Carrie Conaway is the Chief Strategy and Research Officer at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, where she helps the Commonwealth of MA set its priorities in education by commissioning and evaluating research and leading strategic planning for K-12 education.

I think you are really going to enjoy this episode. It's about the details of translating research into policy. We talk about how immigration and health care affect education, and Carrie shares her secret to success: No Meeting Fridays.

If you enjoyed this conversation, please rate us on Apple Podcasts, and send this podcast to your friends. As always, send along your guest suggestions to [email protected] -- I want to hear from you.

Carrie is @clconaway on Twitter and I am @rgknight. Please rate us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends about The Education Conversation!

Carrie Recommends

- Association for Education Finance and Policy http://aefpweb.org/

- Chiefs for Change http://chiefsforchange.org/

Eileen Rudden is the Co-Founder of LearnLaunch, an Ed Tech catalyst organization in Boston. Eileen had a distinguished career in the private sector before education. One of the things I learned in recording this podcast is that Eileen was one of the drivers behind the adoption of email through her work as a Senior VP for Lotus Notes. So you can send your complaints to [email protected].

Eileen has been a pioneer throughout her career, and she tells a bit of her story here. Eileen organized for equal admissions for women as a college student at Brown, rose to the top in male-dominated industries, co-founded the most diverse startup accelerator in the country, and is now driving the adoption of personalized learning in Massachusetts. Eileen is also a prolific board member, having served on boards like Brown University, Lesley University, KnowledgeWorks, the Achievement Network, Education Pioneers, and a lot more.

This conversation is about blazing trails, measuring impact, and fostering innovation. I know you will enjoy it. After you enjoy it, please rate us on iTunes, and share the podcast with all your friends. I want your feedback and guest suggestions. You can find me at [email protected].

Thank you to Eileen for joining the conversation. You can learn more about LearnLaunch at LearnLaunch.org and also learnlaunch.com. Eileen is @eileenrudden on Twitter, and I am @rgknight.

Eileen Recommends

- LEAP Innovation in Chicago http://www.leapinnovations.org/

- Digital Promise http://digitalpromise.org/

Our theme song is Quittin Time by Patrick Lee.

Our guest is Neerav Kingsland. Neerav is the CEO of the Hastings Fund, a $100 million dollar philanthropy seeded by Reed Hastings, the Netflix CEO. Neerav also writes a blog called Relinquishment that is one of the most consistently thought provoking places I read. Neerav is a Senior Fellow at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and previously served as the CEO of New Schools for New Orleans.

One of the things I love about podcasts is that they can help you come to see thought leaders as people, and I think we do that with this conversation. We get into Neerav's personal story, then discuss whether a school's responsibility extends to supporting its graduates, and we speculate on the long path that education technology may take to impact students at scale.

As always, I want your feedback and guest suggestions. Email me at [email protected]. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell someone about it! And rate us on iTunes -- it helps.

Thank you to Neerav for this conversation. One point that I wasn't able to make in the show, because we were disconnected: If you believe in the story we spun, that the path for ed tech to create impact at scale is by helping schools that are 7 out to 10 get to 10 out of 10, and then those 10 out of 10 schools grow through governance changes -- that changes the way you should think about ed tech as a user, a purchaser, a seller and a developer. If this is true, the essential problem that ed tech is trying to solve is that there are 7 out of 10 schools that could be 10 out of 10 with better software.

I'm on Twitter @rgknight and Neerav is @neeravkingsland. Rate us on iTunes, tell a friend, and send your guest suggestions to [email protected]. Our theme song is Quittin Time by Patrick Lee.

Matt Robins is the founder and CEO of Deanslist, an ed tech company that helps schools manage their non-academic data. Deanslist my own answer to the question: what is one organization that you think is doing great work that not enough people know about.

This interview covers the importance of building a customizable product to serve a highly decentralized education market, the role of for profit ed tech companies, and what productivity means in a school.

If you enjoy the podcast, please tell one other person about it -- at least one. You can also rate us on iTunes -- it actually helps. I deeply appreciate the feedback I have gotten from listeners. You can share your feedback and guest suggestions by emailing [email protected]

Matt Recommends:

- Building Excellent Schools

Shavar Jeffries is the National President of Democrats for Education Reform. Shavar is a deep and passionate thinker -- you are going to enjoy this one. We really start rolling about halfway through, so stick with it.

Shavar previously ran for mayor of Newark in 2014, after Cory Booker was elected to senate. The central issue of the campaign was education, and it was a closely watched election for many reasons. If you aren't familiar with the story of Newark at this time, there's a New Yorker article called Schooled that is a great intro. It's based on the a book called the Prize. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get into this topic too much during the podcast, but it's important to know that Shavar knows firsthand what it takes to make a successful case for change in a community.

This podcast is about how to create change in education. I want to take a minute to put these interviews in perspective.

The first episode, with Matt Barnum from 74million.org, was about the role of the media in creating change in education. My interview with Scott Given, the founder of UP Education Network, was about founding a new organization to create change. We took a detour into immigration policy in response to Trump's travel ban with AILA's Jennifer Minear to talk about how you can use the legal system to resist harmful change. My previous interview, with Mora Segal, was about directly scaling an organization to serve 250,000 students by trying to make schools better through data and consulting services.

One way to listen to Shavar's interview is: how do you create change in education politics? How do you build a movement that supports and is supported by local communities?

If you enjoy the podcast, please tell people about it. Spread the word. Rate us on iTunes. Build a movement.

Shavar Recommends:

- Memphis Lift (@memphis_lift on Twitter)

This week's conversation is with Mora Segal, the CEO of the Achievement Network, often referred to as "ANet".

I'm really excited about this conversation. In the first half, we talk about what it means to be an entrepreneur and what scale means in education. It's a great listen, especially in combination with Episode 2, my interview with Scott Given. If Scott's interview is about how you found something, today's interview is about how you grow something.

In the second half of the interview, we talk about a research paper on the Achievement Network. It's a great case study on how an organization thinks about translating research into action under the ideal scenario where they have a high quality randomized trial of their own program that uncovers challenging results.

If you enjoy this podcast, please share it. Tell someone about it. Rate us on iTunes. Tweet us @edconvo on Twitter. I'm very interested in your feedback and guest suggestions. You can email me at [email protected].

Thank you to Mora Segal. You can find her on Twitter @morasegal. Thank you to everyone for your feedback so far. Keep talking about and sharing the podcast. Our theme song is Quittin Time by Patrick Lee. Graphic design by Hoai Quach.

Mora recommends:

- David Shapiro and his organization, Mentor

- Bialik Rogozin, a school in Isreal

Jennifer Minear is a practicing immigration attorney, and is the National Treasurer of aila.org, the American Immigration Lawyer's Association. AILA is a professional association for lawyers with the goals of helping immigration attorneys get better at their work and publicly advocating for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy.

This podcast is my attempt to get up to speed the legalities of educating and supporting undocumented students. It was genuinely helpful to me. If it's helpful to you, please share it. Send it along to your colleagues and friends, and those random strangers we're connected to on social media. Please also rate us on iTunes -- it will help more people find the show.

There are more resources than usual this time. Check out edconvo.com for a complete list.

Jennifer Recommends:

- The American Immigration Council (americanimmigrationcouncil.org), in particular their State Fact Sheets

- The ACLU (aclu.org) -- It's reassuring to see the ACLU recommended by professionals

Additional Resources for K12 educators:

- United We Dream toolkit for Educators https://www.informedimmigrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/UWDHereToStayToolkitforEducators.pdf

- The CLINIC Educators' Toolkit https://cliniclegal.org/educators

- Informed Immigrant's resources for schools and educators https://www.informedimmigrant.com/resources/

For immigration advocacy, not limited to education:

- America's Voice http://americasvoice.org/

And, of course, Jennifer's organization, aila.org

This week's podcast is with Scott Given, the founder of UP Education Network. A couple of notes about this podcast.

First, the podcast was recorded back in November 2016. A lot has happened since then. In particular, at the time the podcast was recorded, Scott was the CEO of UP Education Network. Scott resigned as CEO on January 20th, 2017.

Second, I have worked for Scott for a number of years at UP Education Network. Interviewing someone I know so well helps us go deep on the question of how an individual decides to take a risk and become a leader in education. It also means that we sometimes forget how much context you need to understand our work.

Briefly, UP Education Network is a nonprofit school turnaround organization in Massachusetts that restarts chronically underperforming schools. UP directly manages the schools, and the schools remain part of the local school district. UP has schools in Boston, Lawrence and Springfield Massachusetts. If you want to learn more, or if you like what you hear and want to come work with us at UP, please visit upeducationnetwork.org, or follow us on twitter @up_unlock.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has made guest suggestions and shared your feedback. Please continue to send your thoughts and recommendation to me on Twitter @rgknight, and please rate the podcast on iTunes.

Scott Recommends

- Tom Torkleson from IDEA Public Schools

- Paymon Rouhanifard from Camden City School District

- Diane Tavenner from Summit Public Schools

Matt Barnum, Senior Staff Writer at the 74million.org, kicks off The Education Conversation, cracking open the black box on how research gets translated into journalism. We go deep on the role of nuance in an increasingly polarized climate. Matt shares how his approach to reporting will change (or not!) with the Trump Administration, and we start a constituency for education data. If you enjoy the show, please rate us on iTunes!

Matt recommends several hard-working researchers for us to check out:

- Matt Kraft at Brown

- Matt Steinberg at Penn

- Corey Koedel at Missouri

- Katherine Strunk at USC

The Education Conversation is a new podcast on how individuals and organizations create change in education.

The podcast will cover topics like:

- What is the role of for profit companies in education?

- How do you bring nuance to an increasingly polarized education conversation?

- How do you learn what is working in education, and what do you do if what you evaluated is not working?

- How do invidiual leaders approach creating change in their organizations?

And much more. Subscribe now so you don't miss an episode!