Getting Smart Podcast

Who should own a learner's data in an AI world, the platform or the learner? In this episode of Catching Up, Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia talk about LearnKit, a proposal for learner-owned data and learner wallets in an AI world. The conversation also covers the second season of Sold a Story and what schools can keep from direct instruction while still making room for inquiry and student agency, what students say they want from school, and how pathway schools in Tacoma and Issaquah are connecting learning to community. Nate also explains how NAEP works and shares a school shout-out for Harwood Union High School's competency-based transcript, and the episode closes with an AI-made song and a challenge for listeners. 📬 Free weekly newsletter: https://www.gettingsmart.com/newsletter/ 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-smart-podcast/id1017984086 ·  🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cUXLWi6LxdMxihgzzTntf?si=c4754b8f8bd449fc 🌐 More episodes: https://www.gettingsmart.com/podcast/ 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Getting_Smart Links mentioned in this episode: LearnKit: https://www.gettingsmart.com/whitepaper/learnkit/ Harwood Union High School profile and transcript: https://harwood.org/profile-transcript NAEP reading: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/ NAEP mathematics: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/mathematics/ NAEP long-term trend: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/ NPR on the 2025 NAEP long-term trend results: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/10/nx-s1-5844932/naep-long-term-trends-reading-math Artificial Intimacy by Sherry Turkle: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sherry-turkle/artificial-intimacy/9780316573962/ Weak Bundle, Strong Bundle: How AI Redraws Job Boundaries (CEPR discussion paper): https://cepr.org/publications/dp21453 The emerging fight against grade inflation in K-12 classrooms (The Hechinger Report): https://hechingerreport.org/the-emerging-fight-against-grade-inflation-in-k-12-classrooms/

How can schools and communities build opportunity worth coming home to? Joshua Arce, president and CEO of Partnership With Native Americans (PWNA), joins Mason Pashia and Jason Cummins to talk about how showing up builds trust with school communities, why leadership training and local jobs matter, and how culture and language support the whole student. It is a conversation for school leaders, superintendents and educators about what lasting support for Native students and communities can look like. 📬 Free weekly newsletter: https://www.gettingsmart.com/newsletter/ 🎧 Full episode + transcript: https://www.gettingsmart.com/podcast/ 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-smart-podcast/id1017984086 · 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cUXLWi6LxdMxihgzzTntf?si=c4754b8f8bd449fc 00:00 Introduction 02:00 What Partnership With Native Americans Does 04:45 Working With PWNA as a Superintendent and Lessons From Haskell 10:55 Building Trust With Communities and BIE Schools 14:00 Identifying and Rebuilding Systemic Barriers in Schools 16:50 Entrepreneurship, Brain Drain and Local Opportunity 21:30 Staying, Leaving and Coming Back With Gifts 23:30 What Gives Josh Hope: Food Sovereignty and Community 27:00 Advice for Starting a Nonprofit 31:30 Schools as Ecosystems and Closing the Gap 38:25 Funding Systems and Barriers for Native Students 39:40 What's Next for PWNA and Why Physical Work Is Innovation Joshua Arce: https://nativepartnership.org/bio-josh-arce/ Partnership With Native Americans: https://nativepartnership.org

What does freedom in education look like for Black and Brown families? Victoria Andrews talks with Jay Artis-Wright, CEO of Freedom to Choose Schools, about school choice, school leadership and communities shaping their own schools. Jay explains why the organization dropped "charter schools" from its name to welcome microschools and homeschools. She also tells the story of a two-and-a-half-year push in Georgia that won bipartisan votes for fairer charter school funding. 📬 Free weekly newsletter: https://www.gettingsmart.com/newsletter/ 🎧 More episodes + transcripts: https://www.gettingsmart.com/podcast/ 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-smart-podcast/id1017984086 · 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cUXLWi6LxdMxihgzzTntf Guest links Jay Artis-Wright: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janel-jay-artis-wright-7066352/ Freedom to Choose Schools: https://chooseschools.org

What do students want principals to know about feeling heard, and feeling safe enough to fail and try again? Mason Pashia talks with Clare Ann Harff, executive director of MAPS Media Institute, and MAPS students Mikaela Doney and Laurel De Groot. MAPS gives young people across Montana free, professional media arts education, with studios in the Bitterroot Valley, Helena and near the Fort Belknap Indian Community, plus client projects where students make real media for their communities. Mikaela and Laurel share what they've built, what they've learned about themselves, and their advice for principals and superintendents. 📬 Free weekly newsletter: https://www.gettingsmart.com/newsletter/ 🎧 More episodes + transcripts: https://www.gettingsmart.com/podcast/ 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-smart-podcast/id1017984086 · 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cUXLWi6LxdMxihgzzTntf Links MAPS Media Institute: https://mapsmediainstitute.com/ Education Reimagined: https://education-reimagined.org/

Ten years ago, a small team asked a wild question: could you actually pay people to learn? That question sent them around the world, and eventually to building the infrastructure behind digital credentials used by Scouts, schools, and employers everywhere. In this episode, host Mason Pashia talks with Jacksón Smith, co-founder and CTO of the Learning Economy Foundation, about why credentials alone aren't very persuasive on their own, what it means to treat data portability as a public good, and the three verbs, collect, understand, navigate, behind their open-source app LearnCard. They also get into peer endorsements, why stories carry more weight than certificates, and LearnCard's new "Learner GPS," a Google Maps for figuring out where to go next in your education or career. Resources Jacksón's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacksonsmithcurtis Learning Economy Foundation: https://www.learningeconomy.io/ LearnCard: https://www.learncard.com/ "Why Learner Wallets Will Fail (And How to Make Sure They Don't)": https://www.gettingsmart.com/2026/01/06/why-learner-wallets-will-fail-and-how-to-make-sure-they-dont/