The Future of Education

Callie Riley of Cambiar Education, Ashley Beckner of Lemnis, and Matt Haldeman of DCDO join me to explore the evolving landscape of funding mechanisms for education organizations. Our conversation dove deep into the limitations of traditional nonprofit and for-profit funding pathways, as we highlighted how new, creative financing models can unlock greater impact, sustainability, and innovation. The guests shared insights from their respective organizations and discussed the need to expand the “menu” of capital options, especially for nonprofits navigating growth and scaling challenges. I see this as the beginning of a series of important conversations we need to be having—and hopefully we’ll see more of these folks discussing this in other venues over the next couple years.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. You're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose, which we are not anywhere close to, sadly. But the folks that we're going to talk to today are dedicated to helping create that world. We're going to hear more about that. But I want to give a little bit more of an intro than I normally do to these conversations because we're going to be talking a lot about the mechanisms for funding education organizations, both for profit and nonprofit. And as I see it, those mechanisms have expanded in some creative ways over the last several years.Exploring Nonprofit vs. For-Profit PathsAnd yet, in my view, there are still too many limitations from the available funding vehicles that exist that sort of constrain or compel these organizations to act in certain ways that either might not be in their interest or frankly, the interest of the positive impact that they hope to ultimately have. I've written about this before (see here). If you subscribe to my substack, you've read it. But I'm also not the only one who feels that way. And our three guests today are all working to offer different forms of financing in the market to really achieve a variety of aims. And our purpose today is to start to unpack how enlarging the pie for these different vehicles and introducing these different types of funding models can help several different groups. One of those is existing nonprofits in the education space. A second would be founders or entrepreneurs who are starting an education organization.And they feel like they have to debate between non profit on the one hand and for profit, and then feeling like if they go for the for profit route, that that necessarily implies that they're going to have to take VC money at some point. And then the third, of course, is funders themselves, folks looking to deploy capital and get some combination of perhaps market returns and, or impact, whether philanthropically or through some other vehicle. And our purpose in today's conversation is really to unpack at a high level the opportunities for each of these folks, why the work that my three guests are doing could be exciting, why the status quo perhaps is a little too limiting and, and understand if these visions, you know, if, if what they're painting is so exciting, why isn't it happening quicker? What are the barriers to really realizing them? And I will say all of us, all four of us in today's conversation, we hope that if you're tuning in, if you're listening and you get excited by any of this, or you have questions about any of this that you'll reach out so that we can continue and frankly deepen the conversation significantly. Because I think it's fair to say that we all believe that there are some really exciting organizations that exist today that are doing breakthrough work on their teams that would benefit from alternative capital sources or structures and that there's going to be new organizations to come that could benefit from these things as well. And some folks might be very happy also with the status quo. This is not a sort of anti, it's a how do we enlarge the pie conversation. So with that as a longer prelude than usual on the show, let me introduce our guests. We've got Callie Riley.She's the managing director at Cambiar Education and nonprofit education venture studio that is focused on student success for all. Cambiar has a goal of enabling a life changing impact for 1 million of the most vulnerable youth through their efforts. They do this through both supporting entrepreneurs to develop, pilot and scale their bold ideas, as well as to directly run initiatives that they do that build entrepreneurship, critical partnerships and innovative communities. So, Callie, great to see you. Thanks for joining.Callie RileyThanks for having me, Michael.Michael HornYeah, you bet. And then our second guest is Ashley Beckner. She's managing director at Lemnis, a public charity that was recently established following the sale of the majority of NWEA's assets to HMH. Lemnis envisions a future of the unlimited learner where every young person can thrive in a time of dramatic change. Certainly describes right now. And they invest in and partner with organizations that share a vision for this future. So Ashley, good to see you.Ashley BecknerThanks Michael. Excited to be here.Michael HornYeah, no, I'm glad to have you as well. And then our third is Matt Haldeman. He's the founder of DCDO, which stands for Dot Com Dot Org. It's a mission-driven organization that invests exclusively in nonprofits. And DCDO recently partnered with Lumos capital to help 501c3s increase their impact by transitioning into a public benefit corporation or spinning out a separate for profit entity. So Matt, great to see you.Matt HaldemanThanks, Michael. Looking forward to the conversation.Michael HornYeah. And hopefully you all feel that way at the end of it as well. So let's, let's dive in. I actually want, like I said, a bunch of words, but I'd love you to deepen what I just said and in the introductions of each of you and talk really about the models that you've set up or are in the process of setting up and really the mechanics of how they work, who they're for, and so forth. Why don't we go in order of how I just introduced you, Callie, Ashley, and then Matt.Student Success Through Nonprofit InvestmentCallie RileyThanks Michael. I'll try to make this as short as I possibly can without all of my normal slides. So Michael gave a great introduction overview of Cambiar and my portfolio at Cambiar is focused on enabling 20 million students to experience directly or indirectly nonprofit-developed, high-quality instructional materials leading to increased positive student outcomes, particularly at the margins. So we're doing this by investing in key nonprofit HQIM developers to demonstrate the impact and increase the scale of their products and services as well as strengthening the sustainability of their organizations overall because we believe they're critical to keeping the sea level of quality high in the curriculum ecosystem. So critical to this has been the development of our Impact First HQIM Accelerator Fund officially launched this year, which has a range of investment vehicles that we can stack to provide long-term, patient, cost-effective, flexible capital to support scaling and sustainability of the nonprofits we support and incentivize key behavior and business shifts. So these vehicles include that we are able to stack operating grants, which use more flexible catalytic dollars to build capacity for newer but essential business operations, exploratory efforts such as early R and D for new products, convertible grants—so used primarily to drive shorter-term revenue, profit growth like new product development, new strategies essential to high growth opportunities, core operational shifts in their business models but with near-term metrics to drive innovation on time delivery and budget efficiencies and then two vehicles to support longer-term plans and strategic initiatives that are essential to impact scale and sustainability. The first is low-interest term loans never above half the market rate with very favorable repayment terms used primarily to fund organizations within their risk adjusted debt capacity. And the second is a recoverable loan so used primarily to fund organizations beyond their debt capacity.And again, we combine those together. We engage in a pretty intensive strategy —operational financial diligence—with organizations that meet our pipeline criteria. So nonprofit core HQIM is starting an ELA in science right now to assess their long term plans, corresponding to the need debt capacity to create that package that we believe will help them reach their long term goals. And I'd be remiss that I didn't mention, too, that as part of the way we think about our investment package, we're also providing support in the way of complementary research and evaluation investments for all those who we invest in so they can help them demonstrate their impact and efficacy of their products and services as well as technical assistance and capacity building for the duration of our multi year partnership.Michael HornAwesome. Actually before Ashley, you get in just two quick follow-ups there.I think it's interesting the research piece because that's a huge hole we always hear is right like entrepreneurs, they want to show the impact but they can't. So I'd love you just to quickly double click on what that looks like and then the second one is on the loans that you're offering. You said long-term planning. Long term. Right. Sustainability. Like what are the timelines of those loans typically?Callie RileyYeah, so I'll take it from the loan. And so those are looking at five year loans but not with principal repayment until after that five year mark. And so I think that's critical when we talk about this idea of favorable terms too and below market rate. So right now we're pegging that at 3%. And then on research and

Jorge Elorza, the former mayor of Providence and now CEO of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), joined me to talk about why it’s imperative in his view to support educational choices for families. Jorge talked about his own struggles as a high school student to becoming a law professor. He explained why he thinks that Democrats have lost their way on education reform, the role of governors and other executives in setting a bold education agenda, and the importance of innovations that empower families and bottoms-up solutions, such as education savings accounts and microschools—as well as how the concept of choice aligns with progressive values. The conversation was fascinating—and frankly the only downside to it was some Internet challenges that occurred during it. Despite those interruptions, I think you’ll enjoy the dialogue. I learned from it—and as always, you can read the transcript for anything that’s hard to hear.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose, which sadly today remains not the case. But we keep working toward it. And to help us think through that, I'm really excited, actually, for this episode because we have Jorge Alorza, who's the CEO of Democrats for Education Reform. When I got into the world of education, DFER was like it. It was something that we paid a lot of attention to, really excited about. And then Jorge, as you'll hear, wrote a series of pieces, actually, that have caught my attention with the ideas expressed in them and given interviews and so forth to that effect that I thought, hey, something interesting is happening here and important that I want to drill into and understand more. So, Jorge, huge thanks for joining me. Welcome.Jorge Elorza:Yeah, it's great to be on here. Thank you for having me.Jorge’s Journey to the WorkMichael Horn:Yeah, yeah, you bet. So as I started to allude there, there's a lot of substance that I want to get into. But before we go there, I actually want to start with the personal side of your story and namely your own journey and the path to becoming CEO of Democrats for Education Reform. Because I suspect that the path is not one that know from the outside. People would say, oh, yeah, that tracks. You know, law school professor, mayor of Providence, then CEO of dfer. Talk to us about how you see that journey and how it's made sense from your perspective and in your own personal story.Jorge Elorza:Thank you, Michael. So, yeah, if I can, of all places, let me start at the beginning. I'm the son of immigrants, and in my household, from my earliest memories, it was always education, education, education. And, you know, I'd love to say, Michael, that I was that kid that always listened to mom and did the right thing, but I was a bit of a dunce, barely graduated from high school. And, you know, one of the most pivotal moments in my life came my high school graduation. So I barely graduated. I found out I was graduating a week and a half before graduation day. And I'm sitting there, all my friends are celebrating with their families. They're going off to school. I had gotten rejected from everywhere that I applied to. My life was going nowhere. And I had one of those moments where I asked myself, what am I doing? You know, my parents had sacrificed so much. I had let sacrifice blow in vain. And I resolved that I was going to do what I could to turn things around. And it was education that turned my life around. I enrolled at community college. That led me. Then I got a scholarship that it got inner city kids into the state school. That's what got me to college. And then from there, I went to law school, and that set me on this track. So education has always been a core part of, like, who I am and what I believe in. And so I practiced for two years as an attorney, and then I became a law professor. I thought I was going to do that for the rest of my life. I was doing the publishing thing. I had gotten tenure, but there was always an itch to keep one foot in the real world. Right. In the world of doing.Michael Horn:Yeah.Jorge Elorza:And I was literally minding my business when, you know, the opportunity to run for mayor came up. Folks started approaching me, and at first I was not interested at all, and.Michael Horn:But then actually pause there for one second, like, why were they tapping you to run for mayor? Because, like, that doesn't just happen unless you're involved in the community and people see something in you. Right.Jorge Elorza:I think a lot of different things. You know, my. My background. I also happen to have a very similar profile to the person who was mayor before me. And so people made a connection. And when I started to see the impact you can have to, you know, move the needle in schools, that's when I got really excited. The interest of. Interested in jumping into the race. And so that's what I did. I jumped into the race. And to be honest with you, I had never been involved in politics, so I wasn't sure or I know what I was jumping into. But sometimes you got to shoot your shot, Trust that you'll figure it out as you go. And that's exactly what I did. I got elected, got reelected, and set out to work on a race, including trying to fix our schools here in Providence.Michael Horn:Wow. Wow. And then from there, you finished the time as mayor in 2023, I think it is. And, you know, how does the DFER opportunity come about?Jorge Elorza:Yeah. So, you know, I got to tell you that when I first became mayor, I can't say that I came into office waving the ed reform flag, because the truth is, I didn't even know what ed reform was. But, you know, my goal was to fix the traditional public schools where 90% of the kids studied. And over time, you know, I. I came to see just the challenges of reforming these large bureaucratic systems. And over time, I came to believe in and embrace alternatives to the traditional system. So that by the time I left office, I was fully waving the ed reform flag and, you know, calling for the entire district to be charterized here in Providence.Michael Horn:Wow.Jorge Elorza:And so, and so, you know, I transitioned to the mayor's office. I was term limited. And I remember someone sent me the job posting for DFER that I had never heard of. And I mentioned that to my wife who comes from the ed reform world. And when I told her Democrats for Education Reform, she says, what DFER? And her eyes lit out and she said, you have to look into that. You'll love it. And that started the process. I applied and here I am.Democrats’ School Choice ImperativeMichael Horn:Amazing. Amazing. All right, so you get there to, you become CEO. And it feels like to me, the landscape in which DFER was operating at the time you became CEO and it's cloud even felt like very different from say, 15 years earlier when my first book had been published, Disrupting Class. How would you describe the environment in which DFER was operating when you became CEO and sort of its place, if you will, in the ecosystem at that time?Jorge Elorza:Yeah, it was a different reality. So DFER was created to, of course, always help policymakers policy wise and politically. And so much of how we operated worked on the assumption that Democrats actually wanted to get something done. But when I came into office, I'm sorry, when I took this position, it had been 10 years since there had been any kind of executive Democratic leadership on education. And so in those intervening 10 years, with the exception of Polis, who, you know, I'm the biggest fan of, with the exception of Governor Polis, there was no executive leadership on education on the left. And so, you know, we had state chapter strategy and approach. And I give a lot of credit to the people who ran those chapters within their state houses. They found places of opportunity. But as everyone who does advocacy will tell you, even under the best of circumstances, it's hard to move good policy. But if the executive is not behind it, it's almost impossible to do meaningful change. And so as an organization, we've taken a step back and, you know, we've been engaging much more with executives. Our theory of change today is that executives are the most important policymakers. They are the ones that set the agenda. They provide the policy guidance, they provide the political cover. And we're working with gubernatorial candidates throughout the country, several sitting governors as well. And what we're trying to do is as much as possible, give them political cover where they need it, but also help them see the opportunities both political and policy wise of embracing a strong reform agenda.Michael Horn:Yeah, no, it's a really good point. It's the one I hadn't even thought about in terms of the vacuum that had sort of appeared in the Democrats. But you know, compared to 10 years ago. And Governor Polis is a very good example of someone who is still a stalwart, you know, incredible leader obviously on the issue and to trace back to his own professional background right in the space as well. Of course, in that case, I, I want to jump in then to where you've been leading the organization from a policy and, and sort of what do you put in place standpoint. And you've written a few things that I think have turned some heads and, and, and we'll link to one of them in the transcript in the show notes here. It was a piece on the DFER website titled “It's Time for the Left to Come to the School Choice Table.” And I confess as I read it, there were big sections where I felt like I was reading something that I had written before and like I was like sort of feeling a lot of synergy there. And then there were also some arguments around things that I just didn't know anything about before I read it, frankly, in terms of the history of progressives a

Jessica Gelman, CEO of Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR), and Hillary Casson, CEO of UP Education Network, joined me to discuss their partnership designed to connect middle school students with real-world professional experiences. The conversation explores why early exposure to professional environments is crucial for student growth, details the logistics and structure behind successful school-company collaborations, and highlights the mutual benefits for both students and partner organizations.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we're dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that today, I'm delighted we've got two very special guests who do very interesting work in their day jobs and have come together in a very cool partnership that we'll get to talk about. We have Jessica Gelman, she's the CEO of Kraft Analytics Group, and Hillary Casson, who is the CEO of UP Education Network. Hillary, Jessica, great to see you. Thanks so much for being here.Hillary CassonThanks for having us.Jessica GelmanYeah, pumped to be here.Michael HornYeah, let's, well, let's start with a lightning round just to introduce you both to our audience, the organizations that you both lead. I don't know how many of my listeners will be familiar frankly with UP Education Network or the Kraft Analytics Group. So Hillary, Jessica, why don't you give us a bit about your respective organizations, what you all do so people really can get a sense of the context and a clear idea of the day to day mission of both. Jessica, why don't you jump in first?KAGR: Data-Driven Sports EngagementJessica GelmanSure. So, KAGR, we work with sports organizations predominantly on helping them use data and technology to engage and understand their customers better. So at our heart, we're like a data warehouse. So integrating a bunch of different insights about who the customers are and helping with machine learning models and some AI and data integrations. And then we also do a bunch of consulting and some of our clients who the audience might be interested in include everyone from the NFL to the NCAA to NASCAR to, you know, the, I guess here in Massachusetts, the Patriots, obviously. And we spun out of Kraft Sports and Entertainment about nine years ago. So that's kind of the what we do. And it's obviously very data rich and STEM focused.And I would also just say separately, but connected to this conference or to this discussion. I also co-founded and co chair the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.Michael HornVery cool. Yeah, very cool. Which people love. Let me ask you this question before I let Hillary get in there. You just said the connection to the Patriots and Robert Kraft, obviously, but how did you get to be CEO of such an interesting organization and such a cool job?Jessica GelmanSure. Well, I've been working with the Kraft family for 23 years. They created a role for me right out of Harvard Business School and I was running many parts of the Patriots business operations and we were using data to again, better engage Patriots and Revolution fans and then, in short, it was very analytically heavy. But I partnered with the Krafts on the creation of KAGR. The original concept was 11 years ago, and then we officially spun out nine years ago. So I think just like from a data perspective, maybe just to share, we touch today over 75 million sports fans across our data warehouses. So, again, the growth of the business and where we started nine years ago to where we are today is something that we're really proud of. And then I'll speak, of course, to the diversity within our leadership team and across the organization and why partnering with Hillary is something that's so important and near and dear to us.Michael HornWell, perfect transition, Hillary. Take it away. Tell us about UP Education Network and your own journey there.UP Education Network: Revitalizing Struggling SchoolsHillary CassonSure. UP Education Network is an organization that manages and runs schools and partnerships in partnership with districts. And we were founded essentially like a restart organization that partnered with districts to propel schools that had been stuck at some of the lowest achievement levels and percentile levels. And we've done that across the state in a number of different regions. And we are different in that we do partner with districts to prove that public school can and must work for every kid. And we're different in that we intentionally really serve communities that have been distanced from resources. Our student need level is a bit higher than your average district, school or charter school. And we commit on behalf of the districts, but even more so on behalf of the families and students, to really propel those schools so that they have an amazing school in their communities that sets kids up for a life of agency and purpose and freedom beyond the time that they're with us.We started in 2010, and now we have two campuses in Dorchester and serve 1300 kids ages pre K to 8. And our schools, one thing I love about our two schools is that they're walking distance from each other. So we really have a huge impact on this community, in particular. I have, similar to Jess, have been kind of a lifer at up. I started, I moved just because I was so taken by the mission. I moved from Baltimore to help found one of our schools.Michael HornOh, wow.Hillary CassonAnd, yeah, I didn't know anybody up here, and I was like, I want to work there for that mission and purpose. But I've been here since, that was 11 years ago. And I was an assistant principal, then a principal, and then I was coaching the principals for the network. And now I'm in my second year as CEO.Michael HornAnd you mentioned the student base is, you know, perhaps lower income, more diverse than a lot of the districts or Charters in the area just give us a sense of who those students are.Hillary CassonSure. The first thing I'll say about our students is that they are just like amazing and so immensely capable and the communities that we work with are so asset rich and phenomenal. But from a demographic purposes, about 93% of our students are coded as high needs, according to state designations, compared to, you know, about a 70% average for charters/public. There's a little bit of variation there, but. And about 40% of our students are language learners, so actively working on building their English proficiency with even higher percentages having a first language other than English. And then most of our students are low income.Michael HornGotcha. Super helpful, yeah, super helpful I think to give us a sense of who you're serving. So in the last year, as I really understand it, like UP education network in existence for 15 years, but you have started to make a very big push to help students get far more experiences with companies in professional settings out in the real world, so to speak. So perhaps before we get into the specifics and what that looks like, just tell me about the why behind that push. Why did you conclude that this was going to be really important?Preparing Students for LifeHillary CassonSure, I think it was. First of all, it's been so fun and such a privilege. But in thinking about why do that, I really believe that in my position or in any educator's scope, is you're really required to think about how do I set this human being or this group of human beings up for success long term. I believe that the purpose of school is to prepare folks to have a life of agency and freedom and to choose their own path. And ideally that path allows them to, you know, get a living wage, you know, build a family if they choose to, etc. And so what I know to be true, both from life experience, as a person who grew up in a very rural area that had very limited access to opportunity and sight lines, and then also as an educator that we cannot stop preparing kids just at academics. And don't get me wrong, like academics are absolutely essential. Like if we don't at baseline prepare kids academically, we've failed.And that is not the only thing that kids need to be successful. And I think you look at any person who has attained success and how I'm going to say that is that they're able to feed their family, make choices, have leisure time, things of that nature. There is more happening for them than just academic success. So just thought a lot about, like, what does it take to break down silos and build those skills that help folks long term. And to me, a lot of that is like providing kids sight lines. And so we were like, wow, we are in Boston. Like, what an amazingly asset rich area. Let's get kids exposure, experiences and all along the way help them feel really good about the process.So that's kind of like the why at a macro level.Michael HornPerfect. Well, let's get into the what before I bring Jessica in and how they started KAGR started to interface with this. What did you create for students? I know you started to create these partnerships with companies so that they would get that exposure, connection, awareness, sight lines. But what does it look like on the ground over the course of a year? What's that student's experience like?Hillary CassonSure. And I have to shout out my colleague and CEO Mike Bauer, who is like the real powerhouse behind the work and made so much of what I'm going to talk about come to life. But in terms of what it looks like, we have essentially like three phases to our process. But I'll speak to the middle first, and that is the experience with the companies. And I very intentionally choose the word experience because Jess and KAGR and all of our other partner companies really do an experience with our kids. So at KAGR, our kids got a chance to look at fan profiles and think about how could they market to these

Don Soifer, CEO and co-founder of the National Microschooling Center, joined me to discuss the Center’s latest comprehensive report on the evolution of American microschools. We explored how microschools are growing in size, serving a wider age range, and increasingly enrolling students with diverse needs. We also delved into differences between microschools in states with and without Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), the significance and challenges of accreditation, business models and funding, and the dynamic, adaptable nature of the microschool sector.Thanks for reading The Future of Education! This post is public so feel free to share it.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there today, I'm delighted that we have a repeat guest. We don't always have repeat guests on the show, but Don Soifer is someone who I hold in very high regard and so I'm just delighted to welcome him back. As a reminder, he's the CEO and co founder of the National Microschooling Center. He's been in and around the changes in innovation in education, several waves of them, for a few decades at this point.And Don, I won't go through everything, but it's just, it's really good to see you, man. Thanks for joining.Don SoiferThanks for having me. It's a real pleasure.Microschools Evolving, Serving Older StudentsMichael HornYeah, no, and look, in May, you all released at the center your latest analysis of American microschools. It's a 40-page report, so we will not get into all of it today, but people should visit the National Microschooling Center, check it out, see the findings. But there's a lot in there that I wanted to learn more about personally and shed light on. And so I thought where we would start is this. And it seems from the report that the nature of microschools themselves are evolving. They're getting a bit bigger, it seems particularly, I think when you zoom out of the microschools that are really homeschooling centers, they're starting to serve older students as well, which I think is pretty notable as I think you, the stat was 84% of microschools serve kids age 5 to 11. But now 52% of the universe, if you will, of microschools that you surveyed are serving kids ages 15 to 18, which is a much higher population. And it seems like a big sea change because, you know, for a while you would hear, oh, microschools works great for elementary, middle school, but a lot of kids, you know, they want to go back to traditional high school because they want Friday night lights, college, whatever it is.And so I would just love your commentary of like, what's changing across these dimensions that's maybe leading to this evolution in the size and the ages of who microschools are serving.Don SoiferGreat. Well, thanks. So I think first of all, it's important that this is the biggest, deepest, widest research on the sector to date. So we interviewed 800 microschools in all 50 states. So hopefully this is the closest thing to a representative sampling of what's going on out there yet. And I think the other, the other point I think that's worth reiterating is that microschooling is not a new thing that somebody smart invented during the pandemic. Right. What we're doing is updated by a lot of what we now know about pedagogy and the way children learn and all sorts of great additions in this golden age of digital content that we work in.But microschooling is something that's been going on for a very long time, right. Reporters often ask, and I say, I don't know, maybe the first microschool was maybe the book of judges, but that feels very western centric. And obviously when Slate Blackwoods came across the prairies on trains, one room schoolhouses were taking off. So for sure. So, so what is, what is, what's happening now as we move maybe from left to right on the adoption curve? In some communities, there are definitely places and we're out in the country all the time, and there are definitely some ecosystems that microschooling has gotten more common, more people are aware of it. The people that track things like terms in Google searches will tell you that there are more people in south Florida or some spots like Mississippi or Kansas or the greater Atlanta area where more people are aware of microschooling. We've been doing it for longer.We see some shifts in who's participating because more people are aware of it. So there definitely is some evolution of the sector that we're seeing. And part of that comes from the fact that the kids we had in microschools, many of them did start during the pandemic, but they're getting older. And microschools, we've seen a trend in homeschooling for year that homeschooling may get a little bit more boring and standardized when kids get to high school because parents don't want to mess up. They want to make sure the kid has the opportunity to play in a NCAA Division 1 sport. And so they're going to sort of collapse, you know, high school is complicated.It takes more confidence with the subject matter. And we generally see families, maybe, you know, this is the golden age of digital content, but families, when they get to high school might be more inclined to draw all of their content from one particular provider in the name of it being accredited and that somehow helping them with their future options. So high school is more complicated, for sure. But more and more microschools are getting into tackling it, and we're seeing some real evolution over there and it's some really inspiring models and some, some really, you know, they're really learning from each other and it's an evolution of the sector. I think it's a good example of one.Serving Diverse Student NeedsMichael HornWell, so I, let's stay on this because I think the other thing that jumped out to me about these schools and who they are serving is that a lot of the students are former public school students. A lot of them are in the median income bracket, it looked like with nice distributions on the low income and higher income. But a lot are sort of squarely in the middle, at least self reported. It's pretty diverse. And then this, you had 74% of microschools of these 800 that you surveyed report serving children with neurodiversities, 46% with other special needs, 63% of students who came to them two or more grade levels, excuse me, two or more grade levels below their quote unquote age, and 50% who've experienced emotional trauma. So look, you were in the charter school world well before I was. But as you know, charter schools were often accused fairly or unfairly of not serving students with special needs. It seems that this, that charge can't even get lift off here from based on what you're learning anyway,Don SoiferThanks. You touched on some of my very favorite findings. Microschools are more likely to serve kids from slightly below or significantly below the average income in their area than above. More kids come to microschooling from traditional district operated public schools than anywhere else. And coming from homeschooling is a somewhat distant second. So microschooling and we do very well toward the fragile end of the income spectrum. We do very well with families with a child with neurodiversities or other special needs. So microschools are not a school choice play. They're taking off in the blue and the purple states every bit as much as in the red states.And there are some slight differences you see in trends there. But microschools are not about partitioning privilege. I mean when you read about pandemic pods in the New York media, you know, during the shutdowns, there was a real cause for concern. Are these things any good? Are they equitable? Are they what they are intended to be? Where we're really seeing as this movement takes hold and, and grows, that we're looking for kids that were not thriving in their prior schooling setting and the population in microschools and the very, you know, the, the beautiful diversification of the kinds of models that we're seeing in microschooling really gives every kid an opportunity to thrive. And the examples that you gave are some of my favorites.Michael HornWell, so stand that, because I actually didn't realize that or I didn't pick it up from the report, which is that some of the trends might be different in the blue and purple states compared to the red. And I guess the reason I'd love you to just spin that out a little bit more is the red states tend to be where the education savings accounts have passed for the most part. Right. And we know that very progressive families actually take advantage of those and love them. So it's not really a political issue. But in terms of where the laws are and enabling some public funds to support microschooling, it's more in the red states, it seems to me. So how are the trends different? And I don't even know.Would be different in terms of who they're enrolling or scope of the schools. What does that look like? That's different.Challenges in ESA StatesDon SoiferYeah. So first I should clarify that just because a state has an ESA doesn't mean that microschools are able to participate or that families can choose microschools. The details of policies matter. And a lot of the time those details get decided at the 11th hour as part of a compromise. And let's face it, school choice programs in this country and the broader schools of choice experience are much more traditional and larger. And the programs are really written for those schools because those are the largest stakeholders who are at the table when these conversations are happening. So when we look particularly at microschool trends in ESA states where families can choose microschools to participate, usually one of the hurdles, one of the major hurdles is acc

Macke Raymond, the program director of Stanford’s Hoover Institution’s Program on U.S. K–12 Research and former director of CREDO, joined me to discuss the need for a new “operating system” in American public education. We spent time diving into the recommendations from the Hoover Institution’s recent report, “Ours to Solve Once and for All,” which calls for reimagining the roles of federal, state, and local actors to foster a more adaptive, innovative, and student-centered education system. According to Raymond, given the massive changes at the federal level since President Trump took office, now is the perfect time for this rethinking. According to the report, it’s vital we prioritize incentivizing educational mastery, minimizing rigid mandates, cultivating a dynamic, responsive education workforce, and offering safe learning environments, all of which should start from the grassroots up. Have a listen and let me know what you think in the comments.The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think this through, today, I think we have a repeat guest, if I'm not mistaken, Macke Raymond. She's the program director for Hoover Institution's education work. She was the director of CREDO for many years at Stanford University, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes. And with the Hoover Institute Institution's Education Futures Council, together they put out this terrific report, “Ours to Solve Once and For All, Securing the Outcomes Our Students Need. “That's probably more introduction, Macke, than you need because you've done so much in the world of education.But first, good to see you. Thanks for joining me.Macke RaymondOh, it's wonderful to be here, Michael. Thanks for inviting me.Accelerating Change in Education SystemsMichael HornYeah. No. So you wrote this really provocative note to me that sort of. I had written this piece for my substack and Forbes about how disruption of schooling might finally be possible in the world of education savings accounts, because for the first time, families might feel like they're losing out if they aren't exercising their choice in sort of the savings accounts that come with it. So there's this sense of value that's been overlaid with certain states moving in this direction. And then you wrote me and said, well, not only that, but we've been arguing, right, for this new operating system, really, the foundational principles of how education operates in this country, and seen states as sort of the lever against that. But this I'll let you describe in a second. But these changes at the federal level maybe have actually accelerated the timeline over which the recommendations and the thought we had put into that report have become even more relevant quicker than we thought that they would.So maybe you should lay out the premise because I probably just did a poor job and sort of give us the context for what the report was arguing for in terms of a quote, unquote, new operating system and why the current moment, in the current context perhaps is conducive to that.Macke RaymondWell, first, you did a beautiful job setting this up, so thank you. The clarity of your introduction is really helpful for all of this. So we've known for a long time that the current way that K12 public education operates in the United States isn't getting the job done for lots and lots of students. And we would also argue the entire system itself continues to not produce graduates and product that is actually internationally competitive. So we've known that for a long time. We also know that a lot of what we've tried to do to improve education has not worked. And based on some earlier work at the Hoover Institution, we dug into what was behind that. And one of the important conclusions there was that we have created a system that is phenomenally capable of resisting change.It is intransigent in really, really important ways. And so this brought us to the question of what would it take to actually have a public education system—federal, state and local—that really was capable of adapting, was capable of innovating, was capable of disrupting where it was necessary in order to make sure that students were getting the kinds of academic and non academic preparation that would set them up for success. All, all the things that we want for our kids. How could we think about the system as itself as a lever for doing that? And so the Education Futures Council was brought together to sort of ponder that question. And the conclusion that the Futures Council members came to was that the way in which decisions were made and executed in K12 from the federal and state and local levels were actually a big, big deterrent to effective operation and effective impact on student learning. And that led to then, okay, what would be a better approach to thinking about what we call the operating system? So we're not calling for a different curriculum, we're not calling for a different staffing model. We're not talking about a longer school year or a different school model. We're really talking about how do the institutions themselves work on their own and work together.And the Futures Council report, “Ours to Solve Once and For All,” posits that there is a possibility of reorganizing what happens at the state and federal level and at the local level in order to create a much better environment for creating conditions for positive learning for students. So that's the purpose of the report. We in a million years would never have expected what we've seen in the last six months. Our initial thinking after the publication of the report, which happened last October, before the election, we thought we were talking about a three to five year timeline of very carefully building a coalition of both advocates and policy leaders to basically try to enable some of these kinds of changes that the report called for. And then the inauguration happened. And within a very short period of time, it became clear that the field of play at the federal level is open for the kinds of disruption that might be possible in order to advance this more productive conversation about the institutional arrangements. You could think of that as a new federalism that we're advocating for. And the conditions have softened at the federal level to the point where this could actually be a constructive conversation.Michael HornI want to dig into a bunch of those parts. Maybe first for the audience, let's lay out, like, as you all see it, what would be the pillars or commitments, I think is the way the report phrases it, of the new operating system. And what would the different actors, local, state, federal, what would be their responsibilities, if you will, in such a system? And maybe once we have that understanding, then I have so many questions for you. So let's start there.Macke RaymondWe have a limited amount of time, Michael.Michael HornYeah, yeah, it's true, it's true. So we'll do our best. Yeah.Macke RaymondAll right. So every single enterprise, whether it's private business, whether it's a social service agency, whatever, they have to have a few operating essentials in order to function. And we call for those as operating essentials for the new operating system. They involve being very clear about what the outcomes are that you want to achieve. And so the report is calling for a broader definition of student success and new measures in order to reflect whether or not we're making progress on those. Second part of that is a regular system of measuring how students are doing. Certainly coming out of the pandemic, we collectively as a nation, care a whole lot more about what students know and can do than we did before. A bad way to get that gift, but I think we can leverage that and move that forward.And then after a measurement system, we have to be candid about the fact that there's a broad range of performance in the system in schools that we have to acknowledge. If we're committed to making sure that every single child gets the preparation for a life of opportunity, then we have to have accountability. It doesn't have to look exactly the way that it has for the last 25 years, but accountability definitely has to be part of the system. And finally, it sounds like a no-brainer, but we really have to create and assure that there are safe learning environments that are conducive to both instruction and learning. And that's not a trivial thing. So the current debate about cell phones in classrooms, the whole problem of school security, whether it's digital or physical, plays into that. We have to make a commitment that schools are environments in whatever way they actually roll forward.Decentralized Education Policy ReformMacke RaymondThey are environments that are safe and conducive to learning. So those are the operating pieces. The commitments are that we need to change the way in which we do business. And over very many years, like 40 now, 45 years, what's happened is that we have created a very strong top down directive process for setting education policy. And it doesn't make sense to us that that should be the case. We have huge variation across the country in terms of what local conditions look like and what learning environments look like across the country. And so having somebody who is from a very remote perspective choosing typically a one size fits all solution and then wondering why it doesn't work across all the settings that it's tried to be adopted to, and then blaming people on implementation infidelity doesn't make sense to us. So we're looking for a different approach to building capacity so that

On this episode, Ulric Shannon, Executive Director of the Surge Institute in Chicago, and Kyla Mathews, principal of Epic Academy High School, join me to talk about the controversial issue of banning smartphones in schools. While acknowledging the negative impact of excessive phone use, both guests argue against blanket bans and instead emphasize the importance of teaching responsible use and engaging students in setting digital norms. They discuss how cell phones can serve educational and social-emotional purposes when integrated thoughtfully, highlight the real-world challenges of device access in classrooms, and stress the importance of fostering trust with students and parents.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I am Michael Horn and you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And as we figure out how to do that, we do so right now against a bleak set of statistics, if you will. We have a mental health crisis among teens. We have rampant disengagement and chronic absenteeism for many high schools. And social media, which is often accessed through smartphones, has been a leading suspect in the cause of this. And the result from all that is that states and many districts are banning smartphones in schools in a variety of ways right now across the nation.Nuanced Phone Policy in EducationNow, I'll put my cards on the table. I've been arguing for a more nuanced position rather than a blanket ban from on high, where educators have the power to ban phones in their classrooms when it makes sense, but they also have the power to use them when it will advance an educational or engagement purpose. But it does feel at the moment like there's a tide against any nuanced positions in this country in general, I will say. And yet we have a couple educators joining us today who I'm thrilled to get their perspective because they have also found a nuanced way through this conversation that I'm really excited and eager to learn from. So first we have Ulric Shannon. He's the executive director of the Surge Institute in the Chicago region. Surge is an organization dedicated to cultivating black, brown and Latino leaders to transform education. And then we have Kyla Mathews, who is a principal of Epic Academy High School, which is a charter school in Chicago focusing on college going for its graduates.And Kyla is a Surge fellow at the moment. So, Ulric, Kyla, great to see you both. Thanks so much for joining me.Kyla MathewsThank you for having us.Ulric ShannonYeah, thank you so much for having us, Michael.Michael HornYeah, you bet. I'm excited to learn from you on this topic, but let's, let's get right into it, right? 21 states, I think at latest count, I believe, have passed laws restricting regulating cell phone usage in schools. We have the author, John Haidt, who's on the warpath with his best selling book advocating for a lot of these laws and so forth. Kyla, you run a school that's one to one device school. And as I understand it, you have been arguing that these folks have it wrong, that a blanket ban doesn't make sense. So at a high level for right now, help us understand why that's been your position.Kyla Mathews As a Principal of Epic and a former assistant principal of a large urban school and a parent of a generation Alpha student. People can't think that a broad brush of no cell phones is like the way to go. But what we're learning is that the children that we service right now have not ever not had a phone in their hand. And so being mindful of your audience, being mindful of who you service, you have to be clear about that. And so that's why it's not the right way to go to ban the cell phones without any clear communication expectations and a buffer or filler to replace something that's a part of people's lives.Michael HornSo I want to dig into that and a little, a little bit more. But Ulric, maybe lay out your perspective first because you're working, as I understand it, not just with Kyla, but with lots of school leaders in Chicago. What do you see? Because I'm hearing that a lot of educators are really loving these bans. Once they're in place, they're saying, thank God someone else made the decision for me. In effect, what are you seeing on the ground?Ulric ShannonYeah, I think there's a number of things that are at play here. I think districts are under a lot of pressure, right, to improve academic outcomes. And so they see that as phone bans as a quick fix to that. Right. Like we need to have like deeper conversations around that and actually engage students in that 1. 2 I would say that schools, at the school level, they're responding to a growing concerns related to classroom distractions, cyber bullying and student mental health, as you talked to earlier. And we have to admit that the pandemic accelerated that. Right.The use of technology. Now educators are actually seeing how constant student interaction or phone usage can actually undermine their attention and their community connection, which is also important inside the classroom. So I think if we look at different levels within the education system and the structure, I think people are just quickly responding because there is some urgency around the preparedness for our young people to go off into the world, whether it's academically prepared, socially prepared, and a number of other things. And, you know, cell phones can sometimes feel like a little bit of a distraction, maybe a lot of distraction, and the root of a lot of just, you know, teenage or young people issues because they have so much access to each other. So I think it's just a quick response to a greater outcome, some good intentions, but maybe some poor outcomes.Michael HornWell, so, so stay on that because. So I think what I'm hearing, Kyla, right from you is phones like they're with the kids. Whether we like it or not, they are the tableau. Ulric, you're saying, if I'm hearing correctly, like, so there's sort of a snap reaction, we'll just take them away and somehow solve the problem. I think a lot of educators are saying it does solve the problem, like, you know, behavior seems better in their schools and classrooms and things like that. So help me understand like why this might not actually be the right answer. And Ulric, maybe start with you, like why, why is it just that a snap reaction rather than maybe attacking the root cause of what's going on?Student Involvement in Phone UsageUlric ShannonI think we have to recognize that. I mean, I think Kyla spoke to her earlier, like they had phones in their hands since they were born, right? And phones can actually be a lifeline for students navigating complex identities and social environments. And so it can be kind of a coping tool for students. But like I said earlier, we must understand the why behind the behavior and not just try to control it. And we know that research says that excess usage of phones and social media can actually increase anxiety or in comparison to disengagement. But I think if we can actually bring in students into that process, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. They can actually co-design some of those norms with students. Maybe it's creating a tech-free zone or structure breaks, informing some digital literacy courses that can actually support healthy usage and boundaries of cell phones.I think there is certainly things that we can do, but I think maybe some of the capacity issues within buildings make that a little bit of a challenge when you may not have all the bodies and resources inside of your school to actually tend to those needs and a loving and and caring way that you would like to have inside of your schools.Michael HornWell, so Kyla, let me go to you there, like what are you doing, right, to reset this? What's a better way forward in your view?Cell Phones in Education DebateKyla MathewsI [agree with] everything Ulric just said because we have to be clear whether the cell phone is a distraction or not. And we also have to understand from a youth's perspective that if I release my cell phone to you, am I trusting you as a person, as my teacher? And then secondly, what are you going to replace with my level of entertainment if we want to bring in the social media part? But I have an antidote to this discussion because a number of my staff members who do not have cell phone issues, they just realize that they can capitalize on their age gap or the non existent age gap, like they're Very accepting that cell phones do exist, but I'm going to teach you how to use it responsibly. Even being really specific in a history class the other day, last month, part of an evaluation, part of my popping in a teacher was clear with students about why Twitter is not a good source for information and it created a healthy debate with students. So, now we're not arguing about the phone and being distracted by the content or my teacher isn't accepting of the way I receive information which actually bringing it into the conversation and having a debate about why primary sources are still the way to go.Michael HornSo in that case, Kyla. Right. Like it's sort of an entry point into a broader conversation, it seems like. So, so, so part of the job is like, is that part of the answer that teachers, I mean it feels like we asked teachers to do a ton of stuff today. Do they have another responsibility on, on, on their, sort of on their desks, if you will, or is there, you know, is this part of something bigger?Kyla MathewsYeah, the hurdle, I think and, and just talking with teachers, talking with students, I think two challenges come up for us. One, because I do think I'm a teacher of teachers, so I say to us one is that you don't want to be in a power struggle with students about their personal items. So it's not about the physical phone. Right. But for some students and families it is about

Tyler Thigpen, CEO and head of school at the Forest School and Acton Academy, joined me again to discuss the powerful impact that my mentor, Clay Christensen, and his theories of innovation had on Tyler’s practical approach to education leadership and innovation. We dove into topics such as identifying and developing capable leaders, designing for sustainability, integrating around a Job to Be Done, and shaping organizational culture through problem-solving.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. You're joining the show where we're dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. Today we've got a repeat guest, that happens every once in a while, but generally not like this close in proximity to each other. But we've got Tyler Thigpen back. He's the CEO, head of School of the Forest School and Acton Academy. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.We talked a lot last time about how he's the CEO of the Institute for Self Directed Learning in his book about that topic, the Playbook for Self Directed Learning. Tyler, did I miss anything? Good to see you. How are you?Tyler ThigpenYou didn't miss anything. Great to see you. I'm doing really well and happy to be chatting about this topic today.Lessons from Clayton ChristensenMichael HornYeah. And so I wanted to bring Tyler back because I thought the conversation we had was fantastic. And literally, like a few weeks after we had recorded that, he came out with this piece on LinkedIn titled 8 Game Changing Business Lessons I Learned from Clayton Christensen. And of course, as you all know, Clayton Christensen was my mentor. The ideas he learned literally changed my life and how I view the world. And Tyler, I guess I, like, I hadn't internalized that you had had some similar experiences taking Clay's class when you were in the EDLD program, I think at the Ed School at Harvard. And so I just thought, well, for starters, like, what. What moved you to write the piece? And maybe macro level, talk about the impact that that Clay had with you or when you got to interact with him and sort of that moment in your lifeTyler ThigpenTotally. And my experience with Clayton, you said, changed my life. And even though I didn't get as much time with him as I think you probably did, I would say the same thing. Just an incredible experience. The first time I led a school, Michael, was back in 2011, and I had read the Innovator's DNA and was very compelled by that. And then my team and I started an innovation diploma for high schoolers. Really centered around some of the characteristics, you know, the questioning, the networking, the experimentation, you know, highlighted there in Innovator's DNA. But I didn't know Clayton. It wasn't until I went to my doctoral program that I heard about this legendary course called Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise, which I know you know very well.And I got lucky enough to get him in class and really just rolled up my sleeves and tried to take from it as much as possible. And it really that was 10 years ago, and it's been, you know, my work as a CEO since that time. How many times I have, you know, thought back and reflected and looked at notes and reread theories and tried to apply things. It's just remarkable. It's really almost more than any other business framework that I've come up with. And so that's really what inspired me to write the piece.I was at a dinner with one of your colleagues, Thomas Arnett, and was sharing some of the same story with him, and I realized I haven't really synthesized my own reflections and thinking. And so I'll put it in a LinkedIn article. And I did, and it was so helpful. And I actually teach it to my leaders as well on my team, and we continue to benefit.Michael HornVery cool. Very cool. And I think you got a lot of feedback on that article. So maybe we'll start not David Letterman style completely, but at the bottom, number eight, and then we'll work backwards number eight. You had identifying and developing capable leaders. And I'd love to know what that means to you, because, like, I think a lot of people would say, well, like, everyone's looking for leaders. You talk to a venture capitalist, they invest in, you know, entrepreneurs. Right? Like, what does that mean? And how did Clay help you around that? Or what's the problem that it helped you solve for?Tyler ThigpenAbsolutely, Michael. And again, I welcome your feedback on any of this because, yeahMichael HornBut I'm super curious what this one meant.Rethinking Leadership and HiringTyler ThigpenYeah, I mean, this was one of the most provoking ideas that I encountered with Chloe. I actually disagreed with him at first. I was given leadership opportunities at a very young age, professionally, like 21. I had a boss that just really believed in me. And so I had this bias around leadership that's like, as long as you have a few certain qualities, you can do anything, you know? But Clayton's very provoking point was to think through, okay, for the roles that you have for your organization, for it to really, you know, grow and execute and learn at a high level. What are the kinds of experiences that this individual is going to have to face? What are the kinds of experiences, therefore, that we would then look for in their previous life, you know, leading up to that point, whether in their personal or professional life, that would have given them the sorts of experiences to be able to navigate them once they approach this new task. And so it really impacted my hiring, honestly, Michael, I just started to really think meaningfully about the competencies required for Each one of our different roles at the school and then backwards design from that and then in our interview questions and interview performance tasks, start looking for team members who had done those kinds of or similar experiences, you know, in the past.And, and really, honestly nobody, because we're our school and our organization is, you know, trying to build something that's new and innovative. So it's not like anybody's really gone to a school for exactly the roles that we have. So if anything, you know, doing this process with folks as they, as they apply for us is. It helps see where they are going to be ready to hit the ground running and then where they may need some support, you know, early on. So that's been key for us for hiring for the last number of years.Michael HornAnd for those who are interested, I think he calls it the Right Stuff Theory. Right. The schools of experience, if I'm remembering, and it's from Morgan McCall's work, High Flyers Developing the Next Generation of Leaders. And I think we may have had a similar, like, sort of disagreement with it initially. Actually, it'll be interesting to compare notes on this. My recollection was like, when Clay introduced this theory to our class, my pushback was like, well, if you're always looking for someone who's had experience, like, you never actually bring someone up into the next rung because, like, you're looking for, like, it's a truism in some ways. How do you develop? And I guess the nuanced understanding I developed over time of it was like, actually it's the opposite, right? Like the argument is, you know, you're looking for a CEO of a startup venture or something like that.You don't go to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to fill that because their experiences are actually in large environments of how to get stuff done and things like that. And you'd be better off finding someone who maybe hasn't had the C level job, but had the experience of navigating and operating in a similar small environment and getting, you know, learning how to pull resources and get experiences done. And now you're giving them sort of that next ladder, if you will, on, their progression. And, and so in some ways I, I started to think of it as like, actually it's more pro development than I thought. It's just you have to sort of understand experience and like, context in a deeper way than maybe I had. How does that resonate with you?Tyler ThigpenIt totally resonates. And I, I think too, he helped me see that if you, I mean, yeah, there's a good chance that if you've got someone who succeeded in an environment, they're going to succeed in another environment. But that's just what it is. It's a chance, you know, it's a bit riskier. Whereas if you need someone to deliver on the promise of this new role in this context, then there's going to be a greater likelihood for success if you look for that level of alignment. So you use the word nuance that. I totally agree. It's a bit more nuanced approach.Michael HornYeah. Okay, so let's go to the seventh one then. You had, you had understanding business models and designing for sustainability, which is interesting because like his class, as you said, legendary class. Building and sustaining successful enterprise. World's worst name for a course ever. But Clay was like consumed with sustainable success, right? Not flash in the pan. Success was like super core to who he was. So, so how did, how did this, how does this manifest and what you do day to day?Strategic Growth Planning VariationsTyler ThigpenWell, and this one, I don't know if in your mind this one is closely connected to the discovery driven planning. For me it sort of is. But basically the way this impacted me was when I was outside of this context, it was like, okay, when designing the performa for our organization, that five year projections, you know, having multiple different versions, all of which are sustainable, but you know, one would be a fast growth, one would be moderate growth, one would be slow growth. And it included all the resources and, you know, processes, priorities, and we'll get to that in a minute, I think. But it essentially there were a few markers that I sort of said, like,

Dave McCool, founder and CEO of Muzzy Lane, joined me to discuss the role and potential of AI in creating dynamic, role-play simulations for online learning. Dave shared the journey of Muzzy Lane, from its early days developing history games for schools to its current focus on enabling educators to easily build their own customizable, auto-graded simulations across more than 100 higher-education course areas. Our conversation highlights how recent advances in AI have transformed the process of authoring simulations. It’s now much faster, more accessible, and more engaging for both instructors and learners.I highly recommend you don’t just read or listen to our conversation; watch it because Dave gave a live demo of the use of AI to create simulations. Show don’t tell, as the saying goes.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that, today we have a special guest, Dave McCool. He's the founder and currently the CEO at Muzzy Lane, which basically creates dynamic role play simulations in a variety of fields. We're going to learn a lot more about it, but simulations have been an area that I've been very interested in for a long time in the world of digital, online learning and so forth for its ability to frankly create more real world, real life learning experiences for individuals. Dave, welcome. So good to see you and thanks for joining us.Dave McCoolThanks for having me here today, Michael.Michael HornYeah, so let's dive in maybe, because I think simulations have taken almost like a, you know, level up, if you will, from video game land. Right. With AI over the past few years. But let's go back a little bit further than that. Just the founding of Muzzy Lane. What was the big idea behind it? How's the company evolved? Who are sort of, you know, who do you serve right now? Where are these simulations and where are they hitting learners at the moment?Dave McCoolPerfect. Yeah. So the big idea is a great place to start. So I'm a software engineer by background and so when we started Muzzy Lane in early 2000s, we had an interest in games and simulations, looked kind of at the landscape and saw education. More digital transformation was happening in education and just felt as a software engineer is like, this is a great place for games and simulations. It's a great place for deeper, more complex interactive software that can really get at better learning experiences and better assessment experiences. So that was really the big idea. 2002 was a very different time than today.So, you know, we went through a lot of iterations trying to find the right formula. You know, the first half of the company's life was really, we created and released history games into high schools and colleges called Making History. People who use them, love them. Not as many people use them as we had hoped in education at the time, but that series lives on in the commercial space on Steam, so it's still available today. Did a lot of work with publishers. Really kind of most of our work's been in higher ed over the course of the company's Life. A little K12 and a little workforce. But I think for us the big turning point for us was 2014 and 15, the Gates foundation, they gave us a research grant because they'd made a lot of investments in games and simulations for learning and hadn't been getting the results they were hoping for.So they wanted us to study the market, which was interesting for us as sort of startup software people, to do a research project.Michael HornYeah, I was about to say, how did that, how did that land for y' all?Dave McCoolIt was good. We. It was a period. A colleague of mine, Connor Ryan, came in and was running the company at the time while I was running the tech transformation we were undergoing. So he had a good experience that we didn't with that. And so we. It was a really great experience.We produced a 40-page report which is still available on our website.Michael HornWhat did you learn? Like, what were the headlines from that report?Dave McCoolI still remember the headlines today. And it was because they were, they were humbling really for us. It was high awareness of games and simulations among instructors and administrators in university, especially online. But all sorts of logistical challenges with what they were being offered. Things were generally too big, too inflexible. Don't disrupt my course became the thing we heard most commonly. We see the value in what you're doing. I'm not rebuilding my whole course around.Michael HornYou, but I wanted to fit in as a module as opposed to. To I have to rethink 10 of the 13 weeks or whatever.Dave McCoolRight. So it still has to be a scale that fits with my course that fits with my learning objectives, like time. Like I don't have enough time to spend on that particular part of my courses that this game is going to require for me. And they wanted to control the content. They didn't want to have to go back to a developer constantly to get changes made and updates made. And then kind of the basic ones were it has to run any device in a browser, on a phone, including had to integrate to the LMS, which meant LTI integration. And it had to meet WCAG 2.0 AA Accessibility Now 2.2, which again, these were not things people. We came kind of from the serious games and the games for learning side and we were kind of like, oh, games are great and you're going to adjust to get those benefits.So anyway, we were doing a tech transition at the time anyway, that's when the authoring tools came out and we said, let's just go all the way down to we're going to start putting these tools in the hands of our partners, teach them how to use them, make it as easy as possible. And that's really been the business ever since.Michael HornSuper. And so what higher ed programs specifically? Like, when you're talking about the simulations, where have you found the most traction? Are we talking like nursing and it's almost VR like, or are we talking negotiations? Like, there's a pretty big range of what these can look like. Where, where have you found the most traction?Dave McCoolYeah, I think so. We, when we thought about the tools, we thought about how to help people build their own simulations for learning, we thought a lot about ROI, because when you were building specific games, like we built for principles of Marketing, we built for intro Spanish, we built for operations management, but you're building one big product for one course area and it's hard to make that money back. It's hard to make that work financially. So what we wanted to do is build templates that were as broadly applicable as possible. So we wanted to make content forms that you could then fill in with what you needed for your course area and hopefully those would travel pretty broadly. So we're in over 100 course areas in higher ed. Business is probably the number one by usage overall. But a lot of nursing, a lot of medical fields like medical assisting, a lot of the humanities as well.So we're in language learning, we're in sociology, psychology, crisis counseling, social work, all those kinds of places. And the role play format of the multiples that we have really has become the most popular one just because it does travel really well and it really fits a lot of what people try to do.Adapting Games for EducationMichael HornAnd so the, and it sounds like the secret became, okay, we're going to give up our adherence to what a serious game needs to look like or what the ideal version of it is. I'm sort of reminded of the Greg Toppo book, I think the game believes in you, right, where he sort of said there's this clash of like these very big learning goals that serious game designers have as they enter the education space. And like, these are not your words, but these are his, as I recall them, was like, you know, sometimes schools can be a little more transactional in the knowledge and skills that they're trying to get across to students. And so, you know, you may lose sort of the organic nature, right of a game or simulation when put into the container of a class. But it sounds like you were able to take the market's message, make that change and, and give more power to educators to create these role plays. Am I understanding that correctly?Dave McCoolYeah, you are. And it's funny because you're I'm. I'm flashing back to all those. Yeah, yeah, and Kurt squire and Jane McGonagall and like all the people who initially sort of had this movement. And a lot of the challenges were created by this clash of cultures between what is a game for a lot of people? Game is voluntary. It has to be fun. What is learning? Some people learning is very different from that.We're trying to figure out how to fit into the learning environment, push them. Like, we didn't want them to just not change anything because that's not helpful, but. But not impose criteria that are incompatible with what their goals were.Michael HornSo talk to us then about, you know, how that's evolved in terms of the product and how do educators create simulations fit for their course now? How do you help them? What, what, what do those authoring tools look like? It seems like a lot of variables and still could be a lot of work if not done well.Dave McCoolWhich is a very good point. So, yeah, so from fall of 2015 was when the platform came out until a couple of years ago, it was a pretty, just sort of a steady, steady workflow for us. It's like, how do we keep making these tools better? We did do custom tools for some people, partners, you know, for example, Western governors early on was, hey, we want to do a pandemic simulation for our masters in healthcare administration, where you run a trauma center during a pandemic. Ironic. That was 2015.Michael

Jeff Livingston, founder and CEO of EdSolutions, joined me to explore the rapidly evolving core curriculum market. The conversation traces how the once-static, “big three” publisher-dominated landscape has fractured because of shifting state adoption cycles, politics, digitalization, and the emergence of new competitors. Jeff explained how the dynamics have shifted from national dominance to regional markets, with digital tools enabling customization and lowering barriers for new entrants. The discussion also covered the impact of organizations like EdReports, new forms of patient capital, and the increasing importance of quality over pure scale or distribution.Michael HornYou are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that today, I am delighted. One of the folks that I've known for many years in the education space who I think is smarter about the curriculum market in all facets of that word than anyone I know is Jeff Livingston. He is the CEO and founder of EdSolutions. Jeff, you've had a long history in that curriculum world, and then now you keep tabs on it and give the market state for everyone and help them think about it. I'm just delighted you're here. It's good to see you, buddy.Early 2000s Textbook Market DynamicsJeff LivingstonThank you so much. Michael, you know that I am a longtime fan of yours and of this show. Delighted that I get to be on it with you to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is how much the curriculum market is changing. You and I first started talking about it. It's, you know, it's finally changing.Michael HornIt's finally changing. That's a good intro, right? Because, like, if we're going to actually help unleash student achievement potential and so forth, what they learn, the content they're receiving is important, it turns out. And as you and I know, like, I think when we first met, it was a GSV, if I'm recalling correctly, you were at McGraw Hill at the time, and I had published Disrupting Class from McGraw Hill, and you were like, this is still a static market, but we see these pathways. And yet the refrain I was always getting was, okay, yeah, there's a lot of noise in the supplemental space, et cetera, et cetera, but core curriculum, basal curriculum, right? Like, the Big Three doesn't change, will not change. And it's changing. But maybe give us, like, the history a little bit, like, who are the big three? Where are they now? Because that's changed a little bit as well.Jeff LivingstonLet's not name when that was, when we first started having these conversations, but a while ago, say, early in the century, the big three, which, to be honest, Michael was four in those days. But we're fundamentally talking about Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I say there were four because Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt were separate companies at that point, but they dominated all of core curriculum market all over the country. Because what drove that market even more in those days was, was big, large cycle, state adoptions in Texas and Florida and California. So you had to get on the list. You had to make sure once you got on the list you had sort of the marketing and distribution might to compete and only the giant companies, publishers really did in that market. And you know, let's, let, let's talk about the sort of economics of that market, right? When there were four players, you built your program to get 25%. If you got your 25%, everybody got a bonus.If you got 35%, everybody got a lake house. Right? That's the way this world was. Plus big states like Texas would tell you years in advance how much they were going to buy, what they were going to make their decisions on. You could plan to finance your product development like clockwork. There were big players. Every once in a while a small player might emerge and do a little something and then one of the big ones would buy it. That's the way it worked in those days. And that concentration was reflected in the marketplace.What's also interesting in those days, Michael, is that there wasn't a lot of really good information about what was actually in the market. The education market was unusual in that way. So at any given point in the early 2000s, at least two, sometimes three different programs were credibly saved. We have the market leading math or, or ela.Michael HornWell, and Jeff, quickly help us understand, like when they're making those claims are they sell like elementary, middle, high school, all of it combined. Like how are they cutting these things?Skewed StatisticsJeff LivingstonSo you could, you cut it to make yourself look the best. And all the information was self-reported to organizations like the Association of Educational Publishers or AEP, the association of American Publishers Education Division. So you just sliced it the way you wanted to and you could simultaneously be telling the technical truth and you could be directly contradicting somebody else who was telling the technical truth. So you just knew that the big ones, the big companies dominated in one or another kind of. Now what's also important is that the market is such that if you were one of the big publishers and you stumbled and got significantly less than your 25%, suddenly there are three, right? You couldn't make the big investments and not get.Michael HornAnd that's because of the way scale economics work. Large fixed costs of publishing books and guides.Jeff LivingstonGuides and so forth, salesforces, all of that. If you made the bet and didn't get your share, you were in trouble. And if you got significantly less than your share, you were really in trouble. Hence there's a company called Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and not a company called Harcourt Houghton Mifflin. Right. It's just, you know, they stumbled and you just couldn't stumble in that world. But what's fascinating is that today it's really, really difficult.Michael HornSo let's fast forward into today. Like what? Maybe let's start with those, the three remaining and talk. Because obviously Pearson had a change there as well. Talk about what's changed among those three, and then let's talk about how the entrants have sort of maybe made those changes.Jeff LivingstonFirst, let's talk about a change in that market structure. The adoption calendar was sacrosanct. You knew that everybody in Texas was buying math at the same time. You had a sense of how much money they were going to have to spend. It was sacrosanct. In recent years, Florida stopped a math adoption in the middle and started over. California should be in the second year of its math adoption, but it's barely started. That certainty is gone.And because that certainty is gone, the certainty of financing these big investments is harder.Michael HornWhat killed that certainty?Jeff LivingstonThe big states and some of the small states fail to understand where their power came from. It came from a combination of having everybody buy at the same time and the certainty. So if California was definitely going to buy in, you know, 2023, everybody could plan for that. When it definitely became kind of maybe then you couldn't plan anymore.Michael HornYeah. And was that because of politics?Jeff LivingstonPolitics. The politics. The changes in what is considered high quality curriculum, all of that changed such that even the big states are not as certain as they used to be. The process is not as geared towards people who have big lobbying forces, big sales forces and maximum balance sheets. It's not as geared towards them anymore such that now there are some people who. When you and I first started talking about this, nobody would have mentioned that. Now you have to mention. So I think in terms of math, because it's kind of a math cycle.Texas is doing a math adoption. California is starting one. Florida is going to be doing intervention math here really soon. So I'm thinking in terms of math and. Let's do that. So the first time you and I had this conversation, long, long, long ago.Michael HornMy hair was a little darker back then. Yeah.Jeff LivingstonYeah. Nobody said Zearn. Nobody said Amplify. Nobody considered Curriculum Associates a major player in those days when I had hair and yours was darker. Right. It could be in those days, but now you can't really talk about the math market without talking about players like that.Michael HornYeah. So we got Zearn, Curriculum Associates, Amplify. I guess you'd have Great Minds in that list.Evolving Regional Math Education MarketsJeff LivingstonProbably Great Minds with Eureka Math, Illustrative Mathematics, lots of places that you just would not have, would have not entered this conversation 15 years ago that you can't have the conversation without now. And I think that's important to think about. Here's the other thing that's happened in this market, and this is, let's call this more a deep cut, Michael. It used to be a national market, now it's a regional market. So by that I mean that the leading math program in the west might barely make the list in the Midwest. And only the south really has the level of concentration that we used to see in those places. And that's because they have more of these state adoptions. And if you win big in a state adoption, you have a lot of market share for a long time.But HMH Go Math, in addition to EdSolutions, I'm a proud founder of the Center for Education Market Dynamics. I don't run the Center for Education Market Dynamics, but I did help to get it going. And they have some of the best data right now. They did a really important study at the end of last year, 2024, which I think is the most up to date data on this, that said HMH's Go Math had the highest market share in the west last year. It was number two in the south, but number five in the west in the Midwest. Right. And was this that

Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools and now a venture partner at Equal Opportunity Ventures, joined me to talk about her own unexpected journey to venture capital and how she’s found reasons for hope and optimism among entrepreneurs. We also discussed EO Ventures’ unique thesis for accelerating economic mobility through market-driven solutions and highlighted some of their investments. Rhee also reflected on changing attitudes toward work among young people, which I found very interesting—as well as the importance of measurable social impact.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose, which unfortunately is not the world we are living in today, but to help us think through how we can better get there and talk about some of her moves to do so. I'm delighted. We have a very special guest today, Michelle Rhee, venture partner at EO Ventures. And I'm sure many of you know her as the former chancellor of Washington, D.C. Public Schools, of course. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. Great to see you.Michelle RheeThank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.Michael HornNo, I'm, I'm, I'm delighted to talk about, frankly, this new chapter, relatively speaking, of your career with EO Ventures, a venture firm that supports some really interesting entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. Maybe let's start there. Just what is EO Ventures and talk about your path there. Because obviously after you left D.C. Public Schools, you started Students First, you had a long run there, and then have taken a couple other steps. But I think people would be curious why venture capital and why into this step?Michelle RheeAbsolutely. So it's been a circuitous path. And certainly if you had have told me, you know, two decades ago that I was going to end up being a venture capitalist, I would have told you that you were crazy because this is not sort of the obvious next career choice. But, you know, so I, after D.C. Public Schools, I started Students First, which was a political advocacy organization focused on education and education reform. And after spending a few years at Students First, I actually left the education arena completely. I really felt like I was not being helpful in the education conversation because it had, in my opinion, become so polarized and divisive. And I really felt like me being in the conversations was not helping.So I completely left education. About a little over four years ago, I co founded a tech startup with a colleague of mine and it was called BuildWithin. And it was not in the education space. It was actually in the workforce arena. BuildWithin is a software platform that helps employers to start and manage apprenticeship programs. So even though it wasn't in education, there was sort of a very obvious connection into workforce development and so stayed with that company for a number of years. And that was my first foray into like startup land, which was so different from anything that I had ever experienced before.And I was super fortunate in that my co-founder, Ximena Hartsock was a serial founder. And so she kind of taught me the ropes and made sure that the organization and company was being set up well. But after that I left BuildWithin and for a little while was just kind of living my best housewife life for a few months. And then got a call from Roland Fryer. So Roland and I had known each other since my DC days. You know, I met him when he was a 27-year old newly tenured professor.Michael HornSay newly genius tenured professor.Michelle RheeYeah, exactly. So he was the youngest black tenure professor ever at Harvard at the ripe old age of 27. And that's when I met him. And he sort of, he had called me at the tail end of my time with BuildWithin and he's like, I didn't know you had a startup. Like I have a venture firm, we want to write you a check, you know, that sort of thing. And after I left BuildWithin, and he was like, that's great because now you can come on board and join us. And I said, doing what, sir? I don't know anything about the venture capital world. And he's like, we just raised $100 million third fund and we'd love you to come on board and run a fund within the fund that is focused on education investments.To which I promptly said, no, thank you, I'm out of education. I love being out, I never want to get back in. And I said, well, maybe something having to do with workforce development. He was like, sure, come on board, do whatever you want. Yeah. And it was, that's such an odd thing to say, but it's very on brand for Roland. And then I talked to Bill Hellman. So Bill is the co-founder of EO Ventures and he spent 35 years at Greylock, 15 of those as managing director.And I had not met Bill before. And so in our first conversation together, I said, I don't understand why you want me for this job. I said, I don't know anything about investing, I've never done it before. Surely you can find somebody who's more qualified than me. And he said to me, he's like, you know, yes, there's venture stuff that you're going to have to learn. He's like, but it's, it's, you know, you're smart, you can figure it out. He said, really this is a business about picking people and you know how to do that. And I just found it so interesting.It's so refreshing. That somebody with the storied sort of, you know, career in venture like, Bill would think that an old woman like me could learn how to do something new and do. Do it well. Right. So I was intrigued by both of them and, and their confidence that I would be able to do this. And so I was like, all right, I'll.I'll give it a shot. And so I'm. I've been doing this for about 10 months now, and I have to say that I love it. I. Absolutely. Every job that I've ever had, I always knew that I was doing, like, I'm just, you know, doing good for the world. Right.And hoping, hopefully making it a better place. But this is the first job that I've ever had that is genuinely so much fun. And every day I wake up and I almost feel guilty. I'm like, are you supposed to have this much fun when you're working? So it's been a fantastic experience so far.Michael HornThat's amazing. I'm. I'm sure this is off. This is with my Job Moves hat on at the moment. Like, what about the job is really lighting a fire under you that you wake up every day energized, and I've got to keep doing this. Like, what are the sets of things you get to do that you're like, wow, this. This is really energizing me.Michelle RheeWell, first of all, on day three, being on the job, Roland had me sit in on the board meeting of one of our education portfolio companies. And I came out of that meeting, I was like, oh, I need to talk to him about this. I need to introduce that person. And I came out of the meeting and I was like, I guess I have to do education stuff. And Roland was like,Michael HornHook, line and sinker.Optimism in Education InnovationMichelle RheeYep. Yeah. So I, you know, I am in education, but what I have found to be sort of most fascinating about the work is that I got to a place in education, quite frankly, where I had become a curmudgeon. I was like, you know, what? We actually know in this country what we need to do, and we just refuse to do it. And I don't know that anything is ever going to change. And so I was pretty pessimistic about what the possibilities were to fundamentally change the education landscape, the public education landscape in this country. And I find that now, I mean, what better job could you have that every day I get to meet with people who are pitching me and they feel like they're going to change the world and make it a better place through this idea that they have. And you know, sometimes I'm like, love the idea, not sure about the founder.Sometimes I'm like, oh, amazing founder. I'm not sure about the idea. Right. But every now and again I meet people who I genuinely think, oh my goodness, like you could seriously change the game. And it's just incredibly inspiring and it has turned me into an optimist again.Michael HornThat's awesome. I mean, I think that's the. It's interesting. You're probably in a very similar place to me at the moment in terms of outlook on K12 education, which is kind of pessimistic about the changing the existing system. But I see all these things coming from the outside and the entrepreneurs and I know you all have Kaipod learning in your portfolio and it does make me optimistic about this movement that's growing on these fringes that's sort of outside, if you will, the traditional discourse of ed reform. And so I'm sort of curious. You have Kaipod learning, like what's the basic hypothesis certainly behind that investment, but maybe more broadly in the fund. Right.Like what sorts of things are you guys looking to back?Michelle RheeYeah. So the thesis of the firm is that market forces can significantly accelerate the economic mobility of the populations that we're focused on when done in the right way. So as long as a company aligns with that thesis, we're sector agnostic. We have portfolio companies in housing, healthcare, govtech, fintech, education, workforce and, and more. And so. And we also have something called the social money multiplier. This is a model that Roland came up with which basically allows the firm to, to, to put real sort of measurement around are the investments that we are making are, are they having an impact on society that, that we would hope so.Kaipod: Empowering Microschool MovementMichelle RheeKaipod is an investment and a portfolio company that I have had the good fortune of getting to lean in a bit on. And for some folks, I think they'd think, well, microschools, how much impact could they have? But I think that when Amar and Roland first met, Roland really first of all loved A

Lukas Barwinski-Brown, CEO of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, joined me on this episode. For those who don’t know, Lang Lang stands apart as one of the premier pianists in the world. Lukas shared his unexpected journey to leading the foundation and discussed its mission to ensure that music education is accessible to all children, regardless of their background. Lukas emphasized the importance of music education in developing children's cognitive skills and potential and highlighted the foundation's goal to create a lasting impact on both young musicians and communities in need.And you’ll be really interested to hear just how they set up the program so that children can be part of a group but learn at a personalized pace. That’s something that will ring a bell to those who watched this past episode of the Future of Education where I used music to illustrate the absurdity of our lock-step traditional school system.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there today, I'm delighted we have Lukas Barwinski Brown. He's the CEO of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. If folks don't.In my humble opinion, Lang Lang is the greatest living pianist at the moment. And Lukas leads the foundation and it is just a thrill to have you. Lukas, thanks so much for being here.Lukas Barwinski-BrownThank you very much for inviting me. I am very, very honored and very happy.Michael HornWell, I am delighted as well as listeners know, I was an aspiring pianist at one point, so I love highlighting music education. Before we get into the work of the foundation, I would just love to hear about your own personal journey to the work. You know, how does one get to become president of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation? Not that this former pianist is jealous or anything like that, but I would just love to hear about your journey.Lukas Barwinski-BrownYeah, the journey was practically my life journey. It was very, very full of surprise and very unexpected, to be honest. And the, the same, the same way I, I, totally unexpected. I practically, am, I landed here in the USA and everything has started, I think I will say around 25 years ago when I met Lang Lang and as a head of Universal Music in Austria, so I was running Universal Music in Austria, classic and jazz and, and I met this young guy, nobody know him. He was like, this was not the Lang Lang from today. This was really a different Lang Lang. Very young, very, very inexperienced. And we became really a very close friend. And this friendship practically was cherished, you know, for many years.And, one day, I will never forget this, this was my birthday. And he came to celebrate my birthday with his mom in Vienna. And she was, all the time, half of the dinner, he was talking with him, his mom in Chinese and using all the time my name. And so I was like, what the hell is going on? Why, what are you talking about? And he said, please, can you come to New York and run my foundation?Michael HornOh, wow.Lukas Barwinski-BrownAnd yeah, this was like, this was my reaction. Exactly. Wow. And we spoke very, very often about the foundation before and I was always pushing him to do the foundation because, I think and I believe that foundation can be really his very big legacy. And you know, and then unexpectedly, he asked me to run this. And as crazy as I am, you know, I quit my job, I sold my house and I move over the ocean and, and came to New York. And without no experience and not knowing really what I am going to do.And then I decided to exactly create this foundation together with him so that everybody will understand what we are doing. Especially I will understand what I am doing. And this is how this was the beginning and this is already 15 years ago.Michael HornUnbelievable. So I want to get into the work itself. It's obviously very authentic to who you are, to who Lang Lang is, to his wife is, I might add, professionally. The quote that you all have is, we believe that all children should have access to music and music education regardless of their background or circumstances. You all work across geographies though we'll talk about the US perhaps in a moment, but also Europe, China. So tell us about the nature of the work of the foundation itself.Music Education's Essential Impact on KidsLukas Barwinski-BrownYeah. The mission is not only the slogan. It is exactly what we believe. And we believe practically and we are working on this and believe every day. And we believe that music education is really very important in children's lives. And also this is what I try to emphasize that music and learning music and music education is not just the hobby. It is not that we are teaching those kids how to play piano or how to sing or how to play guitar. We believe and this also scientists, scientific already proven that the children who are exposed to music and music education the brain is totally different constraint than the children who are not.And so saying that those kids who are in our programs and we believe that we prepare them for the better academically life and as you probably know, our programs are in very disadvantage neighborhoods and we are going to those who need those program. So saying that we believe that we kind of like we are opening a better path for the future for those kids to, to, to finish the school and to, to, to go to the colleges and to make the better education for them.Michael HornYeah. And I love this. Not only changing the brain, but also developing, you know, executive function skills, et cetera, right through music that pervades the rest of their life. Is the foundation is the work that you do in these communities. Is it you giving grants to music educators or is it you all running specific programs? How does it work on the ground?Lukas Barwinski-BrownThe grants will be the easiest way and we don't like the easy way. We created programs and the main, two main programs are practically addressed to totally two different groups, groups of people. The one is the education program which we call Keys of Inspiration. And this program is supporting the public Title One schools in the across the country. And the second program is kind of like 180 degrees on the other side is the Young Scholars program in which we are supporting the super talented kids, the, I am always saying, those, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old who practically can play already with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall.So, you know, so those two diametrically different programs, you know, practically are, cover the 360 degrees. Because here you have this, the kids in needs and here you have those, those talented. And both groups are really, you know, very important for us. So asking, answering your question, no, we are not giving grants in either of these programs. So what we are doing, for example, for the Keys of Inspiration, it is also the most expensive program in the foundation. We are bringing to the school a piano lab. So when I create this program, I was thinking, how is this possible that the entire class of 30 kids can learn piano? You know, piano usually is one to one, one professor, one kid. Otherwise, you know, the professor will make the suicide after, you know, 10 minutes of everybody are bumping on the pianos.Right? So I was like thinking, you know, how is this possible? What, what can we do? How is this? Because we cannot of course making this one to one piano lessons in the public school schools. So I was thinking about how I learned languages. I was going to the piano, to the language labs and everybody, you know, the entire class was sitting with their headphones that they were learning the language and they said, this can be exactly the same way with the piano. And I contacted Roland, the very, you know, fantastic piano producer, and we were discussing this and they said, yeah, this is a fantastic idea. Why are we not doing this? We can build a piano lab where 30 kids are sitting front of the keyboards and everyone has own and they are connected to each other. They have the headphones and they can play. And this will be exactly the one class get the piano lessons in one hour. And this is how we created practically the Keys of Inspiration.And when we are supporting the schools, we are bringing the keyboards, we are bringing the headphones, we are bringing the benches and learning materials and books, etc. Etc. We are also giving the support for the teachers and we are making the teacher training. And I think the biggest difference between us and you know, Michael, everybody in America has a foundation, right? So there are millions of foundation. But the biggest difference between us and those millions is that we are in the curriculum of every school. So we are not after school program, we are not preschool program or Sunday school program. We are exactly taking seriously as math, science or history. So this is, let's say spending what we are investing in the school.And one of my co-worker, he made a calculation which I practically never did it, you know, and maybe this will be interesting for you. So Dan, who is also a teacher in, in one of our schools in Boston, he said, you know, did you think how much value you are bringing to the community with your piano labs? And I said, I, you know, I hope a lot, but, but I never make the any calculation, right? So he said to me, listen, average cost of a piano lesson is like around $50, right? So when you are going to get the piano lessons, you are paying, grab the 50 bucks. And so in the school, in the public schools, they have a 36 weeks of instruction, right? So average in our school, let's say today, because of course we are progressing. So in the time, in the few years, you know,

Mike Goldstein joined me to talk about the evolving landscape of education savings accounts (ESAs) and the experiences of families utilizing them. Goldstein, who has been researching the reality for families on the ground in states like Florida and West Virginia, shares insights into how different types of families—those in reactive situations looking to escape traditional schooling and proactive families seeking enrichment opportunities—are navigating this space. The discussion highlights the challenges these families face, such as navigating systems with varying levels of friction and finding appropriate educational resources, and touches on the potential for future innovations in guidance and AI to assist parents in making more informed educational choices for their children.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that, today we've got one of my favorite folks in the world of education, if we can call it that, none other than Mike Goldstein. He's a repeat guest now on the podcast. Mike, as many of you may know, founder of MATCH Charter Schools back in the day, did some really interesting work overseas, helping stand up a network of schools in Africa. And we may get into all sorts of things, but in the last several years has really been, Mike, I'm going to say, tinkering with a lot of innovations on the ground around what schooling could look like. And in different realms of the equation of K12 into this thing we think of as college or launching into careers and so forth.Like, you've been playing a lot in the design and innovation space and thinking about what's the reality on the ground. And then most recently, he's been a fellow at the Pioneer Institute here in Massachusetts. And you got to do a bunch of work, Mike, I guess looking at, let's put it this way, like educational choice, not just even school choice, by a lot of measures, it's growing quite a bit. Education Savings Accounts, universal in many states. Now we can talk about what that means or doesn't mean. You've been looking at, like, what's the reality on the ground for a family trying to figure out, hey, I have $8,000 in a bank account earmarked for education. Where do I spend it? What do I want to use it on? Am I homeschooling, microschooling, unbundling, all these terms we use in education wonk land.What have you been learning on the ground? Maybe let's start there and we'll see where it takes us.Mike GoldsteinYeah, great to be here. Six miles south of you in Watertown, Mass. The weather's unbelievable down here.Michael HornI'm just jealous.Mike GoldsteinYes. So listen, great to be here. And yeah, Jim at Pioneer said, hey, we're interested in, like, what are the stories underneath this very fast expanding education savings account. And so I was looking at states like Florida, you know, $8,000 per year per kid. West Virginia, $5,000 per year per kid. And as you know, and probably many of your listeners, your podcast listeners know, the typical family with an education savings account just takes that eight grand and gives it to their local private school. That's how they're using that money. So 90% of the families have a very conventional and easy to understand expenditure here.It's like, all right, it's either paying my tuition or cross subsidizing my tuition. What's more interesting and wildly varied is if you are a homeschool family and you can take the eight grand or the five grand and spend it without any underlying private school tuition that you have to pay. Right. And so those were some of the stories that I was trying to capture for Pioneer, finding these people, talking to them, how do you blow the money? How's it going for your kid?Michael HornSo like these are almost the blank slate families, right? They're not enrolled already in a previous tuition driven school of some sort. It sounds right. Like they're sort of coming into this with a much more blue sky. What do we use this on? And perhaps intentionality of why they want to use it or what they're trying to escape from or whatever else. Is that fair?Mike GoldsteinI'll give you, I'll share two kind of concrete stories that will resonate, I'm sure with you and your listeners. So you know Daniella in Arizona, Katie and Tiffany in West Virginia. These are classic aspirin, meaning we feel pain as moms. Our kids were enrolled in the public schools and it wasn't going well. I had this mama bear moment. I pulled them out. And so in that case, they're responding to I'm a homeschooler, not for a religious reason, but because I don't feel my kids needs were being met. And sometimes the critique is more social, like kids being bullied, doesn't have friends, doesn't like to go to school.Sometimes the critique is more academic. My kids are struggling to learn stuff where I don't even think the school is serving even their median kid well. And so then they're like, I gotta figure out how to do this on my own. That's one type. So that was one part of the story. The other was what I would more say are vitamin parents, meaning their kids. So Mariana and Andrena are twins. They came to the US from Venezuela.They're moms, they live near each other, they each have a few kids. Their kids were doing fine in public school in Florida. It's just that they're like, our kids are little. I think we could do better. Like what if we homeschool our kids and then we can use these education savings accounts much more for enrichment, you know, like, let's get them some bass guitar lessons. Like, my kid wants to do the rock climbing gym, and my other kid's really into soccer at an elite level. Like, we could send them to the academy with some of this cash. And so those are, like, the two types of stories that I think are likely to increase those choosing homeschool over time.Because it's not like a moral or religious driver of homeschool attendance. It's much more of a vitamin or aspirin to a secular education experience.Parental Decision-Making ShiftMichael HornSo both of those are interesting. I think the first is probably more. I don't know, familiar is the right word, but what people might expect, right? Like, my kid's in trouble. This is going nowhere fast. I gotta get out, put an array of services around them. The second one sounds like maybe I'm gonna stereotype in a different way, but like a complacent, previously complacent family that all of a sudden says, hey, we could do something different here and get a lot more for our kids. Maybe let's tackle that one first and, like, tell us what that decision making looks like. What did you learn about how they're making choices? You just said they can spend money on soccer academies and bass guitar lessons.I mean, those sound fun. I'd like public funding for that for me. What does that look like? What's the conversation at the dining room table like for them?Mike GoldsteinSo I think they were kind of. It's like two sisters evangelized a little by the third sister, this kind of like, hey, we can do this. And I think they're both professional. They're themselves well educated. And some of the vibe here, Michael, was, hey, I'm already, like, working from home, and my Saturdays and Sundays with my kids are pretty pleasant. These are kids with, like, pretty high executive function overall. If you kind of get them started, you know, they're age appropriate.I mean, these were younger kids, but, like, you know, they get started with their book, and they can read for a while, and they get started with the math, and they can, you know, take a run at it or, you know, just kind of go to mom or dad with like, I need a little help here or there. So not sort of saying it's, like, easy per se,Michael Hornbut it's not like an all hands on deck. I have to be babysitting my kid.Mike GoldsteinYes.Michael HornEight hours. Right. Totally pulling them tooth and nail through this.Mike GoldsteinRight. And I think that Covid, of course, sort of woke people up a little bit. This what you were calling, like, a complacent family. It's like the kids are doing fine in school, we got no complaints. They're like reasonably happy to go to school and they have high grades on their report cards. They're liked, they have friends. But it's like, huh, this is like a big chunk of childhood that's pretty boring. It's like, why does this need to go from 8 to 2:30 when I feel like we're getting this roughly done from 9 to 11 am and sort of like they're actually learning a little more, you know, much more compressed time and therefore whether the kid is converting the afternoon just into like let's ride our bike and play outside with our friends, parents areMichael HornLike that's good. Or let's kind of go deeper on more structured kind of enrichment type things. That's good too.How do they make choices with the money? Right? Like I'm really interested in how social networks play a role in helping them inform. Are there tools though also in the ESA, you know, world that is helping inform them? Like how are they deciding and choosing where they're spending the dollars versus using their own expertise perhaps and so forth. What does that look like?Mike GoldsteinIt's an interesting kind of mess that varies a lot state by state. So this is, it's a pretty fraught area. So each state as you know, has a different software vendor who's running the back end of this education savings account. And I think that overall they're pretty good at the first job, which is make sure that you're not spending state monies on crazy things that are going to become front page of the paper type scheme scandal.Michael HornLet me, let me pause you there for one second. Like what counts as crazy? Because I suspect some people are like, wow, bass guitar lessons. I get it, it's educational. But for some people,

Matt Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Wildflower Schools joins me to delve into the origin and growth of Wildflower Schools, a network of microschools rooted in the Montessori philosophy. The network now boasts 72 schools across the country. Kramer shares his insights on how to create environments that empower teachers as leaders so that their unique qualities and visions shine through. We also discussed the role of technology in enhancing educational practices; the significance of small, personalized educational settings; and how Matt thinks about fostering growth of the network while maintaining the space for individuality among students and teachers alike. I loved the discussion, for example, of one of the Wildflower schools located on the west coast of Puerto Rico that is housed in a local special education services program and has developed a version of Montessori that is focused on kids with neuro differences. As microschools continue to grow, I found this conversation fascinating as Wildflower blends the benefits of a national network with schools that are led locally and rooted in the community.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there today, one of my personal favorite people in and around the world of education, we have Matt Kramer. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Wildflower, which we will hear more about shortly. It's a Wildflower schools, or a series, network, if you will, of microschools that have been sprouting up like wildflowers dare I say. They have a Montessori philosophy at their heart. And I will stop talking and describing it there because Matt, welcome. It's so good to see you. You're gonna tell us a lot more in a moment.Matt KramerThanks for having me. Appreciate it.Michael HornYeah, absolutely. So you’re in your 10th anniversary of the founding of Wildflower Schools.Why don't you tell us your origin story for like, how it all came about and progressed to the point where you're now, you know, 72 schools, I think, around the country and continuing to grow pretty rapidly at this point.Matt KramerSure. Well, let's see. The first brief stop in the origin story is that I was a Montessori kid and, and I also have ADHD and couldn't sit still. And my first tour through pre Montessori schools didn't go very well. Spent a lot of time during recess in class making up for my inability to sit still. And luckily for me, we moved to a new city and my parents found a Montessori school for me. And you know, for the first time, school was largely a positive event.I, you know, then fast forward when I was the president and CEO of Teach for America for a decade and helped bring a lot of people into the world of educational change. And as we did that, I saw a lot of just extraordinary people make the choice to go into all sorts of different settings across the country, in different cities, different charters and non charters. And at Teach for America, the thing that we would say to people on the way in is that this is a really challenging environment you're going to go into, and your job is to rise to the occasion to transcend the limitations of the situation, to be a leader. And the truth is, some people really were able to pull that off. Some people really weren't able to pull that off. But a lot of people in the middle were just ultimately worn down by the challenges and limitations of the situation. The, you know, their leadership sort of comes into a hard face off with the, with the system that's really designed to suppress leadership. And I had been thinking about this question of, well, what would it look like to have an environment in which actually leadership was supported, where like teachers actually could bring all of their capabilities.And I was sort of toying with that question when I met this guy, Sep Kamvar, a professor at MIT who, coming at it from a different angle, he had been an entrepreneur, he'd sold the company to Google and he had risen up to the senior levels at Google, as head of personalization at Google, you know, back in the day. And he, you know, in that role, he had bought many, many companies for Google and brought in these entrepreneur teams and sort of had the same observation in that space that I had had in education. Like you bring in these extraordinary, they're clearly extraordinary, right? They've created their own companies and it's so good that Google wants to buy it. And then they get inside of Google and you just watch it crush the life out of them. And so he had this thought of, you know, he had a two year old at the time. He thought of, I'd love to create a school where the teacher's feeling, the teacher's experience and therefore what the teacher can project, is more like the entrepreneur and less like the person who just got bought by the behemoth. And he created the school in Cambridge and then, and then a few more that had this, that had this quality to them where every time you talk to a teacher, you know, the schools were tiny. They were like two teachers, 15, 20 kids, one room that's like the whole school.And when you talk to the teacher and ask them, why are you here? What are you, you know, what brought you to this moment? They would tell an origin story that was like an entrepreneur was like somebody who had started a great charter that you might see. They had a great entrepreneurial, social entrepreneurial story about what brought them there and exactly what were they trying to do. And as I went from school to school, which is really like classroom to classroom, every single one of them had that same, like this is my thing, energy to it. And when I saw it, I was sort of hooked. I was like, ah, here we are. This is a way to bring together my personal views about child centered approaches to education and the lessons I had learned about the role that teachers can play in creating really extraordinary experiences if you create the right setting for them.Michael HornSo there's a number of places I want to go there. And I'll, I'll say, I think you and I probably started talking around 2015, 2016. I'm probably going to get my dates wrong. But, uh, it was early in the life of Wildflower, and then you were super generous. It was before the pandemic, I want to say, 2018 or thereabouts. And you spent like a whole day with me, taking me through, I think, three of your sites in Massachusetts, both to explain what y'all were doing at Wildflower, but also to help me understand Montessori education more deeply. So maybe let's start on that side. I want to spend most of the conversation on the Wildflower side.But Montessori education itself, you just mentioned child-centered education. Everyone has different definitions of that. I think there are a lot of misimpressions around what Montessori education itself is and how it aligns with, you know, you sort of get these food fights in education, direct instruction versus inquiry-based, and you're like, actually it comes together really nicely as an and in Montessori. And so, like, how do you describe what Montessori education at its core is about and sort of its extensibility, if you will.Montessori Education PhilosophyMatt KramerYeah. So I think the big idea behind Montessori, you know, thanks to Maria Montessori, who, depending on who you ask, was either the first or the second female doctor in Italy 120 years ago or so, the sort of key idea is that people sort of come wired from the factory with the blueprints for their own life in them, and that our role as educators is to just sort of help them through the process of bringing that to life, bringing themselves to life, creating the person that they're going to be. And the way we can figure out what works is by watching kids, you know, And I think one of her observations was kids of loosely similar ages, you know, sort of three year wide, bands of kids, watch them as they, as they make choices about what they want to do when they're sort of given freedom and learn from that about what the development characteristics are of kids of an age. And so Montessori, so first sort of the big idea is like this responsiveness to the natural developmental patterns. And then what she did is she started with 3 to 6 year olds for local idiosyncratic reasons in Rome. She started with a group of three to six year olds and spent a lot of time watching them and developed this theory about what kids of that age are drawn into, what helps them develop and designed a curriculum around it. And I'll say a few of the features of that three to six year old curriculum, which is what Montessori is most famous for, but it goes from 0 to 18 now. But some of the features that 3 to 6 year old curriculum were first of all, the kids should have meaningful freedoms to move around, to make choices about what they work on, to make choices about who they work with, etc.And the reason there is first, because of what she found, what her philosophy developed about the stuff that's already in the kid being such an important part of what we're trying to accomplish. And second, her empirical observation that choice is a very powerful lever for engagement. If people get to pick the things they do, they are interested in them intrinsically, even if it's the exact same thing somebody else picked. We don't like people telling us what to do. And in particular kids don't like adults telling them what to do. And so on the one hand, a pedagogy that is focused on using the power of kids' choice to engage them in things and all the subtle instincts that kids have about what is worth doing that might not otherwise come out, like I'm bored of this because I now know how to do it. That should be a signal about it's time to do something else, not a signal that we should like tell the kid to

Tyler Thigpen wears a lot of hats. He’s the co-founder and head of The Forest School: An Acton Academy in south metro Atlanta; co-founder and head of the Institute for Self-Directed Learning; an instructor and academic director at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education; and the coauthor of a new book, The Playbook for Self Directed Learning, which provides strategies for transforming traditional schools into learner-centered environments. Tyler joined me to talk about innovative educational models that emphasize self-directed learning. We discussed everything from what is self-directed learning to the nature of his school and from the general philosophy underpinning Acton Academy more generally and his insights into how traditional, existing schools can take his advice to create more self-directed learners. We also talked about why high schoolers might be interested in microschools in this day and age—including why his kids have been. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on our conversation. Leave us a comment.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn and you are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there today, I'm delighted that we have a very special guest. His name is Tyler Thigpen. He is known as the head of schools at the Forest School and Acton Academy in Fayetteville, Georgia. We'll hear more about that shortly.He's also the co founder, executive director at the Self Directed or excuse me, Institute for Self Directed Learning. Going to hear more about that as well. He guest lectures occasionally at Harvard University. I see him in my neighborhood every once in a while. He's also the academic director at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. So you wear a lot of hats, Tyler, welcome.Good to see you. Thanks for being here.Tyler ThigpenThank you, Michael. Delighted to be here. Happy to have the conversation and yeah. Wearing hats as you. As you do. As well, as we do.Michael HornYeah. Well, as it is. Right. But you also are the author of, a coauthor I should say, of a brand new book, the Playbook for Self Directed Learning. A Leader's Guide to School Transformation and Student Agency. It's out from Routledge. It's on Amazon.Check it out. We'll drop a link into the show notes and we're going to talk about that as well. I have one caveat. I've bought the book. I own it on my Kindle. I have not yet read it. I'm behind. So you're going to teach me a little bit as we go.But where I want to start with you, actually Tyler, is with the Forest School and, and Acton Academy because I'll just say, like when I first heard about the Forest School and Acton Academy, I was like, this is the coolest mashup I have ever heard of in my entire life.It's like outdoors, which I'm a strong believer in getting out into nature and then the personalization and aspects of owning your own learning that Acton Academy is known for. And for those that don't know, Acton Academy is a network loosely held, I guess, of microschools. Several hundred around the world at this point, use technology to help learners sort of follow the hero's journey as they progress through each year. But I want to hear it from you, like, what is this school all about? I have been dying to get down there. I have not seen it in person. I want to know how you blend technology and personalization of an Acton school and forest school, like that sounds magical and maybe mythical.Tyler ThigpenI love that. My answer may surprise you, actually. So what I really love about the forest schools around the world, and there are a subset of folks, families, caregivers, educators, you know, who've built and create these schools. You know, the love and engagement with the outdoors. A lot of, you know, very hands on, project based, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary stuff that, you know, kids are just engaged. I mean, a lot of forest schools, kids are outside, the vast majority, you know, of the time.Michael HornYeah, it's amazing to watch.Tyler ThigpenIncredible. The reason we, and we have, we share a lot of commonality with those schools. So, you know, being outside, in fact, our learners designed our school and they did an architecture quest like four or five years ago and it got built, we moved. We've been in a year and a month. It's incredible. And it includes massively large windows, which were very expensive. It includes a courtyard around which the school sits. This was all choices of the kids.And they're spending a massive chunk of their time outside every day and learning in nature. And then we exist in a really interesting town where we have connectivity to walking trails and a forest. We're right next to the forest, but we're actually not a forest school. We founded in a town that was called Pinewood Forest and it was right next to the largest movie studios in the United States, Pinewood Studios. It's now called Trilith, the largest movie studio in the world. And by that point we had already had the name for school. So we didn't change our name to be Trilith, but we are in this really interesting place that is kind of a hub for creators, makers and storytellers. So the mythical component, the mysterious component, is definitely there because of being in the ecosystem of innovation and storytelling.Interestingly, US Soccer just moved its headquarters five minutes down the road from us. So that's providing a really fascinating sports and competition component as well. But yeah, if you were to mesh up the storytelling, the love of outdoors, definitely the transdisciplinary projects and interdisciplinary, the choice, the hands on learning, that is very much our vibe and very much in line with the Acton Academy model where kids, the goal is that each person who enters our doors will find a calling that will change the world. And similar to forest schools, we have guides, you know, rather than teachers, and there's no homework. And we have studios instead of classrooms. And you can go at your own pace. And it's mixed ages. And so in that way it really is kind of mythical and magical.Learner-Driven EnvironmentTyler ThigpenAnd honestly when folks visit us, Michael and I do hope you come. When folks visit, one of the most frequent comments we hear and I feel it on a day to day basis is they feel like I can breathe here. You know, it's not a sort of super rigid high environment. There's a lot of learning to live together, going on a lot of exploratory play, a lot of passion projects. And because it's self paced and mastery based, you know, it's very learner driven. So it's not top down where you, where the kids feel like they're on edge, just waiting on the, you know, the adults to tell them what to do. So it's a cool vibe. You know, nothing's perfect but it, but it's, it's really, it's really beautiful and it's a labor of love for me because my kids have been there.I've got four kids, my oldest daughters aged out. My three boys are still there, one of them is a senior. So you know I get to hug their necks when I go on campus.Michael HornSo it goes all the way through high school. Give us the sort of the tale of the tape, you mentioned U.S. soccer is nearby so give us the stats if you will for the school. When, when was it founded, how many students, how many guides? You know, sort of the picture of what, of what we're talking about.Tyler ThigpenYep. So the Forest School and Acton Academy founded in 2018 with 31 learners, today and that was grades roughly 2 through 8 and today we are 162 learners. We are at capacity that's pre K3 through grade 12. And so we've graduated a number of alumni know out into now the marketplace as well as colleges and universities. And it's diverse by design so we're trying to maximize economic, racial, age, gender, religion, school background and learning differences, diversity. We want to show that self directed learning works for all kids and staff. We have about 16 full time staff there and then we during COVID launched the Foreste school online which has kids from three out of four US time zones.Kenya, Uganda, Costa Rica, China, Mexico. My head of schools in Thailand, that's about 50 learners and it's middle and high school and it's the most geographically diverse school I've ever been a part of. It is super cool to have the learners empathize with one another and the cultures and the different value systems and challenges and opportunities that they're all navigating so those are our two schools. And then like you said, we have the institute and that's sort of our version of scale, to be honest. You know, a lot of leaders in our space, when they think about scale, they think about more schools and more kids. But for us, we think about research, we think about leadership training, educator training, we think about sector change initiatives and consulting, you know, to really push against the ocean and help move the sector more towards, you know, learner student agency.Michael HornVery cool. Okay, let me ask this question then. How did you choose to be an Acton school when you all started up? How was that choice made?Tyler ThigpenYeah, we. It's interesting. My background is actually a traditional district. I taught at Georgia's largest public high school for a number of years and was a leader there. I co-founded a charter school that is nature focused. It was built off the idea of. Do you ever read Richard Lou's Last Child in the Woods?Michael HornOh, sure, yeah. Yeah.Tyler ThigpenFounded off that idea, you know, so, I mean, that really should have been called a forest school as well. But it's Chattahoochee Hill Charter school, a great K8 environment in South Atlanta that's still thriving today. And then I worked at a few independent schools, Mount Vernon in north Atlanta, and then the Forest School. But when we were

Patricia Levesque, CEO of ExcelinEd, and Ben DeGrow, Senior Policy Director of Education Choice at ExcelinEd, join me to delve into the evolving landscape of educational choice. Our discussion centered on the uptick in states implementing educational savings accounts (ESAs) and the various questions surrounding their implementation, specifically academic accountability, financial safeguards, and effective program management. Levesque and DeGrow discussed the need for a balance between broad policy frameworks and practical regulations. I keep learning a lot from these conversations around this fast-growing space of choice and personalization—and hope you all do as well.Michael HornYou are joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through this pressing set of issues today, I'm incredibly excited. We have people I've worked with for many years, looked up to for many years, who are going to lend a lot of insight on the topic of educational choice in particular, but they could talk about so much more. So first, Patricia Levesque, the CEO of ExcelinEd..Patricia, great to see you. Thanks for joining.Patricia LevesqueThanks for having us.Michael HornAnd then Ben DeGrow, the senior policy director of Education Choice at ExcelinEd., Ben, good to see you as well.Ben DeGrowThanks. Great to be with you.Michael HornI've been looking forward to this conversation since y'all reached out on the topic of educational choice and the contours of that conversation and the really interesting debates that are going on right now around implementation as so many states dive into this world in a much more meaningful way over the last several years. And before we get into those conversations, maybe let's just like zoom out, high level. Patricia, let's start with you. And then, Ben, jump in. Look, a lot of states are moving, you know, not just into school choice, educational choice. We see education savings accounts getting a lot of attention, a lot of movements toward universal choice at that.There have been movements, I think, in Tennessee and Texas in recent weeks. There were setbacks at the polls in November. What's your current assessment if you just look high level of where we are in the world of education choice and this movement, broadly speaking, and perhaps maybe a little bit of forecasting, where you think we will be by the end of the year?Patricia LevesqueSure. I'll start by saying I think we are in a great position in educational choice and opportunity for families. The best that we've been in my 28 years working on this policy. Right. And Michael, me just start by saying the way you introduce this podcast, the mission of this podcast is like the mission of private school choice or educational choice. It's giving families the ability to find the best education fit for their child. So their child, because we believe kids are individuals, they're very unique, and not one system or one school is the right, best fit for every child. So empowering families with that opportunity is what we.What we like to do with policy. And we're in the best position on that, in the country that we've been in as long as I can remember.Michael HornBen, what would you add in terms of where we are at this moment and maybe give us a sense of how many states have moved into different, you know, really embracing real choice at this point?Ben DeGrowYeah, I think we're at a real major inflection point. I feel like every year we've been saying this is the year of school choice for several years and every year it just seems to be more true Than the year before.And I mean at ExcelinEd we cover a whole gamut of choice in the public and private space. But we're just going to hone in on private education choice. We're not talking more than 30 states that are offering at least some students either a voucher scholarship or tax credit scholarship from USA and we're coming up on just over a dozen states that are offering all students, regardless of income, regardless of background, access to funds. Personally, we dive into the nuances of that. It can be, you know, how much funding is available, for how many students and so forth. But with states like Tennessee passing, in Texas, we're on the verge of having the majority of students, the United States eligible for private school choice, which is something we hardly could have imagined five years ago.Michael HornAll right, so with that as backdrop, lot of momentum in this direction each year sort of surpassing the previous one as you said,Ben, let's flip to implementation from the outside. I will say there are a surprising number of debates around how to put these various policies into place in the states. Let's maybe start with accountability. Patricia, you wrote what I think remains the most nuanced and thoughtful take about accountability. I use it all the time on the stump with this continuum between sort of district run public schools to public charters to full on educational choice options and how we think about accountability and transparency mechanisms in each. Just take us through your logic on that and how you think about the accountability conversation right now.Academic Accountability vs. School AutonomyPatricia LevesqueSure. And let me put a finer point and say we're really talking about the academic accountability, right? Not fiscal or health, safety, general welfare, things like that. And so we get asked often, how can Excelined have a position where students in the public school system should have to take a state test and there should be accountability or grading of public schools. Yet in private school choice or education choice, we advocate a more flexible norm referenced assessment model. And the answer to that is that there is a continuum of accountability versus autonomy. And so if you think about the ends of the spectrum, you have at one end a home education parent using their own funds to teach their own child. Right. And we would say there should be a very, very light touch of the state in that interaction between that parent and that child.From an academic accountability standpoint, the other end of the continuum you have the traditional public school system, which is the default system. It's the compulsory system. It's the system that is federal, state and local taxpayer funded. It is a system that has taxing authority and, and sovereign immunity protections. Right. It is the big muscular system that the state needs to ensure learning is going on. Right. That kids are learning how to read and do math because the state or another government entity is compelling you to place your child in that system and telling you which school to go to.Florida Scholarship Program's Academic BalancePatricia LevesqueRight. And so there's a vested interest in the state ensuring there's some academic accountability in the system. If you move along the spectrum to publicly funded private school choice, and I'd put that right about in the middle of the system, what is the right balance between academic accountability, transparency and autonomy of the school? And so I would point your listeners to the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. It is the program that has been in place the longest of all the statewide school, private school choice programs has served more than a million students and for 23 years only served low income students. So you have the largest, longest running program targeted for at risk kids that has had 13 years of solid academic outcomes. So by looking at norm referenced assessments, we can see that the students in that program are learning just as well or better than in many years their low income public school peers. We saw the Urban Institute do one of the longest, largest studies of 85,000 matched kids and saw incredible outcomes.Post high school college going rates, college completion rates. So if the largest, longest running program has good outcomes, what does that program doing? How do we know if that program has the right balance? And I would say you look at parental participation, private school participation and outcomes which we just talked about. And if you look at the Tax Credit Scholarship program, it was always oversubscribed. There were always more parents every year that wanted to get into the program. And there was a very good balance of private school participation. So 80 plus percent of private schools in the state of Florida chose to participate in the program. That's very different than in very heavily regulated programs like the Louisiana Scholarship program where barely 30% of the private schools chose to participate. Right.So you have strong parental participation, strong private school participation and good outcomes. Those to me give you three green check marks that that what that program is doing has a good balance. And that program is norm referenced assessment on the students you're participating with, the results reported back to the parent so they can see how their own child is doing and data reported back so the state can see how is the program doing as a whole. So we know that the taxpayer funds are being used well, and that's a really good balance.Michael HornBen, if you want to add anything there, I guess the one question I have is the reason norm reference instead of, say, criterion reference or something else? Because we really want to understand the counterfactual. Is that the reason for that? Because we want the comparison.Testing Flexibility and Accountability GuardrailsBen DeGrowIt definitely helps because while a lot of lawmakers want to see that direct comparison between their scholarship students and their state public school students, what a norm referenced test offers is the ability to compare with a national sample of students so we can have some credible measure. But it also allows schools to choose te

James Rhyu, CEO of Stride Inc., joined me for a thought-provoking conversation in their 25th-year of operations. Rhyu shared his journey from accountant to CEO of Stride, Inc. He emphasized the importance of viewing students as customers. We then delved into the potential of online learning to overcome stigmas and serve diverse student needs, including safety and flexibility for those struggling with their mental health. We also explored Stride's investments in technology and career skills, as well as personalization. Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there, I'm really delighted that we have James Rhyu, the CEO of Stride Inc. For those of you that don't know, you may remember Stride's former name, K12 Inc. Back in the day, when I got in this world and co-authored Disrupting Class, K12 was the big player on the block, if you will, helping to think about how digital learning could really open up opportunities for individuals that had not had it in the conventional school system. The company's continued to evolve quite a bit, rebranded as Stride, has a number of offerings. We're going to get into all of that and more because this is Stride's 25th birthday, if you will. 25th anniversary. So, James, thanks so much for joining me and having this conversation.James RhyuThanks for having me, Michael. Appreciate it.Michael HornYeah, you bet. So let's just start high level because I suspect people tuning in will know some of the history, but maybe not your history. And so tell us about your own path into becoming the CEO of Stride.James RhyuYeah, sure. At first, I would say this is the first time I've ever been CEO of a company. So I'm still sort of a rookie at the job, you know, learning as I go. You know, I mean, I started as an accountant, you know, tell people the only real profession I guess I'm really qualified for is accounting. I was, and I was probably average at best at that maybe. But, you know, so I sort of obviously said, then I came up through the finance, you know, end of the company. And I always like to tell people I was not a very good student. I was sort of a C student and, you know, so running an education company, I don't even know if it's a bad thing, but I take us maybe a slightly different lens to running the company.Having been sort of not such a great student, I've never been an educator, which again, I don't say necessarily think is a bad thing, but it certainly puts a different lens on how to run the company. I think, you know, the education system in this country hasn't produced, I think, the outcomes societally that we want, probably. And so I think coming from a different angle or a different perspective, you know, has some benefits, I think, you know, so anyway, So I came to the company 13, 14 years ago and I came on the financial side. I was the CFO. I had come from previously that to that I was with a company called match.com. I think a lot of people have heard of Match and I was very fortunate to be there when we started this little app called Tinder and sort of helped sort of explode online dating. And I always say that it's somewhat relevant that experience because people maybe of my generation remember, but a lot of people don't remember it, online dating used to have a huge stigma to it.Like it's now very commonplace and you know, you don't really have a lot of stigma associated with anymore, but it used to have a lot of stigma associated with it. And I think online learning or different modalities of learning, certainly different angles to take at education, they have some stigma associated with it. And I think the ability to overcome that stigma is one of the things that I think is important for Stride, certainly, in K12. And I think that you know, just like in online dating, it can produce amazing results for people if we can overcome some of that stigma. And so I was a CFO here for a number of years and there was some CEO transition. And you know, most, most companies go through like sort of succession planning. And about a year before, more than a year, almost, probably almost two years before I became CEO, the then CEO at the time, who's a mentor of mine, Nate, continues to be a mentor and friend of mine, he approached me on behalf of the board and said, would you consider being the CEO? And I actually said no for a fairly long time.You know, like I said, I was an accountant. I was very grateful to have been the CFO. You know, a lot of accountants don't even get to reach that professional summit, I guess, and, and I just never thought of myself as a CEO. I really thought of myself as a finance professional. And it took some number of months before I sort of convinced myself to throw my hat in the ring for the job. And obviously I ended up getting the job. I think what the board saw at least, and you know, I'm now four years into the job, hopefully they continue to see is one is I have a real passion for the job. Meaning, you know, and I really consider this job a job where irrespective of the company, we have a set of current and potential future customers.And our job, my job is to try to meet the needs of those current and future customers. And I think that will in enure great benefit for our shareholders and stakeholders. And so really that's sort of how I view my lens to the job is really sort of a customer focus. And I say that very specifically. And in this company, when I became CEO, I really, I'll say it sounds weird, but I introduced really the word, the term customer into this company. And I think, I think largely it should be introduced into the education vernacular more broadly because, and specifically In K through 12 education, you know, we think of them as students. That's fine. And by the way, you know, they are students, but they're also customers.Rethinking Education as Customer ServiceJames RhyuAnd I think if we thought of them in that way, you know, the establishment of K through education has long thought, I think of their customers largely as an entitlement. And structurally there's a reason for that because you've got one school in a geographic area and that school really has dominion over the students in that area. And so you didn't really have to work for your customers in a way, right? They were an entitlement to you because you live in that area and historically you live in that area, you go to that school and that's still sort of pervades today for 90 plus percent of the population in the country. And so you can see why that framework established this entitlement sensibility, if you will. But in most other aspects of our lives, we want to be treated as customers. And the reason we want to be treated as customers is because when you're treated as a customer, there's this, there's a sort of two way dialogue, if you will, it's not always explicit, but you know, there's this push-pull of what's best for the customer. What does the customer want? What does the customer need? What outcomes does the customer want? Right. Like if you're running a restaurant and you're a dietitian running a restaurant, you may be like, okay, well I know what's best for the customer. You know, low calorie, high protein, you know, low fat, right.Michael HornWe're cutting out those sugars, we're going to get the right oils, et cetera, et cetera.James RhyuYeah, but if you listen to your customers, your customers might say, you know, actually the reason I eat out is because on a special occasion or whatever, I want to indulge maybe a little bit, or I want to try something that I can't make at home or that's different for me or whatever. And maybe health isn't the most important thing in that circumstance. And as the customer, you know, restaurants listen to that and obviously you have this wide variety of offerings and choice that enables what customers want and the outcomes that are important to them. And I think that's really important. If, you know, if you sort of put that lens on, on education, then you have some different perspectives, I think maybe than historically we've had. And even when you think about, you know, and I know you're probably going to maybe get into this further along, but you know, if you think about the outcomes that people want and you think about my restaurant example, I don't know, like a lot of the educators and people are going to say, oh, you know, but you know, eating is different than education. Of course it is. They're all different.Every customer experience is different. But I would argue health is pretty important and education is pretty important. So, you know, we're talking about, I think, comparable outcomes, you know, healthy people and educated people, you know, and I think that if you think about that sort of analogy, sometimes what the customer wants isn't actually a healthy diet. And in our country, if we listen to our customers, unfortunately a lot of families aren't in the position where the most important thing to them is getting an A and going to Harvard. Sometimes the more important thing to them is survival, is actually the high school diploma which allows them entree into a job or a field that requires a high school diploma that helps them put food on the table for their family. So the outcome often that we think about is, oh, well, you know, you have to get good grades maybe. And of course that's important. And of course learning is important.I say more importantly, learning is important and learning skills is important. And hopefully real world skills that you can apply later in life are important. But in some families' cases, I think we have to remember that the grade, and particularly high achieving grades, A's are not always the most important. And I think again, just taking that l

Andrew Clark, president of yes. every kid., joined me to discuss the current landscape of educational choice in the United States. The conversation delved into the rise of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), specifically their widespread adoption and impact on public schooling and education spending. Clark shared insights from his experiences as a lobbyist and argued for the popularity of universal ESAs and the importance of ensuring their successful implementation. The discussion also touched upon accountability within the schooling system, potential pitfalls, and the importance of empowering families to make educational choices.Michael HornWelcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential and live a life of purpose as they define it. And to help us think through what that looks like and how we get there, I'm delighted that we have Andrew Clark. He's the president of yes. every kid. We'll learn more about that and their vision for how we advanced truly this learner-centered future in this conversation ahead. But first, Andrew, great to see you. Thanks for being here.Andrew ClarkThanks. Thanks for having me.Michael HornYeah, no, you bet. So, like, before we dive in, right. And talk about the work you do, just like think it'll help folks to understand the journey you've taken into this conversation around educational choice, specifically working in education along with the work of what, yes. every kid. does, which of course, it's a 501c4 organization. You don't see those quite as often in education. We see a lot of C3s, so we'll dive into that in a moment. But your purpose really is unleashing the extraordinary potential of every kid by treating them with dignity, empowering them to make decisions for themselves and give voice to every parent, student and teacher who shares that goal. So love to hear your journey into that work and what that work itself looks like.Andrew ClarkYeah, of course. So, yeah, 501c4 is a lobbying organization and I am a lobbyist by nature. I'm not an education guy at all. And I like to say education came looking for me. I didn't go looking for it. But the way that that happened is I was working in Arizona, working on state budget issues, and at the time, ESAs were being hotly debated. So there was a small ESA program in the state, one of the very first that have ever passed, in fact, the first. And the debate over the expansion of that program had people thinking it was going to go to the ballot and be a big fight.Andrew ClarkAnd so people were asking if we'd be willing to fund that initiative. And I just didn't know a lot about education. And so we started doing a lot of research to see if that was worth getting engaged on because the implications of education spending are significant on state budgets, as you know. And in doing that, what shocked me is when you put together what I'd consider, the more classically Democratic arguments about education and the more classical Republican arguments, the public essentially rejected both arguments pretty soundly.Michael HornSay more.Andrew ClarkYeah. So, you know, the traditional argument from Democrats has essentially been public schools are grounded in the community. They just need more money. Right. And if I can just have more money, they'll be fine. And you know, public's great with investing in public education, but they don't think that's the end all be all and they don't think that things can go unchanged. Whereas the Republican argument was essentially like, hey, public schools are terrible and they just need a whole lot of competition. That competition is going to force excellence and test scores and that's what we want.And the public is dubious on test scores and they don't like the kind of competitive nature of it. Like none of that really resonates either. And so put those two arguments up against each other, there really wasn't any constituency being like, yes, that's what I want.Michael HornSuper interesting.Innovative Policy Strategies NeededAndrew ClarkTo me, that was eye opening going, how do you have a space in which the two competing ideas are both unpopular? As a lobbyist, that's a really weird phenomenon. It just made me say, hey, I think what's going on in this space actually doesn't make any sense. And there's an opening to do something much more innovative and novel that people will actually enjoy. And so that's kind of what led to ultimately starting to run some experiments on different types of policies that we could talk about. But I can give you two examples. One of the things I saw early on is if a program in education was universal versus being low income, it was way more popular with the public, like 35% more popular. And essentially no advocacy group was working on that to the degree that I would have expected. And so I was like, hey, why don't we start working on bills that are universal and just saying, if it's a low income bill, we're just going to reject it.We're just going to be opposed to it, even though we support more freedom generally. And as you can imagine, for a lot of school choice advocates, that irritated the crap out of people. But I'm like, I'm going to reject your bills. That was novel at the time. And there's a couple other policy areas like that where I just over index to saying like, why don't we just do things that people like and that make good economic sense and good educational sense? And let's just bank on the fact that if people see benefit in it, they're going to vote for it, they're going to re-elect people that do that and that's going to have a more transformational effect than advocating for something people don't want. Which sounds intuitive, but it was relatively novel at the time. And that ultimately led to me working with some other people and together we all created yes. every kid. And that's what we do. We just lobby for laws like that and try to get them in place.Michael HornSuper interesting. And you do the work beyond Arizona now it's nationwide, right?Andrew ClarkAbsolutely. Yep. We work in about 36 states right now.Michael HornYeah. And I guess the reason it's counterintuitive, as I would think about it, is a lot of folks might say like, yeah, we agree, you know, universal may be the goal or yes, that's going to make it more popular, but we have a win right now. We can impact this population, let's go for it. And they accuse you, I guess, of being against incrementalism toward that goal or something like that.Andrew ClarkThat's certainly my reputation in the space. I would argue everything we're doing is incremental. It's just a question of where you're going to draw those lines and what you're going after. And I think education is particularly influenced by this rise of Taylorism, which is this philosophical backdrop to the industrial revolution that basically said people, people don't matter, processes are what matter and we can optimize processes and everything just becomes a top down exercise. I think the people that go into education carry that mentality or that culture into the space. And that's true whether you're on the programmatic side, you know, you're trying to actually put schools together, or if you're on the advocacy side, you think I'm going to do this thing because academics think it's wise or think tanks thinks it's wise. And I'm going to impose that. Whereas in most spaces that are bottom up, you go the other way.You're like, what do people see benefits in? What are customers going to gravitate to? And you design around that bottom up feature that just there's just not a lot of people that have that ethos in education.Michael HornSpace, from a job speed on landscape through my work that I hear the logic there for sure. So one of the big things that you all have been working on and pushing, you mentioned it briefly, these ESAs, education savings accounts, this notion not just of school choice, but educational choice more broadly. It's something that my audience is certainly familiar with. We've talked a lot about it in the show, so. But I think, you know, 2025, we're having this interview, beginning of the year. Where are we nationally on ESAs? What's the state of choice? I think there's like 11 states maybe with universal choice. But is that right? Who are they? What does that even mean?Andrew ClarkYeah, I would say the world is transformed in my view anyways. So the original thesis for a lot of this is hey, we've got a very again Taylor top down education center today where the government says in law you as a family will put your kid in the public school or we will send you to jail. And then inside of that school we're going to dictate how the day goes for you. And it's all very carefully orchestrated. And what we said at the time when we started back in 2018, 2019 was we just need a way out, just an exit, a right of exit to go try something else. So if that system doesn't work for you, no problem, let's get out. And that was the, a lot of the premise for these original universal ESA accounts, which is now up to a dozen states.Michael HornA dozen states. Okay.School Choice Programs Surge NationwideAndrew ClarkYeah. And I would say, you know, you've got about 40% of kids in America that have access to some kind of private school choice program. This is booming. It's not just happening in legislative, it's also having huge political impacts. Like the idea is very popular, it's 75, 80% popular. And so when opposition has come out and tried to take people out in Texas or Arizona or Iowa or Arkansas, what has happened is the people have advocated for school choice, have won and won by pretty wide margins and then that just encourages the next group to go after it. And so now it's kind of sweeping. I think it's not crazy to think you're going to have 18 or 20 states that have school choice programs by the en

Ron Matus, the Director of Research and Special Projects at Step Up For Students, joined me to discuss the evolution of education choice in Florida. We talked specifically about the significant growth and impact of education savings accounts (ESAs) on the landscape. And Ron shared insights into the trend of unbundled, à la carte learning by highlighting its rapid adoption and the factors driving it. We also touched on the accountability debate surrounding ESAs and the innovative roles districts and programs like Florida Virtual School are playing.Michael Horn:Welcome to the Future of Education. I’m Michael Horn. Delighted you are all joining us at the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there, I am delighted that Ron Matus, the Director of Research and Special Projects at Step up for Students, which was founded as a nonprofit org to administer scholarships for Florida school children to the school that most made sense for them. I'm delighted that Ron is joining us today. Ron, first, good to see you. You've been a longtime friend and follower on both sides of the equation in this space. So how are you?Ron Matus:Good to see you. I'm great. I am amazed and grateful and honored to be on your show. I feel like I'm in a dream. So thank you so much for inviting me on.Michael Horn:As always, you guys will learn as you listen that Ron is nothing but flattering and over with the praise of others. But why don't you start before we get into some of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you, which is getting a view of the landscape in Florida, specifically. But first, give us sort of an overview briefly of your own background, how you came to the world of education and, and perhaps how, you know, Step up for Students, how it intersects with that story and how Step up for Students has actually evolved over time into its current set of operations.Ron Matus:Sure, sure. Well, I guess the most boring part would be my story, but I am a longtime former newspaper reporter. That's what I did really my entire adult life until I joined Step up back in 2012. I was at the Tampa Bay Times, which is the biggest and most influential newspaper in Florida. And back when newspapers had a little more juice, I mean, they were pound for pound, one of the best newspapers in America. I was there for 10 years, and for eight years I was the state education reporter. And so there's a direct connection between what I learned as a reporter and what inspired me to move over to Step Up. You know, over that time, writing a lot about issues with public education, seeing how choice was making a difference, and I started covering education, during Governor Bush's second term, of course, he did a ton to accelerate choice in Florida. So I was there in the early days as choice was ramping up, and I came to see how absolutely vital it was to an education system that I thought made sense. And at some point back around 2012, I got a chance to move over to Step Up. One of my former colleagues, a really remarkable guy named John East, who was a longtime editorial page writer at the Times, had moved over to Step Up. And a few years down the road, he reached out and said, hey, if you want to actually make a difference, instead of writing about problems, you want to help solve them, you might want to consider Step up and best decision I ever made.I'm not one of those reporters who left the profession because things were crumbling around me, and I had to go, you know, reinvent myself as a PR flack or something. I left because I realized that choice was going to be the new normal, and I had a chance to shape that a little bit, and I had a chance to watch it unfold from just an incredible perch, which is Step Up. So the second thing that you were asking about how Step Up has changed, I think Step Up has changed remarkably over the time that I've been here. And in some ways, that change is representative of the change as a whole in the public education system in Florida. So when I got to Step Up, there were, like, 20 or 25 employees. We have 20 times that now. We have more than.Michael Horn:For real.Ron Matus:For real. We have more than 400 employees now.Michael Horn:Wow.Ron Matus:When I got to Step Up, we were serving about 50,000 students on scholarship. Today you probably heard this big announcement from Governor DeSantis last week. We've now reached the 500,000 threshold in terms of scholarship students. So the number of students we're serving has increased tenfold. And then, as you know, because you pay such close attention to this stuff, we're not just serving students on school choice scholarships anymore, which was the way it was when I got here, which is relatively simple. And I want, you know, my colleagues do a lot of incredible work. So I don't want to say it was simple, butMichael Horn:Emphasis on relatively. YeahRon Matus:Yeah, compared to what it is now. You know, these scholarships are technically now all ESAs. And so the volume of transactions that we have to process, it's gone through the roof. And so we have been right there the whole time, as Florida has moved from a system of district schools to school choice, and now from a system of school choice to education choice. And, and that's where we are now. And that next phase of going from school choice to education choice is exciting and we're right in the middle of it.Expanding Education Choice DiscourseMichael Horn:Yeah, I think that phrase from school choice to education choice is a really good way to frame it, of course, because ESAs are not just, and one of my biggest pet peeves is when people call them vouchers, and I'm like, it's not just, it's, it's very different in a lot of, in a lot of respects. And I love how you introduced yourself the same way you introduced yourself to me over, you know, probably, I think it was right before you maybe you formally joined Step Up for Students is the first time we connected and you said, I'm just a journalist trying to figure this out. So here you are, having learned quite a bit and for, and figured out quite a bit. And I guess the intersection section where I want to go in is about a year ago, maybe a little over, I wrote a piece suggesting that as education choice grows, meaning not just school choice, but we should start to expect more unbundling of what we think of as schools. Right. Students aren't just going to go to one school.They'll have tutors, they'll have a variety of options. But I didn't expect to see a great unbundling en masse. And, and I base that frankly on two things. One, our theories at the Christensen Institute around how innovations tend to start as very bundled over time before they modularize and unbundled. But I also based it, frankly, on data from Florida that you all had published about how individuals were in fact using ESAs. But then fast forward, and you all came out with this report, a taste of à la carte learning. And it seems that things on the ground are changing quite a bit. So in that report, what did you learn? What is the data showing in terms of how people are using education savings accounts and how perhaps the nature of choice and schooling and learning is evolving?Ron Matus:I think it's changing pretty rapidly. So when you say, you know, you expected there to be an unbundling, but not a great unbundling, I guess it depends on, you know, what your definition of great is.Michael Horn:Sure, I got some latitude in the headline writing. Right.Ron Matus:So, I mean, I think there's a lot going on and things have changed very quickly. Your analysis was absolutely correct in that the vast majority of money at this point is still being used for private school tuition, even though technically these are ESAs. The vast majority of families are still using the ESAs like the old school. And I say old school even though most of the country hasn't even gotten these yet.Michael Horn:But I was going to say you're well ahead of the curve there.Ron Matus:We are ahead of the curve. And so, but, but most families are using it like a voucher in that they're using it to access the private schools that they want. And for what it's worth, those private schools are also changing pretty dramatically. I mean, I think there are a lot of dynamic things going on in the private school choice space too, and I don't want to diminish that. At the same time though, even though most of the money is still being used for private school tuition, we do have growing numbers of families who are doing completely customized, personalized, à la carte unbundled learning. And it's not, it's happening pretty quickly, but it's happening maybe a little less quickly than people realize because the first ESA is 10 years old. I mean, we got our first ESA program 10 years ago that was for students with special needs. But very quickly, thousands of parents were using that ESA to pick and choose from multiple providers and programs.Rise of Personalized Education ProgramsRon Matus:They were the pioneers, the early adopters, you know, whatever you want to call it. And they really started showing the rest of us what was possible. So, there were pioneers and there have been for 10 years. And then you fast forward to 2023 when we got this new scholarship program called the Personalized Education Program Scholarship, which is an ESA for a broader group of families who are not enrolled in public school. They're essentially homeschool families, although there are some legal distinctions there. But Michael, we went from thousands of families doing à la carte learning to tens of thousands in a snap between those two programs, between, you know, the ESA for students with special needs and those in that program who are unbundling doing à la carte, and this new program at this point, we have probably about 80,000 families doing à la

In this latest episode, I got to join forces with my colleague Ann Somers Hogg, who leads health-care research at the Christensen Institute and hosts the podcast, Life-Centered Health Care. Our guest was Craig Sprinkle, CEO of MedCerts. We discuss how MedCerts trains health-care professionals, from how it delivers hands-on learning through remote instruction to the savings students have incurred and future innovations on the horizon.Michael Horn:Welcome, everyone. Michael Horn here. And I'm thrilled for today's episode of our podcast, which will be different from what we've done in the past. And that's because we're doing a joint podcast, if you will, so that this episode will actually air in two different places. There's, of course, my podcast, the Future of Education, where we're dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And then we're partnering today with Life-Centered Health Care, a podcast that my colleague at the Christensen Institute, Ann Somers Hogg, produces. And Life-Centered Health Care delves into what disrupting health care really means. Not the buzz phrase, but what does it really look like and how do we do it? And how do the innovation theories that we use at the Clayton Christensen Institute shed light on the evolution of the broader health-care ecosystem to inspire others seeking to transform health care? So first, a welcome to my co-host for today. She's a senior research fellow at the Christensen Institute, Ann Somers. So good to see you. Happy New Year.Ann Somers Hogg:Great to see you. Happy New Year. Thank you for having me today. I'm excited about this.Michael Horn:Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad we're teaming up together on this. And for those wondering why we're doing a joint podcast, I will say the reason is because those who fill the jobs in health care, of course, do so through forms of medical education. And that's a place in sore need of innovation itself as we think about that broader ecosystem. So with that, I'll introduce our guest for today who's going to shed light on all this. Craig Sprinkle, CEO of MedCerts since 2022, you're an InStride company. And of course, Craig joined MedCerts in 2018 in a combined role as the CFO and COO and has served as the CFO since 2020 before stepping into the CEO role. So, Craig, great to see you. Thank you for joining us.Craig Sprinkle:Yes, thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here. So thank you. Great to see both of you.The MedCerts Origin StoryMichael Horn:Yeah, you bet. So I want to start actually, you know, predating you at MedCerts, but what led to the launch of MedCerts, You know, what's the market need you all were fulfilling and the credentials that you're really helping fill in the health-care system. I will say, like, I had the chance to watch some of the formation of it, but I've never actually heard from someone at MedCerts how they view the opportunity and market needCraig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely, so as you said, it kind of predates me a little bit, but I'm happy to share that. First of all, we just celebrated our 15-year anniversary a year ago. MedCerts originally was founded and frankly still operates very similarly today, in a way that we saw a lack of quality online health-care training that existed 15 years ago that would quickly elevate students to be able to gain new skills, be job ready, and be ready to step into a job or a career. So we saw that gap, we saw an opportunity to ultimately fulfill that. At the same time. And what still carries forward today is that we're addressing a skills gap in the health care and IT industry. Employer needs are continuing to grow. They're looking for more out of job candidates and people that they want to fill vacancies that they have. And there's just a lack of available talent. So we saw a need not only in terms of delivery of that curriculum and delivery of that education, but also fulfilling a need on the employer side to really train towards skills that employers are looking for and making sure that those students are ultimately job ready when they come out of that training.Ann Somers Hogg:Yeah, you mentioned that there was a lack of quality online medical training. Could you tell us a little bit about how do you compare with other market offerings in terms of thinking about your business model? So what are the resources and processes that you have in place to educate your learners?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know that we'll probably talk a little bit more about delivery models and things like that as we continue the conversation, but if you kind of rewind 15 years ago, you know, a lot of things that the experience that a student would have is mostly like in classroom instruction, there wasn't a lot of hands on experience being taught. There wasn't a lot of applicable skills being taught inside that classroom experience. And that was ultimately leading to a gap whenever a person would walk out of that training to ultimately be ready to step into a job. We saw that, and I don't think that it was perfect at the time 15 years ago, whenever we first started delivering this, but bringing more of those applicable skills into an application environment where the student is not only listening to instruction on screen, but they're also learning on how to apply those skills as they're learning and going through that training. So that's a little bit of the difference, if you will, between the delivery of something that we were doing at the time online versus more traditional in classroom instruction. Not as much hands-on experience and not as much interactivity, if you will, within the classroom itself.Providing Hands-On Learning in an Online EnvironmentAnn Somers Hogg:Got it, got it. Thanks for explaining that. And this is probably going to sound like a silly question, but I want to dive into it because if it's an online based education program. You mentioned the importance of the hands-on training and a lot of medical training involves that hands-on experience. So how do you provide these hands-on learning opportunities for students in that online environment?Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of our programs first and foremost involve a clinical requirement. So there is hands-on training required in order to even obtain the credential to begin with, in many of the programs that we train towards. The way that we accomplish that is a couple of different ways. One, we have a lot of partnerships with employers whereby they have agreed to allow our students to come on site, in their environment, work alongside someone else and ultimately obtain those skills. So they're not only taking what they've learned in classroom, if you will, through our didactic portion of our training, but also taking that into a live environment and applying it alongside someone that's already working in the job or the role that they're ultimately seeking to be a part of. So some of that is through those relationships that we have. We also work with a lot of local training facilities that ultimately host students to allow them to come into a simulated classroom environment, or, sorry, a work environment to where they can do the same thing, it's just not on site with a particular employer. So we do that in both ways. We do it through partnerships that we have with employers. Then we also do that through training sites that we have relationships with, whether that's regionally or locally based, to where our students can go into those facilities and ultimately complete those clinical requirements and hands-on requirements that they have. The third element of that is that we also have skill assessments built into our training itself online. So as the student goes out on site, they get some of that hands-on experience, they come back, if you will, into the virtual classroom. We have assessments that we will walk a student through to ultimately test their proficiency on how well they understood some of those things that they learned. And they're going through assessments on a regular basis and getting feedback on areas where they can and need to improve.The Student ExperienceMichael Horn:It's super interesting to hear you sort of break that down, Craig, because what is coming across actually is that you weren't just innovating in the area of online education, but you were also innovating against the traditional model, as you described, to create a much more interactive experience, a more active learning experience it sounds like. Just talk us through what a typical student experience looks like over the course of their certification program. But also maybe Ann Somers, we can ask the question about business model in terms of program costs relative to other options in a moment but Craig, just focus on like the interactive learning experience itself and how that differs and how you facilitated that over the course of their certification.Craig Sprinkle:Yeah, sure, absolutely. And I guess I'll preface this by saying that obviously every student experience is a little bit different. But by and large, when a student first enrolls in their program, first and foremost they're looking for that alternative route in order to get a fast track into a career. That's sort of fundamental to what we do, is that we offer that affordable training. It's something that we can offer in a fast and rapid way for them, it's much more affordable at little to no debt to that individual at the end of the day. And it provides that faster path into a career that they're ultimately looking for. Remember, the end goal is not the training itself, it's the job or it's the career that they're trying to build towards that we're really trying to help them with. Generally speaking, our students, once they enroll in one of our programs, they're typically going through a three to six month process, depending on the program, whereby they're comple

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