And because we don't have a marketplace in education, we have to create the spaces. And I think that's going to have to be philanthropically supported. And once young get some things that are working and people can see that where kids and parents and educators are loving what they're experiencing, then I think you could begin to get state and federal money to go deeper, expand, broaden the pilots and the prototypes.Michael Horn:That's helpful. Tom, before you give your reaction to the ESA permissionless, et cetera, world, just one quick thought actually off of what Kelly said and check me on the nuance. I think what you're saying, this R&D sector, there's similarities to what Joel Rose and Transcend and some of those folks have talked about like an R D for model providers. But I think what I hear you saying is, yes, but that's not sufficient. They also need R&D to create the new system by which those model providers thrive and live in and so forth. Am I hearing that correctly?Kelly Young:100%.Michael Horn:Okay, perfect. It strikes me as a really important nuance. So Tom, let me turn to you then on this ESA permissionless question. How do you frame that effort, in your view? Could this be the separate enough space?Tom Arnett:I think it can. I think there's a lot of promise. Again, from the perspective of how do you create a different value network? It allows for removing a lot of the forces that push and pull existing school systems and saying, let's create a value network that can align around what do learners and families need without a lot of other pressures pushing and pulling in different directions. I do want to say kind of add some caveats and say that when we talk about what is learner centered education and our vision for learner centered education, I don't think permissionless guarantees that every program coming out of permissionless education is going to be learner centered. It's one way to create the conditions where folks that are innovating and building new models could create those types of models. But it doesn't guarantee that every model is going to be good or every model is going to be learner centered.Closing TimeMichael Horn:Super helpful. Okay, let's go to closing time. You all have inspired me with this last question around changing minds. Kelly, your comment in particular around the importance of that more than just sort of a wonkish policy response, if you will, or changing to competency based learning I think is an important insight. And I'm curious how you see that playing out. And I'll put forth what I think might be a vision and have you both react to it. It strikes me that what you're both saying is you effectively want families choosing, actively choosing these learner-centered models and systems rather than saying you have to opt in. Because if you have to opt in, then that creates a value network that's going to try to change the underlying architecture, if you will, of the new system. Instead, you want people that say like, yeah, that's what I want, they opt into it. Theoretically they're successful. More people see that and they start to opt in. And over time, if you will, in the classic disruption stories, the volume collapses from the old way of doing things into the new. Is that sort of the mental model that you have in mind when you say changing mindsets or is there something else going on there? Kelly, why don't you take it first and then Tom, you get the final word.Kelly Young:I agreed with everything that you said and I think when I said, yeah, that this is a mindset shift, that you need to start with the people who have already had a mindset shift and do want what this is. And you nailed it. And the idea is if this really does lead to human thriving and youth having joyful experiences not just once they graduate, but throughout their childhood and education process, that that should be what people want and it would start to draw more educators and more children. Now, that's easier said than done, but that is the mental model.Tom Arnett:So I want to articulate a little bit of what I see the transition looking like. What does it look like for us to go from where we are today to having new models that are in new value networks, to those models becoming mainstream, widely accessible to lots of learners? I worry that folks might read our paper or listen to this conversation and think, oh, so you want to force folks into you have this vision of what learner centered education should be and we need to create the policies that push people into this new vision. And I don't think that's how it happens or how I don't think it can even happen successfully if that's the approach that people try and take. In other words, we don't get there by education reform, by just passing policies that push people into this new system. I think what happens instead, and this very much draws on the ideas of disruptive innovation is that there's some folks like Kelly mentioned a minute ago that have already they have different priorities, they want something different from education. And it starts by building models that serve those folks and that align with what those folks are looking for. And often it's not know, they don't care about academic achievement, but they just have a very different if you look at these different value networks they have a very different ordering and how they rank what matters in education. They're not saying first and foremost is like are you covering the content? Are students getting high test scores? They're saying that may matter, but most important is are you setting up youth to thrive? Are you giving them experiences that prepare them for the real world? Are you helping them to have a sense of purpose, to have a sense of mastery? And that comes first. That's what's more valued in these new value networks. So we don't get widespread change by convincing everyone that they need to change their values and adopt these new set of values of the folks in the new value network. I think what happens instead is as those value network improve and thrive, folks that are sitting in the old value network say you know what, it's actually getting to the point where I feel comfortable that it's reliably going to help me do what I wanted to do with my life. In other words, let me give a case in point. I see families often, they'll verbalize and they'll say yeah, I want this more holistic approach to education. But then as their kids approach like 8th grade they start to go yeah, but I also want them to go to college. And I know that they need to get good test scores to go into college. So that was great for elementary school and middle school, but now that they're in high school, let's put them back in the conventional education system. So I think what happens is we get to a point where the proof points from that new value network are so compelling that folks say actually, you know what, the kids over there, they are getting into college. They're maybe not getting in by meeting the same criteria we thought were important, but they are getting into college and they're doing really well. Or maybe what happens is folks look over and say those kids aren't all going to college, but they're really thriving in their lives post secondary education and that's really what I care about. And so it's not that people change their values, it's that they start to see how these new programs sitting in new value networks are just compelling with what they really want in life.Michael Horn:Love it. Kelly Tom, thank you so much for joining me having this conversation. I feel like I learned a lot from it and have some new ideas coming out of it. So just appreciative to you both, I suspect a lot of other people will learn and those who are tuning in frustrated, seeking to transform the system, hopefully they walk away with some idea is of how they can actually help on that. So on behalf of everyone tuning in, thanks so much. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

As Clay Christensen always said, despite its reputation, a good theory is a very practical tool. It helps you to decide what steps will lead to what results in a given circumstance. It's not “theoretical.” In this conversation with Outschool.org's Kris Comeforo, we break down how he used innovation theories to guide a program that Outschool.org put in place to serve homeschool students in Detroit—which it’s now expanding elsewhere. Kris told me about how he used the theory of interdependence and modularity, the Jobs to Be Done theory, and some of the other points from my book, From Reopen to Reinvent, to drive his actions. I enjoyed geeking out with Kris and learning about how they engaged homeschool students in the city of Detroit to make a real impact. It was gratifying to hear how the work is now expanding through the use of theory along with the spread of education savings accounts and micro-grant programs in at least 14 states at the time of this recording. As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can fulfill their human potential and build their passions and and to help us do that, in today's conversation, we're welcoming Kris Comeforo, who is the Director of Product and Programs at Outschool.org and a recent graduate of Harvard University's EdLD program, which is a program focused on education, leadership. And so, Kris, it's great to see you. I'm excited to talk about the research that you did as part of that program and then some of what you're doing at Outschool.org that we'll get into in just a moment. But first, welcome.Kris Comeforo:Thank you. So, Michael, really, really excited to be here and have this conversation with you.Michael Horn:Yeah, you bet. So I'll give folks a little bit of a background of why I was so excited to have this conversation. You reached out some months ago because you were starting to work without school and an organization in Detroit which I'll let you share more about in just a moment. But a lot of the theories that my research is based on in terms of helping organizations innovate became not so theoretical. You were really using them on the ground. And I said we just ought to geek out about this and learn about what you learned in the process. So why don't you set the scene for us first? Because I've read this capstone project that you did about this work in Detroit, but set the scene for folks. Who were you working with? What was the objective? What were you and Outschool.org trying to learn?Kris Comeforo:Yeah, absolutely. And I'll first explain the distinction between Outschool and Outschool.org because I know that raises some questions with folks. But Outschool is an education platform with live online instruction. I think over 140,000 active classes on there, they've reached over a million learners in nearly 200 countries. Really great platform. And on March 2020, Outschool realized that a lot of families that could benefit from live online instruction might not be able to afford it. So they established Outschool.org very early on into the pandemic with the mission of making sure learners that experience racial or economic marginalization have access to a suite of services so that they can love learning. So that's how Outschool.org really got started. And in the beginning, Outschool org's thesis was providing access to Outschool classes. And that's what the organization did through what I kind of consider like the emergency relief part of the pandemic, when really no schools were open and educational opportunities were limited. But as Outschool.org started to rethink what its strategy was going to be, as schools started to reopen and things and the landscape started to change a little bit. And that's about when I entered Outschool.org through a year long residency with that EdLD program that you described earlier. So I was going to be spending ten months with this organization trying to think, like, how are they best positioned with the resources that they have and the access that they have to the relationship without school to serve communities and what they really need. And where I focused my work around was this organization, Engage Detroit, which is a group of homeschool families in Detroit, Michigan, started by Bernita Bradley, who is a complete tour de force in education and community organizing. And it was a pleasure to work alongside of her and her community. But we really asked that question of what do you need and how can we best support? And they too, were an emerging organization. Bernita herself wasn't a homeschool parent. She spent a lot of time supporting public schools and public school initiatives. But during the pandemic, she and a lot of her neighbors and friends turned to homeschooling to really support their children's education. So spent a year developing our newest program Outbridge with Engage Detroit.Michael Horn:Perfect. Now that's super helpful background, and obviously I'll just make a few footnotes for folks that are tuning in, Outschool the parent, if you will, for-profit in this case. Obviously, I think a lot of folks became familiar with them, if they weren't already during the Pandemic signing up for enrichment classes. I know my kids took several classes on Outschool during the Pandemic, and it’s still part of their imaginary play because they remember it well. So you have that. You have Outschool.org then trying to figure out how do we leverage what we can bring to bear for these communities. Bernita, I will say her work in Detroit, she really is a tour de force. She was the one on a panel at GSV who put me in my own place. I sort of said, how do these parents that don't have backgrounds in education and maybe a lot of wealth in many cases because she's really working with marginalized families who don't have a lot of resources in many cases. I sort of said, how can they possibly navigate this world of homeschooling and make sure their kids are getting the resources that they need to bear? And I know we're going to get into this, but I'll never forget her line, which was, Michael, 16% of Detroit students can read proficiently. You better believe we can do better than that. And so that's sort of where your story kicks off, because you start to work with her and you start to think through and you have this theory of action as you describe it. What are the resources and sets of information that we need to help this community of parents really unlocking the promise of homeschooling and specific the customization to their kids needs that they desire? So tell us a little bit more about that theory of action and then we'll get into some of the theory driven parts of that on the innovation side.Kris Comeforo:Yeah, absolutely. And I think I just want to underline the point that you raised with Bernita. She really looks at this through an asset based lens of our children are brilliant, and learning happens everywhere all the time, and we can support them to be the best. And so many of members in her community just felt like they weren't getting the support they needed through the public schools at the time, during the pandemic. And they knew and really believed in their hearts that their children could be achieving at much higher levels, which is really what gave birth. And she'll be quick to remind anybody right, of the origin of that. So not surprised at all that that's how she framed it to you as well. When we were developing theory of action, it was deeply understanding the context and talking to families was such a key role. And we also talked to a lot of families from our emergency relief program that we were handing out Outschool dollars to. And we not only talked to families that were spending it and gave us good stories, we also talked to families that weren't spending it and say, like, wow, we gave you a lot of access to these great enriching online classes. How come you didn't use all of the funds that you were granted? And the results were interesting, but also not surprising. We heard things like, thanks for this suite of online classes, but we only have one computer and there's three kids in the house. We can't manage getting everybody all online at once. Or thanks for these online classes, but my child's been shuddered at home for the last two years. They want to get out into the community and learn in person with their peers. Is there anything else they could offer? And then what I think is the most, I think, insightful one was a parent told me, my child wants to learn how to swim. You can't learn how to swim online. And that, to me, really just unlocked how we were thinking about this. How could we be positioned? Sure, we have this huge library and access to great online courses, but how do we connect families to a whole ecosystem of supports that are around them so that they could tap into local places in Detroit where you can learn how to swim, or you can learn how to play the violin or learn how to cook or get a math tutor in person, if that's what you have decided that your child needs the most right now. So not just limiting it to the resources that we had on Outschool, but a whole wide ecosystem of supports both online, but also in their community. And the way we really started to do it. And I don't know if you want to get into theory yet, but was just listening. And really what I wanted to know after taking these courses that I know you're so interested in is why are you hiring homeschooling to do the job of education? I'm a lifelong educator and public schools teacher, assistant principal, principal. My mom and dad were both public school teachers. It's hard. Teaching is a difficult endeavor. So now choosing to homeschool and you're a working parent. Now you have to manage your job, you have to manage the duties of being a parent. And now you're also going to take on this massive responsibility of homeschooling and not only decide to do it, but families in engaged Detroit have persisted through the organization still growing. Started out with, I think, twelve students, and now there's over 200 families that are part of this network of families homeschooling in Detroit. They're sticking with it. And so my question is, why did you hire homeschooling? Why is that the solution? And what's the job that you're trying to get done with homeschooling? So it started there.Michael Horn:Yeah, let's stay on that for a moment because that's the jobs to be done theory, of course. And you spent a lot of time trying to understand, as you said, a, why they hired homeschooling, which is an interesting question, but also to your point, and I'm going to accelerate your story a little bit after you realized that, gee, the bundle of online courses, maybe that's not all that these families needed. They needed a much wider range of things. You started to give them cards, basically prepaid cards with dollars loaded on them that they could spend on a variety of activities from different buckets ultimately. And you evolved to that, of course, but not all the families used those cards and used the dollars. There's like several hundred dollars on these cards that they could use, and some of them didn't even use them. And so if I recall, you're doing interviewing both to understand why they're hiring home school and really listen to drive the theory of action. But then also why do some families not use these cards? Like, why are they firing, if you will, a solution that is ready made for them? What did you learn through that process and how did it adjust your program over time?Kris Comeforo:Yeah, no, for sure, I think that's something that's been the most fascinating to study. And I think I was a little too optimistic. I really thought. I was like, wow, everyone's going to spend the money this week. I know it. And that didn't happen. Every family got $500 per learner. So if you had a family with three learners, $1,500, like you said, loaded on into a debit card that could only be used for educational purposes. Now, some families emerge really fast. I call them the super users. They had a plan. They knew exactly. Like, there's a Stem camp down the street on the weekends. There's a summer camp through the YMCA. There's online classes and assessments we want to sign up for. And it was fast. In talking to some of the slow adopters or who were kind of non consumers at first, there was a lot of things at play. Some of it was information overload. It's like there's so much out there. If you go online and I help my family, my brother and sister, I help lead my niece and nephew through, like, what do we do for math over the summer? If you just type that into Google, there's so many things that come up. And as a very experienced educator, I know how to sift through that information. But it's not always clear to families what's high quality and what's going to be worth it and what's actually going to move, whatever the results that you're trying to drive towards. So information overload was definitely some of it. Also there's some semblance of kind of like a scarcity mindset of, hey, $500 sounds like a lot per kid, but actually that goes really quickly and I have to make the right decision with this because it's not going to come back. We funded this through philanthropic donations. This is a one time scholarship. It's not something that families are going to have access to over and over again. So families really wanted to make the right decision as they were trying to go through this.Michael Horn:Super interesting. So then you talk about the set of services that you hypothesize that they need. And you take some pages literally from my book from reopen to reinvent, and you basically say, hey, if we imagine that they need access to everything from content knowledge to skills to you call it something different in your paper, habits of success, I think. Social emotional supports or something like that. And then real world experiences and the like. You have this sort of diagram that you build around it and then you have this really interesting sort of interaction that you say, if we hypothesize these are the sets of things that homeschooling families are going to want to connect into a we know from the jobs to be done. A major driver of this is going to be the social activity, the opportunity to socialize with other families and be part of a community still. So it's not just functional learning that they're looking for B, that the way they integrate across these different modalities or things that they're searching for, if you will, is going to be trickier in some cases than others because of this extreme modularity. Maybe I'll let you actually explain the theory and explain it how it manifested here. And then this is the part that I really want to geek out a little bit on about how it informed your design because I think there's a big jump from School provides everything, which is the fully integrated interdependent offering to homeschooling. It's completely unbundled. We get to choose from an array of providers and there's a continuum, it seems, in between.Kris Comeforo:Yes, no, and that's exactly how I thought about it and was definitely informed by your work from Reopen to Reinvent and try to like, how do I conceptualize this and bring it to action because you're exactly right. If you go enroll in a public school and just sign the paper and enroll, you walk in the building. You have a teacher that's certified by the state. You have a curriculum that's purchased by the district. If you need to go to the nurse, she's down the hall. If you want to sign up for the band, they'll give you a flute, they have a music teacher, and they'll even drive you to marching band competitions. Right? All of that just by that one instance of enrolling in school. Everything is really tightly put together, whereas homeschooling, families, it's a completely different architecture of school. Every single piece of this is put together piece by piece by piece. And this is very liberating and can be very customized, but also at times it can be really overwhelming in terms of how do we choose exactly what's right for my child right now and how does this connect? And I think that's something worthy of talking about to all of the different things. So because it was such a wide ocean, I needed a way to kind of segment it into different domains. So that's why I picked on the basic needs, the foundational skills, building social capital with real world experiences. Those were the different ways that I started to segment. Like, oh, I see people are spending on what I would consider a health and wellness activity. Or this is an activity that's going to support their foundational needs as a way for me to kind of visualize the behavior and the patterns that were starting to emerge as they started to spend in different ways.Michael Horn:Yeah, so let's stay with that now because on the one hand and theory of interdependence and modularity for those that don't know, essentially says most industries start as very integrated, fully proprietary, full bundle of offering. And the reason is that the way those parts in a system interact are not well understood. They're unpredictably. Interdependent change to one, oh my gosh, it changes these three things. I never thought about that before. And then when I change those things, that changes the thing that I just changed in the beginning. Right? And it sort of cascades. And so managing a schedule in a school, managing how band interacts with PE, how it interacts with your English language arts class, how it interacts with staffing. And so you end up with this full bundle of a model. On the other side of it, as industries evolve, they tend to go toward more modular offerings because they allow for customization. So once you satisfy the basic reliability and we start to understand how these parts connect to each other, we say, actually, it's okay if you want to go to this provider for your music, your private piano lesson, whatever it is, you want to go over here for this part, and so forth. And that's how real customization and choice come together. But what's interesting is that typically there's this continuum where we need to sort of be in the middle for customers as they're dancing between sort of different poles on this. And I guess that's what I was wondering as you reflected on this. It struck me that some families were totally capable of doing the fully unbundled, fully modular. They would take your prepaid card and just start picking different providers and others. Maybe wanted some of those components you just named to maybe be a little bit more interdependently linked and not arm's length providers. Because, gosh, you mean I've got to figure out the science camp and that's different from where they learn math, and you're telling me then I got to pick a reading provider also? That's a lot of things that unbundles a lot of choices all of a sudden. I guess I'm wondering did you find that that families fell in different places? And if so, what do you do to change that continuum? What does the theory tell you to do differently as you're designing it or how you're offering these options?Kris Comeforo:Yeah, definitely saw that wide spectrum of how people wanted to go and we got to remind ourselves, right, like school has this deeply ingrained mental model in our society that you go into this building, you can only learn chemistry if you sit in this seat for 180 days for this amount of time. And I think more and more and I think what innovative educators are getting excited about is people are more open to challenging that thought right now, which is exciting. But at the same time not everybody is ready to dive full on into that and taking a step back. A lot of different research with unbundled learning will say access is really important. This is expensive. People need assistance with funds and there's a number of different ways we can talk about that later. How different states and jurisdictions are helping with that information is also key though. Families need to know exactly what their suite of options are, how they can connect them and how it all fits together. But what we uncovered is an additional key component is community, is families needed to talk to each other and we could facilitate that. And there was some role for me to play as like, hey, listen, I've studied education for a long time. I used to be a principal. I know this is a really good math program. You can trust it. That was helpful information for families. But what would really spur a change in behavior is when one family would say that same thing to another family. Not me who had before this year had never been to Detroit, Michigan. But instead when I get families telling stories about how their kid is doing as a result of this program and what started to become interesting and this is indicative across the country, not in just Engage Detroit, some families started to integrate their services with other families, forming little micro schools with each other and saying, like, all right, listen, you seem to have this science thing figured out. Can my kid come with you and do those things? And then we'll go over here, I'll take them on the field trip to do this other experience. And families started to connect with each other to where they saw what worked. But it's still modular in the fact that you don't have to join that thing and subscribe to it. But families started to build it in a way that made sense for them, which I think is an important component of it.Michael Horn:Yeah, so I want to stay on that because that's actually really interesting. So is the point of integration you found less between, say, micro school and the real world internship, maybe at a lab or something like that or whatever it is, and more like you integrated community in the designs so that they could better pick and navigate among the choices. Is that, like what the point of integration was? More than the different parts of the wheel, if you will, to each other?Kris Comeforo:That's how I saw it, because that was the one thing we all had in common in this space. And that was that families and engaged mature. We're all in the same physical area and we have each other to support each other. But kids were all different. We had kids K through twelve and there wasn't enough kids to design a really great pathway to an internship that made sense for everybody. But the one commonality we had was we all have this community to work together, and we would bring them together for community events every single month. And we'd do things, we'd do activities and talk about making plans. We'd share different ideas. We'd let families talk to each other about different ideas that they had. And what was fascinating in the spending habits is whenever we had a community event, spending the next week doubled the average. Like there were spikes and this happened four community meetings in a row. We've since expanded this program to another community in Grand Rapids. And an interesting thing here is in Grand Rapids, all the families involved in the program are enrolled in traditional brick and mortar schools. Same thing is happening every time we bring families together and talk about these things, spending and engagement goes up. So I do think there is an interface with community that that's how we can kind of connect this thing together in a more interdependent way, even though the pieces of the puzzle may be different.Michael Horn:Super interesting, because the example we always use is IBM was the fully integrated interdependent initial computer, and then Dell, on the other hand, is the personal computer. They specified the standards, but, you know, have your seagate memory, your drive from this guy, the monitor here, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Your version of Microsoft Windows that you select and it all snapped like Dell would snap it together. It sounds like you're saying to build that modular design you have to have the community like that's the interdependent part and then you can really allow them to farm off to different options. What I guess I'm also hearing is that relates to the insight you got from the jobs to be done work, which was that maybe for whatever reasons that they're hiring home school to do it well, they needed a social component of that. They were not firing the social component of traditional schools. That was a hiring criteria and whatever they did next. And so that actually is a common linkage through the two frames, if you will.Kris Comeforo:Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't even connect it that way when I first thought about it. But you're exactly right and that social component to the job. I think there's a misconception that educators, myself and just the populace at large think that homeschooling is this, I'm just going to sit in the corner alone and do this thing. And actually when you talk to families, they're very connected with other families and kids are very connected with other kids in ways that I didn't anticipate. And I think you're right that that social component drives through to the interdependence that kind of holds this thing together. And it fits with what our thesis has been as we support different communities through these direct to family funding structures. Whether we're providing scholarships or whether states are providing micro grants or ESAs, is that we can't just show up into a state and say, hey, let us help. Going through existing communities is where we found to have the biggest impact because that social component is so key and families really education is a deeply fundamentally personal endeavor and families want to do it in community with others.Michael Horn:So let's finish up there as we have this conversation, which is like the work now going forward. You brought it up that there's education savings accounts, there's micro grant programs increasingly in states, all these different ways that are not really a voucher, because a voucher is like, hey, you can go to a different school, but that's it. These are really accounts like they're dollars that you can spend on a variety of activities and you were starting to see a lot of uptake in those communities. How has theory enabled you to set up quickly and start to expand in these different places and sort of what's the vision for where Outschool.org goes from?Kris Comeforo:Absolutely, it's it's and speaking about theory, right, I know ESAs microgrants can be a politically charged issue, but if you look at where the puck is going, I think ESAs are live in 14 states, microgrants and other programs so popular and it's coming. And what I think we're trying to be really mindful of is as a mission-oriented organization is how do we make sure that families that we care the most about that historically have been the furthest away from opportunity, have access to take advantage of these programs in the most impactful way, whatever it is to them. And I see from afar, states are making some predictable mistakes that we made along the way. If you just say, hey, sign up here if you want some money, a lot of people will sign up. But data comes out from states. A lot of people also just don't spend if you just handing out the funds isn't enough. And we also know too, I know there's been numbers thrown out and a large number of families that start to take up the ESA dollars were families that were already enrolled in private schools and just funnel that towards their tuition. But like you said, there's more to it than that, especially with these micro grants. I think Virginia, Kansas has an interesting program as well where families in public schools are eligible for additional dollars for supplemental enrichment and tutoring and different things of that nature. So we see again. All right, states are providing access. I think that's great and can be really impactful for a lot of families, but there really needs to be a place for information, but also mostly community. And I think bringing people together and letting them have a supportive network of peers to think through, how do they get the most out of these additional resources is a problem that we're really interested to solve moving forward.Michael Horn:I think you've done it in a perfect place. So it sounds like the big task to do is to integrate forward, not just provide resources, but to integrate into the next steps of information and community. And then we'll actually see uptake and equitable access perhaps to these resources that are in these communities that people can avail themselves of. How many states do you guys expect to be operating in over the next couple of years and sort of helping facilitate these communities?Kris Comeforo:Yeah, I mean, I don't have the answer to that question so directly, but we are talking to different states and communities again, though I recognize the states that they're happening in, but it's specific communities that we know that we want to help serve throughout. So we're actually in the middle right now of running an RFP for new community partners for next school year, where we're going to be accepting a number of existing community partners in different places. And if you happen to be in a state that has access, we feel like we're well positioned to help your community get the most out of this experience. So this past year we had ten community partners. I believe we're going to have eight to ten or so this year and are excited to work too directly with states to help figure this out and make sure really there's equitable access for students that need this additional support.Michael Horn:Chris, fascinating. Work. Any final thoughts or things that you'd say, like, hey, don't lose sight of X before we wrap this up?Kris Comeforo:Yeah, I mean, it's been a learning journey for me along the way. Like I said, I spent my whole career in public schools. Mom and dad were public school teachers, and what I get a little wary about in this conversation about direct to family funding is how politicized it gets. And public schools will always be a part of the solution. And I think programs like this could be really helpful to kids in public schools or not in public schools. But I really think us as a sector need to stop thinking about this, of, like, it's either this way or it's that way. Because I think that's the beauty of a modular approach is that it can be a lot of different ways for different families and different learners depending on what they need. And let's not presume to have the answers for families. Instead, let's build with families to get them access to the things that they need.Michael Horn:And I will tell you, for those that if they get to read your paper at some point in your capstone, that comes through loud and clear, as does really, this note of empathy for really understanding what the communities say is important to them rather than presuming it on the front end. So, Chris, thank you for letting us learn through your experiences. I'm going to be very interested to see where Outschool.org takes this in the months and years to come and what other insights you have on it, and maybe we can have you back on to geek out about what you keep learning.Kris Comeforo:Absolutely. I really appreciate it, Michael, and not just because I'm on the podcast. Your book came at the exact right time for me to think about this, so I do appreciate you starting that conversation for him. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

I’m more and more interested in how employees are navigating their career pathways and how they learn to keep up with the fast-changing nature of work. The corollary to that is also how are companies helping their employees stay up to date. Chief Learning Officer Marc Ramos of Cornerstone OnDemand joined me to talk upskilling and reskilling for adult learners and the changes companies need to make to stay ahead of the curve. We also dove into the implications of AI on the future of work and learning.My favorite comment from the interview? When I asked Marc how he talks to companies about the importance of investing and training their employees. His response? “You’re reminding me, Michael, of Sir Richard Branson's quote of, "What if I train my people and they leave?" And his comment was, "Well, what if you don't train them and they stay?" As always, subscribers can listen to the audio of our conversation, watch the video, or read the transcript below.Horn:                Welcome to the Future of Education where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their human potential. And to help us along that journey today, we have someone who is the chief learning officer at Cornerstone OnDemand. His name is Marc Ramos. And Marc has had a long and distinguished career in corporations really helping drive learning of individuals and employees and frankly, the companies themselves. And so first, Marc, thank you so much for being here. It is a pleasure to have you.Morning Warmup                       As you know, we've got four segments of the show. We get to kick it off with our morning warmup, and I'd love you actually just to tell us about your own journey into your current role as chief learning officer at Cornerstone OnDemand, because you've had an interesting career path.Ramos:             Yeah. Well, first and foremost, thank you so very much, Michael for inviting me on the show. I'm honored and humbled. In terms of this first segment, the journey, the pathway, it's really, really interesting in the sense of, I guess there's maybe two ways to look at it. One is, where am I now, the kind of working backwards. And the other one is maybe where did I start and then moving forward. So maybe I'll munge those together in ideally some sort of understandable way. But yeah, I'm currently the chief learning officer at Cornerstone. Been on board for a little over 10 months. I'm actually dialing in from beautiful Cape Coral, Florida, where we've been here for roughly that same amount of time, 10, 11 months.                        Actually prior to coming back to the US, my family was based in Basel, Switzerland for three years where I headed up Novartis's learning strategy and learning innovation and different segments of that learning tech, learning analytics, knowledge management strategy, so on and so forth. And then prior to moving to Switzerland and working at Novartis, predominantly in California, my family actually moved to Basel from the San Francisco Bay area where I had a variety of jobs.                        The one prior to moving, I was at Google for roughly seven years and had a lot of great experiences and roughly three different hats that we can talk about. And then prior to Google, I was at Accenture and Microsoft and Oracle, and then a stint here or there with smaller sized companies. So that's a little bit of the corporate background, predominantly in a global setting, predominantly in a multi segment or multi vertical setting, different size companies, but for the most part around, how to scale learning and a little bit across the board in terms of the various types, portfolio types, leadership development, management development, and then working the other side of the spectrum.                        I was just thinking about this the other day, where did I start my training career? I started my training career when I was maybe 13 years old. I was the head dishwasher at Mr. Cheese Chinese restaurant in Long Beach, California. And as the head dishwasher, the experienced 13 year old guy, I was responsible for training, guess what? All the other dishwashers. So that was a little bit of my start. But in all seriousness, I actually did end up more formally starting my training career in restaurants, predominantly out of high school.                        And I just found myself doing well in terms of this thing called process documentation, as well as how to work with folks to get them up to speed, to become a server, to become a bartender, to become a chef. And then one way or another, work from restaurant training to call center training, telecom training, and then in the tech space. And then if it helps, the last portion of my career, maybe at the DNA level is actually come from a family of teachers. So my mom, brother and my sister were all teachers. And I guess I'm a little bit of the black sheep, Michael. I went the corporate route because I was thinking about why should learning be contained in a box compared to how can we scale this for bigger, broader needs? So that's a little bit of my background.Horn:                No, it's helpful just to understand from where you're coming and a separate time we'll have a different conversation about restaurants and training and learning. My wife has worked in that industry and done a lot of training and manuals and procedures and all the restaurants and the work there. But it's also interesting, I actually really like that you moved the teaching and learning from the formal, if you will, education space into companies themselves. Because I think as Rachel Romer, the CEO of Guild often says the 4 and 40 is dead. It's now in the 4 and 4 it's you. You're training and upskilling constantly.                        And on your resume, you've been at a couple of the places, Google, Novartis, that are really known for being incredible places to invest in the skills of its employees and really take that work seriously. So you have a lot of experience on that. So now you come to Cornerstone OnDemand as the chief learning officer. Tell us what is Cornerstone OnDemand? I know it's a talent experience platform, but I'm sure a lot of folks are asking what does that mean and why was this such an interesting next step for you on your career path?Ramos:             Yeah, first and foremost, I've known Cornerstone since, oh gosh, 2003 when it had a different name at its startup, I recall. So I've always had certain levels of familiarity with the company as it grew, became more and more popular. And I've always been somewhat of a geek, for lack of better words, related to this thing called learning technologies. So I've always been very familiar with the company, and interestingly, when I came on board at Novartis where Cornerstone was already implemented as the learning management system, I got to know the technology, its value, its impact, as well as the company in a far more detailed and wonderful and granular way to a certain degree, granular in the sense of we really needed to make sure that we were looking at our learning platforms at scale and making sure that we're always thinking about as modern approaches.                        And it's not about always being the cool, shiny corporate learning entity in the block, but to stay competitive and to think about skills and to think about data. And now I'm thinking about AI and so forth. How do we really make sure that we're always on that cutting edge? So in a way, that's how I think about Cornerstone, is really providing those human performance and worker development and building one's individual personal career platform in a variety of different ways using modern technologies as well as having a strong ecosystem broadly in terms of, oh gosh, there's over 7,000 customers, over 102, 103 million learners that leverage and use and benefit from Cornerstone's applications.                        The other side of your question too, which is I think super fascinating is so I've never worked for a vendor per se. And so I had followed Cornerstone, as I mentioned for many years, Michael, but it wasn't until I was at Novartis that I got, again, a lot closer. And I kept on mentioning it to myself in terms of my own career aspirations, there's that company I want you to win in order for me to guide you to win. Can I better influence from a customer's perspective where the company might be headed? So can I provide any advice? Can I provide any use cases? Can I provide any reassurance that looking at it from a client's lens for which I held for three years plus, how can I help the company?                        And the last thing to that too is given the scale of Cornerstone, can I reach far more people than what I could have done in my prior jobs? Google, when I left was around 90,000 Googlers. Novartis, when I left was about 110,000 Novartians. But if Cornerstone's reach is over 100 million. And if I can perhaps provide a little bit of benefit related to my background and my experiences and my perspectives, being able to really benefit the world, so to speak, at that greater scale was just really, really exciting to me.Horn:                Makes sense. And I'd love you to go a click deeper because you mentioned the applications that Cornerstone brings to helping companies on that journey and influencing those a 102 million folks that you have connection to. What do those sets of applications look like? Because I don't think Cornerstone is providing the learning itself, it's more the platform through which you engage and find the learning and set your goals and things of that nature, is my understanding. But I'd love to hear more about what that suite of solutions looks like.Ramos:             Yeah, I think the best and easiest way to describe it is when you think about a worker's or a learner's journey from hire to retire, and maybe even beyond, where does a learning platform or a talent platform or a build your skills and track that from the right data perspective platform, where does that reside? So we have an umbrella that we call our talent experience platform or TXP, and that pretty much encompasses this hire to retire journey or perspective. And then within this talent experience platform or TXP stack, there's our traditional learning management system, which does provide a variety of different content and a variety of different support, particularly if you're thinking about the type of compliance training that is required or this other type of record keeping related to one's portfolio, one's transcript and so forth, and a variety of other kind of features. But it's your traditional, and I think very innovative learning management system.                        On the other side of this is the X in TXP, right? And that's about the experience. And so we we're very, very fortunate to bring onboard into our family EdCast, and this happened roughly a year and a half, a couple years ago. And basically this now provides this really nice harmony or compliment to, one would say the administrative management side of a learning management system or LMS with the various experiences that might not be driven per se by the company, corporate down. It's really how do we build out those experiences, bottoms up, employee or worker up. So how do we democratize, or actually how do we provide that level of control and accountability to a certain degree where the average worker, for lack of better words, they're in a lot more control of their hire to retire journey rather than here's the pathway that the company says you must take.                        Well, actually, no, I want actually a lot more control out of my personal and professional and vocational pathway. So the learning experience platform, the LXP from EdCast, that provides that nice harmony, that nice balance, and then somewhere in the middle that's very journey related is our version of a talent marketplace or opportunity marketplace, as we call it. And this is basically helping, as you mentioned beforehand, how does one think about re-skilling or a new opportunity or a new project or a new gig, or how can I trial? Exactly what it's like to be a data scientist if I'm a salesperson. How do I trial that for two weeks, two months, whatever that might be? Maybe receive some mentorship, maybe receive some voluntary opportunities in between.                        But those are three predominant aspects of our solutions, so to speak. The traditional LMS, the LXP and opportunity marketplace, and there's so many subsets that glue all of this together. Our skills layer, our data layers, our content layers and a variety of the pieces that really harmonize and glue this all together.                        The last thing I'd say is a common theme related to what I just described, it's interoperability. We need to make sure that all these platforms within the stack, the technology, the applications that they all can communicate and share skilled data and learner data and proficiency data and content data across one's journey rather than looking at a pocket application or a pocket platform from a different provider along the way. So the interoperability is a big piece piece.                        And then I'd also say there's a really, really important effort related to connectivity and being open, because the brutal reality is many, many companies, SMBs, small size businesses, large enterprises, they may already have something in place or they may want to bring on something totally different to bolt on, to TXP. And so we need to make sure that that interoperability and that openness is also built into the program.Work CycleHorn:                Super helpful. And as we shift into our work cycle, the next segment here, I will say we've seen something similar that you just laid out, which is you mentioned how a lot of employees don't want to just do the career progression as the latter has been defined. They're looking to make progress as they define it, and they're much more active right now on it. And part and parcel on that is there's a big push, my sense is in corporate America right now to really unlock growth and mobility for their current employees and that they see this as really mission critical in some ways. And I'd love you to A, comment on do you see that same trend that it seems that the learning agenda is much more important for companies today than it was maybe a decade ago? And secondly, sort of why is this such a big push and why do they see it as so core and strategic, if you do see this as a big trend?Ramos:             Yeah, maybe that can combine that together. So we're coming out of the pandemic where different definitions of work are being required and let's not go into the work remote versus work in the office thing. I think what's interesting is the pandemic and successful ways of working, we learned so much from that unfortunate situation, and one of the things that we did learn was individuals do need to have a lot more control over their work in the ideal state, but thinking about learning and one's individual development, they need to, again, kind of control that and call it democratization or whatever word choice you want. I think that's just a big reality.                        The other reality too is there are companies that probably overhired and we know some names and there's tons of others where now they need to think about, well, work is changing and maybe my workforce is not ready or capable or organized in such a way to deal with this new world. So they need to think about either shifting their folks internally or possibly in a worst case scenario, even letting some other folks go. And I think the third vector here, the third piece so to speak, it's all the macroeconomics that are totally unpredictable. I don't care who you talk to, it's not like everybody has a crisp, right, accurate and relevant crystal ball.                        So I think when you munge all this together, for many, many companies, the smart thing to do is really to think about how do I develop the people that I already have rather than dealing with a lot of these other unknown factors or uncontrollable factors. So this whole mobility piece than the re-skilling across different job roles and different job families versus up-skilling, making sure that one role or that one job family is just increasing their proficiency. I think this horizontal move is actually becoming, as you mentioned, it's a lot more current, it's a lot more validated.                        And I think if anything, it's probably aligned with the individual's need to control their aspirations. So if I'm a sales person using that example again, and let's just say I want to be a data scientist, I would prefer doing that in the company that I already have been around, that ideally I appreciate and maybe identify with its culture, so on and so forth. They got a great team, have a great management, whatever. Well, let's really take care of what's right in front of you now. And so that mobility piece is interesting.                        And then we can talk about maybe in another segment of the show today, what are some of the advances related to new learning technologies that are really helping to support re-skilling more so than just vertical, what I call vertical upskilling. So it's a huge, huge, huge opportunities, and I think the temperament of society and the temperament of for-profit and maybe even non-profit companies, it's happening right now. So we're seeing a lot of cool things that are happening.Horn:                So let's go into that, right? In terms of the technology stack and what's changing and helping companies do that more efficacious, perhaps more real time on-demand, what are you seeing that has you really excited at the moment around the changing nature of the technology itself?Ramos:             Yeah, I know that we'll definitely get into the generative AI topic. I think for me, be a more simplistic perspective. One of the things that I've seen is a big, big, big trend, and it kind of ties to the prior subjects, Michael, about workers and learners having more control, the democratization piece and so forth. One thing that I see is really kicking off, and it's not overly generative AI or AI dependence, even though it can be, is this whole aspect of user generated content or UGC. And the whole intention here is if you really want to, for lack of better words, unleash the expertise or the talent that you have in your company for up-skilling or maybe re-skilling or maybe just to keep their current state, you want to give that type of recognition, or maybe from a knowledge management perspective, you want to capture all that tacit knowledge, that tacit information, those unique insights.                        I think it's fascinating in the sense that a lot of companies now are really starting to think more about how can I leverage the expertise within my own corporation, my own workers, to help build the type of learning or informational or instructional assets to support the growth of the company. So I came from Novartis, in Novartis, we deployed a learning experience platform EdCast before the Cornerstone acquisition. And so we were just looking at EdCast as a solo opportunity. And because similar to a lot of large science-based companies, we had a lot of scientists, researchers and so forth working at the molecular level to build new medicines.                        And what's fascinating is a lot of these folks had so much expertise related to the science of building phenomenal medicines. It was never really unleashed. And so we have the opportunity to use user generated content at Novartis to identify the right expert, have them dip into creating a UGC asset, would be as simple as recording something cool in your phone, putting together a deck or maybe identifying some cool paper, then adding your perspectives to it, and then how to release that asset.                        And I don't know the specific numbers, but when I left, the total number of consumed learning hours was far more leaning towards user-generated assets, from our own people than from other providers externally. And that one I think was a huge sign. And this ties into this whole aspect of we live in a creator society, so anybody now can create something pretty darn cool for a variety of different reasons and then possibly monetize it. So we really, really tapped into that.                        Then the other thing I'd say now thinking about from a gen AI perspective, just kind of high level, then I'll stop because maybe we're going to kind of break it down, but it wasn't until OpenAI, the company OpenAI, the company that they released ChatGPT 3.5 last November, and then 4.0, just a few months later, this whole thing kind of took off. And now there's a lot of other players in the space, Microsoft, Google with Google Bard. And anyway, what was a fascination and what was shiny, it's now real.                        And so what does it mean to us, at least at a high level perspective, from a talent, from an HR and from a learning perspective, it is about providing a better experience. It is about providing a more engaging and adaptive set of learning opportunities for folks. I kind of call that the stuff that learners see. Maybe it's the menu of stuff that you would see in the kitchen. So I'm a learner, here's the stuff I want to do. I want things to be personalized, adaptive, tailored, whatever.                        And the other way to look at it, which I think is the huge untapped opportunity that I don't hear a lot about in a lot of the AI things that I track has to do with what's happening, not in the kitchen per se, but what's happening behind the scenes. I'm sorry, not in the restaurant per se, but what's happening in the kitchen, what's happening behind the scenes? How is the menu and the tactics and the ingredients and the pots of pans, are they also being far more matured from an efficiency standpoint, from an operation standpoint, from an automation standpoint? So you've got this really, really interesting blend in terms of the benefits of generative AI for learning and also for other functional aspects, whether it's formal HR or talent and beyond.SpecialsHorn:                So let's shift into our third segment on specials and use that window actually as our question into this, which is you just talked about user generated content as a big piece of this, which I think is really interesting because it strikes me that maybe 80% of the foundation of skills are common across companies, but it's really that 20% that special sauce, the cultural specifics of working in a particular organization. That's what really distinguishes, and that can get really expensive unless you make it easy for your internal employees to create learning content and learning trainings.                        But of course, doing that well is really hard. And it strikes me that AI, you couple that with user generated content, all of a sudden you can take the best of learning science, couple it with the know-how of the folks inside your organization and create a lot more reps at creating really good modules to help people learn different skills, whether it's horizontal or vertical. We can do both now actually far more easily. Are you seeing that right now or does that sound right to you? Where do you expect that to go?Ramos:             Oh, absolutely. In the restaurant, learner facing or behind the scenes, the stuff that's happening in the middle, and I think UGC is a really interesting proposition because I think it's happening in the middle in the sense that the learner, the guy or gal in the restaurant, they have the power to build any one of those awesome items on the menu that would've traditionally come from somebody behind the scenes. But now they can use the behind the scenes new areas and functionality of generative AI, such as doing needs analysis a lot faster when I have no clue about what needs analysis is, because I'm a regular quote, unquote, "user" or individual that doesn't know the instructional domain or whatever.                        But now I can do rapid needs analysis, now I can do rapid investigation of what's the type of learning outcome that I should have. Now I can use my access to a skills taxonomy, a skills catalog, or just a skill in general to make sure that we have the ability to identify the right content at the right proficiency level for that learning asset that you're building. And then we talk about all the different modality stuff, building really cool videos and building really cool photos from scratch or whatever the heck it might be, doing your own audio, creating your own music from scratch.                        So yeah, what has been the traditional model and expensive model in many cases where the folks behind the scene, content developers, instructional designers, so forth, they had to go through the art and the science of building something really, really awesome. But it did take time and there's some complexity. And then you have to deal with subject matter experts to validate and validate and validate and validate. Well, if you can grab all those different items, everything from understanding how to design something correctly, to validating it with SMEs subject matter experts, but have, quote, unquote, "the machine" do that for you, that's an efficiencies play.                        But I don't want to send the message that the machine should be doing stuff for you all the time and at X, Y, Z level of depth or detail. I think it's so important to make sure that there's still the human, there's still humanity involved because the machine is probably not going to be correct to begin with. But if you do this thing called smart questioning or prompting, and there's a whole science behind that called prompt engineering, but if you ask the right questions against the first response that the machine gives you, okay, how about this and this and this to validate, you look at the second response, well, in mood from 60% accuracy to maybe 67% accuracy, you refine, you refine, you refine. Then you meet something that's generally going to be in your ballpark in terms of relevance.                        So that human in your play, you working with the machine is phenomenal. There's a great saying, and I'll stop. There's a great saying, well, there's a great set of questions. Is AI going to replace my job? And the saying that I love the most, is AI going to replace my job? No, but the human that has more skills regarding AI probably will.Horn:                And so that actually takes me to a question I had a little bit further down the line, but I'm going to bring it up here because it strikes me that there's so many people saying AI is going to replace jobs or it's going to replace functions, et cetera, et cetera. And even back as far as Peter Drucker and the effective executive some 50 plus years ago, he said, "Well, the computer replaced management." And I think the clear conclusion is actually it made management more important because it increased the velocity of decisions that individuals had to make on a daily basis.                        And AI, it strikes me, it could have a similar effect based on what you just described, is that the power of the human with the AI tools really increases the velocity, if you will, of information flow, of activity, of efficiency and creates more need maybe for human capacity and all this, which of course creates more need for human learning and training for people to be able to do this new set of skills and so forth. Are the companies that you're working with, do they see this dynamic? Where are they not seeing it? What's it going to take for companies to realize that this learning agenda is actually going to be core, if you will, to their strategic advantage in the industries in which they work?Ramos:             Yeah, that's a great question, Michael. So Cornerstone is deep into really understanding what's our play, what's our perspective with generative AI and all the different AI families, and where do we play, how do we win? But ultimately, how do we provide even that much more value to our customers or new customers from a prospect perspective? And it's interesting, we did a survey just earlier this month in June, where we surveyed 25 top CLOs and heads of learning within our Cornerstone community, and we kind of ask them the same thing. And what's really, really interesting is regardless of their region, their location or the company size, one of the things that we found was just interesting is everyone is starting to tap into it to some degree.                        I'm just looking over here in terms of some of the responses that I just happen to have up. A lot of folks are already close to 25, almost 35%, we're already toying with it, playing with it, experimenting with it. So that level of, I guess, accommodation in terms of what they want internally, it's already kind of kicked off. I do think it's also interesting in the sense of people kind of get it in terms of the benefits, but they don't know exactly where to start. And the other thing too, I was just really, really fortunate to have an article out in Harvard Business Review, HBR, really coming back to your question about, so where do I start? Where do I play? And this kind of ties back to some of the insights we gathered from some of our key customers, and this was written with a co-writer colleague of mine, Marc Zao-Sanders, at a company called Filtered. They do a lot of great AI and data and content focus.                        But my point was very simple in a sense of where's the demand? That's like the Y axis and you compare the demand to the risk. So in other words, if you have something that maybe is of high demand, in other words, you're going to be able to really test and experiment and explore ideally at scale with a good size base, but where is there less risk. So if you can have something with a high demand with less risk, maybe that's where you should start. Because again, whether it's ChatGPT 4.0 or the current version of Bard, or you name it, still ain't there. This whole term about AI hallucinating, it's becoming a former minimized, but it's still there. So you need to be able to start in an area where there's actually less risk, which I think is the big key here related to this matrix. But you still want to play, you are going to play with in an area where there's enough user base, enough data to work with as well.Closing TimeHorn:                No, it makes a lot of sense. So let's shift into our last segment of the show, closing time, if you will, get to look a little bit around the corner and sort of wrap up some thoughts here. And the one that I'd love you to talk to, because you sort of hinted at it a bunch of times around helping companies get started down this pathway, making it easier for them to involve their employees, creating content, all the rest. But I do think it should be said that a lot of companies, they still have this sort of old school mindset, if you will, of, "Well, if I train them, they'll go somewhere else. I'm making them more valuable. I want them coming to me already prepared. I want someone coming into the entry level role that already has experience." You see all those sorts of things.                        There's this friction in the system still around learning in companies. Do you see that going away? How do you talk to companies about that friction and show them, no, this is a good investment. This is going to help you strategically. It's probably going to help you retain your employees, probably going to help you move them into the roles that they want that they're more excited about.Ramos:             Yeah, you reminding me, Michael of Sir Richard Branson's quote of, "What if I train my people and they leave?" And his comment was, "Well, what if you don't train them and they stay?" And I think it's a very reality based scenario is that if you want to stay competitive, if you want to stay loyal to your people, if you want to really strengthen your brand from an attraction as well as a retention standpoint, this is a necessity. It's a requirement for survivability, just to be very honest. So how do you get there? Getting back to the core of your question. Some companies that are maybe a little hesitant and kind of setting aside the two by two decision matrix that I mentioned beforehand, at some point you do need to recognize that it's in the best interest of your people to at least experiment and trial and test and prototype and MVP or whatever, whether it's generative AI, whether it's user generated content, if there's something that you think is worth trying and you think it can be centered around or maybe built around or built by your people, do an experiment.                        There's a lot of really great recipe books related to how to experiment with minimal risk and with moderate to maximum controls. And so experiment where you must give it a try. The other piece that I said with that is let your workers do it. I mean, don't have management, don't have the folks in the castle, for lack of better words, dictate or mandate, Hey, you must kind of do this stuff. No, open it up. Do it from a more grassroots perspective, but let your folks kind of do that. Then give them the accountability, give them the charge, maybe give them those small budgets as necessary to really kind of take control of that. So I think that's important.                        And then even when we come down with all this generative AI stuff, I think using OpenAI, the company who put together ChatGPT, I believe the 3.5 version, which was released last November, I believe it's still free. And the cost on a monthly basis of ChatGPT 4.0 was the latest and greatest. I think it's like 20 bucks a month. So whether it's free or 20 bucks a month, there's no reason why you can't go out and just experiment. Just see what it's all about. Ask it sophisticated questions.                        But remember my comment regarding smart questioning or prompts, don't settle for the first response, ask it again, validate, validate. Look at it from a right hand view or left hand view angle, whatever that might be. But just try it because a lot of this stuff's for free. In fact, a lot of the different kind of modality builders, building video from scratch, building cool photos from text-based inputs, building music, a lot of that stuff's free. So experiment, try, because the stuff might not be free in the next few months. So definitely take advantage of the timing of where we're at.Horn:                Makes sense. Marc, thanks so much for joining us on the Future of Education. Really appreciate you being here and sharing these insights from the corporate learning world and the work that Cornerstone on-Demand keeps doing.Ramos:             Thank you so much for the invite, Michael, and really excited to join you. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Kelly Smith, an entrepreneur and founder of one of the hottest microschool networks, Prenda, joined me to talk about his new book, “A Fire to Be Kindled: How a Generation of Empowered Learners Can Lead Meaningful Lives and Move Humanity Forward.” In our conversation, Kelly shares everything from an update on how Prenda is doing to some of the big themes around his book, which is designed not for educators, but for individuals—to help them become lifelong learners and maximize their potential.The book follows the philosophy behind Prenda Learning and takes readers through what it means to be an empowered learner—followed by the key components in a learning process: to dare greatly, figure it out, learning over comfort, start with heart, and a foundation of trust. I pushed Kelly on how to overcome the barriers in our DNA that cause us to try to save energy and avoid doing hard things like learning. We then ended on a question of the importance of making this real so people can put it into action and connect it to their everyday lives.As always, subscribers can listen to the audio, watch the video, or read the transcript below.Michael Horn:   The messages in this book are ones that resonate for any individual regardless of your life stage. You're a kid, you're an educator, you're an adult living life, this has messages for you. So first, Kelly, it's great to see you. I always love when we get to spend time together. Thanks for joining us.Kelly Smith:      Thanks for having me, Michael. It's good to be here.Morning WarmupHorn:                So we're going to start off with our morning warmup. We got four parts of the show, morning warmup, work cycle, our specials, and then our closing time. Morning warmup is just a little bit about Kelly and the Prenda Learning that you've started. Just tell us a little bit about what it is for those that don't know.Smith:              Thanks for that, and excited to be part of morning warmup. So I think you just said a second ago that my life's work is helping empower learners, helping people see themselves differently, and I hope we get a chance to talk about that, but it wasn't always that way. I studied physics and nuclear science. I was trying to make fusion work, which if you're following this, it doesn't work. I did a whole bunch of careers in technology and software and got to this point as a father of four kids, myself and somebody who was, at the time, volunteering at the library to teach kids computer programming of all things. I had this moment where I just started thinking about the questions, what is it learning and what is formal institutions? And I think very much an outsider perspective on this, although I, of course, attended school like everyone else, but it got to this point where I became obsessed and that led me to do something crazy, which in 2018, was to pull my kid out of school and invite my friends to do the same.                        And I started a micro school around my kitchen table. So it was me and seven kids. Really, I was reading your book, I think the word, micro school, you had uttered and a couple other people had talked about, but it wasn't huge yet. And we just put this thing together, personalized learning for mastery is using blended learning. We were doing a lot of projects and inquiry and all the fun things. At first, it was just designed around what made sense to me intuitively as an adult who likes to learn. Eventually, I found that there's lots of great research and people who have thought a lot more deeply about these things than I have. I'd say one of the interesting differentiators between something like homeschool and a micro school is this inherent connection, this human piece. We were together in-person every day.                        My role as the learning guide in this class, as the adult, was to know and care about and understand the motivation of each of these kids and then be able to provide an environment in-person where they could take the risks and do the repeated failure and all the things that learners do. And that became just a fascinating semester that led to more semesters and more people doing it. The COVID pandemic came and exploded the whole concept. And since that, we've continued to grow. So we're serving something like 2,000 students today, really, all across the United States, but strongest here in Arizona, which is where I started out.Horn:                Wow. And if the model is the same as it was a few years ago, you're partnering, a lot of times, with existing districts or charter schools or whomever, and then serving students, as I recall, it's seven kids around a table often, learning at their own path and pace, with, in your case, you were the guide there, but obviously, you're setting it up around these communities across the country. Is that still what the model looks like or how has it evolved?Smith:              So picture a small group, we tend to cap them at 10. You'll have an adult and 10 kids, typically, close in age, but not necessarily the same age, so the mixed age group. Research would all apply here. Older kids teaching younger kids, kids with different skill levels and proficiency in mastery, trying to personalize as much as possible, trying to provide as many choices as we can. We're pretty high on agency around here. That's the academic model that stayed consistent. One of the areas where you'll see some change, for those who have heard me talk about this in the past, is the goal has always been to invite as many people in and make this as accessible as we possibly can.                        So in contrast to folks that maybe start a private school and charge $20,000 for tuition, we're saying, let's see if we can make this free to families. In the past, that has involved partnering with districts and charter schools, and we still do those things. There's a new opportunity now with a wave of school choice programs across the country to do that in a way that's more direct or simpler. And we've really leaned in and participated in those programs. So you'll see us in a lot of these states that have large ESA programs in universal school choice, not because we have any sort of political slant. We really don't. Our goal is to make this model available and accessible to as many people as we can reach.Work CycleHorn:                That's great to hear. So let's shift into our work cycle and get into the guts of this conversation, which is not about Prenda, but it's based off of a lot of the insights you had in Prenda and as well as... And you detailed this in the book around those early days, coaching people on coding in the libraries and so forth, but a fire to be kindled how a generation of empowered learners can lead meaningful lives and move humanity forward. It's a big title. I'm just curious, why write a book? What are your hopes for the book? What do you hope it accomplishes?Smith:              Even after all this time doing it and thinking about this stuff, there's this voice in my head that's like, who do you think you are? This is audacious to make the claim I'm making, which is, basically, that we, as a civilization, don't yet appreciate and understand what real learning is, what learning can be, the level and degree of power. And I try to give lots of examples throughout the book of people who have discovered power and purpose and accomplishment and achievement and contribution all through this idea of really becoming a learner. And the first chapter goes right into it and says, you might think you know what that means because you have got this degree and you can point to these courses or these certifications. And I'm saying, those things are fine, but real learning transcends all of that. It's down to questions and answers and skills that are applied and applicable in whatever you are trying to do with your life.                        And so that's, I think, a pretty big claim. It's inviting people to rethink their relationship with learning, think about themselves as a learner in a new and different way. And hopefully, it's exciting and people see that and think, yeah, I've tasted that. I know what that feels like. I don't think it's going to be totally new to a lot of the people, for example, listening to your podcast. But I think the hope is that we can double down on that and say, all these reasons, maybe to hedge that or hedge against it or do something different, let's be just explicit about it. Those aren't really what I'm about. As a learner, I'm about understanding myself, setting a big goal, and then going about learning in a way that really leads me to what I put in the subtitle, of a life of meaning and the contribution that will help move the species forward. So I really believe that, I believe, in a maybe irrational degree, in humans, and that's what I'm inviting people to do through this book.Horn:                Well, and your optimism in the book comes out loud and clear because you talk a lot about what education can enable in a future state and things of that nature. And if you close your eyes, what do you imagine society to be, and things of that nature. It strikes me, you also do a lot of work to decouple this notion of learning from schooling, which you just talked about there, really grounded in what's the progress you're trying to make as an individual. And to that end though, I'm curious, as I was reading it, there's a lot of, yes, yes, yes, as I'm reading it, and I was thinking, but he's writing it to me as an individual, not to other educators or people who are thinking of founding schools or people who were thinking of enrolling in schools, like the ones you've created. So I'm just curious about that decision as well, why write it to the individuals as opposed to maybe the education audience?Smith:              It's a great question. There's actually two books, Michael. So this is a funny story, is I said there's a theoretical framework here of what an empowered learner is and how that works. And then once you have that, once you agree with me about that, here's what that means for the classroom, for a learning environment, for setting things up, and it gets into a lot more. There's a lot more PJ references in the second half of the book. Well, my editor said, you're writing two different books to two different groups, and it's not really one book. So as painful as writing, and you've written books, there's this moment where it's like, you're right, I need to decide what's my main message. One of the things we've seen with Prenda is, people who buy into it all the way, who are empowered learners themselves, it's almost... I would say, number one is being able to start with heart to see human beings.                        Number two is be an empowered learner yourself. And everything else, I will give you, you can use those things and create amazing learning environments. But if I had to pick, if I had to get really focused and prioritized about the change I want to make in the world, let's get more empowered learners thinking about this, in these ways, and then we can work with them, I think there's probably a lot more still to say, but I felt like there's folks like you and many others that are out there communicating to those people. I felt like what might be missing is just a deep, almost spiritual connection of, what is this? What are we really trying to do with this anyway because once you have that, and you take an example like, you used the words a second ago, learning versus schooling, there's this agency question of somebody who's decided to learn something, they're unstoppable.                        You literally can't get in their way. And we've all seen this working with kids. And then there's somebody who has decided not to learn something, and it's just feels completely ineffective. Every attempt of carrots and sticks and all the programs I want to put together around them, it's really, if they're not with me on this, it's not going to happen. And so what I really believe is we as adults need to lead the way on this. Let's be learners ourselves. And that means this is hard for educators sometimes, it means being wrong, it means not knowing, not having the answer. It means changing our mind. It means asking a kid for help with something. I mean, there's all these things that really model the curiosity and persistence of a learner, and I'm inviting everybody to do that.Horn:                Well, and it does it great. Although, I will also say there are some great tips for educators too, the three questions that you have that you ought to ask instead of leading with the answer and things of that nature throughout the book. Part of the book is talking about this empowered learner, which is, obviously, in the subhead, we've talked about this, is there's a whole chapter on it. And one of the things you talk about is something that a lot of cognitive scientists, like Daniel Willingham and others talk about, which is, people choose not to learn a lot of times because we're biologically wired to conserve energy and not learn.                        And you go through all the reasons in the book, you give the science. And then you're asking the reader or the learner to make this leap. You can actually overcome this and rewire in some sense. What I would love to know is, what gives you the confidence that we as individuals can overcome that? Where do you draw on that strength to say, we can overcome millennium of DNA and inheritance of evolution that have asked us to find the lazy way out, if you will?Smith:              I mean, it's massive, what we're up against, as human beings, and so I want to acknowledge that. And let's give ourselves some grace and be patient with ourselves as we try to do that. But the reason I'm confident is because I've seen it, I've seen it firsthand over and over again. And I'm thinking of one of the girls from one of my early semesters, friends with my daughter, incredible, bright, just fun young woman. I think she was a third-grader at the time I got her, and she had struggled with math. She was operating grade levels behind. We were using, at the time, Khan Academy for the day in and day out, what we call conquer mode. So here's your lesson, here's the formative assessment, you're answering questions, and she's getting them wrong, and I could see her resorting to all the tactics, like making jokes, distraction, just clicking through, rage clicking through Khan Academy, all the things that you do to get out of the incredibly painful feeling of not knowing something.                        Our brains don't like it, and they're working so hard against us. Anyway, over a time, and it took months, she gets to this point where she's engaging with each problem. She misses it and she'll read the hint or the explanation of why she missed it. And I see her building that muscle of being a learner and taking risks and being okay being wrong, which was a lot of what it came down to. And I watched this transformation happen in this little girl, and then the next week, and this is where it got crazy for me, is we go to softball and I'm sitting by her parents and our daughters are on the same team, and her dad's like, she just never swings. She just sat there last season and every pitch just watched it go by, and she gets up to bat and she just takes a huge cut at the very first pitch that came. I don't even think she hit it.                        She might've struck out, but to see her posture literally change in a totally different domain, to me, it was not coincidental. It's part of her growth as a person and as an empowered learner, is to be okay taking those risks and accepting the fact that you're going to have failures along the way. I've seen it happen. I've seen it for her, and I've seen it for lots of other people, where... In a way, that's part of why Prenda is K-8, is I actually think it's easier, the younger you are. Writing this book is like, hopefully, people that are maybe a little more set in their ways will believe me on this and take some risks. But I feel highly confident. This is not only possible but it's necessary, it's what's needed. I mean, the limitations are all on ourselves. We're limiting ourselves every single day, so unlock that and be you. This starts to sound like self-help, at some point. And I'm not really a self-help guy, but I believe, strongly, in what humans are capable of.Horn:                Well, there is that element of it, and what you're just describing is far transfer, taking something that I've learned in one domain and then applying it somewhere else. And essentially, you're giving a process to do that over and over again. You have, Dare Greatly, Figure It Out, Learning Over Comfort, Start With Heart, Foundation of Trust and Making It Real. Let's maybe drill into the first one of those, which is the Daring Greatly, which is, basically, your assertion, and you have the analogy of climbing a mountain or things of that nature, in the book, but essentially, this notion that, hey, set a goal and say, I'm going to go... It starts with a big goal, and then yes, you're going to plot out the little steps, but this is how you do that to make that first big commitment, if you will, to learning about something that you care about. The curiosity that I had, as I was reading this chapter, was, is this concept equivalent in some sense to what cognitive psychologists would call agency, teaching people that they have agency? Or is it something else in your mind?Smith:              The thing about agency alone, agency in a vacuum is just, yes, you need to make the choices, and I believe very, very strongly in agency. I think what's interesting, you need to connect it to something, and I think the psychologists talk a lot about motivation. I mean, it's something you can read. Daniel Pink writes about this stuff and others. But to have this idea of why, and the classic example from an Algebra 2 classroom, where you're frustrated with solving for the vertices of a parabola and hyperbola or something, and you're like, why, teacher? Why are we doing this? And there's two paths, really, the teacher can give, is like, well, you're going to use this in your life, which is a lie for most of those things and for most of those kid, or you can say you won't use it in your life.                        I think there's a third answer here, which is because you could be this concept of empowered learner, and that's going to look different, literally, different for every person, and it doesn't always include every technical skill. I care less about the specifics of that, but it's more about, and you'll see this in that chapter, I talk about Socrates a little bit, and just this idea of a real understanding of yourself, your strengths, your interests, what's the inspirational Mark Twain quote of, there's these two days that matter, there's the day you're born and the day you find out why. And it's this purpose, this idea of big purpose. It should feel scary and audacious, and I know these things about myself, and therefore, I can set a big goal. And then it's about taking that goal seriously and backing into a plan.                        Well, then what does that actually look like? What do I do today if my goal, when I'm 35, is to be a brain surgeon? There's an answer to that question. It's almost math, and whether you end up being a brain surgeon or not doesn't matter to me. It's in the process of doing those steps today. You are building the muscle that will then transfer to the new mountain that you choose if you end up deciding to do a different thing. And so I think there's some value to always having a mountain that you're climbing and being explicit about that for yourself and your friends and everybody around you to hold yourself accountable.SpecialsHorn:                Yeah, no, that makes sense. At the risk of having you summarize your book, I don't want you to do that, but I'll ask one more question on the process. Just, it's been interesting to me since reading your book, some of the language has crept into my own way of talking about what I'm doing or even saying to my daughters, hey, what you just did there was figure it out. You didn't know. You went into the deep end. We didn't know how to navigate this, and you figured it out. And so that's been interesting to me as well, is how concrete these ideas are. And the language is something that you can just easily adopt to make it almost do that inner voice as you're trying to pursue something and say, oh, what's happening right now, this is uncomfortable, this is really difficult.                        I'm going to choose to embrace the suck and get into the learning. And so you have all these phrases throughout. Are these things you're using in the micro schools that you've tested? Are these things that are like, Kelly, this is how you think? Where does the inspiration for all that come from?Smith:              No, a lot of it's institutional. We had a moment early in Prenda, actually, where we sat down and said, what are we all about? What are we trying to do? I mean, that was really where this empowered learner concept came from. And in fact, I said, I don't want one of those mission statements with semicolons in it, so we need a mission statement that's just a few words. And we came up with one that has two words, and this is still true, Prenda, as an organization, exists to empower learners.                        That's literally the goal of the company. So that meant something to us. We couldn't have articulated, at the time, what that was, but it's a phrase that continues to exist, a concept across all of Prenda. And you'll even hear kids talking about it. The first five chapters after that are the core values of Prenda. I mean, Dare Greatly is one of our core values. Figure It Out is one of our core values. So as we put that together, those are meaningful. They have shared meaning across a community that includes five to 80 year old people and working together on these things. I mean, everybody adds their own flair to it, which I really appreciate.Closing TimeHorn:                No, that makes sense. So as we go into closing time, and last question here, you go through this process in the book, and then you end with this chapter on Making It Real. And it's interesting, when I read the table of contents, I was expecting this to be, okay, rooted in real world projects or something like that. And instead, it's about how to make the process really real to your life. But I'd actually love you to abstract that other piece of it, because what strikes me about your learning model more generally is it's like this perfect blend of direct instruction and organic intrinsic progress based on what you're purposeful or excited about or whatever else at that given point.                        You have this really cool blend between the two that seems to me anyway, to hit this practical sweet spot. And I'm just curious how you've come to that model because it seems to buck a lot of traditional schools, but also frankly, the far extreme of unstructured journey around. So you seem to have hit this really interesting sweet spot between the two. And I'd love you just to reflect on that as we close out.Smith:              I'd love to say that was on purpose. I mean, I really entered this as an outsider and a novice. So a lot of it was just what was intuitive to me. I mean, over time, as these concepts gained words, I guess, in my... I was able to talk about them and notice them. There was this contrast that just continued to appear between what I had received. And so if you look at something like Dare Greatly and have a purpose, I had set this goal in high school to get all As without ever getting above a 91%. So I used my time and energy to do that. As I look back, it's like, what a stupid waste of my time. What could I have accomplished? What could I have done? If anyone in my life had said, here, you're capable of more than that, some invitation to set some bigger goal.                        It literally just never occurred to me, and I never did it. And so I think what I'm really trying to do is align an environment with these principles that I believe to be true. Growth mindset's real, Learning Over Comfort's real. I mean, these are real concepts, and how can you just, structurally, allow those things to happen, which you just can't, if it's all about, I've got this list of standards and I've got to get it into their heads. I mean, this goes back to the very title of the book. This is a reference to Plutarch, which I'm sure all of your listeners are well familiar with. But the system itself, what your district curriculum is telling you to do, what your legislative, the code, the laws that are passed, it's all telling you to fill vessels, even down to like, you should or should not talk about this particular social science theory.                        We're going to teach kids to think this. And that's all filling vessels, filling vessels. It's so wired in to the system. And so what I'm saying is, what if instead we start with kindling fires? What if it's about helping an individual make a decision to care about learning, to own it, and then do that work, which as we point out in the book over and over again, this is not easy. This is very messy. It's hard. It takes an enormous amounts of just time and frustration and the emotional work of it, but it's worth it because that's the type of humans that we need as a species to continue moving forward. So that's my hope, is people will shake things up a little bit and choose to be empowered learners themselves and hopefully, do that for others as well.Horn:                Well, it's a heck of a dream and a heck of a way to get people started on it, is to read this book. It's extremely accessible, quick read, that I think is helpful. As I said, the language has seeped into my own dialogue now, both inner monologue, I should say, as well as dialogue with my kids. So Kelly, thank you for writing it, but also, thank you for spreading the work through Prenda Learning, which I'm glad to hear, it's expanded to 2,000 students and continuing to grow and make an impact in the lives of the individuals that we need for them and society. So thank you so much for being here on the Future of Education.Smith:              Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

As students, parents, and policymakers question the purpose of high schools, educators worldwide are building novel secondary school designs. What makes them "innovative," however? In this conversation, Shadman Uddin, a master’s Student in Education at Stanford Graduate School of Education, offered that what makes a school innovative is less its adherence to a list of “novel” ideas, but more its outcomes against the things that matter most in society today, which includes knowledge acquisition, but also things like real-world applicability and social and emotional development.Against that backdrop, Ken Montgomery, co-founder of Design Tech High, known as D-Tech, and Keeanna Warren, who just became the CEO of the Purdue Polytechnic High School network, joined me to talk about their school designs, in particular the importance of: * helping students connect to something bigger than the school itself; * offering competency-based learning pathways with a transformed assessment system; * allowing students to find their creative purpose aligned to the common good; * and building a more permeable school that is connected to the community and offers a deep sense of belonging.They also talked about the role of AI (artificial intelligence) and the anxiety that their students feel around its emergence, as well as the barriers that arise to building school models that break the traditional molds—from policy to human capital. Ken and Keeanna also talked about how they’re seeing a lot of energy from parents for new types of schooling—and not the small “C” conservative force for the status quo that parents often fall into.As always, subscribers can listen to the podcast, watch the conversation, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:   Welcome to the Future of Education where we are passionate about building a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their human potential. And to help us think about what that looks like and means today we've got three terrific guests in a format that we haven't typically done in the Future of Education. Where we're going to get to have a little bit of a conversation, a roundtable. We have Ken Montgomery, who I've known for many years. He's the co-founder and executive director at Design Tech High known as d.tech to those of us in the world. We have Keeanna Warren, the assistant executive director of Purdue Polytechnic High School Network, which has gotten a lot of plaudits over the years and we'll talk more about what they do there. And then the person bringing us all together, so to speak, is Shadman Uddin, who's a master's student in education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.                        And Shadman, I'm going to start with you as we launch into... We get four cycles, if you will, on this show. The first one is the morning warmup. And Shadman, you are bringing us all together because for one of your classes, you wrote this paper around next-gen school models, innovative schools, and we got talking as you were doing that. And one of your first questions was, what is an innovative school? If I remember this correctly.                        I had COVID I think at the time, so I had brain fog. And I said, there's a lot of places out there, the Canopy Project, whatever else, that have done this in a variety of ways. But it seems to me innovation... As my friend Rick Hess often says, no one goes into an Apple store and says, “Give me your most innovative iPhone.” They want an iPhone that accomplishes something for them. And innovation is a means not an ends. And so what if we looked at the outcomes and asked, okay. Well, what are the processes that are getting them? So I'm curious how that suggestion landed and what did you learn in the paper?Morning WarmupShadman Uddin: Yeah, totally, Michael. And first of all, I just want to thank you for having us here today. It's really exciting to be in conversation with both you, Ken and Keeanna. This has been a conversation that we've been having now for a few months through this research. It's really great to just have this forum and discuss a lot of the findings that we had in the paper. So before we get really right to your question about how did we define next-gen, I just want to form around a little bit of the team that was behind this and how we came to do this research in and of itself. So it was myself, another couple of students at the Graduate School of Business here at Stanford named Rahul Adhikari and Nikita Sushilkumar. And we were all together in Gloria Lee's class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.                        And all of us were united by this sense of excitement that we had, seeing all of the students and families asking for more innovation in high school across the US and even globally as well with Rahul and Nikita coming from India. And we had this big question of, how are these new innovations that are happening, or at least the ideas that hearing from new school leaders, how are they taking shape and are they successfully scaling? And so we posed that question to Gloria and she was like, "Why don’t we go ahead and do a whole research project around this? Let's find out this answer together.”                        And that really launched this amazing series of conversations. We spoke to over 26 different school leaders and ecosystem builders in what we defined or called the next-gen school space. And ultimately we learned a lot about what are some of the major barriers and what are also some of the key strategies that the highest performing next-gen schools are doing to kind of circumvent and keep growing amidst a lot of the barriers that they face.                        But back to your first question of how did we even decide what was a next-gen or innovative school, and this was where we got caught up for a couple of months honestly. We saw the Transcend Canopy Project that tried to define next-gen by a various set of inputs that they quoted to be different tiers of innovation in next-gen. And what we realized is, one, we were most interested in the scaling strategies and how were the schools surviving and thriving. And we didn't want to get so caught up in more of the intellectual and theoretical debate about what constitutes a next-gen innovation in a school. And so what we did is actually after speaking to you and then Kim Smith at Cambiar Education is we opted to do a different taxonomy or classification for how we thought about next-gen. And what we ended up deciding to do was an outcomes oriented framework.                        So we thought about, okay, what are the outcomes that next-gen or innovative schools are trying to create within the high school landscape today? And then can we look and see what schools across the nation are performing well across those various indicators of outcomes? And so we leaned on Sir Ken Robinson's five educational outcomes that he outlines in his book, Imagine If. Imagining a new way of school, a new way of education. And those five categories are academic, economic, so that's job readiness, social, cultural, and personal. And we saw a number of schools doing different things across those different domains. Some schools focusing on primarily one outcome. But that then allowed us to compile a list of schools that we saw to be high performing in each of these categories. And then we went ahead and started reaching out to school leaders like Ken and Keeanna to learn more about how they were growing and how they were building out their visions.Horn:                Ken, let's go to you on your school model. D.tech is one that I was out at the Bay Area actually still when you launched it. So I got to see some of it up close. But love for you to give the same sort of overview.Ken Montgomery: Yes, thank you. Just like everybody else, I appreciate the time and opportunity to share our story with you all. I think a lot of what was kind of said is same with us. I think that's why we're all here. Definitely, one thing that is really resonating is a lot of people have said that we have all these programs, which I'll get to in a second. But what really separates us is our view of students. Like our view of what students are capable of. The fact that we feel high school is not just preparing you for something, you should do something real while you're actually in high school. And so we say that we exist to provide people the opportunity to do meaningful work, contribute to the common good, and develop their creative purpose. So everything that we do is just aligned towards that.                        We say people, staff and students. And the creative purpose part is becoming even more prevalent because… even more important, as I'm sure we'll talk more about AI, there are a lot of changes. And that's what we say too, is that we don't know how the world is going to change. We just know it's going to change quickly and unpredictably. So we prepare our students to enter that kind of world. So we have five pillars. What makes a design tech school a design tech school? The first one is design thinking. All our students have a four year design lab, design thinking graduation requirement. And they can earn their regular high school diploma from us. Then also an innovation diploma. Which certifies that we worked with Stanford Center for Assessment Learning and Equity about developing rubrics for how you assess creativity, initiative and things like that.                        So if the students take on this additional project, they earn their innovation diploma. And that's tied to design thinking. We're competency based. All of our students, we have an advisory period, all of our students have flexible time during the day and then we also have intercession. And so we are located on Oracle's corporate campus in Redwood City. And that really started... The first connection was our intersession program.                        So three times a year for two weeks, the students take a break from their core classes and basically the Bay Area becomes their classroom. And so one example of that, Oracle employees teach kids computer coding or wearable technology or the internet of things. Or our students might go out to learn how to perform in a rock band or things like that. So it's really just trying to get kids out in the world and have them, like I said, find their creative purpose while contributing to the common good. We try to align everything towards that.                        And we also really are focusing on belonging in terms of, especially with... I think that's something with the next-gen model is like, we've seen the previous system, it has left certain people behind based on their identities and in some cases it was designed to do that. So something I think is essential and if you're thinking about what does the next generation of schools need to do, it needs to have that equity component in it as well.Horn:                Super interesting. And I'm hearing some common themes across the schools obviously, but there's that belief in students that they can do something real while in high school in both your models and you also have connection to something bigger than just the school. Keeanna, obviously the direct linkage with Purdue University. Ken, with Oracle. And this finding of purpose. And, “What is my superpower?” I think was your words, Keeanna, right? For each individual. I'm curious because both of you sort of build in outcomes as you're talking about this. What students are capable of and doing it while they're in school.                        But by the same token, you're also bringing in these project-based learning, design thinking, these elements that people often say are innovative and yet John Dewey or Maria Montessori might have said, “Ah, we thought of that before.” So I'm sort of curious when you think of this frame where Shadman landed around innovative school more focused on the outcomes than what you're doing, if you will, how does that land for you as defining what next-gen really is? Keeanna, why don't you go first and Ken you can follow.Keeanna Warren: Yeah, I think that's a really incredible question because I think one of the things is, honestly if you look at research based practices in teaching and learning, it is you learn by doing and it's not something that we've reinvented. But I think it comes down to really applying best practices but putting students at the center. And it really sounds simple, but I think there is this historic assumption that students aren't capable or want to learn. And I think that is a really big piece about just really centering the learner and it's not innovative in the traditional sense, but using...                        So for example, using technology systems so that you're able to undo and not have to use a master schedule. Those are one of the ways that we apply next-gen learning to the teaching practices that we know that work. Using the science of reading. I mean, none of that is new, but just the implementation of it is really new.                        But I think that these next practices are an answer to making sure that teachers are getting what they need. So I love how Ken brought that up. It's not just about... The students aren't the only learners in the building and that's what we call it... I focus not on students, but on... Not just on the students, but also just being learner-centered overall in the ecosystem. And I think just integrating technology in a way that's purposeful and actually innovative. And I think really just the application of it and ensuring that really the practices that we know work really well, integrating real life learning into it and really doing things with technology that are going to lead to future success.                        And then just keeping up with the times. There's so much technology out there that's incredible that's not being utilized. And I think some of it is fear and not understanding, but I think what sets us apart is we already know what we've been doing for years doesn't work. And to disrupt that, you have to apply new practices and new technology, which requires an awareness of technology and teaching and learning and all those things. So I do think it’s just applying what we already know and marrying that with the technology that exists is what makes us next-gen.Horn:                Ken.Montgomery:   I feel that... I don't know, this is where I always have these moments recently. I feel really old because I feel like I'm on the next-gen of next-gen. So when we were opening, we were a next-gen school, but we were… it was more towards... Because we were trying to personalize learning. That was kind of like what was considered next-gen 10 years ago. And now I feel like the next-gen is going to be more about helping people find their creative purpose. And so I love what you were saying at the start about you don't go into the Apple store and say, “Give me an innovative product.” You go in there and say, “I want something that works. Something that does this.” So I think it is a really nice shift to think more of innovation in terms of the outcomes instead of the process. In terms of like, are you personalizing learning, are you using these tools and things? It's more like, what are you after?                        Because I think innovation, I think you could say, what we're doing is innovative. We're an innovative school because what we're trying to do is create a model that helps people navigate the world around them. And so whatever you're doing at that time, that seems really innovative if you can do that. And so you can think like, what did the iPhone do? It did help us navigate the world around us and it decreased the friction of a lot of things.                        And then in doing that it actually started to change the way we navigate the world around us. And so I feel like if you can build a school model that is flexible enough, that is really helping people navigate and then shape the world around them, that they're considered innovative. And that's why I think it is really important to have more of the conversation focused on the outcomes instead of the tools and the technologies and the process. The process starts to take more of a backseat to the outcomes.Horn:                Yeah, I love that. And obviously when you start blowing up master schedules and so forth, you create more dynamism into the day and week and year of what you can accomplish and how you can change. As we move into the work cycle, Shadman, I want to go to you on this because I'm curious in your research, what were you seeing as those practices that were popping up as sort of common themes across those next-gen models?Work CycleUddin:              Yeah, absolutely. And just even a quick note on the discussion that Ken and Keeanna brought up here as well. I mean, what we saw on a broad level across schools across the country were so many different innovations. From changing class sizes, from experimenting with hybrid, from bringing in more industry partners into the school. I think why we really preferred to abstract it to the outcome level was to really be able to think of this whole landscape as an ecosystem. Where various different next-gen schools were innovating in the ways that were most responsive to the needs of their community. Those were some of the grounding principles that we saw to be most effective. And we found whenever we tried... Especially early on when we tried to litigate against, oh, are you trying project-based learning? Have you seen the research there?                        It was almost like trying to just force a square peg into a round hole, just trying to pigeonhole a school into saying, "You're only next-gen if you do this." And I think that wasn't really fair to a lot of the edupreneurs that we were speaking to. Because they're coming back to us and saying, "Hey, we are listening to our families. We're listening to the students. And we're delivering based off of that. And these are the outcomes that we as a school value. Sure. We'll incorporate some traditional model stuff too and then we'll innovate here." And getting into that debate almost, it just didn't seem fair to the spirit of what we wanted to encourage within this broader ecosystem. But to your question of what were some themes that we were seeing across the country, and it is really difficult to try to find these threads between schools in Indiana versus schools in Tennessee and New Orleans and the Bay Area. There's such different family needs.                        But we did see high level, there was broader openness to hybrid learning. More interest around having smaller schools. This is primarily driven by a concern around safety that we saw across the nation, both as a result of the pandemic and unfortunately because of the rise of school violence from both gun violence as well as within schools. And so there were more families looking to say, "Hey, I actually just want to have a more socially community oriented experience for my child." We saw that in number of places. I think number one, we just saw a strong desire from families across the country looking for more career and technical education for their students. Be it, "Is this going to get my child into college better?" Or even, "Is this actually going to open up new alternatives outside of college?" As well. And so we saw both of that. Funny little story I think that was unique about our approach is we actually tried to do this whole thing and just see what ideas were resonating across the country.                        And so myself alongside a couple of other students at the business school, we actually put up a bunch of different landing pages of 30 different next-gen school ideas. They ranged from learning technical and computer skills to learning how to build social change or entrepreneurship, fully self-directed learning, et cetera. And we generated over 1500 clicks on Google Ads over two weeks. Which is pretty bonkers. Like 23 out of the 30 ideas beat the average consumer product conversion rate of 2%. And five ideas generated from between 9% to 16% clickthrough rates on the ads.                        And that was such a big signal to us of, it's not just that there's one or two ideas that families and students are looking for, it's that there's a lot of yearning for change in high school. I mean, we pitched each of these as high school for entrepreneurship, high school for computer science, high school for AI. Just to see what we could get from students. And then out of all those clicks we spoke to over 40 parents and students just to get an understanding of what exactly they were looking for. And at the base of it all, it was just this yearning for something new and traditional schools just not meeting the needs of their students. And so I think from the demand side we were like, okay, this ecosystem development around next-gen needs to happen. There's there's so much interest for it.Horn:                Well, so that's so interesting because I think a lot of people say, "Gee, parents are a small C conservative force in education. They don't want change, they don't want this, they don't want that." You're suggesting something very different. So Keeanna, take us on the ground now in your community. I would say something common that Shadman just outlined that connects to what you and Ken said, which is connected to community. Communities are different. So those needs might manifest themselves differently. But what are you seeing? Are parents leaning into these new practices? You mentioned AI, using tech to undo the master schedule. Those could be I imagine daunting in some circles, but are you seeing that or are you seeing something elseWarren:            That aligns exactly. We are seeing so much community voice and choice and even in the foundation of our schools, we reached out to parents and we asked, "What are you looking for?" And they were telling us the same things, "We want to make sure that our kids feel safe." And that's not just physically safe, but there's a psychological safety that goes along with what Ken does with his schools as well, is just making sure there's that sense of belonging. Parents are looking for smaller schools, we're even launching a micro school model to support that need, which is a conversation for a whole another day. But very interesting and intriguing and something we're very excited about. I think another really important piece is, we believe in the power of community. We believe that we should be a school without walls. Not literally because we live in the Midwest where the weather is changing often.                        And so we want walls, but in the sense of the term of we want community partners to come in. But we also want our students to go out. And we want our students to care about their communities and solve the problems that are most important to them. And ideally we want our kids to feel empowered and proud of their community. So we really center community in all that we do. I also believe in parent as the first teacher and unapologetically believe in school choice that is inclusive to all. So I believe that kids should have a school that fits their unique needs. Again, I think that we are past the industrial age where we are preparing kids to be factory workers. That's not what we're doing. That's not what we are going to do in at PPHS because that won't properly prepare the kids.                        But that's what's happening in a lot of spaces. And then as far as the evidence, you vote with your feet. And so I will tell you, we're in a public school system, so we are open to all kids and that's really valuable to us. But I'll tell you, our seats fill up quickly. We live in a city where there's a common enrollment for our township or school, the boundary lines for our school and we consistently fill up. And I think that is evidence of itself that that's what parents are looking for. But even in our feedback we hear the same thing. The sense of belonging, the feeling that our kids will actually be prepared for the future of work. And that parents are feeling that their kids are actually prepared for college and post-secondary success.Horn:                Ken, what about you? Are you having a similar experience or are you seeing some parents be like, "No, thanks."Montgomery:   Yes, it's similar and I do think... Your school sounds amazing by the way. I mean, I love that emphasis on community because I feel like that gets overlooked way too much in terms when we talk about next-gen and things like that, that human connection is at the heart of it. And because we are centered on anchored and design thinking, empathy is one of our guiding principles. And so we just for a very basic level, the reason that we've been successful attracting students and such is parents... We're in the heart of Silicon Valley. Parents look at how they are working now compared to how they were 10 or 15 years ago. Look at their kids' school and if it's traditional, they're like, "Well, this just doesn't match up. There's no way this experience,... My kid is having basically the same experience I had. There's no way that could be preparing them for what work is going to be like in their future."                        But what we've even noticed even more so with students in the last the six months with AI and ChatGPT, we've seen an increase in... I don't want to... Anxiety is a strong word, but it's a lot of nervousness around students where all of us have moments in school we're like, "When are we ever going to use this?" And so now with ChatGPT, students are asking themselves about that with everything. Like, "You're teaching me to write an essay, when am I ever going to use this? You're teaching me to make a presentation, we're never going to use this?" And then they take it to the next level, "What am I going to do? What is going to be left for me to do?" And so our counselors are, we talked about AI, our counselors are pointing out that there's student anxiety around this.                        And that's why we are feeling even more so that we have to lean into our, developing people's creative purpose. Because even though ChatGPT will be able to do a lot of things, we are still human. We still need to know that we matter, that we make a difference, that we can create. We still have to have this sense of purpose in our lives. And so we're seeing that even more so just in the last six months. Even more so at the student level. The demand from the student level, even more so than the parent level, as the students, it's really starting to hit them. Because students are doing their work differently. Their schoolwork, they're able to do it very, very differently than they were just six months ago. So I think that's increasing even more of the drive for like, "Whoa, we need something different from the student." The students are saying, "We need to be repaired differently." And the parents are like, "Yeah, we agree."Horn:                It's so interesting. Keeanna, you've teased this now a couple times, so I'm going to you. AI, how are you all using it? Because this is actually the first time I've heard Ken, what you said about student anxiety and nervousness. I've heard more of the teacher side of this and that students are using it. Keeanna, it sounds like you're doing something with that energy though to lean in on it. So tell us more.Warren:            So I think that is something we're seeing too, that students are nervous about it from different perspectives. So we get the student who's nervous because they've watched too many Will Smith movies and they don't understand the fact that AI does what we tell it to. So it will do that. And so we're teaching kids to be the programmers there. But we're also teaching kids to be the consumers of the programming. And I think there's also the fear that, "I won't have a job or my parents won't have a job because these chat bots in different forms are going to take those certain skill level jobs." And that's true. And so we're coaching the students around how to become the folks who program it and the folks who innovate. So I'm like, if you're thinking about creating a chat bot now, you're two steps behind and we need to make sure that our students understand how to stay ahead.                        I always use the quote, I'm like, in a world of Netflix, don't be a Blockbuster. I even forgot the name of it because it's irrelevant to us. And the kids are like, "What's that? You're so old." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm proud of it." So there's a piece there. I think there's another piece because we're a school that's diverse by design so we believe firmly in the power of all the types of diversity. But I also know, and transparently I will share, my dissertation was on AI use in education. So yeah. I was like, the last thing you want to do is talk to someone who wrote a whole dissertation about this. So yeah, that's always a disclaimer of stop talking about it. I have to remind myself. But not a lot of people who look like me, so a woman, a Black woman, not a lot of us are writing the machine learning models.                        And so AI can feel dangerous to a lot of educational leaders that I spoke to because there's a lot of bias that could be in there. So one of the lessons that I love to do is... And you have to build a strong culture before you try this, but have the students play around with AI and specifically around the idea of bias. Have them explain to you why racism is a good thing. Some chat bots will give you a really compelling argument. And we have an agreement that racism historically, not been good. Sexism, not good. But you can get those chat bots to give you compelling research... I shouldn't say... I hate to use the word research,Horn:                But some sort of manufactured... That's insane. Wow.Warren:            Yes. And so I'm like, "Kids, you have to be the ones that are moving us forward with this because it's just one sided in many ways." So that's just one piece of it there. And just really emphasizing the importance for students on how to use it. So I use it myself. I tell the kids that I use it and I tell them how I use it. I have learned how to write really good prompts to get really good outcomes.                        And so there's a good lesson there too. And then I think another piece about using it, I always tell the kids I'm a good writer. I would even say... I'll say I'm a good writer. We'll start there. But if I am a poor writer and I try to use the platforms, it's not going to help me. So you still need to learn. And also there's some AI that make grammatical mistakes. Now I know that grammar actually changes over time just like language does. And that's a human art form behind it. And I can tell if a computer wrote it versus a human with creativity. And so that's the art that we always bring to it. So I'll stop there because I literally could talk about this for days and I don't want to do that. But yeah, so I think there's so many great lessons in there on teaching kids how to be the creators and how to use AI properly.Horn:                Well you answered one of the questions I had also, which is how do you get the adults in the building that know about AI and what to do with it and what questions to ask? So that was great on multiple levels. Let's move into our special section, which is I'm curious sort of the biggest factors that are driving or hindering growth of next-gen high schools like yours. Shadman, you just came off this research project, so let's start with you and then Ken and Keeanna, I'd love to hear on the ground what you've experienced around things that are driving the growth. We've sort of hit on some of that with the parent demand, but also the hindering. So Shadman, why don't you step in first?SpecialsUddin:              Totally. And this was really the crux of our paper. Really trying to understand what were the barriers and drivers that were affecting growth. I mean, you've even heard just a snippet from two school leaders how exciting the innovation is in next-gen schools. And we had the same experience with every single one of our school leaders that we spoke to. We were just like, "How do we get this? How do we get more of this?" And so what we ended up doing was actually trying to frame our analysis in a broader framework. So we broke down every single factor in terms of either demand side, supply side, cultural or regulatory. Which encompassed like the political environment and the policies therein. And what we saw was demand side is really strong. Schools have existing strategies for how to either generate more enthusiasm or find families and build that way.                        There's certainly challenges on the demand side that we saw. But we saw, at least in the learnings that we compiled from the schools we spoke to, we saw some really excellent strategies for being able to capitalize on the demand that's existing for new innovations within schools. And I think Ken and Keeanna can probably talk more about what their schools are doing. They've done really great jobs there. But in terms of the barriers, where we saw the most friction and this almost was across the board entirely, was on the regulatory side. And then on the supply side constraints. And so within supply side, we had three main categories that we saw really serious challenges facing next-gen schools. That's human capital, that's in infrastructure. And then finally financial capital. Human capital, it's already... There's a teacher shortage broadly. To get next-gen school teacher talent, not only do you have to be able to attract and retain those teachers, you're also looking for a unique skillset of teachers.                        For example, at Design Tech Ken talks about how you're looking for that special nexus of skills in a teacher who knows how to teach well, but also knows design thinking and knows how to be able to teach it and deploy it at that level. And then one story that we heard from East Bay Innovation Academy was you get new teachers, you develop them and you put them on your website and all of a sudden you've got headhunters taking those teachers from you after they've been upskilled. And so there's this really competitive environment around human capital that we just were hearing from everyone. And obviously then you go to infrastructure. This I think is one of the biggest constraints facing next-gen schools is, if we have models that require us to be physically in place, many times it's the buildings themselves and the cost of either building a new one or updating existing buildings that really just require so much financial capital from the get go. That you have to go ahead and already have X number of students set up.                        It doesn't allow an innovator to be able to test new models or test new marketing and get those students. You already need some significant financial capital raised in order to go ahead and start your new school. And I think what we heard was this was a mega constraint because for founders who don't have extensive networks around access to capital, which is really rampant across the country, then it becomes very difficult to have an idea. Especially for a lot of school founders who don't have entrepreneurial backgrounds to be able to go ahead and make that step.                        So those were three really big constraints and we pose a series of recommendations around how to deal with that. I think both schools do an excellent job dealing with some of the regulatory constraints that they face, either partnering with district leaders or building coalitions with existing stakeholders in a school market and community.                        We saw that to be a really effective strategy of being able to anticipate some friction that may be coming up from a political standpoint. I think that was a really excellent strategy. And then of course, working really carefully with community design. And I think where future entrepreneurs have an opportunity is, how can you help schools really think about bringing their infrastructure costs down and helping schools access more financial capital and think about ways that we can... And this is one of those wicked problems of tackling the teacher shortage, but those are where the ecosystem needs to be thinking about in order to really help lift that dynamic back up and see more of this innovation that we're hearing on this call scale to so many more communities and demographies across the country.Horn:                Ken, let's go to you. I'm curious your answer on this, but I also, I'll just say, the infrastructure piece, partnering with Oracle, you have a really interesting answer for that part of the puzzle that actually contributes to the model as well. I don't know if you want to comment there or go elsewhere because California obviously also has had its share of challenges over the last few years. But your call where to go.Montgomery:   Yeah, I definitely think... Well, that's one of the infrastructure... We were not... Oracle built this, a building on their campus and they lease it. We have a 50 year lease, a dollar a year. And that's solved the biggest infrastructure problem that most new schools have. That we have a facility.Horn:                But actually let me interrupt you for one second because I'm curious. Some people watching this are going to be like, "Okay, but you had an amazing partnership with Oracle. What are the odds I can replicate that?" So what's the lesson to maybe take away from that, that transcends that one partnership?Montgomery:   I think there are a couple of things. One, it works really well because both sides, Oracle and us, we have humility about what we can do and our limitations in that we feel that there are some things that a person working on the job can explain to our kids and teach our kids in a way that maybe a teacher may not even be able to. Oracle on their site also, they're not trying to run our school. We have autonomy in what we're doing. So it's really a partnership that starts with humility. And I do think that that's the other piece of it. Or I think a lot of the next-gen models have more promise in this is the flexibility. Is that if you want to make partnerships like that work tie it to the humility on our side, we have to make things flexible to access those partnerships. We have to be willing to say, "Well, maybe we don't have to do it exactly this way." So that we can work.                        So especially freeing up the time. Most companies don't run on a bell schedule. I think actually all companies. Very few companies run on a bell schedule. So we have to be able to flex things like that to take advantage of the resources that they provide that way. But I do think, in California especially, where we are in Silicon Valley, the facilities is a major challenge. And so that was where we were very fortunate that Oracle saw that. They believed in our model, they saw that as a need and that's why we're on their campus. But the two challenges that are still challenges that I didn't think they would be after when all the schools had to close because of the pandemic, I thought that, well, schools are building up this, at least the foundation of an infrastructure to offer flexible learning situations. Even though it's not perfect across the board, everything, but every school had to do something to make it more flexible.                        And we also thought, like the economy basically came screeching to a halt when kids couldn't go to school. It caused a lot of disruption. So I thought, wow, the political power and will of educators is going to be stronger than it has ever been before. But what we've seen is everything, it was just a race to get back to normal. So things where we thought like, okay, we have this foundation, flexible, so some of the policies might enable us to be more flexible, things like that. Like, no. It is just right back. Get your kids seat time, instructional minutes, all that. It's like the flexible learning that we did didn't even happen. And then the same thing, just the teacher sustainability, that if you're teaching teachers a new model to be innovative, but they can't sustain it professionally, then it does feel like you're really... It's a difficult journey.                        Because especially like you said, the design thinking. We don't lose people, but we can't recruit people. Because we can't match the salaries. And it's even around here, a lot of people work in tech are like, they are coming back to the office, but they have very flexible work schedules. Whereas teachers, you're still here from, the school day starts here and it ends here. So in terms of the compensation and the flexibility in your work life balance, the value proposition for teaching is getting... It's challenging now. And I think that hopefully we'll start to loosen up some of the policies and rules allow around that or increase the funding for compensation. But things can be done and I thought those things would be done based on what we learned, but they haven't happened yet.Horn:                It is similar to my observation. Lightning round around this and then we'll move into closing time. But I'm just curious about this specific issue around seat time. And obviously I've been pushing for competency mastery based learning since I've gotten into this field. Everyone has different barriers that they poke at when they look at the regulatory landscape, at what's holding that up. So sort of the lightning round of what are the two biggest things in your judgment that are holding that out? Ken, you want to go first then whip around Keeanna and Shadman, you can close with a couple more.Montgomery:   Yeah, I think it's just the lack of consensus around how to assess those competencies. If we had that then we could focus more on that than the seat time. So I think that's the biggest... That along with really... Especially like I said, this is really pronounced where we are [inaudible 00:39:56] investing in teachers in a way that they can afford live a middle class lifestyle in the communities where they work.Horn:                Keeanna.Warren:            I would agree with the fact that teachers just need more training and support, and we all do on how to really... I'll use the word fairly, measure competency so it's unbiased. But there's still some art form to it. I think that's really big. And I just think marrying the idea of, we know that learning is not time-bound. There's nothing in research that confirms that. And just making sure we're applying what we know and that teachers feel really prepared to understand what competency-based education is and how to really help students move towards and giving coaching and good feedback. I'm super into ungrading and other things that we could discuss, but I think those are two really important things.Horn:                Well, that's two round resounding votes for redoing the assessment system. Shadman, what did you find?Uddin:              Yeah. I mean, it's actually funny that you say that because I think it even goes back to the earlier conversation we had about inputs versus outcomes. Even when thinking about next-gen. I think this is a similar situation of where a lot of folks in traditional school systems, policymakers are thinking, "Oh, these are the inputs that make a school a school." As opposed to thinking, "These are the outcomes that we want to be seeing within our students."                        And when you're coming in with that input lens, you're just tethering a lot of schools to have to do X, Y, or Z. Sure, maybe having seat time regulated within some schools works for some communities, but for other communities that have really played around with hybrid and have really figured out distance learning, is that really what you want to be holding that school too and stifling that growth?                        Yeah, I mean, I think here at the Graduate School of Education, we often talk about how there's a whole body of learning signs that we're discovering around how we should be thinking about each learner and their context and delivering based off of what cognitive information they already have and designing KCIs, all of these frameworks. But then when you go to the school level, the conversation is nothing like that at all. And that was just this big disconnect that we saw in terms of outcomes versus inputs.Closing TimeHorn:                Fascinating. So closing time, Shadman, you get the last word and I was going to ask you around limitations of the research, but that's a very deficit minded way of asking it. So instead I want to ask, what's the further research that you want to do or you'd like to see in the field that isn't there yet?Uddin:              Yeah. I mean, I think this conversation is really step one. One of the cool things that we saw once we sent out this paper to all of the schools that we interviewed and the other ecosystem builders was everybody was just so excited to hear what other schools were doing when grappling with similar problems that they were facing. And I think being able to discuss this at a level of, okay, school founder to school leaders, to ecosystem builder. Like, have these conversations about your specific pain points and thinking about, okay, what are the strategies that have been deployed? Where are the pain points? We just kept hearing from school leaders that they're so busy just trying to get through and keep their organization and school running that the opportunity to really connect across the country with people who are trying different models or not even trying different models and just doing things entirely different, that was something that we thought to be missing.                        And so one thing for us as next steps is how do we continue to use this research to generate more community, more conversation. And really think through how do we better support school leaders and school founders like Ken and Keeanna who are on the ground innovating. So my ears are open and definitely eager to hear more from folks who do listen to this conversation and even from folks here today of just like, yeah, how do we make this better? How do we continue to push the ecosystem to allow for more innovation?Horn:                Well, we know that by the time this conversation released, we're recording it before you graduate, but you will have graduated by the time this comes out. So congratulations. We look forward to watching what you do to further that. And Keeanna and Ken, just a great appreciation with the work that you continue to do to unlock the futures for these students that are going to make great contributions in the world. So thank you all and we'll be back next time on the Future of Education. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

A serial entrepreneur, Devin Schain joined me to talk about his latest venture, Student Playbook, which helps place college alums in good jobs. In our conversation, Schain described the key opportunity for employers, colleges and universities, and alumni—and the unique solution his team is bringing to market. We also got to talk about one of my favorite non-profit projects of Schain’s, Shalom Learning. As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:   Welcome to The Future of Education where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their human potential. And today, to help us think about aspects of that is a longtime friend, Devin Schain. He's the CEO and Founder of Student Playbook, and he's going to tell us all about that, but also about his journey in education and entrepreneurship, creating opportunities every step of the way for people to succeed in different parts of the student life cycle. Devin, first, great to see you. Thanks for being on The Future of Education.Devin Schain:    My pleasure, Michael. Thanks for having me.Morning WarmupHorn:                You bet. So we're going to launch into our morning warmup, if you will. A little bit of a lightning round of questions. I'd love you to start talking about your background. I said you're a longtime entrepreneur in the lead-up here. You literally got your start of entrepreneurship in and around the world of higher ed, one might say the dirty underbelly of higher ed, but I'll let you tell why I chose that word, dirty, in a moment. But tell us your own story into entrepreneurship and education.Schain:             Sure. So I went to the University of Pennsylvania, and I played soccer there and I brought up a remnant for my cold linoleum floor dorm room and my teammates comment, "Where'd you get it from?" My dad was a builder, and I brought up a couple remnants and gave it to my teammates. But the following year, because a lot of people commented, during the year, I put 112 remnants in a 14-foot U-Haul. And in six hours, Michael, I set up in front of the freshman dorm, the quad, during move-in, and I sold out. I grossed $6,000. I netted $3,000. This is in 1986. So I'm dating myself, but to put things in perspective, I held two jobs that summer.                        I was a waiter and a counselor and I made $1000. So you don't have to be a mathlete. 10 weeks, two jobs, 1,000. 6 hours, $3,000, and that was my start. My senior year, I was doing this on 21 campuses east of the Mississippi. I went down to the carpet mills in Dalton, Georgia, and I lived with nine guys who sold on college campuses for me. And they said, "Schain, you got a great carpet business, but really? You're going to go into being a carpet salesman?" And I said, "Nope, I'm going into the college market." And 38 years later, I'm still here.Horn:                Yeah. So I think it's just a great story because you never know where these journeys start and how you move into it. And we'll talk about some of this later, but you've incubated and built for-profits, you’ve built non-profits. You’ve built, as you like to joke, for-profits that don't make a profit. I think you use more elegant language when you say it, but your latest is you've created this company called Student Playbook, really focused on what you call this career shift focus. But give us the elevator pitch of what is Student Playbook, and we'll get into some of the details as we go down the journey.Schain:             And as I do say, when people ask my background, I said, "I've started multiple for-profits, I've started a couple not-for-profits, and I have a few no profits. That's euphemism. It didn't work out so well." Hopefully, this one falls into the first bucket. But Student Playbook really was created, we call it playbook advances, lifelong engagement and career success. Helping students and alumni do three things, navigate new career paths, connect with other alum and advance their careers.Horn:                Perfect. So that's the elevator pitch, if you will. Let's break that down a little bit. What does it look like and what's the big problem that you're solving for?Schain:             Sure. So first of all, I talk about you need three things, and you can already see I'm a big fan of list of threes when you start a business. One, is there a market? Will the dogs eat the dog food? And, clearly, there is. Two, do you have the skill sets to support the problem that you're trying to solve for? And then, three, do you have a competitive advantage or a moat associated with?                         And I'll start there. Our competitive advantage, Michael, is working with the alumni office, which provides us their endorsement and access to their young alum, from 25 to 45. There's no cost to the alumni association or the young alum, the job seeker. And we have three attributes that differentiate us from job boards or LinkedIn, but ultimately, the value proposition is we help these students and young alum get jobs because every 2.8 years now, students and alum are changing jobs.                        But the first part is we provide access to a live recruiter. We work with five national recruiting firms, so there's a high touch. The second is, shockingly, most people don't know this. I didn't a year ago when we got into this. Only 30% of jobs are socialized, which means 70% are not readily available. We have a platform called CareerShift, which we import jobs and internships into our database and our platform. In addition, alumni at the school will provide us unique job opportunities as well. So that's the second benefit.                        And then the third, we provide services at no cost, such as assessments, webinars, access to resume review and LinkedIn evaluation. So the business model is the employer pays us to help place students that are looking for their second, third, or fourth job with experience. The employers are happy to pay for $75,000 to $150,000 call it second, third, fourth jobs. And what I really love about this opportunity and this business is I like to do good and do well as a company.Work CycleHorn:                So as I look in this and we shift into our second segment of the show, the work cycle, we dig a little deeper on this. It strikes me, if I understand it, that you're basically saying alumni after they leave college, they're in that first, second job, there's a challenge. They figured out their footing, how that professional world works, they're trying to find that next job. The alumni offices, it seems to me, of the colleges you're working with want to add a lot more value to their former students. And they're not just asking for gifts and they're giving a lot more through the work you're doing, making it much more tangible what this alumni network and connections really means. And then, third, the employers, you're obviously finding great talent for them with all this value added services that appears free for the students and the alumni associations or offices themselves of the colleges.                        What I hadn't heard you say before, and I think it's really interesting as you think about it, is you connect that, and I think this comes from Julia Freeland Fisher's work around all these jobs are not being listed. And yet, so it really matters who you know, and a lot of these opportunities are through the alums themselves at other companies and so forth, or the companies themselves making it known to the alumni you're working with.                        Tell us a little bit more about that because that seems actually pretty important. LinkedIn, you see a job opening. You're basically saying, "That job opening may never appear on the web. We're going to get you it before you even know about it." That seems like a unique value proposition, if I'm understanding it.Schain:             Yeah. Michael, can I take you on the road with me because you clearly get it? I've thought about copywriting the saying, "It's what you know and who you know." I'm a big fan of the genius of and, and the combination of the two. The term social capital is so important. And I'm going to elaborate on your last question and I'll roll into the other because I want to touch on the big problem.                        And it really is stunning that over 50% of students that graduate from four-year colleges are underemployed, which means they make less than their market rate. In addition, the largest demographic graduating today is now first gen, and they don't have the prior experiences that we take for granted. Having a parent that has gone through the process and understands the importance of networking and the value of a college degree. Also, many graduates are under-resourced and underserved.                        I think there's a misunderstanding that just because you graduate from college that you are not under-resourced, and that's not the case. So, lastly, everyone else normally doesn't know what they want to do in their first job. And again, as I mentioned earlier, they're changing almost every three years. We are helping young alumni with lifelong career support and professional development.                        We're helping alumni associations build alum engagement with our services, which are so important. And our brand promise, which I'm really proud of, is to make every alum better off even if they don't get placed by our programs, but we have other services that they will benefit from. Let me stop there. There's obviously a lot to unpack, but I'll pause and get some of your questions and comment.Horn:                Yeah, no, and there's a lot of interesting things there, as you said, Devin, and one of them that strikes me is this point you made of the underemployment and then the demographics of these students and how they don't have this reservoir of social capital at their disposal. Talk to us a little bit more about who else is in this space, how are you different perhaps from what else is out there? Because on the one hand, I hear you saying these things and I'm like, "Well, every alumni office ought to be tapping their alums. It's an incredibly valuable resource in the employer market." And yet we know by and large them in the career offices are not doing these things. So why is what you're doing novel and who else is in the space?Schain:             So, obviously, an important consideration. So, first, we are leveraging the trusted relationship that schools have with their constituents to help students and alumni navigate the career journey and provide them with value-added career services while meeting the talent demand of employers, workforce development organizations, and staffing agencies.                        I want to reference that my carpet business, it started as Campus Carpets, we've got you covered. I haven't used that line in a long time. And then I got into On Campus Marketing, which I'm proud to say is 35 years old. I sold it 20 years ago. And there are multiple programs, but I use the same model today that I did 35 years ago.                        We get the endorsement, the affinity, the imprimatur of the university. We provide a frictionless, really, a work-free, no cost to the organization. In this case, it's the alumni association. And there's no cost to the young alum or the alumni themselves. So it's really a model that is somewhat unique because they don't have to pay on both sides, the university side and the job seeker side.                        And we are increasing the level of engagement for the alumni association by, in essence, white labeling their service, and we're really creating opportunities for alumni that they're not getting, candidly, from either their alumni association or their career services. There's only one counselor per 1800 students. It's really difficult to place. So, again, let me stop there for a second. There's a lot more that I can talk about related, but I will turn it back to you, Michael.Horn:                Yeah, no, it's super interesting. And obviously the cost value prop is a big piece of this for the alumni offices. They don't have to pay anything. Alums don't have to pay anything. They get access to these services. How's it going so far? What have you learned along this journey of starting up the company?Schain:             Yeah, so you see my gray hair? Before I started, it wasn't nearly as salt and peppered and I've got a lot of scar tissues as well. But let me first, before I touch on what I've learned, let me elaborate a little more on the problem and the solution. We're in a very dynamic, as you know better than most, economic and education environment. And we want our graduates to be successful in the world of work.                        More broadly, the country needs an educated workforce that gets a positive ROI from the investment in higher education. We believe we can make a positive impact by serving institutions and individuals in new ways by reducing friction in the connection between education and employment. In addition, there is tremendous concern that colleges and universities don't provide the level of resources to help students get good jobs. There are two places that generate revenue on college campuses, as you know. Enrollment on the front end and alumni on the back end.                        Unfortunately, the career center, which reports into student affairs, doesn't generate any revenue, which is part of the problem, unfortunately. Alumni associations normally ask for two things from alum. Come to the reunion, which last week was my 35th. You can do the math. And, two, donate. Alum want career support and professional development and strong networking.                        So our evidence is that the alumni associations are valuing this program, which is in a pilot stage right now, but also we're getting hundreds of job seekers from each school looking for recruiter support. We call this proof of concept and working on the different revenue streams such as getting paid by the employer to place students. So it's actually working really well. The alum association really values this turnkey, frictionless program. And the alum, or the job seekers, are raising their hand and saying, "We want to talk to a live recruiter. We want some unique job opportunities and we want some of these services at no cost."                        And it's actually the proverbial win-win. So let me elaborate a little more on the lessons that we've learned on the journey. And a lot of people say when they have success, “We had a grand slam.” That's what a lot of people use. “It was a home run.” When things don't work out so well, it's either called a learning experience, which is euphemism for, “We learned a lot.” So with that, we started Student Playbook in February of 2020, Michael, two weeks before I realized Corona was not just a Mexican beer. We could not test and pilot for over a year because we could not get to schools. When we eventually got to schools, my original premise, which I haven't talked about yet, but I'm going to admit now, was Gen Z lack life skills for three reasons.                        One, they spend 10 to 12 hours a day on screen time. Two, you have helicopter parents, which I resemble that comment sometimes, not always. And accreditations not based on soft skills, life skills, what I like to call success skills, they're based on the hard skills. So I thought I could use the same model, have the university allow me to offer this to parents this time for students transitioning from incoming freshmen to graduating seniors.                        I missed two things, and that's why you test and pilot and you try not to fall in love with your own ideas. It doesn't matter what I think, Michael, it's what the market thinks. And two things did not support my original premise. One, schools do not want to outsource student development, which I should have realized that. So that was one. And the second, parents really don't value as much life skills as they value their child getting a job.                        One is a nice to have. The other one is a need to have. So,, fortunately we did two things that really helped. One, we bought a company called CareerShift, which has over 200 relationships with career centers. It has a great technology platform, which I talked about. And the third thing, it has a terrific founder that's still with the organization. The second thing that we did last year was we started focusing on the alumni association and helping young alum get jobs, which again, is more of the need to have versus a nice to have of the life skills.                        And finding a model where the employer who is willing to pay anyways, not for a first year grad because they don't have the experience, but they are willing to pay for second, third, and fourth jobs. So trying to change consumer behavior or trying to change a model is very difficult. If you can take something such as an employer who's willing to pay for placement and incorporate it a little differently, that's what we've done successfully. So we’ve learned a lot, we've had to pivot, and we continue to learn by listening to the different constituents. The alumni associations, their job seekers, the recruiters, and the employers. Again, I'll stop there.SpecialsHorn:                No, super interesting, Devin, and something to follow. I want to shift to our third segment, Specials. And up front, you mentioned that you've founded a bunch of things. You've alluded to the for-profits, the non-profits, and the no profits. But I want to go into one of my favorites, which is I've had the privilege of being on the Advisory Board of which is a nonprofit, ShalomLearning. So as we start to wrap up here, maybe give us the problem that ShalomLearning was designed to tackle and how that's gone so far.Schain:             Yeah, thanks, Michael. And you were incredibly helpful in getting that started with a great book that I think is probably over 10 years old now, Blended, which was my original executive director's Bible, which is about as high a compliment as you can get. So I started the organization in 2011, wow, 12 years ago, because I hated Hebrew school and my children hated it as well. It's a really bad model.                        And I’m generalizing, but the majority of people don’t like driving 15, 30 minutes for an hour and a half after school of six hours. And you have curriculum that's not well packaged, that's not compelling. And you have teachers, candidly, that only teach three hours a week. How good can you be? And most of them do it because they make $5 more than their day job. So being a ed tech entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur, I thought there was a better way.                        And I ended up creating ShalomLearning focused on three areas. One, creating an LMS, learning management system, because Gen Z, their community, although a lot of the synagogues didn't like this initially when I said, these students, they want to be online. And in-person is a value, but there're also many rural areas that don't even have the option. So, one, creating an LMS because that was a more compelling community for seven to 13-year olds. Two, we took curriculum and we curated best in class out there and we repackaged it.                        And that was really valuable. And the third, quite frankly, I should have valued this more initially, but I do now 10 years later, it's teacher training, and really teach them how to be effective both online, in person, blended, in the classroom, as well as out of the classroom. And what I like to say is I took 19th century teaching as a modality with 20th century teachers and 21st century learners and closed the gap.                        And I'm proud to say we started with seven students the first year. In 2019, we had 7,000 students and we were the beneficiary of COVID because the market came to us. When all the synagogues were closed, we had this successful platform and now we have over 22,000 students. We're in 11 countries, predominantly supporting military families whose children have nowhere to learn. It's basically an online Hebrew school, and we educate over 3000 teachers. So I'm really proud of the success and, most importantly, the efficacy for the student, for the teachers, and for the synagogues is better than the old model.Closing TimeHorn:                Phenomenal stuff. I will say, if my kid's temple tunes in, you all do a great job. You're the exception that proves, frankly, the rule that Devin started out with, which is that most of us, Hebrew school experience is not all that great. But tremendous thing that you've built. Last segment, as we wrap up here, it's Closing Time. And as a serial entrepreneur, I know you take seriously not only the ventures you start and the impact you make and the success you have and, as you say, doing well by doing good, but you also take seriously helping others start on their own entrepreneurial journey and solving meaty problems. And so I suspect there's a few ways you could take this, but for those tuning in who fit that profile, they want to start something, they want to solve a problem, give us some parting advice and words of wisdom.Schain:             Sure, thanks. So I'm going to give one anecdote and one best practice. But let me start at a high level. I love to learn, I love to teach, and I really value model the masters and best practices. And I actually like to solve problems, but candidly, I'd rather be a fast follower than a pioneer because pioneers get arrows in their back. But let me start first with a anecdote... Or I'm actually going to end with the anecdote. Let me start with a best practice.                        So there is a great TED Talk on YouTube. It's by... I'm having a senior moment. Bill Gross, there we go. He talks about the five keys to a successful startup. And he uses empirical data to measure 100 of his startups with 100 of some of the best startups, from Airbnb and Uber and Yahoo. Well, Yahoo probably doesn't fit that category, but he really goes through and ranks, and I'm going to give the five most important in order, but I encourage you to... He does it more eloquently than I do.                        But for the benefit of a quick lesson, in order of importance, one is timing. Two is team. Three is the actual idea. Four is the model. And five is cash. And a lot of people ask, "Why is cash last?" And the simple answer is, "If you have the first four, cash will follow." So that, I believe, is a best practice in terms of evaluating the importance of a startup. And you've heard about one of my for-profits, Campus Carpets, which turned into OCM. You've heard about one of my not-for-profits. I like the term for-profit. I don't like the term not-for-profit. I like to call it for purpose. There's only one difference between a for-profit and a for purpose, and that's tax status. They should be run very similarly. But one example of a no profit that I think you'll appreciate, Michael and your listeners, it's called Campus MD.                        It was telemedicine for the college market, both behavioral health and if you had a physical injury that seven out of 10 can be addressed with telemedicine. I was 10 years and one pandemic too early. So I was not the beneficiary there unfortunately, but ShalomLearning was. So with that, my last anecdote or my last comment, when I speak about entrepreneurship, I tell the class or the group, "If you get one lesson from me, one takeaway, this is the most important." So there's a group of maybe 25, 100 students or employees in chairs. And I'll say to somebody in the front row, I'll say, "Michael, I'd like you to stand up and look under your chair."                        And you'll stand up, look under your chair, and you'll pull out, I taped a dollar bill underneath. I probably should have for visual benefit, let's say, I have a dollar bill. So, Michael, you would be going like this. And I'd say, "Michael, do you know what that dollar bill represents as it relates to entrepreneurship?" And you'll say, “A bonus?” I'll say, “No.” You'll say, "Lunch money?" I'll say, "Maybe," which is a nice way of saying no. I say, "This is the most important lesson regarding entrepreneurship. That dollar represents you got to get off your behind to make a buck in this world. And ultimately that's the key to entrepreneurship."Horn:                Love it. Love it. I love that story. I've used it since you first told me. Credit you, of course. But Devin Schain, thank you so much for joining us on The Future of Education and the work that you are doing around helping people navigate this increasingly complex world of careers and, frankly, adding a lot more value to every step of that process. Thanks, Devin.Schain:             Michael, thank you.Horn:                And we’ll be back next time on The Future of Education. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Which colleges best set up its graduates for careers in finance? Or data science? Or law? It turns out that different schools really help students pursue careers in different fields. And other schools, not so much. Our guest, Matt Sigelman, from the Burning Glass Institute, helps breakdown the latest research that they published with the Wall Street Journal on the topic and helps you know what it all means—plus other insights on the connections between education and careers.For those who have been in the worlds of education and workforce, you probably know Matt and the great analytical work he has led to help build the field of labor market analytics. This conversation is the first in a semi-regular set that Matt and I plan on having each year to help share insights from the latest in research that the Burning Glass Institute does and help share why it matters.As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation above, watch it below, or read the transcript.Horn:                Welcome to 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 that today, our guest is Matt Sigelman. He's the president of the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit that mines for data-driven insights around the future of work and pathways into the job market, and then works with educators and employers and policy makers to help build those better pathways to advance opportunity for more people. That's my language. I'll let Matt give a crack at it in a moment in his. But before the Burning Glass Institute, he was the CEO of Emsi Burning Glass for nearly two decades, which is now known a Lightcast, where he's still the chair of that board. And he really helped pioneer this notion of data-driven labor market insights. So Matt, welcome to The Future of Education. It's great to see you. We've been threatening to do this for a while. I'm glad we're finally getting to do it.Sigelman:         Well, very much likewise, Michael. Thanks so much for having me.Morning WarmupHorn:                Yeah, you bet. So four parts to the show. We're going to start with our morning warmup, go into a work time of specials and closing time. And in our morning warmup, sort of our lightning round, if you will, I want folks to get to know you and your work better because you and I anticipate doing this on a more regular basis. So first, just give us a little bit more about the fundamental work that the Burning Glass Institute does and your raison d'etre. Why do you exist?Sigelman:         So the Burning Glass Institute is a fully independent nonprofit that advances data driven research and experimentation at the intersection of the future of work and the future of learning. As you mentioned a few minutes again, I spent most of my career building what's today Lightcast, terribly proud of its breakthrough innovation of bringing really robust and granular and timely data to understanding the supply and demand of skills in the market today. The Burning Glass Institute builds on novel data sources like Lightcast and a number of others to be able to answer the question of: How do we take these kinds of data sets and drive fundamental transformation? We know that the world of work that we live in is one that still is rife with inefficiencies, with inequities, and the question is: How do we bridge those gaps?                        So we've been doing a ton of work recently, for example, looking at worker mobility this past fall together with the support of the Schultz Family Foundation and in partnership with Joe Fuller at Harvard Business School, we released what we called our American Opportunity Index, which is our first foray into saying, "Hey, look. How we do evaluate worker outcomes in a truly quantitative way?" And specifically, what the was doing was measuring the Fortune 250 based upon the level of opportunity that they create for workers. At a broader level though, what we were doing was creating a methodology for evaluating mobility. And it's something that we've more recently been applying to understanding the trajectories of learners after the complete programs of study.                        As you know, there's a lot of work that's out there. They're trying to figure out: How do we make sure everyone complete a degree? But how do we make sure that degree actually bears out over time? And so some of those same metrics that we used in the opportunity index to study worker mobility are proving to be terribly relevant in measuring learner mobility as well.Horn:                Yeah. I mean, it's just fascinating the amount of work that you're doing in these areas. And focusing on the real question, which is the ultimate value, not just: Did we print a card that says, "You graduated," which is the easy part, I like to think? You did a bunch of reports recently that I think ranked schools in an incredibly novel way, at least as far as I can tell. You basically looked at the careers themselves and asked, "Which undergrad institutions were the best at not just placing students in those careers, but helping them earn high salaries in those careers?" I think the areas were data science, consulting, law, finance. I'd love to know more about the research and the methodology behind that.Sigelman:         Yeah, for sure. This is something that we undertook together with The Wall Street Journal. I'd first just point out, I don't believe that the world necessarily needs more college rankings. But I do believe that learners deserve transparency into how, again, the kind of outcomes they can expect. Not every student going into school knows what she wants to do on the other side. I certainly didn't. But for those who do have an ambition, and I think that's increasingly important, given the very high cost of college and the debt that students find themselves saddled with. How do you know which schools are going to place you furthest toward that ambition?                        So here's what we did and why this looks pretty different from things like the College Scorecard or the like. College Scorecard says, "Okay, in a given major," for those not familiar with it, this is the US Department of Education's effort to, and I think a very important effort, to say, "Okay, what are the earnings of graduates in the first few years after graduation?" It's limited to a few years. And it's really about looking at majors and just saying, "Okay. Where do people wind up?" And so you wind up with a lot of this sort of calculus of: Okay, well, if somebody goes on to become a social worker, not earning terribly much, but very well fulfilled, is that a poor outcome? Right?                        Instead, we looked at this from the other direction. We said, "Okay, if you want to become ultimately a software engineer, if you want to become a data scientist, you want to become a management consultant, if you want to go into marketing, what are the schools that have been most successful at placing people into top paying roles within that career?" And so we're looking both at the share of graduates from a given institution who go into that field. And then specific to the ranking itself, of those at the school who go into the field, what percentage of them are in top paying roles? And some of the kind of results are pretty surprising.                        So if you looked at the software engineering rankings, and again, you see this in The Wall Street Journal, I think they've got ... They're putting it all together. They launched it list by list, but-Horn:                It's quite clever, the PR rollout.Sigelman:         Next week, I think they're then going to kind of take the second bite of the apple and launch a print feature, I think. But so stay tuned, I'll do my job and do a little bit of advertising here. But one of the things you will find if you look at the software engineering ranking, look, there's a bunch of schools in there that ... Look, there's no surprise that MIT and Cal Tech and Stanford are top at sending, or some of the top schools, I don't remember the exact order, at sending kids on to software careers that pay well over a span of 10 years. But we found a number of small liberal arts schools, even ones that don't have engineering programs, I'm pretty sure don't have computer science departments, Schools like Mount Holyoke, which do very well.                        And I think it speaks both to the nature of software development and how it's changing and probably will change even more in an era of generative AI. But it also speaks to: What's the broader set of tools that somebody needs in order to be successful in a career?Work CycleHorn:                Super interesting because I think what you're starting to show is, I know you've done a lot of research on the importance of major and where it helps and so forth. We'll get to that actually maybe toward the end a little bit. But I will note that major's not always predictive of what you want to do. And so I think you're starting to point to the nature of this set of skills that go beyond the narrow technical skill, but also, the social capital that accrues in a lot of these places and giving guidance. I suspect as we move into the work time, everyone's going to want to know a few of the top performers with these rankings. So can you just tease a little bit in different disciplines? Because what's interesting again, just to say this, you did law, for example. But this isn't the top law schools, it's the top colleges.Sigelman:         It's the top undergrads that send students on.Horn:                It's so interesting.Sigelman:         So first of all, by the way, one thing I should point out is how much it matters. And again, I don't have the rankings in front of me right now, but if I'm remembering correctly, the top earning ... Of the schools that had the most students graduate and ultimately go on to top paying law careers, their students were making about $50,000 a year more than graduates of median performing schools who went into law. So put that across a 30-year career, that's a one and a half million dollar difference in pay. One of the things that was really interesting in law as an example is that there was ...                        So again, no surprise that going to Harvard is a great choice. I think we found was that first of all, there's very often a geographic effect in fields like the law, certainly in marketing. Some of the best paying jobs today are in tech or at least were until recent layoffs. And tech is sort of this black hole that's swallowing a lot of talent, lot of graduates. And so being in California, for example, a big leg up if you're going into finance, being around New York has a lot of the same kind of ecosystem effect. Baruch, for example, one of the CUNY schools, which is part of the City University system of New York. It's not one of the most selective schools out there, and yet, was far better performing in terms of what we call the school effect, the wage effect of associated with going to school, than many other schools that are considered far more elite. And I think it reflects the fact that, okay, well, if you're at Baruch, you're going to wind up doing an internship in the finance industry in New York on Wall Street, and you're going to be very well positioned.                        One other thing which I found striking is this, and this was disappointing. We found that for the most part when we looked at sort of the best, the 20 performers overall in each field, very few of them were public, so much so that when we turned the list over to The Wall Street Journal, we said, "Hey, look, we're giving you both as sort of a ... We're actually going to split this into a private list and a public list because otherwise, you actually don't wind up seeing more than Berkeley or one or two others in most lists." And I think that speaks to both some of the continued equity challenges that we have in our higher education system. It also speaks to the problems of getting lost in scale.                        If you're at a ... And you were talking about the methodology, I'm hoping I'm not getting too far into the weeds here, but if you're in a really big school, they may be delivering lots of people into great careers, but there's only so many jobs at Goldman-Sachs if you go into finance. There's only so many jobs at Cravath if you're going into law. And so there's just a lot of graduates from the University of Michigan or wherever it may be, so part of what we saw there was also kind of where you have the best change of getting seen.Horn:                That's super interesting because in essence, you're saying if Mount Holyoke, small class, sends X number into computer science, software engineering jobs, whatever it might be, they're all doing pretty ... Well, maybe. Right? 100% of them are hitting it out of the park. Michigan may send a bunch of kids to those jobs that do even better, but they're also sending a bunch who are maybe going into that career pathway and not doing as well, so the law of averages sort of hurts them in these sorts of rankings.Sigelman:         I think there's also a social capital question here as well. So again, if you're in just that great big melting pot, harder to get the signals, harder to get the help, and to get the concentrated attention. I think there's also what accountants would call positive selection effect. So most Mount Holyoke grads don't go into software engineering. The ones who do want us to imagine really are special people and who are really determined to be successful in that field. And so that may also explain some of the difference.Horn:                That's really interesting. So The Wall Street Journal obviously when it came out, they publicized who got on top of the rankings. Those were the headlines for the private and public institutions. But I'm sort of curious about the flip side of it, the institutions that maybe failed to make the grade, if you will. And maybe the way to ask this is more like: What insights could I harvest from this if I'm a prospective student to avoid making a mistake if I'm set on a particular career path?Sigelman:         So look, in terms of this body of research, we didn't do tons to mine the bottom of the list, I think, and that's partly practical because there's a lot of schools that-Horn:                Right. You could go down forever, yeah.Sigelman:         I think this is a ... And this is something which Jeff Selingo and I recently looked at, you'd mentioned that paper and I think probably worth bringing to bear here. The success of graduates is defined at a three-way intersection between the program of study, your major, the school you go to, and the skills you acquire. So there is a big difference in any program of study between whether you're at a highly selective institution or a non-selective institution. There's also a big difference between what program of study you're in. Look, let's call out what I think we all intuitively know, but which was I think a really remarkable finding just to see nonetheless, when we looked at that sort of intersection of programs of study and institutional selectivity, you would rather be a tech or engineering major at a totally non-selective institution at a regional public, or four year community college, or what have you, than be pretty much any other major at the most selective institutions.                        And so I think that sort of speaks to some of the decision landscape that people have to make. We tend to focus on rankings at the institutional level. And we focus not enough at the program of study level. And again, some of that's natural because people don't necessarily know what they want to do. And there's this idle that we have of college is this kind of wonderful sorting hat, if you will, where we kind of come out knowing what we want to do. It's a very expensive sorting hat, and the stakes are very high. And so if you don't know where you want to go, what you want to do, you can wind up making some serious mistakes. Now it's interesting because this often gets cast as a debate between the STEM fields and the humanities. And indeed, there's been a significant flight out of humanities over the years.Horn:                The numbers have declined dramatically.Sigelman:         It's been a huge decline. But actually, where we see the biggest levels of under-performance are for the most part, less the humanities, though certainly most STEM fields outperform most liberal arts fields, not always, by the way. If you're going to be a life science major and not go on to graduate school, that's a mistake. But what kind of job do you get as a bio major who doesn't go get a nursing degree, or medical degree, or a PhD, or something like that? But most of the worst offenders are the kinds of programs that sound nominally practical, but which actually have either low demand or very little of the demand is for jobs that demand a degree. And it seems intuitively obvious to most of the people who are listening to us I'm sure, that mamas, don't let your babies go become parks and rec majors, or become transportation material moving majors, or law enforcement majors, or the like. If you're a first gen college goer-Horn:                You do not know.Sigelman:         There's nobody to tell you that.Horn:                Yeah.Sigelman:         And so we've actually seen a huge growth in those majors. If you look at enrollments and rather conferrals over the last 50 years, where are people getting degrees? STEM's been relatively constant. There's been a huge flight out of liberal arts. What's grown in the gap is those nominally practical majors that very often underperform.SpecialsHorn:                It's interesting because you anticipated where I wanted to go, which as we move into the special section, is enlarging this with that research you did with Jeff. And you've just sort of alluded to it, that there's these bachelor's degree pathways that don't actually pay off in the same way that the bachelor's degree does on average. And I guess what was interesting to me was first, the first part of what you just said, is that these technical sounding, very vocation clear pathways that don't pay off, should avoid those if you're paying a lot I guess on the sticker price is the lesson.                        But then you also found that there's certain pathways that are non degreed in nature that actually pay off better than some of those bachelor degree pathways you just mentioned. So what were some of those non-degree pathways that maybe people ought to be thinking about or considering?Sigelman:         So I will break this down into two parts. One is the non-degree pathways, but part of it is also: How do we create a more hybridized version of that? I mentioned there's a sort of three-way intersection here between programs of study and institutions. But the third leg of that stool is skills you acquire. And what we found was that in any given program of study, there are sets of skills that you can learn that significantly differentiate students that significantly change your prospects of success.                        A public administration major who is able to learn public investment skills is making almost a quarter more than the public administration majors. Remember I was telling you about how there's a lot of life science majors who underperform, certainly other STEM majors, and in many cases, many humanities or social science majors. Well, a life science major who develops clinical research experience is making 60% more than other life science majors. So it's really about not necessarily the baby with the bath water, it's also for learners, it's not about oops, I made this terrible mistake and now I'm doomed. But it's: How do we make sure that learners have the information they need to know what they can do to make sure that they are maxing out their chances of success?Horn:                So that goes where I want to go, which is sort of the implications for this body of work, and I'm going to call it that because it's obviously lots of little strands that are significant each unto their own, but then together start to paint a very interesting picture about the landscape of pathways into the work and so forth. And so I'm just sort of curious at a macro level. What are things that we ought to be doing in your judgment to help empower learners to make investments and choices, and I'm going to phrase it this way, in line with the progress that they're seeking? And what are we learning about how to help them discern what is and isn't a good investment along that path that they've chosen?Sigelman:         So there's a couple of things that we've been working on here. First, I think it's just providing the insight about how different skills work. And different skills work in different ways. Right? So some skills are important because they're core to a discipline. Some skills are foundational. They aren't actually the skills of that job, but you kind of need to know them. And we often forget those. For example, if you want to be a graphic designer, graphic designers are doing project based work, and so they often need project management skills. They often need budget skills. But no one teaches you that as a graphic designer and graphic design school. But at the same time, there are sets of skills that are foundation, that are transformational to a role, that are fast-growing within it that drive significant premiums. And how do we identify those as well? So that's the first thing I'd say there.                        We recently worked with Coursera to develop a framework to help both companies and learners make better optimized decisions about what skills to learn. Optimize is a funny, kind of wonky sounding word. You would just think how to make better decisions. But I think the optimization thing implies a set of choices around different priorities is really important to it because we looked at three dimensions, which sound really easy, and by the way, like huge loss of blood and whatever associated with producing them. One is: How much of an earnings boost does a skill give you? How much value does it give you in the market? A second is: How long does it take to learn? And the third is: How long does it last? How durable is that skill?                        And I remember first sharing it with some folks and they're saying, "Okay, great. What are those skills?" What do you mean, what skills? The skills that are really quick to learn, that last a long time, and give you this huge lift in your career. Guys, there's no free lunch. There's precisely zero skills that match all of those criteria. But how do you decide which ones are worth the slog, which ones give you the quick hit? Those are decision spaces that you want to help people sort of make. And so part of it is this, how do we then, and I think this is where you're getting to, it's a question of: How do we create the structures and the transparency, structures of how people can acquire these skills on the fly? Because the ones from… as I know you agree, no longer works.                        We did some work last year together with the Boston Consulting Group. We found that the average US job has seen 37% of its skills replaced in the last five years, which is an astounding pace of change. Right?Horn:                Wow, yeah.Sigelman:         Think of it as: Has the average curriculum changed 37% in the last five years? Well, of course not. Accreditors won't allow it. Right? So in that kind of context, everyone needs to acquire new skills. How do we construct a mechanism for people to be able to do that? Similarly, how do we enable people to stair-step their way toward economic mobility? Most people don't leap tall buildings in a single bound and go. There's wonderful programs out there.Horn:                Yeah. Do one thing and then build.Sigelman:         Exactly. Right? So I think we need to rethink our community college system because it is the natural infrastructure for people to be able to learn new skills on the fly. But right now, it's very oriented toward degree transfer, which so often doesn't work. Something like 80% of enrollments in community colleges are around people expecting to get a four-year degree. And according to the National Student Clearinghouse, only about 13% ever do. But this is also about: How do we give people transparency? And Michael, this is why I'm so proud of the work that we're just kicking off together around short-term credential transparency. You want to have a skill driven ecosystem, one where people, that life science major couldn't acquire that additional skill and clinical research experience and earn 60% more.                        We have to have a way of representing skills that has real currency as a marketplace. And so you hear a lot of voices talking about hey, we need more short-term credentials. Actually, that's exactly not the problem. It's exactly the opposite problem from what we have. The US Chamber of Commerce's credential engine project tracks something like 1.2 million credentials. I always point out that there are 114,000 words in the Oxford Dictionary, so it's literally 10 times more credentials than there are words in English.Horn:                Than there are words to describe them.Sigelman:         Yeah. So we don't need more of them, we need more clarity about which ones actually deliver outcomes. And so we're [inaudible 00:28:38] to recently announced partnership together with Jobs of the Future to build on the work of the EQOS, the Education Quality Outcome Standards framework. People say, "How can we do this at scale?" How could we provide an evaluation of which credentials are actually bearing out for learners so that learners know which ones to invest in, so that employers know which ones to value and which ones represent the skills that they need?Horn:                Yeah. I think that's a perfect place to leave this conversation. I'll just add my appreciation, not just for the work that we're about to do with EQOS and JFF and Burning Glass Institute coming together in that, but more importantly, also the nuance that you just used to describe even those skills. Because what they stack on top of the experience, the program, the degree that you have makes a pretty big difference to answer: How valuable is it in the labor market?                        And that level of nuance I think is important, just learning Python is going to have vastly different impacts on your career depending on what background you bring into it at that point. And so your answer to the person that says, "Well, where's the short-term durable magical skill?" It depends on context and that level of nuance I think that you all continue to craft, and this is incredibly important. So we're going to come back to you as you keep releasing these reports and breaking these insights because my hope is that it'll give people a clearer and clearer picture over time of this future of work and the different pathways, the winding pathways if you will, into it.Sigelman:         Well, always welcome these conversations, and I think we need to do so much better than we're doing right now. And there's a moment of opportunity when we see the kind of transformations that are taking place in the market, 37% of skills replaced in five years, we see the advent of generative AI, I think it's going to create an impetus for change at a policy level. It's going to create a demand from change both from learners and from employers at the other end, and that makes this an exciting moment.Horn:    No doubt. So we'll keep tracking it with you. Thanks for joining us on The Future of Education, all of you tuning in. Keep track of Matt, Burning Glass Institute, and all the insights that they're publishing. And we'll be back next time. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

When the Khan World School launched last year as a partnership between the Khan Academy and Arizona State University Prep Digital, it promised a new way forward for virtual schooling. One year later, Sal Khan and Amy McGrath rejoin me to share how the first year went—including some stunning first-year results, lessons learned, and what the next year ahead will look like as they enroll students for the next school year. As always, subscribers can listen to our conversation as a podcast, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:                Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are devoted to helping create a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their human potential. And to help us further that idea, today we have two guests who are returning guests to the conversation: None other than Amy McGrath, the COO of ASU Prep Digital, and Sal Khan, of course, of Khan Academy fame, and the two have partnered together, as many may recall, on creating the Khan World School. And first, Amy, Sal, great to see both of you. You're almost a year in, I think, to a full school year, if you will, of the Khan World School. How's it gone? How's that first year been? Congratulations.Sal Khan:               Well, and first of all, Michael, you had a hand in this, for those listening. I don't know if it was a year and a half ago, two years ago, we were looking to... Obviously I've been thinking about how do you put all the pieces together to really reimagine learning for a long time. We had started Khan Lab School out here in California many years ago, but we said, hey, after the pandemic, there's an opportunity to do online schooling, but do it right, do it so it's not just students by themselves in isolation, nothing but screen time, but actually get the best of both worlds. And I was talking to a bunch of folks of just who's done interesting things, and Michael, you said, you should talk to Amy McGrath. And Amy and I had a conversation, and by, I don't know, minute 45, there was a little bit of like, hey, you wouldn't happen to want to do this together? And Amy, I'm paraphrasing, was like, I was hoping you would ask.Amy McGrath:          Yes, indeed.Sal Khan:               And we ended up... So Michael, you are definitely the matchmaker here. But I've got to say that it has, I don't want to jinx it, but it has gone surprisingly well. I give a lot of credit to Amy and Betsy and their team at ASU Prep and ASU generally, where I and the Khan Lab School team came to them with a three to five page vision document, which really talked about personalization mastery, things that I've been talking about for many, many years. You could leverage tools like Khan Academy for students to learn at their own time and pace. We leverage another sister nonprofit that we started called Schoolhouse.world, where students can not only get free tutoring, but even better, prove their knowledge, which actually a large number of universities are now taking very, very seriously.                        But we want to anchor it not just an asynchronous activity, but seminars where you're actually connecting with people. But when you're on Zoom together, you're talking to each other, you're digging into the issues of the day. Borrow a little bit of the Oxford model where students are having small group tutorial sessions, they have check-ins with their advisors. And things like the humanities, where Khan Academy has some content, but not all the content, having reading lists, and borrow a little bit from some of the great books type programs in curricula, but also giving students choice on how they do that. And Amy and Betsy and their team have executed.                        I think, incredibly, we had 50 9th graders in this first year, and I tend to run pretty optimistic and these are students from all over the world as we talked about. I mean, Amy can give the exact numbers, but it's a good chunk from Arizona where it's free, where it's leveraging the charter of ASU Prep, but there're students from India, there're students from all over the country, there're students from all over the world. And the data in terms of their growth has been almost hard to believe, so I've been very careful on how... But we're looking at two to three times growth in math, we're looking at three plus times expected growth in reading. Language, arts, don't even want to say it because it's so large, five times expected growth. So these are all... Even if you discount those numbers... I mean these are the real numbers, I'm not making these up. Even if you discount them by 50%, they would still be hard to believe numbers.                        But I think the other side of the coin is equally interesting, is not only are these students performing at a very high level of growth regardless of where they started, but also they seem happy. They seem part of a community. It really is defying a lot of the stereotypes folks have about online schooling. They really feel like they're part of a rich community. I've been doing a monthly seminar with them, and I got to say, every time I talk to these students, I have hope for the future and I definitely have a lot of conviction on this model.Horn:                Amy, what are your reflections on one year in talking about those... Those results are incredible. I had not heard those before, by the way. Sometimes I'm suspicious of the growth rates relative to expected value, but that's also because you never hear anything anywhere close to what you just said. Amy, what are your reflections a year in as you close out the school year?McGrath:          There's so much that we've learned, but certainly both qualitatively, and obviously as Sal just mentioned, quantitatively. It's all about the outcomes for the students, and they came in voracious and high aptitude learners and still demonstrated that much growth, so we are so proud of the students. But they are enjoying themselves. We've had a lot of student focus groups and parent focus groups and seminar is where it's at. These kids so enjoy even the access to Sal on a monthly basis, to talk just about big world problems and healthy discourse. It's one thing for us as adults to try to myth-bust around the perception of online learning as being detached, and then to have kids who are sending us videos about why they feel so close to their community, to their houses, and how they can't wait for more students to join. There's eight countries represented. There's really genuine and authentic relationships that have formed in this initial year, and so it truly has been... I don't think we could have even written the narrative better than the students are reporting back, so we're very proud.Horn:                I want to come back to the word, surprisingly well, Sal, that you just used, but I'll let you say why you chose that word in a moment. But you just mentioned something, Amy, about the houses, and I actually think this is one of the, that and the seminar, are some of the coolest pieces of what you all have put together. This notion that... I think there's four houses or something like that that you've constructed? So what is that experience like? What is this community that these people across eight countries get to build?McGrath:          We really believe in this idea of interdependence on each other, so in order to really engage you need your peers to engage. You can't be doing it on your own. And so even though 50, really, is a small community of learners, we then shrink that even more and have smaller houses where they get to know each other on a more personal basis, do projects, teach each other what mastery is like, work on peer mastery, and then they also have the opportunity to get together in the Socratic seminar sessions that have all 50 of the students. We want there to be multiple opportunities to engage in smaller and more intimate settings as well as in the larger, but the students are... It's been fun in the focus groups to hear them say, "well, I still get to stay with my house next year even though new students are joining, right?"                        They have this sense of pride and they've really enjoyed getting to know each other. And it's also fun to watch them play off of each other as the year has progressed because, it's certainly a progressive autonomy type of situation, but in the beginning they're sort of watching each other's vibe and, is this okay to speak back and how do I say this question in the right way? And now there's just more of a general comfort, but a resounding theme is respect for one another and for different opinions and the desire to grow and expand their thinking. That has been a real powerful piece in terms of a learning of Socratic seminar.Horn:                Sal, you get to teach them once a month you just said. Maybe not just in that experience, but more broadly, what has been the student experience from your perspective? How do they describe it? What have they gotten to do that maybe they're also surprised about? Not just you saying, wow, it's gone surprisingly well.Khan:               Yeah, I think the things that... The student experience, this was all an idea on paper, and what we've really tried to do is go on this journey where there's Khan Academy that's being used by thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of classrooms around the world, and there we have all of these efficacy studies that if students are able to put in even 30 to 60 minutes a week it leads to really big gains. Then in 2014, we started Khan Lab School, which at the time was a very small lab school out here in Northern California, that's where my kids go to school. And we started saying, well, what if you really leaned in on personalization and mastery and having one-to-one connections with advisors and community? Everything Amy just mentioned. And we saw even more dramatic results. Khan Lab School pretty consistently sees one and a half to two and a half grade levels per year, especially in math. We need to, frankly, at the Khan Lab School side, get better at measuring what's happening in other places.                        But when we wrote the vision document for Khan World School, we decided to go even closer to vision, which is, we kind of took out the traditional schedule. We did anchor it with these synchronous seminars, my seminars are not the only one, they don't happen just once a month, that's just when I show up. They're happening regularly several times a week. But if we anchor with that, have other synchronous moments where you can connect with your advisors, your tutorial groups, but the rest of it is very much up to the student. This was a bit of an experiment to see if it threads the needle in the right way. And what we're seeing over the past years, I think we've hit the sweet spot, where the average student is spending about two hours of synchronous time with their community, but that two hours, I would argue, is more connected than the five or six hours that a lot of students might spend in a traditional classroom. Because in a traditional classroom, oftentimes you're somewhat passive, sometimes you're lost, sometimes you're bored, you're not necessarily engaged, and you'd be lucky if you have even 30 minutes to an hour of where you actually are engaged in a live classroom.                        Here, they're having two hours of pretty small group, very engaging, it could be with their tutorial, which is very small group, meeting with their advisor, it could be the seminar, which is also reasonably a small group, where they are engaged, where they're talking, they're discussing, they are exchanging ideas, working on things together. So I think having that anchor, but then having the rest of your day where you can engage asynchronously, you can message each other, you can do ad hoc meetings similar to the way we would do in a workplace if you want to meet with someone, you want to discuss something, and it really feels like that's the right amount of flexibility. And we are now... It's feeling right, and as I mentioned the numbers in terms of performance are, even for me, almost hard to believe. But because of that, we're actually actively trying to take a lot of what Khan World School is doing and bringing it back to KLS. KLS was, to some degree, the inspiration of Khan World School, but Khan World School has gone further and now we're trying to bring that back into the physical setting as well.Horn:                That's pretty cool actually, to hear about how they inform each other. Iterations over there then can feed back and then vice versa. It's almost like siblings competing with each other or twins, Amy, maybe in your case. But the question I'm curious about is, what have you learned about why students chose to enroll in Khan World School, and what's the message for those who are thinking about what they want to do for their schooling next year that are thinking, is Khan World School right for me?McGrath:          I can answer, at least start us. We imagined a school of students that wanted to go really fast, that had a ceiling in traditional settings, that if we eliminated some of the walls and the ceilings then they could put together their own learning experience that's all anchored to mastery. And that is the case, but not every student wanted to go as fast, and some of the students really needed a lot of training around what does it look like to leverage mastery and have few rules in how you demonstrate mastery. Students are coming from really structured environments and realized, I don't know what pace I'm on. I need more. I need more. And so this year, we are going to be working in the first couple weeks with our newest students on what it looks like to be involved in this model. That was a key learning for sure.                        The students wanted to sprint, but also were afraid to unleash because they might not get an A, they're going to get a high mark of high proficiency, et cetera. And so some of the things that they were used to being incentivizing to them moving forward were different, so that was an interesting piece.                        I think we're also seeing that some students really want to focus heavy on one subject a week at a time and then do the next at another week. And so some of their styles that have come out have been key, and not just us assuming this is what sprinting looks like, but asking the students, how do you pace your week? Where do you want to learn? And truly, our learning guides have been key architects into this experience and they're really helping to inform, I think, some of the Khan Lab School. Very excited that the collaboration is so much that we're going to have a pod in Mountain View, California, with Sal's son as a part of this, as a Khan World School pod at Khan Lab School. And so you can imagine that environment and that cycle of being able to make one another better and draw from each other's assets is going to be pretty fantastic.Khan:               Yeah, I'll just add... I mean, you could tell I'm voting my beliefs by convincing my kids. And look, my son, who's going to be a freshman next year, you asked me what type of student I think... The number one reason we yell at him in the house, my wife's like, Imran, stop coding. He's that kid. Maybe it's not too much of a surprise for folks. He likes to solve puzzles, he likes to code, he likes... But he's curious about things. His favorite thing to do with me is we'll go on a walk, he's like, "hey, is it okay if I have some questions, some science questions?" I'm like, yeah, it's okay. Let's talk about science while we're walking around the park.                        But I would say that a student who is feeling under stimulated, who wants more flexibility, who wants to dig into their passions, who, as Amy said, who doesn't want a ceiling, who wants to be around adults who don't discourage asking questions but encourage asking questions, even hard questions, even questions that adults might not know but the adults are saying, "well, let's figure that out together. Let's see if there is a way to do that." But at the same time, who wants to become part of a community and wants to be around other similar students.                        I won't say this is an outright school for high performers. I think all kids who come to this school could end up, in fact we're seeing that in the results, they can end up being high performers, but we really want to... But there are some high performing students who really want to be told every moment of the day what they should do, and it's probably not good for them, but for students who feel like they can do a lot more, who want to have more of a sense of purpose, who want to have a sense of being able to engage with the world and not be limited in any way, I think this is a good fit.Horn:                It's interesting hearing you say that, Sal, because I think that was part of my wonderings as well, is this for the Montessori students, say, who wants to continue that freedom? But it's actually also, maybe yes, but also for the student that's feeling boxed in by the experiences that they've had and sort of looking for that escape valve. Amy, you just said something really interesting though, which is that there's going to be a pod in Mountain View on the site of the Khan Lab School for Khan World School. So this gets us to where I want to go, which is what's next year going to look like? It sounds like those 50 9th graders are going to become 10th graders, there's going to be a whole new entering class and there's going to be some variation in the experience. Tell us more about the pod. What else is coming down the pipeline for next year?McGrath:          A lot to be excited about. We are expanding. We really wanted to start small and be obsessive about the quality and the opportunity for our students, and it went so well that we are going to expand our offering to 6th through 12th grade. We expect about 50 students per grade, so 350 total. The idea to pilot a Khan World School with a physical presence in Mountain View is just that, to pilot. What does this look like from a scheduling perspective and a hybrid learning environment? When are students going to come to school? When are they going to stay back? So I think that's part of our future, is honing it and mastering it in this next year in a safe and collaborative environment, such as Khan Lab School, and then offering this more broadly, nationally, to progressive school leaders that have the right space and have the right structures to allow us to collaborate.                        One thing that we're really careful about is not diluting the experience and handing it over to someone else. We're somewhat desiring to be controlling of the model so that it is a purist mastery model and so that... One of the things that we keep talking about is these students, they're not necessarily coming in as crazy high aptitude learners, they're just willing. They know how to self-regulate, they are curious and they desire to be there. And so there are so many of those students that are untapped that may need a physical place to report. And so as we desire to scale this to thousands and tens of thousands, we're trying to create models in various modalities that are going to be able to cater to those various needs.Khan:               I'll just add to that. I'll keep a heaping praise on Amy and Betsy and the learning guides and the whole team there because I... and Michael, you know this, we've both written a lot about mastery learning, which is really just the idea that students have the opportunity incentive, whatever their assessment level is, to improve it, to get to a level of proficiency or mastery. It usually goes hand in hand with things like competency based learning, which is really, hey, it doesn't matter that you took algebra, what matters is do you know algebra. And obviously you could have multiple shots at goal on this. It doesn't matter if it took you a year to learn it, two years to learn it, or two weeks to learn it. But it's one thing to talk about personalization and mastery and all of these things and making things student-centered, it's a whole other thing to implement it.                        And what we've seen even at KLS, Kahn Lab School, is that there's a lot of gravity towards going back to the traditional that tends to be a little bit more, the adults direct what a student does on a day-to-day basis. The assessment, maybe it doesn't feel as mastery as we would like, it's not as personalized as like... So to be able to get such a, I would call it a pure but well-thought-out implementation, with such great results is pretty darn amazing. And so that is one of the reasons why I'm so excited about scaling it behind, bringing some of that back to KLS, where we can create that program and see how you can do a hybrid between a physical layer to supplement the Khan World School experience, which I actually think is going to make it a lot easier for a lot of folks.                        A lot of folks around the world are looking to do innovative schools, but it's hard to come up with the curricula and the grading and the college admissions and all this stuff. Now they can just take that from KWS, we imagine, and then focus on the physical setting and the environment that they want to create.                        Another dimension that I think is going to be really exciting, as you know, Khan Academy has jumped in with both feet on artificial intelligence, both Khan Lab School and Khan World School were the first places where we were able to try things out. It's had a huge impact on what we're actually creating. And I think as we go into next year, you should never use technology for technology's sake. You should think about what is the problem you're trying to solve. But there's some very clear problems that we've been trying to solve at Khan Academy, KLS, and now KWS, that we think artificial intelligence could play a very, very, really interesting role.                        One, it obviously can act as a tutor for every student that has even more of value and a personalized mastery framework. It has powerful capability to act as a teaching assistant, help create lessons on the fly, make them dynamic, help prepare students in ways that would've seemed science fiction. I just gave a TED Talk and I shared a story of a young girl from India who goes to Khan World School, her name's Sanvi and she's reading The Great Gatsby, and she was trying to figure out why he keeps staring at the green light. And she says, "oh, I realize I could actually talk to Jay Gatsby via Khanmigo." Via our AI that we have on Khan Academy, and then she has this conversation with Jay Gatsby where he is like, oh, old sport. Yes, what do you want to talk about? And she's like, "well, why do you look at the green light?" He's said, that's at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock, and it represents the distance between where I am and where I want... Anyway. And then she apologized for taking up the simulation, Mr. Gatsby's, time.                        But that's the type of thing that... We're rolling it out to schools around the world, especially around the country. But I think Khan World School is going to be the epicenter of not just throwing in technology in there just to look modern, but to do it in ways that are really thoughtful where we can start to do even more mastery based learning and things like writing. And on Khan Academy, it's pretty straightforward to do personalized mastery learning because it grades it for you and there's a very deep item bank so that you don't see the same thing repeats. But with essays, Khan World School has already been doing it, but if you had an essay and you're not quite mastered yet, in theory, you should be able to edit it and then someone should review it again and keep assessing it. But how do you make sure those assessments are consistent and transparent and you get as many shots at goal as needed? That's very resource intensive, and we have been doing it at Khan World School, but maybe artificial intelligence has a role here.                        Artificial intelligence can do higher order tasks, even in math, that we couldn't traditionally do, where a student has to explain their reasoning, a student has to give a proof, a student has to design an experiment. And once again, the artificial intelligence can both work with the student, but also assess the student and also communicate with the adults on what the adults can do to better support the students.Horn:                It's cool to hear you say all that, and I'll tell this story on air: One of my daughters was home sick from school a week or so ago, maybe two weeks ago at this point, and she was asking me questions, and not quite pestering, but about various things. And I said, you know there's this talk of my friend Sal that I need to watch of him giving this TED Talk, which I knew I should watch, not just the explanations you had forwarded me originally around Khanmigo. And so we watched it together and then she said, "okay, my turn." And so she hopped on, we had the invite to Khanmigo, and by the end she was full on programming by the end of the day. It was an incredibly productive day and she said, "see, dad, I can be productive and learn outside of school too." And I said, "of course you can. That's awesome." It was incredible to watch the interaction between the two.                        And I think the other thing that you just pointed to is, you've almost built this dual engine, seems to me, Sal, of Schoolhouse.world on the one hand of peer-to-peer almost assessment, but peers who are denoted as masters of the things that they're assessing, coupled with perhaps the artificial intelligence. The amount of information we're going to be able to get about people's learning and true mastery thresholds in a much more seamless sort of authentic way seems like it could really dramatically change the learning models and sort of our mindsets around what teaching and learning even looks like. I'm sort of curious, how far has this played out in your head about what's possible?Khan:               Yeah, and I know for folks listening, it could get confusing because we have an alphabet soup of organizations that we have, with Khan Academy at the core, and now we have the schools, Khan Lab School, and what we've been talking about, Khan World School, and Schoolhouse.world. During the pandemic, it's always been my dream... And we've always seen it in classrooms, that the best classrooms don't just have students on Khan Academy, but the students are able to engage with each other and provide that extra support towards each other so that you don't just have one teacher in the room, you have 30 teachers in the room. You can get to a one-to-one that way. And we said, well, what if we could scale that broadly, especially during the pandemic where folks were at home and they needed to feel more connected.                        So we started a sister nonprofit, Schoolhouse.world, its mission is connect the world through learning. And the whole idea is peer-to-peer tutoring. And we said, well, how do we certify whether someone can tutor, whether they know their material and they can tutor? Well we said, what if they took Khan Academy assessments that come from a very deep item bank, so you could take it as many times as you want and not see repeats, and record their face and their screen while they explain the reasoning out loud. And then that video artifact, if they get to 90%, if they don't, they can try again tomorrow with a different test, but if they get to 90%, it gets peer reviewed, to your point, Michael. And if it all looks good, and obviously Khan Academy is doing the grading, the peers are making sure that the person didn't cheat, they followed the protocol, then we say, okay, you know unit one of calculus, you can start your journey to tutoring. Then there's training and all of that.                        But at the same time, during the pandemic, universities like University of Chicago, MIT, reached out and said, hey, could we use this as a way for college admissions? Because one, we love this way that you're assessing folks. You're not just making them fill out a Scantron, you're making them explain their reasoning, and they also have to review other people's work. That by itself is awesome. But then these days, especially at some of these elite schools, kids with maxed out grades and standardized scores are almost a dime a dozen. We want to see the kids who can teach this material, who can go off to other people and explain it and invest the time. And to your point, that has created this really powerful... It's not the same scale as Khan Academy, Khan Academy is tens of millions of folks, this is tens of thousands of folks, but it is scaling quite fast.                        But both Khan World School and KLS have anchored deeply on this for our math, because one, it's a way to show that you really know it, but then we also want our students to go on that journey to eventually tutor other students, which by the way, there's now 16 universities including MIT, UChicago, Yale, Cornell, who have become part of this consortium who are taking these types of signals seriously. But to your point with artificial intelligence, we're just starting to explore how the artificial intelligence can run a simulation with a student, how it can ask them questions. You can imagine pairing that maybe with what we're doing at Schoolhouse, where you record yourself engaging with artificial intelligence, maybe in the humanities, it can run essentially like a thesis defense with you, and then maybe that gets peer reviewed by humans. And so we do see something interesting developing, to your point.                        Traditional Khan Academy with the exercises and the practice, we think that's going to be relevant for a while because it is the most curated and clear indication, but then you have a layer of artificial intelligence, both on the support side and on the potentially of the assessment side eventually, and then you have the human support and assessment at the highest level with Schoolhouse.McGrath:          I'd love to just comment on that as well. As a learning designer, watching students have access to every one of the tools in real time that Sal just described, it's been phenomenal to watch 13, 14, and 15 year olds with Khanmigo, and the respect that platform has for the student on their learning journey is pretty phenomenal. I mean, there's so much controversy around this right now, and it's challenging me as an educator. I mean, the whole theory that the brain who does the work, does the learning. I truly do still believe that, but I think we're seeing it in a different way now.                        I think some of the future of all these tools that Sal is just talking about, this universe of assets, so you've got AI sitting between the student and the teacher, and it accelerates exponentially their ability to not just be waiting on them and on the adult, on the human. It's making connections and pushing the student further and we're really seeing that actually happen. And so the students are still doing the work, but they're actually doing a better work product and going back to it, asking the bot how to deepen and expand their knowledge base, which is, I think, improving the ability to master as well. So very, very impressed as an educator in architecting new models that this is a good thing for students.Horn:                It strikes me that that's where the focus is as we start to wrap up here, Amy, which is it's not just taking the tool and just putting it blindly in an existing system, it's building new models around it. And that's what fundamentally you all are demonstrating here, is that Khan World School and Khan Lab School are these Petri dishes in which to reimagine what schooling looks like. And then with this technology, the scale that you can start to do this at, to allow communities all over the world to form around this, it gets pretty exciting pretty fast. Take us through where you're thinking... You're enrolling 6th through 12th grade coming up, you just said, where does this go from here in both of your minds as we wrap up?Khan:               Well, I view Khan World School as a Formula One car analogy where automotive companies, they have the Formula One cars to show what's possible. If you take the best of all the technology, the best engineering, the best drivers, what you can do, that's what Khan World School is. What's interesting is it could also potentially scale. It's not going to scale to millions likely, but definitely tens of thousands over time. But I think... And it also creates a very powerful outlet for students today who want to be challenged. And I think these are going to be the kids who start the Googles of the future, who cure diseases, write the great novels of the future, and even if we can reach thousands of them, I think that's going to have huge impact on society. But I think even more importantly, it sets an example of what's possible in the broader world.                        The timing of Khan World School existing hasn't been better because of all of the artificial intelligence work that's happening. We need to show the world how this can be used for good, how it can accelerate outcomes and be very clear-eyed that we're not just alluding ourselves, that we're measuring it and we're seeing that it's actually working. There's a very interesting moment in EdTech that's happening where classic EdTech has always been, hey, you've been running a school a certain way, here's a tool that might improve things and here's our efficacy studies, et cetera. What's happened with AI, it's been like a big bomb in the education system where it kind of broke education or it is breaking it where people are like, what do we do with term papers? What do we do in a world where kids can cheat and ask ChatGPT things? And we think we have a solution here where not only could we mitigate any of those risks and make it safe, but we can dramatically accelerate and do things that would've seemed utopian, honestly, even a year ago.McGrath:          Yeah, so increasing opportunity is what Arizona State University is all about. And so this K-12 concept of ASU prep, creating new models, and now being able to partner with someone as prolific as Sal to design a model that is giving students hybrid flexible choice and allowing them to sprint is so exciting. We also are doubling down on early college. Truly eliminating that line and bringing college to 13, 14, and 15 year olds to master and to continue to just... No longer is it all breath. There's a lot of depth. And when a student knows what they want and can just go after it and tutor themselves using AI, show mastery with their peers on Schoolhouse.world, have access to state-of-the-art university content anytime, anywhere, it's pretty phenomenal. So I think it's the best of what we know as education experts all in one menu.                        The desire and the goal is certainly to expand that and to get more students on board. So 350 next year, I don't know Sal, what do we say? A thousand the following year? That's the pace that we would love to go because we think this is so great, and as the outcomes are speaking for themselves, this is something that we now... We hypothesized it was going to go really well and that we knew how to design a powerful model, now we are seeing in real time that it's good for kids, so we're excited to get it into more hands.Horn:                Khan World School one year later. People should keep checking it out and you all keep expanding so that you bring these pods to Massachusetts so my girls have some good options for high school. I'm excited about where this is going. Sal, Amy, keep up the great work and thanks joining me. Thank you for subscribing. 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Senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Rick Hess recently joined me on the Future of Education to talk about his new book, The Great School Rethink. It's a terrific book that reaches a similar set of conclusions as my own recent book, From Reopen to Reinvent. Rick argues that change in education won't come from on high, but instead from education and entrepreneurs on the ground. He then talks about what those changes could look like—and how they'll look different in different communities. In this conversation, we delved into some of Rick's pet peeves—which viewers may be surprised to learn are also some of my pet peeves. Phrases like innovation and disruption and best practices. We also talk about rethinking the job of teachers, what a charter teacher might look like, and the use of time in schools and mastery-based learning. As always, subscribers can listen to the conversation, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:   Welcome, welcome, welcome to 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 today's guest is a longtime friend of mine. He's the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of a great new book called The Great School Rethink. He's none other than Rick Hess. Rick, it is good to see you. Thanks for being here.Rick Hess:         Hey, good to be with you, pal.Horn:                Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And I'm going to try not to fawn too much over the book because I know you hate that sort of stuff in these conversations, but I enjoyed every word in it, so I'll just say that upfront. I loved how you started it off in particular, I used to tell my team when I had a team at the Christensen Institute that our job in policy circles is not to so much tell people exactly what to put in place or do this policy, it's often, frankly, to tell them not to do these well-meaning things. Like don't do this sort of thou shall use technology in this way sort of policies that you know people love to put in place. You have a lot of humility around that in the book, I would say. But also your message is that the best ideas are going to come from educators and entrepreneurs on the ground. I'd actually love to hear how you came to that conclusion, the evidence you sort of have and hold for it and why maybe we don't see enough of that, if that's the case.Hess:                Yeah. These are great questions, man. And it's very kind of you to say the nice stuff about the book, but anybody who's going to read it is going to be like, "Wait a minute, didn't Horn actually make a lot of these points in Reopen to Reinvent?" And I think part of it is you're out there doing a lot of this work, so it means a lot that you say that.                        Look, for people who are thinking about this book, part of it, yeah, it's a continuation of stuff that I've been thinking about since I was teaching high school in the last century. Folks who've read my stuff will probably know this story. I was teaching high school, I got frustrated. I was like, how can so many well-meaning people drive each other so nuts? And for me I went back to do my PhD to try to understand how come school reform seems like it's a frustrating enterprise.                        One of the key insights to this point that why I'm a skeptic about grand fixes and great resets and all this kind of stuff is that I did this book back in the... My dissertation at Harvard in the '90s wound up being called Spinning Wheels. I studied 50 odd urban school districts. And at the time, the conventional wisdom was that we needed to shake them up, they needed to be brought to life. And the big counterintuitive finding was that I found that the average district appeared to have launched more than a dozen major reforming initiatives in the prior three years. That's one every three months.                        And the big takeaway from the book was like, look, guys, when you teach people that nothing is actually going to stick very long, they don't take it very seriously. And what teachers do is they close their doors and they tell each other this too shall pass, and none of this reform becomes anything more than raindrops pounding off a tin roof. And several years ago in Letters to a Young Ed Reformer, I said, look, this actually explains, I think a lot of our frustrations, whether it's these big R reforms, no Child Left Behind, and school improvement grants and Common Core are all premised on the notion that if we write some laws and give some marching orders from state capitals or Washington, that will translate into changes in schools and cultures.                        I think 25 years of empirical observation has taught me that it just doesn't. And in fact, what happens is it creates more rules, more routines, more fear, and it actually leaves us more stuck than where we began. So kind of the great school rethink, I said, look, we've just been through this brutal kind of disruption in the way Americans think about schools and how teachers experience schools and how families relate to schools, and it's created a moment of punctuated equilibrium. And rather than use this as a money moment for somebody's grand scheme to try to jam it in place, it's actually a great opportunity for us to ask the kinds of questions that in the hurley burley, we usually don't get around to asking.Horn:                Love it, love it. And you know, you have this quote then that really resonated with me and seems so common sensical frankly, which I'm going to quote it at length, so apologies. But you say, “How do I want schools to change? I want kids to play more games, master more rigorous math, read more fiction, engage in more debates, play more music, and learn more history. I want schools to be both more rigorous and more joyous. I want more assurance that seven year olds are mastering the building blocks of literacy and more freedom for 17 year olds to be out in the world learning a trip. I want schools to find ways to do vastly better with struggling students and with high achievers. I want teachers to have more control over their profession and more freedom to focus on the things that matter for kids.”                        And like me, you don't particularly care where that occurs if it's a private school, a homeschool, a charter school, district school, just want this to happen for kids. I guess I'm curious, your reflections, you've written the book, you do see a fair amount of the innovations, you get to interview a lot of people doing interesting stuff. They come through the AEI forums as well. Do you feel like this is happening that we're starting to build these communities, and where is that occurring, if so?Hess:                Yeah, I mean, one of the funny things is people say, "Well, Rick, how can you be both for rigor and joy?" And I'm like, where did we lose the thread of the plot? Every parent wants more rigor and more joy. Pedro Noguera and I kept talking about this when we were doing this in search of common ground book a couple years ago, how fundamentally stupid our debates have gotten that we pick sides on things that no normal human being picks sides on. In making this happen, yeah, I mean I think that's the weird thing. I mean, I think you and I both kind of observe this a lot when we get to talk to people out there and are out in the mix, is that lots of cool stuff is happening, lots of cool insights about how do we start to leverage staff, the opportunity culture stuff that Brian Hassell does or the ASU stuff that Brent and Carol at ASU are doing.                        There's an enormous amount of interesting stuff around technology and how to leverage it where we think about choices and new models, whether it's micro schools or learning pods or there's any number of interesting things. The problem, it goes back to what we talked about a moment ago, is I feel like so much of this just runs into the brick wall of that's not how we do it. Districts wind up trying to threaten and bully parents who are looking for a learning pod. Instead of saying, hey, we talk all that stuff about equity, why don't we help people who need help build learning pods? That seems like it advances equity. Instead, they wind up denouncing learning pods as some kind of nefarious scheme.                        When we think about funding mechanisms, course choice, in order to be able to do it, you've got to be able to use your federal funds in ways that are consistent with what ESSA allowed. But we also know that there's time and reporting requirements. And so for me, so much of my career in education last quarter century has been watching people keep trying to build a new scaffolding that they just lay over the ruins they've inherited... not ruins. Over a system that wasn't designed to do what they wanted to do. And instead of saying, well, all right, we need to create some green field here, they say, well, if we just put one more story on top, if we just weld on one more plate, we'll finally get there.                        And I think they've made it harder and harder for the kinds of communities of practice that you're talking about, the problem solvers out there. it becomes much harder for them to grow and extend and create than it needs to be. And so for me, the great rethink is largely how do we get people in positions of authority, district leaders, school leaders, school board members, state education chiefs, asking questions about how do we facilitate this work rather than imagine that it's their job to come up with one new grand solution?Horn:                And to do that, you have some really cool exercises throughout the book. And one of them actually asks educators to define what a school is. I'll just confess, I read that, I was like, actually that's really hard. I struggled with it as I read it. So I'd actually love to turn it back to you. What's your own answer for what is a school?Hess:                It's a great question. For me, I mean, I think to cut to the chase, I don't know that there's a clear answer. When I think about Aristotle doing his thing, that was a school. When I think about these self-impressed, fancy New England prep schools, their schools, when I think about these scrappy, non-traditional kind of CET shops in their schools, I mean, I think a school is a place where we get together learners and educators in order to try to master skills, Dick Elmore's old kind of triangle, the student and the teacher in the presence of content. But for me, the more important thing is these exercises are so much fun. You and I get to do a lot of work shopping and teaching kind of stuff. And what what's fun about them is you realize how little opportunity really smart educators and leaders are given to just think creatively.                        They get drilled. Here's what you're supposed to say. You're supposed to talk about teacher quality and effective schools, and you're supposed to memorize the slogans. You are supposed to learn the five pillars of this reform strategy and the opportunity to just say, well, how much time actually gets lost to disruption? Or what do teachers actually do in 390 contract minutes during the day? And I learned this years ago. I remember I was doing this book The Same Thing Over and Over. And one of the fascinating things, it's a history how schools got to where they are. And one of the funny things that struck me that I hadn't expected, but when you go out and you talk to people about this stuff, if they understand where things came from, somehow it makes talking about changing it less personal. So this is particularly the case, say, with I always found it with step and lane pay.                        When you explain that step and lane pay was actually an attempt to bring some degree of rationality and fairness to pay because we were paying men twice what we paid women and white teachers twice what we paid black teachers, and the step and lane pay was created to address that, but it's now a solution to a different set of problems, you could just get a different conversation going than you could before you got into the history. And so for me, so many of these exercises are trying to create that space to reflect in a way that lets people have conversations and think about stuff that we often don't.Horn:                Well, they're incredibly effective. I'm going to be honest. I'm going to steal a couple of them. I'll credit you on the road, but they're really effective. And on that note, you talk about educators don't have the space to do this stuff, but they also sort of revert to these truisms or the things that they're supposed to say. And you have some great pet peeves in the book. I suspect some folks who tune in will be surprised that I share your pet peeves actually. And so I'm going to toss a few of them out, and you can do your lightning round around why you dislike the phrase or the emphasis. And the first one is you have innovation as an end.Hess:                Yeah. It's funny, you and I have had this conversation, and you're a great innovator. But anybody who's ever walked into an Apple store and said, "Sell me your most innovative iPhone," looks like an idiot, because innovation is a process. You get a better Apple phone with more memory or it takes better pictures because folks working somewhere have solved problems. And a good overall description for that problem solving is innovation. But when you hear educators talk about innovation zones or innovative programs, and that becomes the goal, I'm like, y'all just lost a thread of the plot.Horn:                Yeah, I love it. I always say to folks in the innovation community also, they're like, we just got to try stuff and we have to have space and it'll fail and blah, blah. I'm like, fair, but the idea is to get good outcomes. Apple, it's not an innovation if it doesn't help people make progress in their lives. And so progress in their lives is what you ought to care about, not how you got there. You have another one that I suspect given that I'm the disruption guy for better or worse, but you say disruption or transformation is bad. I totally agree with you. So tell us why though.Hess:                Yeah, well it's funny too because one of the things that I've always loved about your work is when you talk about disruption. You and Clay talked about it in a very precise way. By disruption we mean replacing one way of doing things. You get these other people, it particularly comes up in the school choice conversation. You get these over caffeinated kind of social media types who love to talk about blowing up the school districts. And I'm like, look, guys, lots of people like school choice. Seventy percent of people want the right to pick the school their kid goes to. Over half of families say, especially after COVID, they'd like to have a school model where there kids are at home one day a week. They want options. They want programs, they want choices. That doesn't mean they don't like their local schools. Their local schools are where they go on Friday night to watch football. It's where they get to know the other families in their community. So it is possible both to like robust school choice, education, savings, accounts, vouchers, as well as charter schools and other options and also to like your schools.                        And if we talk about it that way, that school choice is about giving families options, about empowering them, I think it's both true to what we're trying to do and really sensible and well liked. But what happens is you get the same kinds of kids who if they were on the other side, would be saying, let's defund the police, running around chanting these crazy slogans that the goal is to disrupt America. And all of these parents are like, dude, I got plenty of disruption in my life. What I'm actually looking for is somebody to help me educate my kid in a safe, caring environment. And I just feel like disruption picks up absolutely none of that.Horn:                Yeah. I love it. The next one you had was best practices.Hess:                Partly it's what the heck is a best practice? Look, if we're talking, I'm going to my dentist and the dentist is like, "Hey, I'm an innovator. I don't believe in giving you anesthesia first." I'm like, no, no, no. Go best practice. Don't innovate. Give me the anesthesia first and then drill. That's the best practice I can get behind. The problem is in education, a lot of times best practice is somebody did a pilot somewhere with lots of foundation money in an opt-in school where all the teachers were excited about it, where they had an MOU, memorandum of understanding, that gave them flexibility to do it well, or they did it in some charter that was built around doing this thoughtfully and well. I think a lot of the blended stuff fits this. And then you look at it, and it works fantastic in that site, and they go, "Ah, ha, it's the best practice." And you're like, "No, dude, dude, dude. It's not a best practice."                        It's something that works well under very particular circumstances. You want to replicate none of the circumstances. You just want to do a dog and pony show where you fly in for a day, look at it, come back and do a half-hearted version of it, and then two years later you're going to ring your hands and say it was an implementation problem, what could we know?Horn:                It's so funny on that, and I'm glad you brought up the blended example because so many people when we came out of that taxonomy of different types of blended models, you remember people would say, well, which one's the best? I was like, I don't know. It depends. It depends on so many things that we're not even capturing. Circumstance matters in this sort of average, this is the best practice thinking is the death of progress, I think.Hess:                Part of this is a problem with the ED research that they're like, well, we find that on average you find some kind of effect if you do this, but it's like saying, on average we find a minuscule effect if you give kids carrots sometimes. Well, how many carrots? How often? And most of our ED research doesn't have any of the particulars that educators can then use to say, "Well, I know exactly what I'm supposed to do."Horn:                Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's interesting that best practice problem pervades frankly all of social sciences and business as well. Jim Collins stuff. Everyone should not have a charismatic leader. Well, Steve Jobs did pretty fine. So it can't just be that. So conditions matter, I think. You didn't have this one, but I want to name it because it's one of my pet peeves, and I suspect it might be one of yours, but I'm curious, which is personalized learning.Hess:                Oh, I can't believe I didn't hit that one. Thank you, man. Well, the hell's that even mean?Horn:                One, yeah.Hess:                It's like, look, I mean... Right? And, again, it's all these things. People are like, well, what we mean is that there's a problem that kids are sitting in classrooms organized by grade level, and it doesn't actually in any way reflect where they're at. It doesn't reflect what they're curious about, what they need to master, what they've already mastered. Okay, totally on board with that. But what do we do about it? And they're like, oh, we need personal... I'm like, well, fine. It's a game.Horn:                Moms and apple pie.Hess:                Part of it, it's weird. It's almost like education has learned to talk about improvement by watching The Office. If you think about Steve Carell just doing one of those things where he was just throwing out words he clearly didn't understand, and it's like we've trained superintendents and school leaders and they go to these foundation led conferences where it's almost as if you say the right half dozen words in the right sequence, schools will magically improve. And so we wind up with effective quality based, equitable, personalized learning environments. And it's like, well, there you go. And what gets lost along the way is how all of it is the actual doing, and none of it's the talking.Horn:                Love it, love it. And I also push a lot of times back on folks, and I'm like, personalization's a verb, right? It's how we help get to the outcomes. And I suspect there's some times where having the whole class doing the same thing, that's a great idea, but let's be open to what's the outcome, how are we trying to get there? And just be open to it. So three more concepts I want to hit from your book out of the lightning round, if you will. You talk about the impossible job of teachers, and you referenced this earlier, the ASU worker, the Public Impact, Brian Hassell work, and like me, you spend some time on asking folks to rethink what that staffing model is, maybe getting rid of one to many, whatever it might be. I'm curious because when I talk about this right now on the stump, people are like, okay, outside of ASU and Public Impact, how do I do this?                        And I'm curious, how do you suggest helping more school communities sort of think through this foundational question of what are the adults in our buildings doing?Hess:                It's almost like your personalization point that you just made so effectively. Starting with ASU or opportunity cultures, starting at the wrong place. It's like, hey, here's something on the shelf called improved staffing, so let's plug it in. And that's the exact wrong way to go about it. The right way is to say, "Look, most important thing schools are doing is spending money on adults." That's a bulk of what they do. What are they getting for this? I do this exercise when I work with teachers, get out chart paper, and I'm like, let's list all the things you did in the last week. Teachers will routinely put five dozen things up.                        And so then I say, all right, circle the five that are most useful for kids and star the five that you spent the most time on. And there's usually a limited overlap. And they've never actually done this. Even in districts that claim they're data driven, nobody's ever actually sat down and systematically thought about what are teachers doing all day in their work? And nobody's actually trying to say, how do we optimize for the stuff that matters for kids? Much less start talking about how do we match teachers with complimentary technology? So where to start, I would start with what the heck are teachers doing? Understanding that, talking about what matters, how much time is being used in ways that are inefficient or ineffectual, and then work forward from there.                        Because one of the things that any of the ASU or opportunity culture stuff is doing is it's saying, look, let's layer teacher roles. You don't need them to help you think about this. If you go to an architecture firm, prizewinning architects don't spend a lot of time filling out paperwork for clients. That's handled by somebody else, but that's partly because they have figured out what work is high leverage and what maps on the skills. If you've got a phenomenally effective K3 literacy instructor, I don't know that you want to compartmentalize. I think departmentalized schools work in some cases, not others. That's fine. Whichever you want to do is fine by me, but you sure as hell shouldn't have them spending a lot of time loading kids onto the buses, getting off buses and having them watch kids eat Jello at lunch. That's not a great use of highly skilled labor.Horn:                Makes a lot of sense. Let me move to this next one, which is, you have a fascinating chapter about the use of time in schools, and you made a lot of really important observations, one of which, why aren't there more studies around the day in the life of a kid and just the minutes literally of what they're doing and how much time is wasted in the name of efficiency is the way I'll put it because I don't want people to think I want kids slaving away all the time, but it's wasted in the name of actually those sorts of things in many cases. But I'm curious, you also talk about the Carnegie Unit and obviously that's a big push for me, mastery based learning, and I genuinely don't know how you think about this. Is mastery based learning one of those things that requires conditions do you think from government or rethink of the assessment paradigm for it to thrive? Or is it one of those things that should be more community by community driven and not universal in your view?Hess:                I think to move off the Carnegie Unit, I think you need a baseline level of comfort among the policy, the folks who are funding schools in the state, that they have some assurance, whether kids are learning what you want to learn. Completing course units is a clunky and terrible way to measure these things, but at least it's some way to measure them, and it gives people some way to cover their ass. The problem of going to mastery learning is you no longer have any way as a policymaker to cover your ass. And so I think just as a pragmatic question, yeah, you need some degree of buy-in. You need at least an opt-in agreement at the state level that districts are allowed to use these set of mastery kind of badges or what have you as a stand-in because that gives school boards or local school leaders the room to operate. You can't do the whole thing from scratch.                        So I think that's right. Again, this is a place where part of what's necessary for, and I think you've made the case for mastery learning as opposed to Carnegie compelling. I don't know how anybody could sit there and be like, oh, yeah, I don't get it. But there's this question of how do you practically do it instead where you're worried about which kids are going to fall off the radar. But the other thing, it's just such a crucial point that people routinely talk about, oh, we've got to extend the school year. We've got to extend the school day. I'm always amazed how many people don't understand that if you look at the OECD data, American kids spend about a hundred hours more in school each year than their peers around the globe.                        That's compared to kids in Finland, in Japan and Germany. I mean, we got kids locked up a lot, and lots of it were just boring the living crap out of them. So like you said, being more thoughtful and purposeful about times, not about strapping kids to a desk instead of we're locking kids up for over a thousand hours a year, how do we make sure that we can in good faith, tell the kids that this actually is about them and not about bureaucratic routine?Horn:                Okay, last question. I have so many thoughts on this. So we could go down the OECD rabbit hole, but I'm going to avoid that one for another day. But the last question is, you have this great idea, which was new to me toward the end of the book about a charter teacher rather than a charter school. So share more about what this looks like, and is anywhere actually doing it? I'm not even sure.Hess:                Yeah. This was Julie Squire's idea. Julie was my program manager like 15 years ago.Horn:                Back in the day.Hess:                She's way back in the day. She's at Bellwether now doing that interesting Assembly work they're doing. This was her idea. If folks want to find the writeup, it's in the Conservative Ed Reform Network, Sketching the New Agenda Series. Julie and I had chatted about it. It's been introduced in Louisiana. It has not been adopted anywhere. The idea is real simple. It's a version of a thing that a bunch of us I think have written out over the last 10-15 years, which is if you are a teacher who in whatever fashion demonstrates your medal, national board certification or student achievement or any other mechanism, what's the equivalent of being able to hang out your own shingle as a psychiatrist?                        And the charter teacher idea is that Julie says, well, states should create a mechanism where teachers can apply and win charter status. They then are negotiating essentially as standalone operators with their school or district. They negotiate a rate for the salary split. So say it's 50/50 or what have you, 50% goes to the district for overhead. Teacher pays their own expenses, any teacher aides, their own benefits. And the teacher can then choose how many students to take. They have to take, say, at least the district minimum, whatever that is per class. But if they say, look, I can handle 35 kids and I want to hire an aide or two, bless them. More kids in a strong teacher's classroom creates less drag, makes it easier on her grade level or departmental compatriots in that school or system. And it creates ways for teachers to grow in their role without having to step out of the classroom and enter administration.Horn:                Love it. And it strikes me, it's also one of these ways, Clay and my work is a lot about autonomy, how you create autonomy in the organizational or business model so you can do these rethinking exercises. And it strikes me that this is a great way within schools to get that freedom away from the conventional model and allow some educators to do the rethinking like the exercises in your book.Hess:                Absolutely. I mean, this is one of the things that has, again, gotten lost with all of the sloganeering in the choice conversation, that this really ought to be about creating options and empowering families and educators, letting folks create learning environments that make sense for them, whether they are the learner or the teacher. And I think what Julie's come up with here is just a terrific version of one piece of it.Horn:                Love it. Love it. Rick, thanks for joining us on the Future of Education. For all of you tuning in, check out his new book, The Great School Rethink. It's just out, I believe, by the time this conversation airs. And just really appreciate you being the voice that you are out there.Hess:                Oh, man. No, appreciate it. And thanks so much for having me on. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

In the latest episode of the Future of Education, I interviewed Kenisha Scaggs, founder of the Soar Academy. We talked about everything from the history of the Soar Academy to how she defines student success and why more public school funding won't get us to where we need to go. Scaggs originally started her microschool-turned-private-school in her attic to help kids who were desperately behind in their education.Helping neurodivergent kids reach new heights, Scaggs noted that the classroom environment she created is different for her students. “Our class is a one-room schoolhouse, so it’s not about what grade you’re in. You’re not necessarily sitting with fourth graders if you’re in fourth grade, you’re sitting with whoever meets your learning [need],” Scaggs explained.The SOAR Academy puts a big emphasis on helping students learn to read—with a focus on phonics and background knowledge—and learning math. In the conversation around helping students learn in different ways, although Scaggs used the phrase “learning styles”—which generally refers to the debunked notion of people being a visual learner or an auditor learner and the like—you’ll see that she means something different by it in actual implementation. I also really enjoyed learning about how the SOAR Academy treats Mondays and Fridays as dramatically different from Tuesday through Thursdays to help students get in the flow of their learning and feel a real sense of belonging in and excitement about the school.I continue to be inspired by the wave of education entrepreneurs solving problems for students whose needs aren’t being met. As always, you can listen to the conversation, above, watch it below, or read the transcript.Michael Horn:                Welcome to 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 that today, our guest is Kenisha Skaggs. She's the founder of the SOAR Academy. A school that has what it says are not your typical classrooms inside. Flexibility is the name of the game, but with some clear principles at work. Which we'll get into, and I'm excited to learn about. Also, SOAR Academy was one of the finalists recently for the Yass Prize, which rewards permissionless education. Which for my reading certainly describes what they have built at the SOAR Academy, which is based in Georgia. So Kenisha, welcome to The Future of Education. It's really good to see you.Kenisha Scaggs:             Thank you. I'm super excited to be here as a part of the Future of Education. So, awesome.Morning Warm-UpHorn:                Well, I think you've represent it in many ways. So let's start with our segment, the morning warmup. We're trying out a new set of segments for this show. And it's a set of lightning rounds, if you will. And just simply what is SOAR Academy in your words.Scaggs:             Sure. So, SOAR Academy is a neurodivergent micro-school. And it is for students with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and students facing remediation. Our approach is project-based learning, real world application, and just getting to the heart of what's important. Which is mental health support and literacy and math, is what we think are the really important points in education. So that's kind of how our education standards are formed around math, literacy and mental health support for our students.Horn:                Wow, that's fantastic. And what grades do you serve? Is this K through 12? Or what is this?Scaggs:             Pretty much. We're first grade through 12th grade.Horn:                Gotcha. And then tell me the founding story. This is 2011, I think when you founded it if I have my year right. What was the sort of barrier or thing that said, "You know, we got to create something for neurodivergent students? Whatever is out there is not serving them."Scaggs:             Right. So in 2011, I was working with No Child Left Behind. I was working with a provider. Actually, I was just a tutor there, and we were working with a lot of inner city kids from low performing schools, just trying to increase their literacy and their math rates. And the students were not engaged with the program. It was a lot of worksheets, or back then they weren't online as much. But the time they were online, it was just kind of more of a babysitter. It wasn't really something that engaged the students in their interests. And so I mentioned to her, "We should have some games we can bring in. We can go outside. We can turn this reading into a multisensory project, versus just the worksheets." And she said to me, "We're making a lot of money. Let's not do that. Let's just push the paperwork through the state. And you're going to get paid well. I'm going to get paid well."                        And that was what was important. And I just could not leave that space thinking that was a good idea for those kids. I really felt like, if we could give them a real chance to read well and to critically think, that might change their trajectory after graduation. And so I decided I had $700 in the bank actually, it's funny. And I said, "Okay, I'm going to start a school in my attic. Or am I going to work through some things that needed repair in my home?" And I said, "Nope, I'm going to start a school." So I quit my job. I was actually working in accounting right after college. And I started a school in my attic. And it was about 10 kids who were not reading on a grade level. Two and three grade levels behind high schoolers. They were not doing basic math. And from there, it spiraled quickly. Parents found out that I was homeschooling and the line within a year, it was over 20 students. And that's when I had to lease a retail space. So it's just always been in demand.Horn:                Wow. Wow, that's fascinating. And so, would you describe yourself in the lingo of today as a micro-school, a private school? How do you think about that?Scaggs:             Yes. Well, the Yass Prize actually coined us as a micro-school. But thanks to them, we've actually turned into a private school. Because we are looking at serving hundreds of students this fall. So we're not really a micro-school as much, and we're looking at more than one location. So I say we're leaning more toward the private school realm at this point.Work TimeHorn:                Wow. That's exciting. That's really exciting. So let's move into our next segment, work time. Where we dig into the work of the day of what students do. And let's start there. Give us a sense of, if I come into SOAR Academy, what do the classrooms look like?Scaggs:             Sure.Horn:                And how does the teaching really work?Scaggs:             Sure. So our school is super flexible, as you've mentioned before. So Mondays and Fridays are very non-traditional. Our students go to mental health therapy if they need it. ABA therapy, speech, OT. We do character development. And we do field trips, STEM and art. So on Mondays and Fridays, you're not even in a classroom setting. We have autism chairs, ADHD stools, some kids lay on pillows on the floor. It's just sort of getting kids back into the flow of the week. And I don't think you can really just ask kids to sit at a desk at 8:00 AM after all of the deprogramming you have to do from the weekend. So our kids look forward to coming in Monday because they know they're not going to be sitting at a desk doing busy seat work. They're going to learn how to work with other kids that aren't like them. They're going to learn something that connects to the real world. And they're also going to be able to critically think outside of the box.                        So it's really fun. Tuesday through Thursday is a little more traditional. You'll do math, language, science and social studies, but still it's project-based learning. It's multisensory. Our class is a one room schoolhouse. So it's not about what grade you're in. You're not necessarily sitting with fourth graders if you're in fourth grade. You're sitting with whoever meets your learning style. So if your learning style is that you need audio to hear the lesson and you need a video, then you're sitting with those kids. And if you need to move and be kinesthetic, then you're sitting with those students. And that's kind of how we've broken the room apart. And that seems to work for our students. They're still meeting the standard. So yeah, Tuesday through Thursday are more traditional. But still, what is your kids' learning style? How can SOAR teach your kid the way that works for them? And that's what we do. We build the curriculum around the kid.Horn:                Wow. And do you find that students will gravitate toward their math? They maybe want... I'm making this up, but maybe they really want that audio, video, headphones in. But then they're doing reading and they're like, "Nah, I need to be more kinesthetic, moving around." Or similar. Do you find that it varies based on whatever they're working on, or their mood, or things like that? And how much do the kids get to dictate that?Scaggs:             Yeah, so I would say that the kids 100% dictate that. Because at SOAR, we're dealing with a lot of learning challenges. We've got, pretty much everyone's dyslexic. Over 50% autism. ADHD, pretty much 100%. We have a huge foster care/adoption community. So those kids need us to be flexible to them. So of course we require a certain level of respect and character development, but we let the kids guide which way they learn best. So for example, if we're learning social studies and I say, "Guys, we're going to read a story together and we're going to create a civil war box. And we're going to talk about a major battle in our civil war box. And then we're going to incorporate some math."                        And I might have one of my gifted students whose ADHD say, "Miss Kenisha, that doesn't sound appealing. I'd much rather go on Khan Academy. I found this great article on there. Can I do that instead with a quiz?" Sure. You're still learning what we're learning. And then I might have another student say, "Miss Kenisha, I found this Civil War book." And I'll go, "Okay, you can do a paragraph for me on that while we do the project boxes." But we're all learning the same topic a different way. And it works. It works.Horn:                That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm so excited about this. I'm curious, digging into this, right? So where do you say this is a non-negotiable for a student? Where do they have that choice? Right? Because I find that's always... You often hear the phrase like, "learner voice and choice". But then you dig in and, not all schools, but a lot of educators are like, "No, no, no. They've got to learn their reading." And it sounds like you have certain things around that. So how do you navigate that?Scaggs:             Very good question. So here's my motto. I believe that if every student has excellent literacy skills, they can do anything post-graduation. That's my motto. Because I was homeschooled in high school only. And my mom's not a formal teacher, but she knew exactly what I needed. And I was able to learn anything because I had strong literacy skills. So we draw the line with phonetics. You must do the phonics lessons, and that's K through 12 at SOAR. It doesn't stop with sixth grade or eighth grade. Because when you talk about dyslexia, and processing issues, and memory issues, it's something that affects them all the way up. So they need it K through 12th grade. So we require each student to do phonics. And we require each student to do math intervention. There are certain basic math skills you have to have just to survive. Outside of that, we're very flexible with how much you complete with the science and social studies. Very flexible with those. Because we know if we can get our kids reading really well, they can do anything they want when they graduate.Horn:                Gotcha. And then in terms of maybe civics or things like that, how do you think about where those come into the curriculum?Scaggs:             Sure, great question. So a lot of our civics is real-world application. We went to the capital quite a bit this semester. And we really dissected our state government website. We spent a month dissecting that. So we do think civics is super important. We met our senator, our legislative members. So we kind of take a real world approach to that. There's awesome videos online for that. And so for Georgia history and for Georgia learning, our kids were engaged, because they actually saw the building where the legislation takes place. And again, you can so easily incorporate science and social studies into literacy. So that's something that we find is easy to transfer into our phonics lessons when we learn about spelling some of those words, or verbs and nouns with... It's just so easy to cross pollinate the subject. So.Horn:                That makes a ton of sense. And I think a lot of folks are finding we've sort of broken them out arbitrarily actually. And maybe that's hurt us in many ways, because learning something about social studies and reading are sort of intertwined once you know how to read.Scaggs:             Exactly. Exactly. This morning we actually walked to Lowe's because our school's so close to Lowe's. And we were dealing with conversions. And we were also dealing with our phonics lesson for the week. They were looking for words. We were also working on area and perimeter. And so the kids were like, "Miss Kenisha we're doing three subjects just by walking the Lowe's." I was like, "Exactly. And this is real world application. These are things you've got to know how to do inches to feet." And it was something that our sixth through 12th grade did all together. And it related for all of their lessons. So it was beautiful.Horn:                I love that they're getting real interdisciplinary learning. I will also say I love the Monday sort of ease back into school. At the risk of oversharing as a father of a kid who doesn't always love getting back into the Mondays, if you will...Scaggs:             Right.Horn:                I can see the benefits of that approach.Scaggs:             Yes.SpecialsHorn:                Let's switch to our third segment here, specials. Where we're going to lift up a little bit and get to geek out on some of the things that are on your mind beyond just SOAR Academy. And you certainly have some provocative views that I want to dig into. I won't hit everything, I suspect that's on your mind. But one I think is becoming maybe less controversial, but really important. And you referenced it earlier, the importance of phonics...Scaggs:             Yes.Horn:                For every kid. And I know you believe it should be essential for every single student in all grades K through 12. You say low performing schools, but I suspect you have in mind everyone. So...Scaggs:             Yes.Horn:                Tell us why that's so important in your view.Scaggs:             Phonics is so important to me because if you can read for yourself, then... If a student can read for themselves, then they can teach themselves. And you're not stuck in a system telling you where to live, and dictating where you can work, and how you can live your life. So what I've seen with kids that come into our tutoring program is that their IEPs say, "You have to read aloud to this student." It's a sixth grader, and the IEP says, "Read aloud. They're not reading on a grade level." So if we're reading aloud to that student, when do they actually bridge the gap? When do we actually ensure that they're going to read on their own? It never happens. The read aloud is listed in the IEP from sixth grade through 12th grade. And so they never have gotten past the third grade reading level.                        So what is that student going to do post-graduation if they can't read for themselves? And again, another reason why I think literacy is so important is because, again, I was homeschooled in high school. So once I hit high school, my mom just went to this whole real world field trip learning. Just this really different approach to learning. And so I recall not following the state standards for high school. But I graduated early. I did dual enrollment. I went to college. It was no problem. And what we found was that was because of the strong literacy skills that I received K through eighth grade. And the critical thinking and the comprehension, all of that is so important.                        And so when we don't have that, we rob our kids of the opportunity to be independent in adulthood. And they're stuck in the system. So reading opens up the gateway to freedom. And I just wholeheartedly believe that. And when kids come to SOAR and they go, "Do you want the test scores for science and social studies?" Nope. I need to see how fluently they can read. I need to check their vocabulary. And that's all that matters to me initially, because that is the gateway to freedom.Horn:                Super interesting. So I want to actually dig in on that. Because I think a nut that educators have struggled to crack is we know phonics is important, but we don't know how to do adolescent literacy. Because a lot of the materials out there are not, maybe age appropriate, if you will. They're built for a first or second-grader, but maybe they don't hold the engagement. So you must have cracked this nut. How do you get around that with your sixth, seventh grader that doesn't want to read "Spot did X" sort of thing over and over again?Scaggs:             Yep. Yep. Such a good point. And I love that you say that. Because when I think of phonics program, I think of ABC Mouse, Hooked on Phonic. And these are for early readers. So if you have a sixth grader not reading on grade level, their self-confidence is already low. So you have to connect to them first. So what we typically do is, we find out what that child interest is. And if it's art, if it's sports, science, whatever it is, we focus on introducing them to a book that they like first. But we're reading it to them. And then our approach is that we have the standards for what is important in phonics, but you're not going to be working in Hooked on Phonics. So for example, if you need to learn "sh" and "th", we're going to use that book that you're interested in, and we're going to find "sh" and "th". And then when we need to get to tion, T-I-O-N, we're going to find that in a book that you like.                        And then we've come up with these lists of 30 projects we have. And it's pure project-based reading intervention with our kids. You don't have to do, like I said, the Hooked on Phonics approach. We can use things that you are interested in. And then once we have you hooked and you see that you can read a little bit, we're usually able to sneak back in into a Wilson Reading program, or Orton-Gillingham. But again, we don't use that kind of first grade approach. It's more of projects built around your age level, that we custom create for every single child, honestly.Horn:                Wow. Wow. I'm just struck by how much, I suspect people who love phonics typically think of it as a drill and kill sort of methodology. You've really said, "No, we can take these two philosophies, sort of the direct instruction merits of that with the project-based learning. And kind of unify them. So we're really grabbing the interest and motivation and doing something that feels real and authentic." It sounds like.Scaggs:             Exactly.Horn:                With the science of like, "We're going to make sure you get your phonics and so forth."Scaggs:             That's correct. And when I think about what I just mentioned to you, I'm thinking about my middle school boys. Because it is very hard to capture their attention. And most of the time it's sports for them. It really is. And so we have maybe like 50 to 75 sports books. And we've got the list of phonic standards. And we will play basketball for a week. We'll play air hockey. We'll play soccer. We'll play whatever gets them excited. So it builds that relationship and that trust first. Because again, they're already so nervous and downtrodden with their self-esteem. And they know they cannot read. So let's build the relationship first couple of weeks. Let's not delve straight into a worksheet or anything. Let's just talk about what you like to do. And then once we have the relationship there, again, you start with something they love. And I tell you, three months in, they're reading things that you never would've thought, that interest them. So again, just go with the student led interest first, even with literacy. And then bring the rules into that information, is what we do.Horn:                Love it. And use the interest as a segue to build and broaden them.Scaggs:             Yes. Yes.Horn:                So I love it. So let's do this next one that you mentioned to me before, which is why IEPs are not effective for most students. I'd love you to double-click on this one. Because when I hear your approach, every single kid in your program clearly has their own individualized learning plan.Scaggs:             Exactly.Horn:                So we're with an IEP then, an individualized education plan. That's that formal designation for a special ed student.Scaggs:             Yeah. So I'll tell you what, we started out with IEPs. This is probably our first year kind of pulling back from it. Because you spend hours and hours drafting an IEP. I mean, the school system meets so many days and hours and they rewrite it. But the implementation is what's difficult. Because if you actually implement every single kid's IEP, that's actually one teacher per child, which is not possible in the public school system. But again, if we get back to the basics of what every child needs, which is literacy and basic math skills, an IEP is not needed. Because we're going to cover that for every student anyway. So again, in our class, what it looks like is sixth grade and seventh and eighth sitting together. We have autism there, dyslexia, ADHD. But every single student is covering the phonetic instruction for dyslexic students, even if they don't have dyslexia. Every single student is doing the real world map application.                        So you're hitting everything, for every child, no matter what. We have the sensory accommodations. We have the autism chairs, the ADHD chairs. Every student at SOAR can use any of these accommodations. Every student's allowed headphones. You can leave the room when you need to use the restroom. You can lie down when you need to. So there's no need to specialize it for anyone. It's specialized for everybody. You know?Horn:                Yeah. So you build from there is basically the idea. As opposed to sort of designating, it sounds like the students...Scaggs:             Exactly.Horn:                Are building something formal. Is that the real difference? Very cool.Scaggs:             Exactly. Every kid gets it.Horn:                So I think this one maybe follows then. Because you mentioned that continuing to increase funding into public school system, it's not going to fix the challenges we're having. Which strikes me as maybe related to IEPs because we spend, in this country, so much on IEPs for each kid. And are not getting the results that they deserve. So I'd love you to reflect on what you mean when you think about that just continuing to pour more dollars, or maybe your point is that it's a money problem, is not the right framing.Scaggs:             It's not. And I did a lot of studying of Marva Collins and her approach. And she was really big, again, on reading intervention and the Socratic method with teaching. And she taught all of her kids all together. It wasn't like a split thing. And so again, with IEPs, there's no way to implement them for every single individual child. But if we reframed how we taught the entire class. And we focused on phonetic instruction, real world application, project-based learning, we're going to hit every single issue in that room. We are. And so I think that when I look at No Child Left Behind, it wasn't super successful and there was a lot of money leaked into that program. And I was working with that program and I thought, "These kids are still not learning. They're not engaged. They're not excited." So I get what they were trying to do, but it still wasn't working.                        So one issue I see is that the public school classroom is just too big. So there's no way you can... And you can do 30 kids in a class, or 20 kids in a class if we get rid of the standards. And we focus on literacy intervention and math intervention only, in a real world sense though. So the classrooms are super huge. That doesn't really work for the kids. And then the teachers are bound by these standards that essentially won't matter if our kids can't read. If you're in the seventh grade and you're not passing science. And so you're in science tutoring, but you're reading on a third grade level, what does science matter? It doesn't. What matters is the literacy intervention. And so when we keep putting more programs into the public school and more funding and more... All that just needs to stop, honestly.                        And I think that if they were able to say, "We're getting rid of the standards, we're going to focus on the meat and potatoes." Which is literacy, strong literacy skills and strong communication skills and math skills, our kids would soar. In my opinion. I don't think that there's anything we can really do to fix the program on such... We're trying to keep every single... We want a national standard for what it looks like to educate kids. And there's no way to do that. And I think that teachers don't have enough flexibility to say, "I'm throwing the standards out the window. I'm going to teach you guys to read today. You're not reading well." They don't have that flexibility.                        And so I think that as we continue to keep saying, "More money, more money." What really needs to happen is schools partner with micro-schools, they partner with private schools. Let's pull the kids out, even if it's for just two or three years to get the literacy skills up. Most of the kids will go back to the system, because they want to be around their peers and be around the larger groups. But we can't keep saying, "Us versus them." They've got to be willing to partner to change what's going on in the school system. The money thing is just not going to ever fix anything, in my opinion.Closing TimeHorn:                Fascinating. So let's move to our last segment, which is closing time. Because I think it's a perfect segue for where you just went to. Which is, I want to start with this question, which is, it sounds like this one world schoolhouse model that you've built, should really be able to serve everyone. But as you just said, people might want to transition in and out of it.Scaggs:             Right.Horn:                There's times where you're going to want that comprehensive, maybe rah, rah, school, sports, whatever...Scaggs:             That's right?Horn:                Prom. Whatever it is that drives you.Scaggs:             Right.Horn:                How do you think about that one room schoolhouse? Who's that designed to serve? Is it for all students? And what's this blend in the future that you envision?Scaggs:             Yes. The one room schoolhouse is for all students. I've been doing this for over a decade. And our students, about 60% of them go back to public school. And when they go back, they are thriving. They are passing the reading test, they are completing math with their peers. They're no longer having IEP or pullout services, because they can read well. And so, the one room schoolhouse is not not age specific. It really isn't. We have 10th graders reading at a fourth grade level. So if they stay in that one room schoolhouse and they hear what the fourth and fifth and sixth graders are doing, and the high schoolers, they're actually picking up extra information. And sweeping up more than they would've in a grade level classroom. So I think that for SOAR, we are going to keep with the one room schoolhouse approach. And we are just going to magnify that multiple locations.                        So again, I don't think that there necessarily has to be specific standards for high school to meet, or even middle school. I think, in my mind, just literacy all the way. Math all the way. And then let the kids kind of direct what they want to learn with science, and social studies, and history, and all that. And then they are prepared for the real world in that sense. So I just think that, from my experience in high school, and just seeing what literacy could do. That if we just focused on that component, everything else would fall into place, is kind of my ideal with it.Horn:                Amazing. So last question as we wrap up here, which is you were a finalist for the Yass Prize. It prizes itself on permissionless education. But I'd love to hear from you, what does that actually mean? Why is it so important? And assuming it is important, how do we get more of it?Scaggs:             Sure. So permissionless means that, I know for SOAR, we don't wait for any government agency or any funding to complete our program. We've kind of worked around the system. We are accredited as a private school. But we've decided what's important for our students and what they need. And we partner with parents to decide what they want their kids to learn and not learn. So we don't really believe that, if we don't have more money, our program won't succeed. We've run our program with a couple of thousand dollars every year. So we're able to be permissionless in how we deliver the education, by not following the traditional standard of, again, students being in a separate class for each teacher, having certain grades. We put them all together, that saves us overhead. So we're super permissionless in that way, but our students are still getting what they need.                        Another way that we are permissionless through the Yass Prize is that our kids aren't working just on the core subjects. They're out in the real world. Field trips every week. Daily, trying to see how they can apply what they've learned that week. And so that's not something that you see happening in a traditional school setting. And the Yass Prize, what I like about them is I actually met with other public schools, charter schools, homeschool groups. It wasn't just about private schools. It's about us all working together with public schools, with charters to just innovate for kids. To change these statistics in America for kids. So that's what I really like about the Yass Prize. It's just that it's not biased. It's super open to every type of organization. And most of the people that I worked with, were public school teachers and public school superintendents who said, "Kenisha, what are you doing? We want to innovate. What are you doing with the kids? Show me what's going on there." And I asked them, "What are you guys doing?" And we just worked together in that initiative.Horn:                Love it. I love your passion. I've learned a lot in this conversation. A lot of really important ideas. And just keep soaring. You're doing amazing things for the kids clearly. And thank you for joining us Kenisha.Scaggs:             Thank you for having me.Horn:                Yeah, you bet. It's been an absolute treat. And for all of you joining us, rate us, review us. Keep tuning in to folks like Kenisha that are changing kids' lives. We'll see you next time on The Future of Education. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.