Tackling All That K12 School Try to Do: The Solutions (Part 2)

Foreign. Hey Michael and Stacy.

Wow. You got to say hi to both of us. This is fun.

Hi Diane. Hi Michael.

It's good to be back together with you too. This is, this is part two of a two part episode the three of us are doing together. And the sort of premise for this episode was started when we did a two part episode previously around Higher Ed and then some, some of our devoted listeners and folks said that they enjoyed it so much and they really encouraged us to do something similar for K12, which we are doing. So this is, this is our second episode and it's so much fun to be back together with the two of.

You and hopefully, hopefully our listeners are not regretting that request after listening to first part, but we're going to be briefer this time is our, is our, is our resolution.

Yeah, we even wore ourselves out on episode one of the, of this, this series. So.

Yes, well, and I think as a result of that, for just to remind folks, if you, you haven't heard it, part one was really identifying the elements of the K12 system that are sort of the core elements and then identifying the problems with them right now. And that's all to lay the foundation so we could actually propose solutions. And so, you know, since we recorded the first problem episode, we've had some good conversations, the three of us, and really pressed each other about how we wanted to approach solutions. And we ran through a whole bunch of different options. But I think, I think the one we got most excited about and where we ended up landing is rather than trying to go kind of through a laundry list of all nine. And because it's expansive, if you listen to the first one, you had to hang in there for quite a long time with us. We decided that we would each just, we gave ourselves a little test which, which would each of us pick. If we could only pick one of the nine to work on solutions for, what would it be? And it turned out we all picked different ones. And so I think the approach we're going to take today is kind of to make our case for why we would try to solve the, the element that we're picking and how we might solve it and what solutions might be in the world already that are attempting to solve it. And in that, you know, is there a way to unbundle it from the others to make it more possible? So, so along those lines, and then the other two of us will react to that and see if we have anything to add. Does that sound right?

Let's go forward with that as a Plan. And Diane, you get to go first. So you model what this looks like for us.

All right, well, I'm happy to go first. And, you know, I suspect some folks might be taking some bets right now on, you know, which of the nine that we chose. I am going to pick what was item number six in our first episode, and that is the evaluator recommender. And so let me just. Let me just start by saying I think this there is a huge opportunity. You both know I've spent the last several years trying to figure out what I want to do post summit. And as part of that exploration, I've really been searching for what I think is the greatest lever that we have for change in the K12 system. And I, I keep returning sort of sadly and reluctantly to assessment and, you know, assessment at the sort of big level. And so I am attracted to this category because I really do think it's a huge opportunity. And I will start by saying I do think it's one of the easier things to unbundle from the rest of the k12 element list. And I know that probably sounds counterintuitive to a lot of people because how in the world could you unbundle evaluation recommendation? But I actually think with a mindset shift, it becomes pretty doable. I really was convincing myself that this is pretty doable. And so let me unpack three ways that I think we could do that and then share what I think is the mindset shift that would have to happen. So the first is, you know, when we talk through evaluator, recommender, and the element that schools do, they do write these recommendations for colleges. And there's a huge expectation from higher ed that high school teachers and K12 will put in substantial effort to make recommendations of students. And as Stacy pointed out in our last conversation, that's for a relatively small number of students, but it takes up a huge amount of energy and, and time from people. And so I think the, the way to decouple this in, in K12 is to actually just stop, literally stop having higher ed, ask for recommendations as we know them, which are these letters. And in some cases, I think the even most offensive part of these, these questions you have to answer as a recommender, which say, what in, in what percentage in your lifetime experience with students do this student fall? Is it in the top one, top five? I see you, Michael, leaning in because.

This is the worst question ever.

The worst question anyone who knows about, like, the way our brains process will know. No one's capable of doing this in any Unbiased way. It's gotta be the worst data ever. And so I don't know why people keep asking for it. So anyhow, I think do away with that. And my invitation to hire ED would be rethink how you're doing admissions. Because, oh, by the way, you should just rethink that to begin with. There's better ways doing it. And two, stop putting this extraordinary amount of work on K12 that actually is super biased and probably not helpful and you're probably not even really factoring into your decision. And what I would offer in exchange is if you have to do something, do reference checks once you've already decided mirror the professional world once you've already decided that yeah, I want to accept this student. If you want to do a reference check, great, make it a simple, straightforward call up reference check. I'm sure we all do reference checks regularly for former employees and it can be very efficient. It would take far less time, it would be far less biased. I think that that would be a strong way to go and a change that could be made quite quickly and efficiently and I think greatly appreciated by K12 on multiple levels and take them out of that role. I think the next thing is grades. You know, as you all know, I have long believed that teachers should not be asked to both teach and coach and develop and grade their students for external reasons. And so I think just stopping that. And let me offer how you actually would provide students grades or feedback if not by their teacher. I think step one is technology is actually pretty darn good at a lot of this and with AI will get significantly better, is already and continues to get significantly better at this. And so put as much on technology as we possibly can. And I would you both know, I mean for a decade plus we've been doing this at Summit and there's people doing it all across the country. So this is not out of reach. This is totally happening and possible and getting better every single day. Do as much there as possible. And I would argue the only type of grading that teachers should be doing is if it is a combined part of their professional development where they're actually growing and developing their skills of teaching. There's a whole methodology here, been doing it for 20 plus years around calibrating your scoring and then doing that in a group scoring and. And the more we have sort of high quality curriculum which I expect might come up in some of your proposals later, which is, is the way the world is going. You have common assignments that this can be done around which is A win, win for everyone. And so you, you have other teachers who are providing the actual scoring of your students. And it makes the whole system better and a learning system. And so I think those are very possible, doable changes that could be made, you know, fairly easily and decoupled from most of the other elements. And then the final piece is around just the high school diploma and the transcript. And here, you know, I think a lot of people are working on a vision where the student actually is the keeper and the owner of their own transcript. And I think this makes so much sense. We see more and more every day. Students are learning from multiple different institutions and multiple places. This is such an antiquated notion that you would go to one institution and you would have this transcript there. If you look at kids, high school transcripts now, they're already including all of the, you know, a community college here and a, you know, another type of institution here on those transcripts. And so the mindset shift and this is what I would say, all of this is that the student is the owner and the keeper of their transcript. And again, technology is our friend here. It can be used to make sure this is validated and true and honest and all of those things. And that they have the world of learning opportunities available to them that get integrated into the transcript. That then is that they control where it goes and who they share it with and who they give it to. Very similar to a portfolio model and very complementary to a portfolio and is just the right way to think about young people and even older people having agency and self direction around their own learning and how they're driving it and then what they're sharing with the world. And I would say my, my last piece on all of these things is it focuses us more on evaluating the quality of the work that people have done versus someone else's evaluation of some who knows what. Exactly. So that's my proposal.

Stacy, I'll jump in first and then you can tee off there. We'll flip the order a little bit. So no surprise. Diane, I like, I love peeling this off from the rest of the enterprise. We've talked about this before. I would think about it maybe conceptually almost in reverse order in the sense that particularly grading and things of that nature, like before the reference checks. Because when you started with reference checks, I was like, I actually think that's a lot harder for colleges to do for 18 year olds than we might think. But if we flip the order and we've started with the system where the student is the keeper of their record, they're having their performances and what they have accomplished validated by a range of individuals, teachers from other districts, you know, professionals themselves. Right. Maybe actual projects for companies and organizations so that there's real import to what they're doing. Not pretend, but real. And so that there's an incentive actually for those professionals to give feedback on it. And then to your point, using technology to help with the inter rater reliability, making it translatable and so forth, application then comes in to a college and they, they can trust it, they can say, actually I'd love a double click on this. And you have a team around you of folks that have worked with you and so forth. And so I know who to call. And so when I imagine it almost in that way, then I start saying, okay, I can start seeing how this hangs together even more. And I guess I would offer just one last observation on this. You all know I've long in the higher ed world been fascinated with Western Governor's University. And they have a whole separate faculty who is trained just in the art and science of assessment. And so that way when you haven't mastered something yet in their competency based model, don't blame the teacher because the teacher who assessed you does not know you. And to your point, Diane, it just seals that thing which is they're not evaluating something about you as the individual or a bias or whatever else, they're just looking at the work. And we can have multiple faculty members who are trained in assessment looking at the work so that we can make sure, yeah, this actually really represents what a great performance does or doesn't look like.

Yeah, I like kind of flipping the concept of evaluation and recommendation on its head as well. And of course really resonate with moving to a world where a student is the keeper of their portfolio of learning experiences and the kind of evaluations of those and kind of wonder about like who's who, then I'm gonna say who. I mean which kind of actor in the, in the ecosystem is the keeper or the provider of, of this different construct? So is it like at Western Governor's University where it's still in house but we're just staffed up differently in terms of expertise, roles, et cetera, and whether or not in the K12 system, and maybe it's different, maybe think about the system a little more granularly or modularly and like what does this actually look like? Early kind of in the elementary to middle school years and then how does it start to maybe shift in middle school? And maybe it's kind of fully from an outside partner in high school. Right. Where we need to see the supply of partners who have the two schools in school districts that have this kind of an expertise that don't necessarily have to be built inside the system. And in fact that probably increases the validation and credibility legitimacy of the credential, you know, as it then goes on to next steps in education and preparation. And so Diane, I'm not sure exactly how you were thinking, but quick thinking about that, but I think it's just kind of an interesting idea to think about. How does the ecosystem shift as kids kind of get into their teen years on their way to graduation from high school in a way that creates an opportunity to introduce new players, new expertise and maybe kind of again increases the validity and credibility of the signal to the next step on a kid's learning journey. But just wondering how you were thinking about. About that.

Yeah, I was going to say quickly, quick clarification and then I want to hear Diane's answer. I think you just raised a good point. Western governors would be better in my mind if it was an external entity that was playing that role. Right. And I think the reason why at the higher ed level we can't actually get to competency based education and replace paying for seat time is because no one trusts that the institution is going to fairly evaluate itself for learning. And I think they're right not to trust that when dollars are at stake. And so I think the more unbundled this can be, the better it is. So Diane, you can give the more thoughtful answer though.

Well, no, that's super thoughtful and pulling string threads from both of you. So one of the things I love about this proposal is I do think it helps us start to unbundle the role of the teacher, which is again something we have all been talking about for a decade plus at this point. Point. And there are people who are amazing at assessment and they love assessment and they think about assessment. And so you could unbundle those roles within an institution. So that would be one way I like, like you, I like it even better across institutions. And so, you know, when we talk about a common high quality curriculum, let, let's be clear, like it doesn't make sense anymore in this day and age for an individual teacher to be writing and developing their own individual curriculum. That doesn't make any sense. And so we should be using with good teacher, you know, custom, customizable or ability, but we should be using high quality curriculum that is, you know, across institutions. And so there's a huge opportunity there for. For people from different institutions to be evaluating on, again, the same projects, the same work, et cetera, across institutions. So that's one way. And then I do think, and I'm personally involved with a number of them, some I can speak about, some I can't, efforts underway to build, you know, nonprofits and for profits that have the ability to do these evaluations. The ones that I think are most exciting are. Are on demand for students and families. So no matter where I'm learning, I'm able to go to a place where I can validate what I. The skills I have, the knowledge I have, the work that I can do. And that way I am, you know, handcuffed to my zip code. And the one institution that may or may not, you know, is gatekeeping me on a whole bunch of levels. I just think what this does to the psychology for families and students about what's possible. It just undoes so many of those negative effects we were talking about yesterday in these other groups where the system is not actually doing what we wanted it to do. And so we're not. I don't think we're going to touch on that particular element today, but I think we are because I think this is. This is, you know, a powerful solution to really fulfilling that. That number nine, that dream, that promise of this. You know, if you work hard, if you drive your own learning, that there's ways that you can show that and you can truly benefit from it.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. Should we dive into the second one?

I was gonna say, I think it's a probably an interesting segue into. Into my choice, which was, number one, it was kind of that core education experience. And, you know, it certainly was at the top of my list. If I had to pick from our 17 or 82 on our list, however many there were, I don't know, 12, nine. So I. And so just to remind folks, like, it's. This is like, when we think of school, we think of these things, right? It's the core kind of educational experience. We said that historically it started with the three three Rs. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and lots of other subjects have been added over time. And it includes kind of strength and breadth of the academic program and the social learning. And so it's a little different than social emotional, but, like, how to be part of a community. What's it like to be in a group, in a class, in a team, your people? And also includes those social aspects of managing yourself. And on top of that, like, Extracurricular, sports, interest based stuff, like all of that mix of experiences that we consider the education of our kids. So that's what's in this one. We said a challenge with it was often the what we teach and the how we teach it is not aligned to the current science of learning. What we know about how learning happens and what makes for a good integrated set of learning experiences, but also towards what. So our second thing that we flagged as a challenge is kind of lacking in vision and purpose. We have these large kind of cafeteria menus at high school and kind of a broad waterfront of concepts and skills and topics and that we're asking the elementary school teachers to cover. But so what or to what end has, has kind of gotten lost over time as we've just added more and more and more. And so we, we had that as one of our main critiques. And so kind of following our model here, I thought first about could this core academic function be unbundled? And you know, Diane, you started to talk about, well, if we unbundled the evaluation and recommendation piece, maybe that would open up more opportunities to start unbundling the actual core educational experience. Because if you were able to demonstrate your learning outside of the kind of mandated, you know, tests at the school level or at the state level, then maybe you could have more options of how to get that learning, how to experience that learning and prove it, you know, show it to an outside provider. And I think the other thing that would have to shift, because now we're talking, we'll, we'll do this as we go through. We'll touch on the other elements, like policy, for instance, which was number five on our list, that would also have to be in play to create some of the shift we see. Because for, along with evaluation, I think the other thing that would have to be on, that would have to happen here is a shift in some policies, particularly around funding. And there's a lot of efforts in states about this, which is, you know, can be quite controversial and politicized. But for unbundling the core function to work at any sense of scale in a community or region, along with the evaluation function, moving, moving to something external, the dollars would have to really come to families, not just follow students to their chosen place, but actually in the hands of families to spend on educational services. So these types of programs that are showing up, you know, there's kind of traditional voucher programs, there's education savings account, but you know, when we see those implemented now, I imagine it's a feature of the way they're designed, they usually go to a bundled school experience. And so you know, it's, it's actually not driving the unbundling of the core educational experience in any way. And I'm not an expert in this. I'm kind of an informed, kind of interested observer. But because it's not driving the unbundling of the kind of core educational experience now it makes me wonder what would have to happen. Also makes me a little bit skeptical that these types of policy solutions are going to lead to an unbundling of the core experience. So let me say a little bit about why I think that is. So first there's a bit of a chicken and egg and so there actually aren't sufficient choices for families to take advantage of in core educational opportunities. And so that's kind of the core academic experience and the character and character building experiences that social learning. And so even if I got my money directly from the state, I don't have things to spend it on in sufficient quantity to choose among it. So I'm likely going to choose a bundled experience. You know, that's, that's, that's better than what I had but may not allow me to, to unbundle. And you know, unbundling creates, it kind of shifts a lot of non financial costs to families. So if I don't have that bundled experience to go to now, I'm responsible for putting things together and you know, I might not have time or interest in doing that even if I do have the resources. So you can imagine some other providers like growing up right. That, that, that could play that orchestration role or that, that concierge role among some online experiences and some local providers and some regional providers, some state providers. So I think that's, that's super, super interesting. I think the biggest barrier is it really flies in the face of our concept of school. Yeah, right. As that place we go and that our kids go and where we get everything we need or most of what, of what we need. But I do think there's still something very compelling about the idea. And so like as we see more of these kind of choice options emerge in states where there is a financial and policy component, I think the long term aspiration of what it could be if we unbundled evaluation, unbundled the money and had some incentives in the communities for the options to arrive that are based in the science of learning, are very clear about what vision they're educating against and maybe have chunks. Right. So maybe I'm not get reading over here. And math over here and character over here. But maybe I'm getting those bundles from a provider. And then also have options for sports leagues which actually exist. Write a lot of the sports leagues and theater, children's theater, and those kinds of interest and extracurriculars. I see much more promise there and that happen quickly. And so then what does that hybrid look like where we've got some bundles that are validated with kind of science of learning and an external evaluator? And then I'm more optimistic and less skeptical about that then, I think. So I'll say that's kind of my unbundling piece in the bundled environment. Like, I think we're seeing some interesting things. And so Diane and I are on the board of an organization that we helped to get started called Transcend Education. And they're actually the thing we worried about yesterday is where communities actually aren't engaged anymore. And what the vision of schooling is. And Transcendent has this amazing process that they take whole communities through that then kind of creates, or I will say unearths, you know, creates from unearthing the values and wishes and dreams and intentions of a community against what an educational experience should be aiming for. And then they've got kind of the. They've built the expertise around a set of processes to be on a journey of then kind of reinventing your schools and your system of schools in ways that align with that vision so that schools aren't on their own, districts aren't on their own trying to do that piece of. But it's still a bundled experience. And so, you know, I think of the work they're doing in Texas with lots of districts. I'll use Aldine Public Schools as an example of where, you know, it's 60,000 students, 80 schools, 90% are economically. 90% of the students are economically disadvantaged. And yet there's this beautiful process going on kind of community wide. This is adjacent to Houston, with the help of Transcend as an expert partner to bring you through. So one thing I'd love to see is more transcends, obviously more capacity for transcend, you know, for funders out there. They're looking for something that's not unbundled, but it really can make a difference in the bundled world. You know, more, more. More capacity for transcendent and more transcend, like organizations that can work with systems and schools in their communities to, to create this. And then I still think we need more opportunities for school creation because when you're able to design. Diane, you knew this better than the, you know, any of the three of us, when you can actually have that conversation with a community and create a new school that lives into that vision, is based in the learning science and isn't trying to do everything, but has agreement on the core things they're going to do across core academics, character building and interest base, you've just got a lot more likelihood of achieving that coherence. And so I'm actually distressed by the taking the foot off the gas and new school creation that I see around the country, both with philanthropy and policymakers, because I do think in the last 20 years, heck, in the eight years that I was at new schools, we helped enough new schools come into existence to serve as many kids as the San Francisco Public Schools creates, serves, that the Boston Public Schools serves, but they're all over the country and these interesting models that meet community need and are creating great results for kids and have more of an ability to do it because they're not burdened with the layering that's gone on over 100 years. Right. Or 40 years, or 30 years. So I've been talking for a long time, so I'm going to pause, but that's the. I think we need a. We still need a vibrant mix of opportunities so that more unbundled services can arise, so that districts can undertake this with expert support, and so that we still have new schools that are opening up all over the country that kind of meet these aspirations and provide an example of what's possible, but also really serve the schools and communities that they, that they serve.

Wow. So much in there. I. Let me, let me try to pull out some. A couple of things that I resonated with all of it. A couple of things that I wanted to say is one, I have, I feel this tension for families that they really only have when we talk about family choice and parent choice. But there really is only choice at the bundled school level. For the most part, that's as far as we've truly gotten. It's kind of like either you can pick a whole school for your child or you can pick being a homeschooler family. And in that case, like you said, Stacy, you're responsible for everything. You have to curate everything. And over here, you still have to curate a lot because the school doesn't generally work in the summer. So you have to curate the summer and by the way, the holidays that don't match your work days and things like that. But it feels like a little bit more study. So that is very limited choice in my mind. And so I love that you're proposing a more, I think, a more doable choice if it's on a continuum, something more in the middle of this concierge model, these, these new entities. I really do think this is an interesting space for new entities to come into where they have a different mindset. They do want people to be able to assemble, you know, what works for them, and they make that easy and doable and don't put a full burden on a parent who, I mean, I don't know. Like, I had a spreadsheet and most parents I know had spreadsheets to try to manage the summer experiences alone. And by, by the end of summer I was like exhausted. Just put me back in school. Even though it's like 8 to 3:30, because at least that's sort of consistent except every other Friday and you know, all the holiday whatever. You know my rant about this. So I love that idea and I love, paired with it esa. So I just want to say here, these, these are very controversial right now because they're, they're happening quickly. You all probably know, I think we're up to maybe close to half, oh.

14 or 15 states, I think.

Yeah, okay. Who have passed, who have these in motion. I think there's probably another 10 that are like, working on them because, yeah.

Texas will likely happen this year.

Yeah, exactly. There's a bunch of states like failed.

Last year, but after we just went through the primaries here, it's probably going to pass next year.

There's a lot of people from multiple sides of the political spectrum who really don't like ESAs and are working hard against them. And I, I would say, I think the two primary arguments are one, like, accountability and like, how do we ensure that kids are actually getting quality education, et cetera, which is we all care deeply about. And there's different ways to go about that and think about that. And two, just for, I would argue bluntly adult reasons like, you know, they don't want money going away from the system as we described yesterday, which is sometimes the largest regional employer and a huge employer. And so, you know, there's more to it than that. I'm being not nuanced, but you know what I'm saying, and not thinking about what's actually good for families and kids. And so I really want to get behind these systems are far from perfect. Policy is very difficult to write. As we talked about previously, it's incredibly hard to write good policy. So I don't want to throw it out because we have A couple which we will egregious examples of where someone, you know, use their educational savings account money to buy a big screen TV and tried to say, well, they were showing their kids learning content on it, you know, like not awesome, that's not the kind of thing. But we also just need to learn how we can, you know, help people spend this wisely into your point, Stacy. We need significantly more supply of good science aligned options and help for them to assemble those options in order to really take advantage. And so I just want to, I, I hope that we can keep moving forward and make this better versus trying to rip this, this system out. And then just the last thing I will say because I do think, I think we had this intuition when we said we were only going to talk about three of the topics that we'd end up talk touching on so many more. And what I love about what you said is in this vision is that I think it contributes to the mixing of people, socioeconomic mixing and you know, political diversity mixing that we're concerned is not existing right now and that a lot of people get afraid of when, when people want to talk about school choice, they're worried that it's going to cause more polarization. And I actually think this approach has people doing more mixing because you are picking and choosing and then, you know, working with people from that you don't, you know, engaging with other people. And so I do think it goes to that big societal intention and hope of our system if, you know, if we can stick with it and figure it out. What do you think, Michael?

Yeah, so I'm, I agree with what you just said. I'm going to unintentionally come back to this when I get to tackle my lever. But just interestingly on the mixing point, when you start to have dollars that can unbundle the school experience in the way that described you lower the stakes on picking the thing. Right. And so all of a sudden I'm actually, my guard comes down, I'm worried less like what's the mix of kids around me and the parents and like it becomes a more, oh, I'm optimizing for something different now in these different experiences that contributes to what you just said, the different mixing. The second reaction I had originally to what you said, Stacy, was actually I wrote a piece on this about how we shouldn't expect a great unbundling right away. And the reason for that is in all markets, customers initially prefer highly proprietary interdependent bundled offerings because they don't yet know what Their preferences and customization that they want is. And we don't have any experience as a society for the most part outside of the homeschoolers and increasingly hybrid homeschoolers and sort of picking and choosing and like thinking outside of a school frame of reference. And so I think it's not surprising that you look at the state of Florida with its education savings accounts, the majority of those dollars go to full school tuitions. But what's really interesting is if you look at Florida over time, fewer dollars are going tuition over time. I had a conversation, I won't say date because recently I'll say with someone in Utah and they were seeing the same trend there. So that's starting to change. And the big thing I think is now we need the supply side of the market to catch up. We need more certainly good school operators in there. We need more concierge type services. We need more one offs in the ways that we can imagine if. And I think what's really exciting is I actually don't see a way to incentivize what Diane was talking about in her first point unless we go in this direction. Because otherwise you're asking like a school to somehow pay out money to an external validator. They're not going to want to lose those dollars. And so. But if it's the kids now and the parents that are saying like, yeah, I want to validate that, you know, Michael, you know, learned how to do X and show evidence of it and it's dollars that I, you know, in a wallet that I get to control. Which is why I think it's greatly preferable by the way to vouchers or tax credit scholarships, which I don't think accomplishes any of what we're talking about, but I can.

So you're saying ESAs, ESAs as a.

Preference, a strong preference. I think the other two are not to me, the other two don't. They do several things wrong. They don't forced me as the individual to think about value trade offs in terms of, right. Like saving the money to different offerings and the like. And when I think about Diane's vision, right, of a separate set of places, I can start to validate what I've mastered or Learned or Accomplished, etc. You can start to imagine just in the professional world, there's the cfa, cpa, right. Like there's these long standing credentialing bodies that we pay for to show show mastery, to get into something. You can imagine a flourishing over time of a set of supply side options. That start to do the same thing and that colleges, employers, apprenticeship programs, whatever, start to say, yeah, that's actually valuable. It's a valuable signal. And that's how we start to get around some of the accountability concerns, I think in the longer run is by this flourishing I want to name because I know that the three of us have talked about how the challenges at the moment with philanthropy in this country. We may find a time to come back to this topic. This calls, I think, for some real patient capital that is going to seed this marketplace and acknowledge that it's not going to all come together at once and be comfortable with sort of like a messy transition as we get there. And I don't say messy like Diane gave one example of messy where there's going to be, you know, some bad spending, as though that never happens in districts today. But there's also going to be a messy transition of us trying to figure out how to do this in a way that doesn't overstress parents, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and comes together. And it's, it's not going to be an overnight process. It's very grassroots. I think what you just described.

Yeah, it's interesting. Just kind of a wrap up on this one based on your reflections, both of you. I do want to say, I think I might be a little more skeptical than I hear the two of you being about the ambition for our shared ambition about socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity in the choices that emerge and will make. I, I often say, you know, I, I'm, if, if I was, if, if, if I was more, had more confidence in my fellow man, I'd be a libertarian. If I had more confidence in my government, I'd be a liberal, have more confidence in my church, I'd be a conservative. So I actually don't know where I fit on all of these. And so I, I, I'm not sure. I think where I get a nagging sense of the critics are likely right about this is that I don't know that left to our own devices with ESAs as currently kind of conceived in the policy frameworks, we're likely to get less isolation and more, I think, I think it's, I don't know. And so if I had to lean one way or another, I'd say we're not likely to get more of that and more equity. I'm not certain about that. I think it could, but I'm not certain in the current climate and conception it's going to. But I do think it's kind of interesting to think about ESA policy provisions that don't squelch the vibrancy and goodness of them that have some thinking in inherent that that is about the great, you know, kind of American experiment. I think it could be an interesting addition to the thinking.

It's a great point, Stacy. And I, I don't think Diane, or I want to sound Pollyannish on this. I'm putting words in your mouth, Diane. But I guess what I would say and increasingly have felt is the current way we're doing it ain't accomplishing it. So I'm willing to take a gamble.

Yeah, totally. No, I'm, I'm not certain, you know, guys know me. I'm not defending.

Yeah. Yeah.

As a better.

No, I think it's an important caveat, though, that you introduced.

Yeah.

I'm, I want to go to. I think this is a nice segue into. Michael, what the, the, the item, the element you've picked to sort of unpack and provide hope and solutions for. But I just want to Mark. I feel like the three of us should take an action item out of this conversation so far, which is we have this privilege of engaging with a lot of, whether they be your students at the university level or young people, well, at least younger than us, who are very entrepreneurial and ambitious. And there's just such significant opportunity right now to conceive of, whether it be new nonprofits for profits to, you know, create the supply that is so needed here. And so I just think we should all take, not that we don't already, but even extra care and nurturing and encouraging that type of entrepreneurship going forward.

Here's to that.

I just gave you an action item, Michael.

Best. Best meeting is one where you sign someone else work. Okay. So let's jump in.

Always does.

She's good at it. So let's jump in. The one that I picked, which was the character values bucket. It was our second bucket yesterday and it was sort of, to use Diane's words, it's. It's more macro than the social bullet that fell under the core education that Stacy, you just tackled to remind people. There were sort of three big pillars in the way that we talked about yesterday. One was the basic norms and values of living with other people in society together, preparing people for adulthood. So something we often call it about the habits of success. I've adopted Diane's language on this character, though, certainly in the now sunsetting character lab. Right. Has used that phrase to encompass a lot of these characteristics. And then thirdly and this is where I'll use as my entry point being a participating member of a democratic society. And the observation that I made, of course, that the public school system in many ways got its start, or the momentum behind it around this particular purpose of inculcating, and I'll use that word intentionally democratic values in, in the populace. And so the first question, can it be unbundled? I'll lead with the like, what in a lot of our worlds would be the controversial statement, which would be, of course it can, because parents, right, are the first teacher. And so there's sort of that observation. That's not where I want to sit with my thoughts though, because I know that a lot of families into your equity concerns, Stacy, that's not the entry point into this. And so where I want to go is a very different starting point. And just say like, yes, that's part of this possibility and part of the fabric. But what I would want to say is the conversation we had yesterday in terms of the challenge here, the flip side we observed is that while there's some very significant polls and arguing against certain character education and so forth, that there's actually a lot of commonality in the populace around what we agree as the centerpieces of these things are, and I can't remember the exact number I said 80% on, on the previous conversation, but there's a lot of agreement there. And so it's interesting, by the way, in the education savings accounts, just to briefly go there, there's actually a lot of agreement at the population level there too that they're popular. It's just the politicians, right, that don't necessarily agree on it, which is interesting. But I guess my observation is that there's two ways sort of to come at creating a common set of democratic values and civic values and values of how we conduct ourselves in a society and with other people with whom we may or may not agree. And one of them is a very top down way. And I think of this as almost like the common core approach or sort of like a we're going to get alignment. And the challenge that I've observed around that is you get a lot of energy around the what's in and what's out. And you get a lot of anger on either side of that. That often erodes consensus or causes you not to reach it. And so the controversial point I think I want to push forward is that if we took an unbundling approach and instead very much what you said, Stacy, yesterday or in our previous conversation around how Each school community, as it comes together, is having this conversation around what's our purpose, and being very clear about that, that if we trust. And this is. This is, you know, reflective of your maybe skepticism around the libertarian viewpoint. Stacy. But if we trust that most Americans have these central values that they, in fact, do want their kids to learn, that going by the Pareto principle, I looked up how it's pronounced, which is this 8020 rule, that we can get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort, and that this might be the most productive way to at least move us forward on these things that we really, really care about, on this grassroots way, rather than spending, like, basically 80% of the energy trying to get the 20% to sort of fall in line or come into the tent. And I get it. It doesn't solve everything, but we're not solving for everything at the moment either. And to me, I think an 8020 rule that takes some of the tension out of the culture wars would be a really important way to go. And I think education savings accounts are a really interesting way at this as well. So I'm landing in a similar place where I can start to opt into school communities, and I'm going to trust that families are going to make choices where they're making sure that for the most part, and again, they're clear exceptions, but for the most part, 80% of the population is saying, yeah, I actually want my kids to understand the promise of the American dream and that there are some dark pictures and parts of this country where we were not living up to it. Right. And that we are trying to ever go toward a more perfect union and some of the hiccups and mistakes that we made along the way and how we're continually trying to correct for that. Right. And so that this, this narrative and these values are sort of pulled into these experiences across. I want to end just because I think that's going to open us up to a lot of innovation in terms of the form factors and where that occurs and how it integrates. I really like your observation, Stacy. That will almost rebundle the content with the character and things of that nature as we unbundle these other things. But I guess the one question I'd love you both to reflect on, in addition to the stuff that you react to, is that all of this, to me, seems like starting with Diane's, we're going to do a lot for increasing agency in this country. We're going to do an incredible amount, and I think that's really important. To thriving and being, having people feel better about themselves. I think the two questions that we should worry about and think about are coherence among experiences, which goes to the concierge, but also content and things of that nature. And I guess the second one that's been more on my mind as we've watched some things unfold across college campuses lately is how we embed a sense of humility in kids that they're still learning and don't learn it, don't know everything. And the only reason I raise this one is the one nagging worry I have is when I see so many great interest based school communities just running and thriving and kids are picking things that they're excited about is when is the thing that says to them, well, you don't know X and that's okay, right? And are we giving sort of modeling some things that are introducing some uncertainty where they get the feedback not only that they can do, which I think is probably the most important thing, but also the humility to say I don't know everything in this performance I've chosen. Because yes, there's other things out there. I don't know if that's well articulated, but that's, that's the one thing on my mind, I guess, at the moment. So I'll kick it to you all for reactions, I think.

So as you were talking, Michael, and just listening to this whole conversation, here's what's coming up for me. I think what you're proposing. So first of all, I can imagine what you're proposing because like Stacy said, transcend. Does this work? Look, I did this work with Summit Learning for a number of years. I had this huge privilege of working with communities in just the type of experience you're talking about. And it was like fascinating and amazing. And communities really did come together and identify what they thought the purpose of education was. And there's huge agreement and it's, it's a powerful experience. And what that. So I could imagine this and I've seen it with Transcend and others. And what it, what was coming up for me is we're at a point in time where the public has lost trust in most institutions in our country. Trust in institutions. Is that among the lowest level that we've seen in a very long time and in history? And I hear this all the time. I'm sure you certainly did in your role. Stacy, as an employer is like, I don't trust, I don't trust, I don't trust. You don't have my trust. You've broken my trust. Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust. And I think that in my experience the only way to build trust is to do meaningful, authentic work to I call it meaningful, authentic work together which builds trust. It people oftentimes say, oh, we have to communicate better to build trust. And I just don't believe that at all. All it just communication is important, but it is not the pathway to building trust. It's truly working together and building relationship and trust over meaningful work. And so I think this is such a powerful idea that every community, school community can do. Look, every school community in the country is doing some sort of community, whether it be through their accreditation. And they have to have these community communities or their strategic planning process or their federally or locally mandated committees of parents that do work. And most of the time that is not meaningful, authentic work. That's building trust. It is box checking, you know, perfunctory, like whoever's controlling it knows the outcome they want and they're just trying to get people to rubber stamp it. And I'm sorry for outing everyone about that, but that's basically what generally happens. And what if we just took those existing opportunities and flipped them into true dialogues and consensus building around what is the purpose of what we're trying to do, what do we actually share together and how what we're actually going to do next is building that. And I think that that's a very doable thing within the existing system that we have and would go a significant way towards the vision that you're about talking, talking about and building the trust that we need. Let me pause there that with my reaction and turn to Stacy and then I, I will gather my thoughts around your good provocative reflection question.

Yeah, and, and Michael, I want to pick up on what I think is your very, you know, powerful insight about the challenges with top down anything like at any level. But we're talking about the national level top down. It's just like destined for disappointment. And yet I, even though I made my joke about different political philosophies, I very much trust people with their own choices and I especially trust parents to make good decisions for their, for their kids and their families on any front, including their educational choices. So I do, since I joked about it, I want to make sure that that's clear here. And like, what I love about what you said, Michael, is because, because we trust that and because we know the kind of top down stuff probably not going to be all that good anyway and we're allergic to it as Americans, you know, and where real trust is built, is on the ground doing meaningful work together. Like, if we give up trying to get some national consensus as a concept, we're going to get it because at the ground level, where people are together every day, showing up at school or whatever, educational options and in the grocery store and in their church and you know, at the different activities that go on at communities, they 80, 80% agreement on important things. And so if, like the locus of shifting to a vision of learning and education that works better for kids and really does set themselves, set them up for kind of long term community living, self sustainability, following their dreams, whatever they are, you know, being, being good members of our strong and productive members of our democratic society. It starts with where they live today and tomorrow and 20 years from now, like where we actually experience all the dynamism of being part of a pluralistic society and a functioning democracy is in our neighborhoods. And so I love what you said, Michael. And actually, if we ever do have the conversation about philanthropy, like, I think this is where we miss big time, that we're looking for scale and things that can work everywhere and things that are good here and can grow everywhere, I think scale is healthy communities doing strong work together that leads to some clarity about shared values and a vision for how to help the next generation build towards those values and a sense that, as Michael said, yes, I'm capable of everything, but right now I don't know everything. And so, you know, what are the habits of mind, those skills and habits of success that lead to that possibility at the micro level, the unit level for every young person, at the kind of building level, for every school, at the community level, for groups of families in schools, and then therefore kind of builds up from there without feeling like we have to have these national fights and mandates, because I think we're just going to be much more successful moving at the smaller level to the kind of ecosystem of larger, you know, larger agreement. If, if we're, if we're talking to each other in our communities and in our, in our neighborhoods.

Awesome. Maybe I'll say a quick word on your, your provocation around humility and kids. I'm going to leave the coherence aside. I'm just gonna say two words. Swiss cheese. In the existing. Yep, there's no coherence here, given the way it is. So yeah, it's a problem. But we, we're not.

Lots of people are working really hard on it and we still have it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On the humility, here's what came to me when you said that which is, you know, the habits of success and the building blocks pyramid that we often reference and certainly is a. Is a strong foundational piece of how I think about this. One of the top building blocks is curiosity. And to me, what's underneath humility is curiosity. And that is the thing we can truly cultivate, because I don't know how someone. It feels impossible to not have humility. To me, if you truly are curious. And what I see right now in, you know, across our country, and it's not just young people, it's everyone is a lot of people who just at least act like they know everything and they're not even remotely curious about other people's perspectives or lived experiences or what knowledge they may or may not have. And so I do believe, as a K12 educator, that curiosity is something that you can cultivate. There's. There's debate about whether you can, quote, teach it, but there's a whole suite of, you know, skills around it that curate that approach and mindset. And to me, that. That is where. And I would put that under both of your buckets. It's core education and values, character education, and something that I will say in working with communities across the country, curiosity very often comes up as a value that they care deeply about in. In developing young people.

Well, maybe as we transition out of this to our final segment of the show, I'll just say you just gave me a lot more faith. So thank you. That was a very, very helpful answer. And the other thing that occurs to me, hearing both of your reflections about the declining trust and faith in institutions and that there's humility in recognizing we don't know the individual circumstances of every single community and family and so forth. And so, you know, as my co author and Choosing College, Bob Mesta likes to say, when he does the jobs to be done research, you can't imagine someone's job to be done from a kitchen table. You actually got to go out and shoot the movie of them living to figure out what their circumstances are. And there's no way to create blanket statements or policy that covers all those unique circumstances. So appreciate y' all digging in on this. And as we wrap up, I hope everyone's enjoyed it as well. But we get to return to the segment we know a lot of people enjoy and have even created tracking lists around. You don't know this, Stacy, but our recommendations for books or things that we're watching or reading, listening to, whatever it might be. So we'll give Stacy a moment. Diane, why don't you go first and then Stacy and I'll wrap us.

I'm happy to go first. Some folks might not know that I actually lived in LA for about 10 years a long, long time ago and, you know, lived in close proximity to the Academy Award show every year and so used to be an avid follower, have sort of fallen off. But this year my husband and I have watched all 10 best picture nominees for, I guess it's the 20, 24 awards, but from last, last year and I have been so pleasantly surprised. What a spectacular lineup. I mean, there's the, you know, the big banner, you know, Oppenheimer and Barbie, but there's so many gems in that list. We had such an enjoyable time watching all of those films and so I just want to do a shout out. If you want a movie list, pick those 10 and go through it. And I will say it's hard to pick a favorite. There's some really. I love the Holdovers. So good talk about, you know, commentary on schooling and education. Love, love, love American fiction. Long story there about the, you know, author and whatnot. But I loved, I really, really, really loved Past Lives. And for me, I mean, it's such a beautiful, nuanced film that is just incredible. And it's a reminder to me think it would be made in America. It's not a film we would make here. And so what a gift of a global community to share some such a beautiful film.

Yes, I, I have not seen Past Lives and I'm always a sucker for a movie about a school. So I also loved the Holdovers. I have recently finished the book called hello Beautiful. It's about four sisters in Chicago. And, you know, I'm one of four sisters. I'm. I'm the oldest of four sisters and the title comes. It's what their dad would say to them when he would see hello Beautiful, which is, is very sweet, but it's, you know, it's a. It follows them from their late teens, early 20s into their early 50s. And you know, it's both wonderfully written and beautiful. It's also really hard, you know, to, to they're very close and then, you know, they kind of go on their life's journeys and things happen and, you know, you've got high standards for yourselves and others and sometimes people don't live up to that and there are breaks and relationships and then suddenly you're in your early 50s kind of looking backward all the time. Go. And I miss my, you know, I miss my family. I miss my. So I will say it's, it was not what I thought it was going to be and I really, really loved it. So. Hello. Hello, beautiful. I talked about baseball last time you guys invited me on. I was so excited about the Astros. And then the season started and the Yankees showed up in town and literally punched them in the face and swept them four games and had a really hard time recovering. And so I am they're off to their worst start since 1969 when I was four years old. And so I'm hanging in there with my guys. But it is really, really hard. It's really hard.

Well, you've had a run of success there for a few years. I know most places would be envious of. So, you know, we're spoiled. I'll wrap us. I love all these I actually thought, Diane, you had routinely watched all the best pictures. So this was a learning for me. But I, I finally kicked back into overdrive and reading a bunch of books. But I'll, I'll pick out the Three Body Problem that sent me and a few others and said you got to read it, Cixin Liu. And of course now it's on Netflix as well. But I read the, the, the book first and I, it definitely made me think, it definitely made me ponder a bunch of scientific concepts as good science fiction should. And it definitely freaked me out a little bit. So, you know, it hit, it hit all the, it hit all the things. His relation was how do we think about this in the context of AI which was an interesting prompt as well. But I'll leave it there for others to think.

Are you going for number two and three? Because that is a trilogy, Michael, My son's favorite all time trilogy.

Is that right?

Yeah.

So we'll talk, we, we'll talk offline about how I'm thinking about it. We'll leave it there, though. Thank you for joining us on yet another BI epic, I guess it is. And we'll see you all next time on Class Disrupted.