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 Horn

Welcome 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 Education

Now, 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 Mathews

Thank you for having us.

Ulric Shannon

Yeah, thank you so much for having us, Michael.

Michael Horn

Yeah, 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 Horn

So 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 Shannon

Yeah, 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 Horn

Well, 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 Usage

Ulric Shannon

I 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 Horn

Well, 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 Debate

Kyla Mathews

I [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 Horn

So 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 Mathews

Yeah, 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 the physical possession. And so you want to make sure that trust exists, that this is not about the phone. This is about. At our school we prioritize XYZ over phones in classrooms.

Right. So we're clear about the academic expectations, but also we want to promote face-to-face interactions and socializations in the academic setting. Post-pandemic, everything was, you know, we're virtual right now. And so we want to understand that we are trying to get back to this human side of education that makes this industry extremely different than other industries. So if the phone is a distraction, just naming those things with families, they understand that why better than oh yeah, we're just a no cell phone campus. It's zero tolerance. That doesn't help families make decisions for their children. And then secondly, kids want to know that if you take away my entertainment, will this lesson be of my benefit? Whether it's interesting, whether I get something cognitively, they just want to know what is the exchange rate.

And I think us as educators, we have to be clear about what, what I have to offer you, what we are going to engage in in the next 50 minutes or 35, because you can have a brain break and then we'll pop back into our lesson. But there's a level of bartering that has to happen because you acknowledge that the cell phone is not going anywhere. What I have to offer you with this primary source may or may not be. It may be the better option in obtaining information. And this face to face interaction that we're having at school is definitely the way to go, especially between 8 and 3. Please and thank you.

Michael Horn

Well, so stay on that because I think there's like two things that you're sort of arguing there. Right? Number one, so we can take away the cell phone during school hours through a ban, but like kids are still using them at night, you know. Ulric, you were mentioning like a lot of the bullying and stuff like that that's happening off school hours. Right. And so like we're sort of band aiding a few hours, but maybe not addressing the larger things. And you know, does homework get done if they still have smartphones but haven't figured out how to use them responsibly, et cetera. And then I think the second thing I hear you saying is, you know, reality is what reality is, we're in a world where there's a lot of instantaneous gratification. And so we've got to figure out how to be more engaging and worthwhile for them to make that exchange willingly.

I guess maybe full stop for both of you is like, is that, is, is that the right starting point for the argument? Am I, am I understanding correctly on both sides? Ulric, why don't you jump in first?

Ulric Shannon

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think both of those ones are absolutely correct. I think one, we can't ask or expect young people to do things that the adults cannot do. And so we have to recognize how we play in those classrooms or buildings as well. So they see us on our phones all day, they feel like a double standard. Right. And it's probably not a much different challenge from what parents have to go through at home to get a cell phone or an iPad away. Right? We give it to cope, right.

They need a little bit of quiet time, maybe we need a little bit of quiet time. We give them an iPad, we give them a phone, they can go about their business. But when it's time to punish, taking away that phone is a little bit of a challenge. And so I think Kyla's absolutely right. When we think about like this daily power struggle, it's not for me just about taking away from teaching time. It's also damaging relationships. And we Know that that is a critical piece to get any type of whether your lessons are extremely engaging or are less engaging. If I have a trusting or real authentic relationship with my educator, with my teacher, with my leaders, I'm going to be in that classroom.

I'm going to be in full attention. Right? Because I'm knowing that it's like your lesson was intentional and I like you. Right. But I also think there's this piece where a lot of schools love to have events that say, like, we're going to have parenting training. One as I think that is a little bit disrespectful to parents because it's like, are we already putting ourselves on a pedestal that we know more than you? And it could be around cell phones, it could be around anything. But what I do that in the space of schools is that teachers need more than just rules. They need the training, they need the support, they need the leadership that centers trust. And so if we're not providing them with some common training, some common language and common actions, then if one class was doing it but the other five are not, you're never going to get the type of culture that you would want in your building, regardless if you're banning all cell phones or not.

So you can't, like, while you can ban the cell phones, you can't necessarily ban or change the behavior. It just pushes it underground. So I think those two points are absolutely right. And I just think we need to elevate the space of our collective learning, maybe in some unlearning to really be able to support our young people in classrooms when it comes to cell phones, which is, I think, a very small thing and the grander thing that our young people need.

Michael Horn

Well, so curious off that. And Kyla, let me come to you on this question, right? Because the Twitter example you gave earlier, I bet some people listening who are for the blanket bans will say, well, you could have had that conversation anyway with phones banned. So I think the natural question then is like, are you finding use cases where you're actually using the phones in classrooms themselves to engage in educational purpose? Like, what do phones do well that maybe traditional technologies or books do not do well? Is that part of the conversation too, or no?

Kyla Mathews

Yeah, I think the biggest piece that we are discussing at my school and in all the years I've been an administrator has been around like discussing the cell phone piece. It's like this healthy balance of using phones responsibly. There is an algorithm of your searches and social media will give you what you've been looking for. Right. So if a teacher is very clear on students on how to search and use the Internet to search for information, the algorithm will perpetuate more and more information. So that's one way that has been healthy in a ninth grade English class. But again, to my point, teachers are committing to bringing students closer with something that they value, but also teaching them how to use it responsibly and then countering that with, you know, hardcover texts at the same time. So there's like a healthy balance.

Fostering Community and Responsible Technology

Kyla Mathews

And then the other piece that, to Ulric's point about teaching parents about their students is also bringing parents in that we are partnering with you around just a bigger, a bigger issue with students detaching from community, detaching from primary sources because of an individualized device. And so that's why the broadband is not the way to go. Bring people in closer about why the importance of other ways to get information is just as valid. And we can also be responsible with this phone. What we've learned too on the bullying side is that you got to teach kids how we do school. And if we prioritize academics and our community as a collective, like how we want to exist at school, teach that and normalize it, students will acquiesce. They won't have, first of all, there'll be less bullying issues, but there also be less instances where students will pull out their phone as instead of going to get a trusted adult. And so that's what I've been able to do in these last three years as principal of Epic is raise a culture of we are all responsible for one another.

Even for example, in my announcements in the morning, I ended with take care of yourself and one another. I get that from the nightly news. But that's what's being said to adults, so why not say it to children, right? So we just have to be mindful of that healthy balance with devices we but then also being very, very clear about what we want to accept in our school.

Michael Horn

Go ahead, Ulric. It looked like you were ready to get in there.

Ulric Shannon

No, no, no. I think I was just asking.

Michael Horn

No worries.

Ulric Shannon

I was asking myself, what are we actually teaching to do? Right? If cell phones are not going anywhere and technology is just moving faster and faster. And so to Kyla's point, you just have to find ways to integrate that into your everyday work in the classroom as well, whether that's projects and polls or digital portfolios. I think there's a number of ways to integrate that because the technology is not going anywhere. And if we remove that from students, we're just pushing them back even further because they will have to use cell phone or some other, you know, innovative device of the future. A teleportation device. It could be at one point, right, but if our young people are not comfortable with using it, they're just gonna be light years behind at the rate in which our world is moving in the next 20, 30 years.

Debate: Phones vs. School Devices

Michael Horn

So, that's a good departure point I think for the next question that I'm curious about, which is like a lot of folks will say, well you know, like Epic is a, is a one to one device school. There's laptops, right? Some places have Chromebooks everywhere or tablets or whatever else. Why not ban the phones? Because those are the personal devices. Hearing what you just said, Kyla, right, About, you know, personal property is a conversation. But you know, but it gets rid of the social media. Like we can do the polls and the engagement and the lookup like on tablets and laptops and stuff like that. Ulric, what do you see around that? Like are there specific cases where like actually the phone is just like the right device to do the educational thing we want to do? What are those use cases look like?

Ulric Shannon

Absolutely. I don't know when the. I always ask a lot of people, when was the last time you actually been into a school and been into a classroom? And a lot of people have not been in a very, very, very long time. So they're speaking from a far distance. But I think that these things. Have you ever seen a group of 12 year old try to get a Chromebook out and everyone is not charged and they're not working and we're trying to plug them up and we're trying to find the one that works and we're trying to get them to log in. We have lost 30 minutes of instructional time trying to do that. When I could just say pull out your phones.

I can guarantee you the phone is charged. I can guarantee you it is always charged. And they can jump on the same website just as fast. They can scan a QR code. They know how to do so many things so fast. There could be a TikTok class or a Snapchat class or group for the class where they're able to get information super duper quick. Utilize a Kahoot to collect data in real time from their students. Like do you understand the assignment? Yes or no.

And that allows the teacher some real time data. Definitely just using your phone as opposed to asking a group of kids to find that Laptop. And I can guarantee it in a lot of schools, the screens are broken, they're not charged, all the things I've listed before. But I've seen that in classrooms where teachers and students are comfortable utilizing their phone, they know the purpose and the intent. And if you do that with such routine as a previous third grade teacher, they will do that even when you're not there. They will know when, how and what to use their cell phones for if it's routine. But if it's not, then that's going to be a challenge.

Michael Horn

Kyla, you were smiling there. I want to hear your take.

Kyla Mathews

Yes, again, I oversay everything Ulric just said. That question about have you been in the classroom? Is so valid. The other piece I would add to, though, is the safety component. So back to the power struggle. Many schools, there's a perception about many schools. And we are also evaluating on how well our students feel safe at schools. With the University of Chicago's five Essential Survey, there's direct questions about school safety. And if parents question the safety of their neighborhood, their school, the cell phone definitely cannot get taken because that is my access to my child.

Right. And so that normally is the discussion, that's normally the argument of parents, I need to be able to get to my student, to my child. And so when you build relationships with families, with the community, with students, and understanding that we are safe here, all of us are, that kind of comes off the table when it's time to talk about cell phones. But I did want to raise that as a talking point for the next level conversation. That'll be an argument for sure, the safety concern.

Michael Horn

Well, the safety one, I think is a big deal because chronic absenteeism that we're seeing, it's for multiple reasons, right. Some of it has been disengagement because they're not sure the purpose, but some of it is around safety and things of that nature. So, and I think the argument has been that phones are actually increasing the chronic absenteeism because they're increasing the disengagement. But I think I hear you saying there actually may be the key to increase engagement or at least increase.

You know, my sort of sense that my kid will be okay or that I can reach them when they're in school. So help me understand what that looks like. Like, are you finding that phones actually, rather than increase disengagement, are actually increasing engagement?

Phones: Balancing Access and Safety

Kyla Mathews

Yeah. So phones, again, to your point, just being a broad brush or just an easy thing to blame is the issue. Right. But when it comes to the safety piece, I know post pandemic like immediately transitioning back to schools, families were worried because we all were trying to figure out how to re engage. And the way to my student is I can call them directly. When I was in class, when I was in school a couple years ago, you would have to call the main office or the secretary would have to call into the classroom. But now with that immediate access to your child, especially in the high school level, parents want that autonomy at the same time. So we have to honor that in some sort of spaces.

Right? But if parents, again, trust the learning community, students understand that the bartering between my phone, my cell phone usage and the engagement of your lesson, then it becomes less of a debate and therefore you won't have to be so drastic, as in all being all campuses.

Michael Horn

Last question as we wrap up here, and I'd love you both to sort of take a stab at this one, which is someone told me, you know, Michael, you're just sort of crazy here because, like, we would never have allowed fax machines and telephones on people's desks, you know, when we were, when we all were in school, not to date me, but. Right. And so, like, that's the equivalent of what when that phone is there. And so you just mentioned that the parent can reach out directly to the kid on the one hand, see the benefit, on the other hand, wow, that means anyone can. They can be connecting with lots of folks. And that argument is really would you have had a fax machine sitting on someone's desk back in the day? How do you think about that conversation? What would you tell that individual to sort of reset their mind around that?

Kyla Mathews

Well, as a principal, my biggest thing and what I tell my staff is that my job is to set the conditions so you can do your job the best way you can. And so if you need a fax machine on your desk, we'll get you a fax machine on your desk. And I also have phones in each classroom so that we don't have to go to the teacher's lounge to call families. Right. For any reason. So I say all this to say is that if we are going to make the learning environment conducive for this generation of students, to your point that technology is not getting weaker, it's getting stronger. Why don't we learn how to empower ourselves and students on how to be responsible with all devices while we have them in our care? That's my plight..

Michael Horn

Ulric, your take.

Ulric Shannon

I love that. Kyla. I think we're certainly aligned here. Our job is not to make school harder, not for the adults in the building and not for students. And so our job every single day is not just a third grade teacher, but also a special education teacher. Every student has individual needs just like every adult. And so, yes, if you need this inside the building, you need this support in order to make your learning experience much more enjoyable and you feel much more successful, you're growing in confidence. Then if that is the fax machine, if it is any other, a major copy machine, whatever it is that you may need.

Student Thrives with Computer Accommodation

Ulric Shannon

And I'll close with this story, I have one student who folks told me it's going to be a real, real challenge to get him in the building, to get him to pay attention, to do anything. And this student who is probably now out of college, the only thing he wanted to do was use the computer to do his work because he was so caught up on his pencil penmanship that he would just erase and erase and erase like every day, all day. And this was a student who ended up with all A's in my classroom, even with the IEP, one of the highest performing students in my classroom. And it's because teachers just wanted to make it so much more of a challenge and say, well, he needs to learn how to write well. You know, doctors have terrible penmanship, but they're your doctor, right, and you're okay. And if he just needs this computer the same way that some child just may need a cell phone just to feel a little bit more comfortable to do that work there, why not provide them with the resources they need if there's no need to do the fight, if the grades and the performance and expectations are being met, why pick that as your battle?

Michael Horn

Good way to, good place to end it. I think the individualized support for each student so that they can succeed, which is the goal. Kyla Matthews, Ulric Shannon, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate the insights and the wisdom from on the ground. And for all you tuning in, we'll be back next time on the Future of Education.

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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 Horn

Welcome 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 Thigpen

You 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 Christensen

Michael Horn

Yeah. 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 life

Tyler Thigpen

Totally. 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 Horn

Very 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 Thigpen

Absolutely, Michael. And again, I welcome your feedback on any of this because, yeah

Michael Horn

But I'm super curious what this one meant.

Rethinking Leadership and Hiring

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, 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 Horn

And 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 Thigpen

It 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 Horn

Yeah. 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 Variations

Tyler Thigpen

Well, 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, it's got to make this amount of profit, this percentage of profit, you know, year after year. Otherwise that tells us, you know, this is probably not a sustainable business model. There are a few key restraints that need to be considered. Like if we're getting this kind of funding for a short period of time, that really shouldn't be a part of the annual operations funding sort of thing.

It just needs to be sustainable. And so I would tell my parents and my team of our schools early on, I would say we're building something that hopefully is going to live hundreds of years beyond us. And so allowing those constraints to help with decision making both around growth and staffing and what we would purchase and then continually looking at that for, from a budgeting standpoint, you know, every month has just been crucial, you know, and I do think like the sector in which I'm trying to lead at the moment, you know, micro schools and education, you know, institutes, there are some great examples of some incredible ideas out there, but it's not exactly sustainable and it's just very, very hard. But it requires a level of, he helped me, you know, really up my game in terms of the discipline to like make sure that this, this has a long term plan for it.

Michael Horn

Yeah. So it's interesting hearing you say that and I'm going to change my plan of how I ask you questions in a moment because of the way you just went into that one. But my observation on the micro school sector specifically is that far too many educators come into this with noble intentions. They start something and they basically they do the opposite of designing for sustainability. They say, I'm not going to take a salary for two years or whatever else and then we'll figure out what happens to the school afterwards. So like it's almost like a, I want to break out, I want to do this noble thing of creating this purpose driven, tight, community for learners and I'm sort of not going to worry about the sustainability question.

Supply Challenges and Strategic Planning

Michael Horn

And, my big fear is like the supply is going to keep slipping if, if we have that mindset, that actually not thinking like a business is doing a disservice to those communities that they stand up. And, and so it, I hadn't linked it to the Discovery Driven planning until you just said it, but I think it's right like the big thing that I tell people that I think Discovery Driven planning is different from Lean Startup or some of those things out there which, which are sort of derivative off Discovery Driven planning is Lean Startup has a little bit of like a, throw lots of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Discovery Driven planning is like okay, no, no, let's start with what's the end in mind. Like you know, Stephen Covey. Right. Like begin with the end and then like okay, what has to be true and what are the key assumptions in the model that we need to be thinking about now? Because otherwise it's, it's game over.

Right. And, and I think we're not having enough thought on the supply side at the moment in this space is my observation at least. I'm curious how that resonates for you.

Tyler Thigpen

It does. The, for, you know, I heard it said a few years ago, like how an organization starts is kind of like really hard to get out of, you know, over, over time. And I've seen that in this sector as well where you know, maybe the cost of tuition, for example, Isn't priced right. And folks kind of get locked in to that and then it ends up not being, you know, sustainable. Whereas discovery driven planning just. It invited me to say, okay, you know, here's the goal and the priority and here are the assumptions baked into what I think is actually going to happen. And then let me put in place these milestones to, to pressure test and double check those assumptions and see if they're true. And I did this.

And then by the way, often, sometimes they were, but most of the time they were not. And so like having to pivot, right? I mean, one of the. Our school is diverse by design, like economically, you know, racially, age, religion, gender. And I made a few early goals around that and made some assumptions around how that was going to happen. And sure enough, you know, three, six and nine months in, realized this is not working out. And so the pivots that we made there early on were so beneficial and so crucial. And had I not known about this process, I would have just kind of been doing that lean startup, you throw stuff on the wall and see what works versus being a bit more methodical about it, you know, and seeing what the market is demanding and what is actually potentially sustainable for the long term. So, that's kind of been our process.

Tyler Thigpen

I mean, even, even when we started the school, Michael, you know, I sort of, I was, I, I think it's going to be this much, this much demand for the environment. And it ended up, you know, after looking at the first milestone, it was way more, you know, so that some of the pivots were like positive pivots, you know.

Michael Horn

Yeah, yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

And then some were like, oh gosh, we've gotta, you know, invest, we've gotta add more resources, you know, or we've got to change some processes in order to, you know, arrive at this priority that we have. But, but, but pivots is really what it led us to. And pivots that were crucial.

Michael Horn

Yeah, and it's interesting cause that's number five for you. And so that's what this is. What I realized is like, we actually probably should back up to number two on your list because two through seven really build off each other. So two, you have the assessing capabilities, resources, processes, priorities, which really became, I think over time, the business model framework. Those of us of a certain vintage think of them as separate, but I think for most people, sort of it melds into itself. But talk about this RPP as it's affectionately known, or when I was there, it was RPV it was resources, processes, values back in the day. So these things evolve. Right, but talk about what this is and how it was useful to you.

Simplifying Alignment with Logic Models

Tyler Thigpen

Well, the way I make sense of it, I had done a little study on logic models in the past, and this just was almost a simpler, more, an easier way entry point in for me and my leadership team to help think through alignment in order to achieve our mission and our priorities being that last P. And then so based on those priorities, what are you the processes that we need to have in place, and then what are all the resources that need to go to it and even within our organization. So our organization has three separate components, and then each component has different projects. I use RPP at both the organizational level as well as the departmental level. And it helps me figure out teams. It helps me figure out, you know, policies, procedures, processes, and systems that need to be put in place, that need to outlive all of us in order to bring some of these goals to life. So an example would be we just did a micro school accelerator for leaders across the U.S. independent and public schools, and we just stood it up out of nowhere. And I used RPP to do that. It was like, okay, well, what would be the goal for the size team that we;re, cohort that we're inviting to this? What are therefore the processes? And then what are the resources from our organization that we can pull together to pull that thing off? You know, we. Our online school is another example. We're pivoting to. To be responsive to what we understand, you know, demand and parent feedback to be. And again, using RPP to do that and making staffing changes and making processes changes.

And now we have three online offerings instead of one. You know, as, as an example. And even after school, I mean, what's interesting is now that our nonprofit has land and has facilities, it's like all of a sudden our resources have kind of gone out the roof. And so that actually thinking about RPP made me think, oh, you know, are there other priorities that we ought to consider because of this new resource that maybe is underutilized in some ways. So, like, we're actually thinking about after school now, which we've never thought about before, but we have this great place, you know, this great resource that's just not being used in the afternoons and on the weekends.

Michael Horn

Yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

So now what's the team and what's the process? And RPP is, you know, it's big for me there too.

Michael Horn

Super interesting. And then I guess it translates into the business model and sustainability Right. Because what do you need to bring in revenue wise to make that, to actually be effectively leveraging that resource that is underutilized to your point, that. But you have in your control. The other piece that comes out of RPP directly and it's in your piece as the number three is shaping organizational culture through new challenges. I love this theory as well. It's Edgar Schein from MIT who sort of originally documented all this work. And then in my telling, really processes and priorities are where culture really manifests right in an organization.

But I would love to hear how you, how this has been helpful to you?

Tyler Thigpen

Michael, this was also very provoking for me. I used to think before this experience with Clayton, I used to think that, you know, if I hired the right people who were like a culture fit and if I was charismatic enough to sort of, you know, broadcast that kind of culture and celebrate the things that we wanted to cultivate, that would be enough. But Clayton's theory was so provoking, you know, based off Shine, as you're mentioning, was like, actually if you introduce a problem to the group, then that's going to have a very formative, you know, impact on the group. And so I remember the first time I led a school, we, I did this. We created basically an unschooling experience. And our staff had never done anything like that. And kids had a ton of choice and voice in what they were doing. And all of a sudden our entire team was confronted with this, you know, experience of children having decision making power where they previously did.

Transformative Feedback and Empowerment

Tyler Thigpen

And it completely shifted the culture. You know, in my current context, you know, my staff, a lot of my staff that I had hired had never done, you know, feedback, sort of 360 feedback with one another before joining my team. And so I introduced a new problem which was like two by two by two feedback, you know, where, okay, before, you know, you come to me at the end of the year to give me feedback and receive feedback, like, go talk to two other teammates, you know, and give them feedback and receive feedback. And then, and that was just a major, you know, culture shifter for us. We have another, again, some of my educators had come from environments that were more teacher centric, where learners had a lot of control. And so one of the problems that we introduced to the environment was, okay, there's gonna, we're gonna create an entire day for the learners where they make the rules, they sign their name to the rules. We have it at a campfire.

You know, it's this problem that our entire Team staff are experiencing, and all of a sudden it's shifting their hearts and minds to like, oh, the, this is really the learner school, you know, more than anything else. So now as a leader, I mean, I still think about hiring culture fits and, and, you know, really celebrating things I want to cultivate. But now it's like, what problems does our team need to be introduced to, what challenges, you know, and that'll form us?

Michael Horn

It's interesting when you, when you bring that up. I write about this a lot. And it takes like three paragraphs out of a chapter, right? To be like, find a problem, put a team around it. Then, you know, if it works, have them repeat. If it doesn't, try different processes, et cetera. Sounds so simple in theory. And, and yet it's actually really freaking complicated if you think about that, right? To just do what you did. Okay, we're gonna have a day where the kids are making the rules.

What do we start to build out of that? What problems does that introduce? Right? What does that mean for us as teachers? What are our roles? Okay, how do we actually now start to codify what we've done that has worked? Right. And repeat it over and over again? Like, these are not actually, they sound easy, but they're actually really freaking hard in reality. Yes?

Tyler Thigpen

Yes. Amen. And, and what I found helpful to sustain the complexity of it was stand up meetings with my team every day, basically little scrums, you know, like, literally.

Michael Horn

What did we just learn? What are we going to keep doing? What are we going to stop doing, sort of stuff.

Tyler Thigpen

Exactly. And, and how's everybody doing? You know, we have, you know, and just checking in and, and iterating in the moment. That brought a lot of camaraderie too.

Michael Horn

Yeah, I can imagine. All right, so number four, you had integrating around a job to be done. This is one of my favorites. But why didn't you give the basic notion of what it means to integrate around a job to be done?

Aligning Education with Jobs to Be Done Theory

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah. My understanding, traditional marketing endeavors, look, try to sector out and section out different users in the marketplace and then speak to them versus jobs to be done theory, which sort of says, like, okay, you know, we humans have some goals in our lives and we are hiring different things in order to achieve those goals. And from a very human centered, empathetic, design thinking standpoint, you know, what, what are those jobs that we, you know, are hiring others to do for us? And in my context, it's parents and caregivers, they're hiring schools or they're Hiring, you know, learning communities to do certain jobs for them. And there's some great research out, you know, by your team and others around the jobs to be done specifically related to alternative schools and that are sort of non traditional. And, you know, we took that feedback, in addition to the feedback we were hearing from our own community, and we said, okay, this is typically what we understand now. Parents, caregivers, in our context, are hiring folks like myself and my team in order to do. And so we looked at that, we talked about it, we discussed it, and then we sort of said, okay, does this align with the processes, you know, that we have in place? And also, is this what we're celebrating and reporting back on? And so we actually aligned, Michael, our report cards and our progress reports on this.

Michael Horn

So, like, that's interesting.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, jobs to be done, you know, for alternative schools. One of them is, for example, when I disagree with decisions at my child's school and I'm feeling unheard, help me find an alternative that will honor my perspective and my values. You know, so us understanding a family's perspective and values and then reporting back instances where we see their children, you know, living those out in our context was a part of the report card. You know, another one is when my child is unhappy, unsafe, or struggling at school, help me find an environment where they can regain their love for learning. So one of the first things our report card talks about is, are they loving learning right now? You know, and what are they loving learning specifically? And so I think and that it seems like that resonated. We got great feedback on our revised report cards as a result of that.

Michael Horn

Well, it's interesting, just thinking out loud, two things. One, to swim with you, which is the outcomes, right are defined by the job and the circumstance and so reporting against that, super interesting. And sort of helps front and center, like, how should we evaluate whether we were successful or not? Let's do it relative, right, to why they came here. I think it's really brilliant. The second thing is I.

I also think what gets very interesting for an organization is when people with multiple jobs to be done are coming to you and they're actually in conflict with each other at some stage. Right. So the one that I'll use is sometimes, like, okay, I'm not solving for academics. You have it here, right? Like social, emotional learning, super important to me. Sort of that balanced educational experience, whole child, whatever you want to call it. And then that first one might be around the perspective and values. And you can imagine sometimes those swim against each other. Right.

And so one of the things that I say is helping. You know, when you should fire a customer and tell them, like, hey, this is what you're optimizing for, and we are not optimized for that. So rather than like, have this song and dance about how we can serve you, let's have an honest conversation and help you find a better spot where you can make progress. And it's actually better for your school culture because you don't have someone that's like, sort of pushing against the grain. It allows you to better double down, if you will, on the resources, processes, priorities you're optimized around. You're also helping that family do better for them given their goals. Right. You're not asking them to somehow swim against the outcomes that matter to them.

And I think one of the challenges that I observed that I think micro schools could really help traditional districts with is like, we're trying to pack these families in and say, like, your kid should do, like, be striving for the exact same thing as this kid. And, like, that's just plainly not true. Micro schools can maybe allow us to create a broader community, but not have us all swimming in the exact same direction, if you will, when an appropriate, you know, a different goal is appropriate for a given kid, if that makes sense.

Tyler Thigpen

It totally makes sense and resonates. And. And it's scary when you start saying no to a family, you know, at the beginning when you're trying to prove out, you know, the business model.

Michael Horn

Sure. You just want to attract anyone at that stage. Right?

Tyler Thigpen

Totally. Yeah. That's the temptation. Right. But. But we actually have on our website, I don't have it memorized, but we have a page on our website and it's close to admissions that does just what you said, Michael, which is like, this school is for X, Y and Z sorts of families. If you are A, B and C sorts of families, love you, see you, you know, you probably want to go, you know, somewhere, somewhere else. And then what's interesting is I've tried to get even better as a leader at introducing people to our environment with that.

So when they're going through the application interview process, I've identified what are, like, the eight or nine most common struggles that parents have. And I'll. I'll lead with that. I'll be like, hey, awesome, just know that you're signing up for these struggles. Like, I, as a dad, I'm struggling with everybody's struggle. It's just a part of who we are. But we want those struggles, you know.

Michael Horn

Yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

Why? We want those struggles. And, and you're right. If they get into it, because sometimes they get into it and not really appreciate it, then there's a couple. I mean, we could sort of fire the customer, if you will, or, you know, and this may be connects.

Michael Horn

Like on the front end, you're trying to make sure that they don't make a mistake.

Tyler Thigpen

Right.

Michael Horn

Which is better?

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, ideally for sure, but they still can get through. And then, and then I think another option though is helping them outsource that, you know, that need that they're trying to hire it for.

Michael Horn

So that one is interesting. Right. Also because I think I love the way you grounded in the struggling circumstances. Right. That they're experiencing. I also think, incidentally, that's the best way to market like anything is to like ground yourself in someone's reality. And, and then they can be like, oh, that's what I need. Right.

And something you just said there, I think is, is a good point, which is the advice I often give people when they're trying to pick a school is I say, like, what are you solving in your family already for your kid? And what, like, what is a school going to solve for you that you can't or don't have the desire Right to solve for your. For. For your kid? Um, and it's a way to help them realize, oh, like, you know, school is doing this lane for me, but like, you know, after school sports is doing this one for me. And then like, I do this with my kid. Right.

And, and I don't need it to do every single thing for me. Which I think is where you're going with that.

Preparing Children for Independence

Tyler Thigpen

It is. And the, the older I get and longer I've been in this work too, like inviting parents and caregivers to consider, you know, their, when their children are 18 and they quote, unquote, launch, you know, in a traditional sense from their home, you know, what do they want to be true to them? What sort of qualities, competencies do they want them to have and exhibit? And then where are they getting practice at those things from the youngest ages, appreciating that really no single learning environment is going to be able to meet the expectations that they have for their children. But if parents and caregivers were to fully shoulder the responsibility for making sure that their learners, you know, their, their children get the practice in some environment, you know, putting the puzzle pieces together, if you will, you know, it's sort of. Which, which puzzle pieces do you want to you know, choose for that and allow us to help you think through it and, and, and, and ways in which we can add value, but also just be honest about the ways in which we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna add value. And I think that, like you said, I think that's helpful too. Yeah.

Michael Horn

And it sets expectations. Right. And, and, and it sets culture, I think, for a community. I'll just say one other thing and then I'll go to your number one reason as we start to wrap up here, which was the other thing that I've learned through Job Moves is helping people make trade offs is really important and it's not settling. Right. I'm not settling for all my kid's not going to have access to this. It's like, okay, my top priority for the school is this, I'm willing to trade off on this. And then you being like, okay, and you can get that elsewhere.

Right. Or you can get it not now, but in a couple years that will become a thing. Right. And sort of realizing that trade offs are things you make so you can, you can get the thing you most value or most prioritizing at a given point in time and seeing it as like a value creation step for a family as opposed to a. I can't get that. Geez, what, what, what, what good is this school if it doesn't do everything for me?

Tyler Thigpen

That's powerful, Michael. And I think in the micro, the schooling context too, for parents and caregivers, it's, it's so relevant because there's just so much that could potentially be learned and so much that we parents kind of project on learners, you know, as something that's being crucial. You know, what immediately comes to mind is math learning. You know, I mean, there's such an interesting debate about, you know, right now, what math conceptually, procedurally needs to be learned before graduating from school and for what reasons. And the safe default, you know, sometimes fear based posture that parents, caregivers take is like, well, do what I did, you know.

Michael Horn

Yeah, yeah, Algebra, calculus, that's the way. Yeah, yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

And I'm like, do you know how to do those problems right now? And are you using them in your life? And you know, but, but talking about the trade offs is, is exactly, I think, the right way forward. Because if we do, I mean, listen, if we want to do deep, deep math learning, we can, we can facilitate that, but just realize it's going to take a lot of time and it's probably going to take this amount of time and we're going to lose, you know, real world learning or collaboration or, you know, self awareness or whatever it is that, you know, whatever else we care about.

Michael Horn

No, I love that. And for those who think, sorry, this is going to be a plug off the topic. But for those who think that, oh, I learned to think critically through algebra, there are plenty of ways to think critically about the world. And I'm not sure the way we have traditionally taught algebra, we're actually building a transferable skill around critical thinking. So little plug there. You probably don't disagree with me. Number one, you have this notion of humility over ego. You pull from Jim Collins to introduce the idea.

But maybe talk about how Clay brought this home to you and how it's manifested in your work.

Ego-Free Role Model

Tyler Thigpen

Well, I just. He's probably in my top three humans on the planet that was a role model for this. And I just saw him respond kindly in, in class at a, you know, sort of high stakes environment, the Harvard Business School. And I saw, you know, learners give challenging, pointed questions and I watched him, you know, respond with questions with a non anxious presence, with a kind tone. And then at the end, you know, the very last day of class, he talked about, he was like, you know, my, my wife and I strive and my children strive to be known for our kindness, you know, and you can't go wrong. And I was like, oh, well, that makes a lot of sense because I experienced him that way and I just. Because he's come up with these theories that really live outside of himself and he's just been very observant about the world and which. That is just the definition of ego free.

You know, it's not about him and what he's trying to grow for his own kingdom. It's about observing what is happening in the world and how can we serve others and what works along that journey of serving others. I think for me, you know, right now we're ending up our year. And I've just met with all my leadership team. They've all given me feedback about my leadership, you know, and I just summarized it before this call actually like the pluses and minuses and I just need to take myself. I mean, I need to keep myself in it so I can grow. But like, it's like, hey, Tyler, as a leader, these are the ways in which I need to grow. These are how people are experiencing, experiencing me on my team.

Growth Through Humble Leadership

Tyler Thigpen

And, and I can really, I stand to grow from this. And I think that's important for organizational leadership because we just don't learn as quickly if we keep our ego in it, if we're not humble, if we're not willing to see the failure and learn from the failure and learn exactly why from the failure. In fact, I even on this point, Michael, I revised our exit survey this year for our families because I was like, I really want to understand even more deeply when families leave, like, why are they leaving? You know, it's not about me or my teammates. Like, they have some goals. I want to understand what those goals are, and those are outside of myself, you know, so it's not about me or, you know, so. So that he was very impactful and helpful for me in that.

Michael Horn

That's really cool. And I always think it's like a really good role model because he loved to be wrong, because it meant he learned something. And that was part of that humility, I think. And I always felt. I don't. I mean, you went through the class once, I got to go through it three times, you know, once as a student, then twice working for him. And I always felt badly because he, people didn't get to see how the theories changed or evolved.

And I'd be like, all right, man, he got serious pushback on this last year and look at what he's changed now this year. Because even though he sort of debated, asked the questions, et cetera, he actually was like, oh, wow, this is not quite right. Let's evolve it. And I always thought that was such a cool example that unfortunately the students didn't always get to see because it was something that was happening over time. And as a student, you're there for a moment and then you're graduated into the world. But I had the same experience as you.

Tyler Thigpen

That's cool. I didn't know. I could imagine that that was the case, but I didn't know that. And to see it from your vantage point would be really fascinating. And I mean, he to me, what you're saying is he sort of did his own discovery driven planning process on his own theories.

Michael Horn

Good way to put it.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah.

Michael Horn

And he used his class. Right. As a way to like, he loved it when he got pushed back. I think sometimes the criticism I would hear of him is some students would say, well, he's so wed to the way he's done it. And I was like, but because he's asking questions and to defend it, because that's how he's going to realize, oh, wow, there's a flaw here. Let's or there's an anomaly or whatever it is, let's sharpen it even further from what I just learned, which I always thought was really cool. That humility to learn from anyone he interacted with.

Tyler Thigpen

So cool.

Michael Horn

Yeah. Tyler, huge thanks for coming on sharing some of these insights and frankly, like for those running schools, I think there's a ton to learn from here. Not just the micro school community but everyone who's running schools top to bottom. There's a lot of lessons here I think. So hugely appreciate what you continue to do as you've wrapped up your traditional academic year for a little bit. Just, just huge thanks to you and the community you've built.

Tyler Thigpen

You're welcome. And thank you for the conversation and for all the work that you and your team do to advance these. Super, super helpful for all of us.

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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 Horn

Welcome 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 McCool

Thanks for having me here today, Michael.

Michael Horn

Yeah, 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 McCool

Perfect. 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 Horn

Yeah, I was about to say, how did that, how did that land for y' all?

Dave McCool

It 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 Horn

What did you learn? Like, what were the headlines from that report?

Dave McCool

I 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 Horn

You, 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 McCool

Right. 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 Horn

Super. 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 McCool

Yeah, 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 Education

Michael Horn

And 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 McCool

Yeah, 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 Horn

So 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 McCool

Which 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 Horn

I was gonna say that turned out to be prescient, sadly.

Dave McCool

But yeah, yeah, but really mostly just finding, you know, great fielding input from customers. How can we make this better? How can make the learner experience more engaging? How do we give you more flexibility to meet your goals? I think for us a big thing is auto assessment was always a big requirement from the market for us. So the tension for us was always, how engaging can I make this and still auto grade the experience? Because a lot of times you're working with online universities, they don't have the ability to grade open response type things. So that was sort of the challenge. And I think that was really just steadily grew and got up to about a million students a year being served. So it was nice. Again, like I said, mostly in higher ed. And then two years ago, really AI, it came out before that, but we were not sure what to do until about two years ago.

And that's really been the newest phase, which has really been. That's been pretty exciting.

AI: More than Just a Chatbot

Michael Horn

All right, so let's talk about that enabler in terms of like, what does AI allow you to do that you couldn't do before? Allow the people that you're working with, your clients, customers to do that they couldn't do before.

Dave McCool

So two really big things. So when we first, when ChatGPT sort of burst onto the scene, all of us, I think, like everybody else were like, oh, wow, this is really, really great, or it's going to make it so that no one needs what we do anymore. We weren't sure which. And the first few, first year or so of looking at it, we thought, well, everything felt like a chatbot, right? Everything sort of felt like, where do we put a chatbot? And we were like, well, we could put it into a smart chat, a roleplay sim, or we could put it in the corner and you could ask it when you got confused, but nothing felt quite right. And I think what, what really struck us a couple years ago, maybe more, 18 months, was instead of thinking about AI as a chatbot that we could put somewhere, we thought about AI as a resource that we could use. So what's AI? It's a big knowledge base of maybe all the world's data, I'm not sure that you can ask questions of and get responses. And we said, well, how could we, starting from roleplay, simulation, what we do, how could that make what we do better? And we really came out with two use cases that we immediately dove in on.

One is we said, what if we could teach it how to make simulations in our format and then provide that to our customers? So, you know, we and everyone else is already using ChatGPT to brainstorm scenarios and stuff. And you're doing a lot of copying and pasting from your chatbot into your tool, whatever tool you're making your content in. We said, let's move, remove that step. Let's just teach it directly how to make our stuff. We're AWS hosted, so we are able to integrate it directly into the platform. And just say, you just start talking to it and you say, I want to build a scenario. Here are my learning objectives, or here's some source material to start from. Walk me through a process that gets me to a fully testable scenario.

So that was one and that's the market has loved that.

Michael Horn

Yeah, I would imagine. I want to come back to that in a moment. Keep going.

Enhancing Learner Experience with AI

Dave McCool

Yeah. The first full version of that came out over Christmas, over the holiday of 2024. And the other was how do we make the learner experience better with this tool? And that was a little more challenging at first and then we finally just said what's the simplest thing we can do? It's like, well we have a, the roleplay simulation has a variety of question types. The usual suspects, multiple choice, fill in the blank, categorize. We said, what if we had an open response question type where instead of using multiple choice in a scenario you've analyzed data, you're talking to a coworker, they ask you a question and you just have to answer. And then what we can do is then use the AI as sort of like a fuzzy logic natural language processor back end to say hey. Michael asked David this, David said this back.

Here's the rubric here. The learning objectives we're tracking. Give me what Michael says back to David, grade David's response against the rubric and give me a rationale for the grading. And so that came out at the same time and that's been really cool too because now you can be much more authentic. Like one of our university partners said, I saw your journey before. It's really interesting. But it was sort of selected response. I saw open response and I said I'll do that changes everything because now it's a constructed response.

Now I, in a scalable auto assessed way can respond in my own words. I can, you know, put my mental model out there and you can, you can, you know, grade that well.

Michael Horn

And it's interesting on that second one. In some ways that also brings it more to the serious games origins and that there's something more authentic I would think about it that's possible. Maybe I'm making the wrong leap there.

Dave McCool

But no, I think that's what we talk about. It's more engaging and it's more authentic. And one thing we did along the way is also we added text to speech and speech to text so that you could actually speak your response. You don't have to type it anymore.

Michael Horn

Yeah. So I want to come back to the first one, but one more question. Can you use AI also like, or maybe this is a couple years off to start building, you know, graphics or like, you know, things that are more immersive or engaging simulations as well and maybe make, you know, there's this been this world of virtual reality that's been five years away for 20 years now. But maybe it becomes more possible because the authoring of these environments really goes down in terms of cost and time. What's your take on that?

Dave McCool

I completely agree. We in the authoring era have really backed off from VR, AR and 3D work which we had done in Our previous custom days, partly because our guardrails were authorable by non technical subject matter experts and accessibility. So those were so kept in that, in that box. We're now doing a really good job of generating with AI all the stuff in that box. What's about to come out from us next is generating images. So there's a lot of images and multimedia in our things today. Building those. And then our next thing is to look at, okay, can we build a 3D scene in, in AI, can we rig 3D characters? Can we create characters that can walk around and interact with each other? So I think that's next.

But that's like we've tried to be really disciplined about staying in like here's what we do really well. 3D and VR definitely has a place. The cost of production and the complexities of deployment mean there are places that's not well suited. So we sort of so far staying where we are.

Michael Horn

No, that makes sense. And so then this ties back into the number one use case around enabling the authoring right to explode in some ways along your guidelines. And I assume that's something I want to let you elaborate on a little bit because I assume anyone can create a simulation, but to do it in line with instructional goals, learning design, not overloading the learner, accessibility, et cetera. I assume there's a bunch of guardrails you all have created over time or rules by which content is created that you know, you don't want a faculty member or if it's at Western Governors, right. Like a centralized instructional designer to have to deal with all that complexity. You almost want the AI to just hard code that in some sense.

Designing for Balance and Structure

Dave McCool

Yeah. It's funny, most of our programming on that part of the product in the last year has been prompt engineering and system file work. And you know what we realized immediately we do not want, we didn't just want to put an AI interface in front of our users like you said and ask them to try to make this. It would not, that would not have gone well. And I think what we constantly, the balance we're trying to find is between how much to let the AI go versus how much to keep it structured. Because like, especially with universities who've reacted really positively to this, a big part of it is they can get the thing they need out of this easily and quickly. And before they could either spend a lot of time and money to get the thing they needed or they could get the thing they didn't really need quickly.

So it's trying to find that middle ground of like, give me your learning objectives, give me your goals, give me your activity purpose. Like is it a formative assessment? Is it a homework assignment? And then I'll guide you through this sort of, we call them playbooks, this playbook process of saying here, here are the steps to get to something usable and here are the ways in which you can kind of vary along the way.

Michael Horn

Last question on this, because you've talked a few times about using it for instruction, but also the assessment inherent in a simulation. Are all the simulations that your customers, universities creating, do they have both of those goals or some, you know, inherently assessment based and some are inherently instructional? Maybe formative assessment based? Like what, how does that work? How are simulations used? Maybe talk a little bit about the use cases of simulations within different courses in terms of their instructional versus assessment purposes. And can, can an assessment, or excuse me, can a simulation serve both?

Dave McCool

Yeah, to answer the last one first, yes, it can serve both. And I think for our entire company history, the challenge has been like, when are we teaching? When are we assessing? Like games? You know, the big picture promise of games for education is that they instruct and teach at the same time. But that isn't always easy to put into an environment that has other stuff happening. So our customers who do all those things, you know, McGraw Hill is a big partner, they do a lot of homework assignment work. So you know, it's a graded homework assignment, but it's not really an assessment in that sense. We have partners who use them as formative assessments, as checks for understanding. So like, you know, the end of each section or module, you might, you might take one that they're using to figure out if you've moved on and you understand or not. And then I think to the other extreme, we've got Education Design Lab, which is a partner in the durable skills space, is using it actually as summative capstone assessment to award credentials.

Michael Horn

Oh, that's interesting. And to show durable skills. It's because if you're, I'm going to make this up a little bit. But perseverance or something like that is one thing. If you can show it in a, you know, a self assessment which is extremely unreliable, but if you can actually exhibit that behavior in a situation where you suffer a setback in a simulation, maybe you can exhibit growth over time on that. Is that, is that sort of, or.

Dave McCool

You know, critical thinking is a good example that's easy to explain to people. You know, you, you, you role play someone in a job who's analyzing data, working with co workers and trying to apply critical thinking techniques to solve problems. Like you're, you're presenting these challenges. You're the produce manager at the grocery store. They want to put a kiosk in your section. Should you do it or not? You have to analyze data, interact with stakeholders and then there are skills, you're exhibiting things like distinguishing facts from opinions, providing thoughtful analysis, identifying core issues.

Michael Horn

So yeah, and so within different subjects, I mean you could in some ways simulations, particularly with the scalability now of AI, I imagine could actually uplevel the quality of assessments trying to get at these things from the multiple choice sort of short answer land to something much more immersive, context based, etc.

Dave McCool

Yeah, yeah, because we've got, I think we've got kind of the uncanny divide right now between how good can an auto graded assessment be or how authentic versus how authentic can a human administered assessment be? There's a big gap there today and we're always been on the side of the auto created, pushing it towards the human. And I think AI really helps you move that bar quite a bit.

Michael Horn

That's really interesting. All right, I know you're able to actually show maybe something, but I would love to show our audience some of what this looks like on the ground so that they can really feel what these simulations are.

Dave McCool

So my plan here is to do sort of the cooking show version of demoing where I'll show you the first few steps in the process of building something and then I'll jump to something that was built with that same process worked all the way through. I'm in our tool right now. This is an activity. So footwear impressions that I created earlier today, I'll go into the editor. So what I'm going to do here is basically this is the use case of creating a simulation, homework assignment simulation from a lesson plan. Okay, so in this case I had previously uploaded one of our favorite lesson plans of late, which is this Texas,, so the Texas CTE standards has a course called Forensic Science and there's a lesson called Footwear Impression. So doing footwear impression and analysis is part of doing Forensic Science.

So I've uploaded that lesson plan previously to the call starting. I can come here and I can say this will be a homework assignment. And then what we have is this eight currently this playbook called Create Activity and it's an eight step process. You can see them on screen right now. You could start at step four if you already had learning objectives and you didn't need those extracted from source material. So some people come there. But let's just sort of start. We'll go,

Step one and what we do at each step is we pre populate the prompt which then is combined with all the system text work we've done under the hood to get back the result for this step. So in this case it's going to analyze that document and suggest the learning objectives that my activity should have. And people do have the ability to sort of edit and play around with these as they go along.

Michael Horn

It's the cooking show thing. I'm supposed to say something witty here.

Dave McCool

Right.

Michael Horn

And pops up with the. Yeah.

Structuring Unstructured Data

Dave McCool

And I think what's interesting about this is, you know, someone said at ASU + GSV last week or a week before. This idea of AI helps take unstructured data and structure it. And this has been kind of an amazing realization for us as we've gone through this process is that you, you talk to the AI in natural language and then it does sort of software program things. And so it makes sort of the trying different things, experimenting getting to your goal a lot easier because you don't have to. There's no. You just try it. Right. So I can say, all right.

So there's what it suggested. Evidence, classification, characteristic analysis. So there are the ellos it suggested. If I go to step two. Okay, gradient learning objectives, let's say so.

Michael Horn

You can carve out an exception.

Dave McCool

I can say sometimes it'll suggest something that doesn't work well in the simulation format, accept evidence, documentation. So I say go. So it will go through those, it's going to add those to my activity. So we can say agree. All right, there it is. If I pop over here to the objectives. There they are.

Michael Horn

Oh wow.

Dave McCool

So like this already would have been a lot more work in time for someone one of our customers existing. And then what we do is we go to step three.

Michael Horn

In some ways this makes it way more self-serve. You all are doing probably less on the back end to help them through.

Dave McCool

Yeah, one of the realizations that hit us last year when, when people started actually using this in our customer setting. Actually now some of those activities are live to students was we realized that they never had to learn the tool. They never left this page. They just worked through these steps, played the activity, maybe made some changes which you can do here as well and then they were done.

Michael Horn

So does that lower cost increase output? Yes, yes, yes.

Dave McCool

Yeah, it's lower cost, it's faster output. I think the most important thing that we've noticed is it takes it from not possible to possible. Like we always say, better, stronger, faster. But we're really in not possible to possible.

Michael Horn

And so that's interesting because you had mentioned non consumption to me when we were trading notes about this. It's almost like people who would never have ventured into this space all of a sudden, hey, I can do something and get it, get it up and running.

Dave McCool

Yeah. I mean we have thousands of universities using our product indirectly through partners who've built for them. But it was always, it was always more challenging to get universities, except say if you're Western governors to take on that task themselves. They are building lots of courses. But they always felt the simulation hurdle was a little too high. And this has really changed that for them. So I ran step three, which was basically to create a story and some characters. So if we go over here and look, we'll see now we have characters that have been created.

So Dr. Maya Rodriguez. And then we get these personalities which are really cool because this is how the AI knows how to, how to speak in this character's voice. And I could edit these if I wanted to, but I just won't. Sure. For time.

Michael Horn

Sure. Yeah.

Dave McCool

Now just do one more step before I jump over to the other side. So now this is kind of the build out a story. So I could say build up the story, blah blah blah. I want to modify that. I'll just let it go. And then, you know, five would be create all the materials, create all the data that's going to support this story so that I can ask you challenging questions. Six would be create the questions. Seven is create the activity feedback.

And eight would be create the intro screen. And now we have a full activity.

Michael Horn

Here. It's generating right now. And so we're gonna. And then you're gonna jump into that activity now.

Dave McCool

Jump into that. The one that I built earlier. Yeah.

Michael Horn

Perfect.

Dave McCool

So we can see this. So city crime labs, unusually busy, string of high end home burglaries. That's everyone on edge.

Michael Horn

Early premise. Yep.

Dave McCool

Right. So there you go. So that's the story. So let's pop up one that was already made and see what the student would see.

Michael Horn

I'm just imagining Carmen San Diego back in the day could have been created in, in five minutes. Yeah.

Dave McCool

It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, so you saw that like I just did half the process in about five minutes. It probably would take another five to the other four steps. Yeah, this one I added a few images to. So I Added another maybe five or ten minutes after that process. But in this one, I told it I want it to be in an art museum. So here we go.

There's a priceless Botticelli sketch has vanished. Your expertise is needed. Here's what you're going to do. Here's your role. I'll come in, set my character.

Michael Horn

Yep.

Dave McCool

Here are the people I'm going to work with.

Michael Horn

Wow.

Dave McCool

Alarm at the museum. Pricessles Botticelli has been vanished. I come up with Dr. Rodriguez to see what's going on. Okay. So we come in.

Michael Horn

And so this could be also the speech. It could be a variety of modalities to interact with it as the learner.

Dave McCool

Yes. Yep, yep. So, yeah, they can voice or not voice. Authors have that choice. And we have as well. I'll turn it off for just a second. Sure. Yeah.

AI as Time-Saving Collaborator

Dave McCool

So. So this data you're seeing on the right here, all AI generated. Created the whole story, created all this data for you, all this dialogue. So I think two things about that. One is that it saves a tremendous amount of time versus an instructional designer or subject matter expert having to do all that, but also provides a collaborator. And, you know, we all work better when we have someone to talk to about the thing we're working on. This actually works pretty well as someone to talk to when you're working on this, which is interesting. Not something we had really thought of beforehand.

I'll just show you what the open response.

Michael Horn

Yeah, let's see it. It's interesting. While we're waiting to come up, I think of all the times I've seen stuff like this that has been super engaging because of the storyline, but how custom and expensive it's felt.

Dave McCool

Yeah. I mean, just a use case here is like, if you really love this pedagogical experience, one of the use cases in the AI is you can say, move this to an auto body shop, move this to a mall, for example, and it can do that. But let's see here. Let's say I think blood seems like a good thing. I might say I think the bloody footprints will be the most useful because they might show us the perpetrator's blood. That was my thought, actually. That's what I thought the right answer might have been when I did this the first time. It turns out it's not.

Michael Horn

I was going to say, are you. What's your criminal forensics background? Interesting. Okay, Right.

Dave McCool

So what's interesting is. So that what Maya just said there was completely generated off of what I said.

Michael Horn

Yep.

Dave McCool

And then the grade, which I got, which I think I got, oh, I got zero out of four. I didn't do very well at all. But then here's the kind of like, hey, here's why you got the score you got. So I think it's really important that learners understand that and also that they can challenge it. So when this is delivered as part of an LMS assignment, there's a challenge opportunity for them to say back to the teacher and the author, hey, I think I should have got...

Michael Horn

This is how I was thinking about it and blah, blah, blah.

Dave McCool

Yep, here's what I was thinking and here's why that should be good. Yeah, so that's, that's the basic experience. You know, you can see over here we've got score categories that are being tracked. There's a feedback screen at the end which gives them a bunch of feedback which we're now generating with AI. But again, just trying to keep making it easier to create these very sort of targeted, authentic experiences for learners.

Reimagining Online Course Engagement

Michael Horn

I'm just blown away. It's interesting. I remember the first online course I ever had the chance to take was I'm going to date myself, 20 some odd years ago when I was, you know, enrolling in HBS. And I don't know if you guys actually helped create it, but it was a stats class and it was all simulation based and I'm just imagining like I thought, geez, if everything could be like this, it'd be amazing. But the other thing that occurs to me is you can also vary the format through this much more easily as well so that you keep it a little bit unexpected, you keep me on my toes. I don't, you know, one of the problems sometimes I think with online courses is yes, it's at my pace and path, but it becomes a little monotonous and predictable perhaps and I sort of the thrill of novelty wears off. There's that opportunity, I would think with this as well, to sort of vary what my interactions are like and learning experiences are like.

Dave McCool

Yes, absolutely. And I think the whole idea is agency. It's really putting you in an active role, not a passive role. Like you are that person. People are asking you questions, you need to react to them. You need to analyze that information and try to decide what the right course of action is as opposed to just consuming the information.

Michael Horn

All right, so as we wrap up here, what should we keep an eye on for in this space? If you put that Gates foundation funded researcher view back on. So not just Muzzy Lane, but just the world of simulations in general, where do you think this goes? Now with AI over the next five-ten years?.

Dave McCool

I think you touched on it earlier. I think more broadening the applicability of these across more areas. There are places like say HVac Training which really need a physical environment. They need 3D stuff. So pushing those AI boundaries to build those 3D assets for you. But I think simulation in my view really should be part of any real online learning experience. And I'll sort of make just a little plug for our AI principles because everyone has to have AI principles. For us it's three, it's to get learners thinking more, not less.

And you could see from that open response I had to think harder than if I had a multiple choice there. To increase academic and contegrity, don't decrease it. And I think again those active learning experiences are harder to cheat on. And third is we're really focused on making the online component of blended learning better, not replacing the in person instructional part of online learning of learning. So I think what we'll see is more complex, more interesting interactions, more subject applicability and just generally just more whether it's us or anyone else. Like there should be simulations as part of every learning experience. They are a great, cost effective way for you to practice, makes you better prepared for assessments, better prepared for in person apprenticeships and internships and all those things. So that's what we'd like to see.

Michael Horn

Beautiful. Hey Dave, thank you so much for joining us. We'll check in with you in a few years to see how that is bearing fruit. But really appreciate the work you all continue to do.

Dave McCool

Great. Thanks Michael.

The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 Horn

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, 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 Dynamics

Jeff Livingston

Thank 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 Horn

It'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 Livingston

Let'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 Horn

Well, 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 Statistics

Jeff Livingston

So 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 Horn

And that's because of the way scale economics work. Large fixed costs of publishing books and guides.

Jeff Livingston

Guides 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 Horn

So 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 Livingston

First, 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 Horn

What killed that certainty?

Jeff Livingston

The 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 Horn

Yeah. And was that because of politics?

Jeff Livingston

Politics. 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 Horn

My hair was a little darker back then. Yeah.

Jeff Livingston

Yeah. 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 Horn

Yeah. So we got Zearn, Curriculum Associates, Amplify. I guess you'd have Great Minds in that list.

Evolving Regional Math Education Markets

Jeff Livingston

Probably 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 weird? You know, and what, what's happened is that regional dominance has replaced national dominance in this market. Right.

And where you are has a lot more to say today about what programs you have access to than it used to. Because what happened in the old days is you built a program for California or Texas or occasionally Florida, and then you modified it a little bit for everybody else and that was good enough. There's no. That is not how it works necessarily anymore.

Michael Horn

And is that because of the standards. I guess there's a couple things at play, but the standards have fragmented across these states. Politics makes something that's palatable one place not palatable another place. Digital changes the economics of this. What, what all the, all those things.

Jeff Livingston

But my gut tells me that that last one is most important.

Michael Horn

Okay, right, let's dive into it.

Jeff Livingston

So even way back when it made sense to do a South Carolina social studies book, right? Because South Carolina was an adoption state, you can aggregate enough, you could figure out how to make those economics work. An LA County Social Studies book today would be less expensive than a South Carolina Social Studies book was 15 years old, right? And around mathematics or around ELA, you can be a lot more specific as to what you were serving without having to get lots new printing presses and hire new people there. And this is even before anybody has figured out what generative AI is going to do.

Michael Horn

Right? And dramatically lower the cost of content creation.

Embracing Generative AI for Cost-Cutting

Jeff Livingston

It has to. Now I have, you know, I have been leaning into generative AI. I have been asking all the smartest content creators I know to show me how they're using AI to drive down cost for a couple of years. And I still haven't had anybody who I trust as a curriculum developer at scale show me exactly what they've done. But I'm starting to see it now. I've had, you know, people who work out of garages in Palo Alto show me what they have done. I'm like, okay, call me when you built a reading program, right? But there is no question to me that when I was publishing the kinds of things that we would outsource to India, some of those things can be outsourced to generative AI for even less than we outsourced them to India. And with more and more programs, more and more digital, I don't have to print new things if I do something specialized.

So everything is cheaper. So what that means now is that a not for profit company like Zearn can be competitive in every single way in the supplemental meth market with a McGraw Hill or an HMH in terms of putting product out there. Now, HMH and McGraw Hill still have an advantage in terms of distribution and salesforce, but not in building the program. It's not nearly what it used to be. And that means that people have more choices and they begin to make different choices.

Michael Horn

So I want to stay on this one now because that's interesting to me that obviously digital means more customization. One of the things that you said is that these players, I think they all started as in the supplemental market. They're starting to gain steam in the core curriculum market as well. There's some changes there. That means in terms of purchasing behavior, in terms of the importance, I suppose of salesforces and, and go to market and stuff like that. How has that side of it changed to let these folks in?

Jeff Livingston

What's interesting is if we had had this conversation three years ago, the overall nature of it would have been the same, but the intensity would have been different. Right, Because ESSER happened when suddenly there was all this money for lots of districts to try new things, especially digital things. That got a lot of things started that didn't happen before. EdReports has emerged in core curriculum like math and ELA as the clear signal of quality. I say all the time to my friends at EdReports, it used to be my job to persecute the Christians, as it were, that it was my job to make sure for a while that EdReports was not the standard. But you know, the fourth time a big city superintendent said to me, we're only buying EdReports Green, the battle was over. I was a convert, you know, called me Saul of Tarsus, you know, immediately I'm a comfort. And EdReports has raised the quality, set the standard.

But it's also made it clear since that other people can meet it too, right? And I think that. But the money in response to COVID allowed for more curricular experimentation, allowed for more small companies to last longer so then they could get to the point that they could compete with the big. There's also a new kind of capital in the market. I think it's important to talk about a really kind of patient capital that is impact oriented. You know, you and I both have friends at places like the Emerson Collective and like A Street, which are for-profit oriented in this kind of investment, but really dedicated to a set of impact principles as well and extremely patient.

Michael Horn

And that's an important piece. Right? They don't have 10-year funds that's much more evergreen will support you. Even Curriculum Associates before they went the PE route, the owner, right, Rob Waldron, famously had the 30-year contract.

Jeff Livingston:

Exactly, exactly. And that is a different thing because what used to happen is say 15 years ago, you and I wanted to start a big publisher. We might convince somebody to fund us such that we could compete one good time in one good market. But if we stumbled, we were done. Nobody ever heard of us again. Amplify can stumble in California and still live in Florida because they've got some of this patient capital there. And great minds can stumble and still live. Those are new things, right? You don't have to get it right completely the first time in order to be a real player.

Shift in Publishing Capital Dynamics

Jeff Livingston

If you've got the kind of patient capital that can keep you in the game, and that is something that's not, that wasn't there before. Plus one more thing. If we had had this conversation 15 years ago, all of the big publishers were independent, were independent companies, public companies. Today none of them is. They're all private equity owned. And so they have responsibilities to pay back the loans that were taken out to buy them, that restrict their area of movement too. So you've got upstarts with patient capital and traditional dominant players with less patient capital. And, the result is finally the dominance that used to be experienced by those big players is, is, I mean, nearly gone as dominance, but certainly under threat.

Michael Horn

Well, so maybe let's stay there for a moment, which is if you look at HMH, McGraw Hill, Pearson, I guess Sage. Right.

Jeff Livingston

Savvas.

Michael Horn

Yeah, Savvas.

Michael Horn

Wow, I just messed that up. We'll leave my mistake in. And so, you got those big three, right? Where like what are we talking about in terms of market share for those players? What do you, you know, forecast for their, for their prospects?

Jeff Livingston

So, you know, it's hard to answer that question because we're in the middle of a big math swing and anything I say today.

Michael Horn

could be totally different in a year. Yeah. Okay.

Jeff Livingston

I think the way to think about it is, remember I told you that it's more regional now than it used to be. It used to be a national kind of a thing. Only in the south in math, in core math, does any one program have 20% or more. Right, right. Only in the south is anybody even that big. So the field is much bigger that one in the south as I recall at this point is Envision Math. Houghton Mifflin's Envision Math is slightly above 20%. And the last things that I have seen from the center for Education Market Dynamics, nowhere else is it even that high.

The dominant market player is between 15 and 20 in every other region, whereas 15 years ago there were three above 20. One of them might have been above 30 in the world. So they just don't dominate the market anymore.

Patient Capital's Role in EdTech Disruption

Michael Horn

One of the questions I'm curious about is all the ones with patient capital that you named. I think maybe one exception, but I think most of them started in the supplemental market, built up a good book of business on top, and then they had the revenue plus patient capital, could invest some in creating a full core curriculum. Is that the story? Is this a disruption story in terms of like we met the EdReports bar and now we're lower cost with digital, like what's the value prop and what's the story?

Jeff Livingston

So I don't see people necessarily competing on cost yet so much as competing on quality. What the Amplify’s and the Great Minds of the world say is our math program is better than the big publishers programs. And here's why. And here's what EdReports said about ours. You can read what EdReports said about theirs. And here's what EdReports didn't say that we also think is important. And obviously the big publishers can make that argument too. But now everybody can really gain access to that.

Now eventually somebody's going to do it on price, too. But that's not what I'm seeing in the market yet. It's not price. It is who's got the best math and for who. Right? So someone is going to say, we are better for Spanish dominant immigrants in California than these other guys. Here's why. And if they beat that architect successfully, they're gonna win.

Michael Horn

Right? I know there's a lot of criticism building of EdReports of. It talks about the alignment, but maybe not the research or. Or that sort of segmentation that you just did there.

Jeff Livingston

EdReports is a revolution that has been good for this market, there's no question. But the claims they make are very, very carefully calibrated. Right. This is what we're measuring for. You can read the long form, you can see it. Out in the real world. People in the market assume that it says more than it does. Right.

I have had conversations with big city superintendents when I say things to them like, so how do you know that your core reading or math program are culturally relevant enough for your students and teachers? Oh, EdReports Green. And I'm thinking, I promise you nothing.

Michael Horn

That ain't saying what you think it said.

Jeff Livingston

That's not what they said. They're not making that claim. So the market is evolving in that way, and other measures of quality will emerge. EdReports is kind of table stakes. It's about stakes standards. It's about the quality of the underlying curriculum. And it has done a great many things. It's also begun to layer on some ELA supports and some other things, too.

But it has established the foundation that there are definitions of quality that can be defended, that can be measured, that can be put out in the world. And I think that is a great thing. That has been a leveling function for this market. Right. All before when I was at McGraw Hill, I could say, We're McGraw Hill. We've been doing this for 150 years. We know how to do this. Trust us and only us. Now people are saying, don't just trust them.

You can trust us, too. Look at what EdReports said.

Michael Horn [

And there's a third party in the market that helps it.

Jeff Livingston

That's right. That does help a lot.

Michael Horn

All right, so let me ask you this question as we start to wrap up here. I could go on for a while picking your brain, because I'm learning a lot.

Jeff Livingston

You know I could go on talking, so.

Michael Horn

I know, I know you can. But let me ask this question. As you play it forward, as you look at the market right now, what do you think the makeup of it might be? I mean, I get it, it's dangerous, but let's talk more generalities. Five, ten years, something like that, maybe. Like, are certain players going to drop out of this market?

Jeff Livingston

What I think, I think that there are too many big core curriculum providers in the world for this market to sustain long term. Not all of them are going to survive the next five years. What is revolutionary is that I think some of the ones that might go away might be some of the big publishers. The combination of the big publishers having impatient capital in the form of private equity and so many of the upstarts having patient capital means that you don't automatically say that a newer arrival like Amplify isn't going to survive, but an older company like McGraw Hill is. There's no reason to say those things. This is going to be a good old fashioned capitalist slugfest and we'll see who emerges. But I gotta say this. If you're one of the traditional ones and you don't emerge as top two in California or Texas or Florida, I think it's hard to see you're surviving as a big player now.

It is, it's really big stakes and the capital is impatient. Right? They're not gonna, they're not gonna give you more money to do that. They have a limited view of when you need to start working. And so I think this is an exciting time for the market there. Now I don't know who's going to stumble, but I think somebody's gonna stumble. And I think this is going to be a fascinating time for the market. Now I will say this too. When I was at McGraw Hill, there was a joke going around.

Future of Publishing and Education

Jeff Livingston

How do you announce that you are going to retire soon? You let somebody call you a publisher in public. So I hear my friends at the traditional of publishers, content creators, learning companies, whatever the euphemism of the moment is saying, Jeff, we're not in that business anymore either. That's not what we do either. HMH of today is not HMH of 15 years ago. McGraw Hill of today is not McGraw Hill of 15 years ago. And Savvas of today isn't even called what Pearson was called 15 years ago. So the old model is gone, new models are emerging. What label is going to be on the dominant models? That is what I think is going to change that more and more digital, more and more specialized, more and more coherent, more and more focused on more and more individual students and student populations needs.

I think that is what's going to dominate and it's an exciting time for me because I think the curriculum is getting better for the kids. We're getting better options and the game is being played for the right stakes. Who is going to do better for the kids? Not who has the biggest marketing budget, who has the biggest salesforce, who has the best lobbyist.

Michael Horn

Well, so that's promising. I want to actually ask you one more question because you went there. Something that I am seeing and I'm curious if you are, is of course there's a big and you would know more than me. So let me say that there's a big move to the high quality instructional materials content, making sure that there's coherence across the curriculum. Right. So what you're doing in social studies reinforces English Right.

Like more of this stuff. All well to the good. I'm a big fan of it and it seems like part of that HQIM, if you will, high quality instructional material market. There's a little bit of this push against the personalization that is possible in the sense of we're all going to be lockstep scripts for teachers. We're all doing this and I see it in some classrooms that have adopted digital curriculum. And I'm curious, like your take on that. Do you see that? Is that. Is that just a part of this? It's not the whole thing.

We're going to blow past this because. Because I'm really worried about it. I'll say that, like I, I feel like you got some whole class people who, I get it like it. We weren't really personalizing before. People weren't changing instructional models, gave it a bad name and the quality wasn't that great. But if you get the quality better and coherence to your point, like, you know, Jeff, if I can adapt for your background knowledge and you know where you're coming from and to get the point across, I'd be an idiot not to do that based on the learning sciences.

Jeff Livingston

Michael, I understand the fear, but the combination of the technologies and the higher quality means that a whole lot of things are going to be tried and we're going to know what works. Now, this podcast is not about how we're going to know what works, but.

Michael Horn

A big question at the moment. Yeah. As we're recording it, we have no.

Jeff Livingston

Idea who used to track what works.

Michael Horn

As we're recording it. We have no idea.

Adapting Education for Diverse Students

Jeff Livingston

Yeah, right. But a lot of things are going to be tried. Some teachers are going to try to individualize for 28 kids. Some teachers are going to try to, as much as possible, keep the whole class together and moving, and we're going to see what works. I'm excited about it, and I'm excited about it in large part because students who look like me were rarely the ones who were considered the norm and had things tailored to. And now students who look like me or students who speak the language that is spoken in my home at least half the time have a shot at being the focus in some places, and we'll see if that works better. I think it will work better.

Michael Horn

Well, that. That's exciting. Right? Because the economics have changed where you can make money targeting. Targeting. Wrong word. But marketing to, like, creating products for.

Jeff Livingston

That's exactly right. Here's though, here's the other side of that, and this is kind of a little bit going into the AI portion and we can have that conversation another time. There are engineers who, in education technology, are building for themselves and their kids, and they liked learning but hated school and found their teachers an impediment. And some of those engineers are trying to engineer out the humans who kept them away from their experience. They were weird when they were in school, and they're still weird. Most people are not trying to engineer out the humans in their education. So we're going to do too much.

Michael Horn

and then that'll be a thing also.

Jeff Livingston

Yeah, right. We're going to do too much of that and pull back. I don't need every problem set in algebra 1 to know that I grew up Black and Baptist in South Carolina. I do not need that every single time. In fact, I need to be a part of a community that I feel a part of and I feel seen in. But I want to know what other kids are learning too, and I want to do that. It'll take us a moment to get to that point because people are really focused on just giving Jeff what he wants all the time, every day, just that, and then everything will be great. I don't think that's.

That's true. That's the other social construct, you know, better than anybody else. People want that, and the programs will reflect it, the choices districts make will reflect it. And ultimately what works best for kids will reflect it too. So I am glad that we have disrupted the old system that was much more monolithic, that 1,000 flowers are blooming and that we're not. We don't know that the roses are going to win this race. I think those are good things because this uniquely American mixture of competition and pedagogy in the education space, you know, you go anywhere else in the world and there's a national curriculum, there's not much competition. I actually like this unique American competition and what it can do.

Emerging Math Education Innovations

Jeff Livingston

And we're going to see over the next few years, especially in math, we're going to see it do its thing and we're going to have very different conversations. We're going to say, did you see Jeff and Bubba's Algebra 1 program come out of nowhere and take 10% in Florida? What are they doing? And that is going to be a beautiful thing for the market as the market is finally in a place to absorb it and help kids. As long as we don't burn the house down in the meantime, I think we're going to be very happy about the choices that are emerging.

Michael Horn

That's why you are the man. Jeff Livingston, founder, CEO of ED Solutions, thank you so much for joining us and shedding light on a market that is at last changing in a dynamic way. Really appreciate and all you tuning in. We'll be back. Next time on the Future of Education.

The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 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 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 Rhee

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Michael Horn

No, 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 Rhee

Absolutely. 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 Horn

Say newly genius tenured professor.

Michelle Rhee

Yeah, 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 Horn

That'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 Rhee

Well, 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 Horn

Hook, line and sinker.

Optimism in Education Innovation

Michelle Rhee

Yep. 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 Horn

That'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 Rhee

Yeah. 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 Movement

Michelle Rhee

Kaipod 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 Amar because he's amazing founder, but he also saw the potential for the microschool movement to not just sort of be relegated to the fringes of oh, these are people who would normally homeschool their kids, et cetera. They really together saw the potential to serve a broader population and specifically our target population of low income folks of color. And that has 100% panned out over the last few years with Kaipod. But I was fascinated because Amar invited me onto a webinar that they had for people who were interested in starting microschools. And what I have found really interesting is that there are a ton of educators out there, teachers who for whatever reason have become frustrated by, you know, I don't know if it's working in a district bureaucracy or you know, or they're just looking for something new. They've always wanted to be an entrepreneur as an example and have never really been able to figure out how could I make the leap from education into entrepreneurship. And KaiPod and microschools actually enable people to make that transition.

So I was on this webinar with all these folks, many probably the majority of whom were educators, teachers who were thinking about making the leap into starting a microschool. And it was really just amazing to hear from those folks, hear their stories, to kind of see them struggling through like do I want to take this kind of risk? Right. Because in many ways educators aren't always risk seekers. Right. Some of are very risk averse people, but having the opportunity to move into something like this but where they can really leverage their expertise and their experiences and their knowledge base but actually, but do something different and allow them to kind of control their own destiny. Right. It was really encouraging to be on that call and to see so many people who were interested in that. And I think this is, you know, oftentimes I always tell people that folks in this country are looking for like the silver bullet solution.

The one thing that's going to change public education and face public education. And I don't think it's ever going to be one magical thing. I think it's, you know, instead of one 100% solution, it's probably 50 2% solutions. But I really feel like the microschool movement could play a big part in this. So that's one of the reasons why we're super excited about KaiPod.

Michael Horn

Yeah, you're echoing a lot that gets me excited about them as well in terms of bringing in and I think it's something that people don't understand how these schools are started by educators. Like right. They are on the front lines, they are sick of what they had and they want something different in many cases. And so this is a way for them to do. So what else are you all in the education portfolio or are things that you are excited about at the moment that get you excited about the entrepreneurs or ideas that are coming your way?

Michelle Rhee

Yeah, so super excited about a few of our portfolio companies. One is called EdLight. That is a company that is really focused on utilizing AI to analyze student work and be able to sort of take that analysis and feed it back into the teacher and the planning process. So, very excited about that. We have a company that we're incubating within the firm called Manta. And that is a data analysis platform that school districts, charters, nonprofits, foundations are using. And it's basically like having a data scientist in your pocket. And so all of this sort of data analysis work that has consumed lots of organizations, a lot of their resources and time now is like made incredibly easy.

So we're excited about that one. And then, you know, we as a firm are really focused on workforce development and knowing and seeing all the data about the fact that young people these days, fewer and fewer of them think that college is for them and they think they want to go straight into the workforce. But we think there is a lack of really sort of defined career paths out there. And so we're very excited about Stepful, which is another portfolio company of ours and Stepful started because they, they, they started training phlebotomists. Basically what they did was they took what traditionally was a two year like community college program and they condensed it into four months. They made the vast majority of it asynchronous and virtual so people could, you know, do their job at Starbucks during the day, come home, make dinner for their family, put their kids to bed, and then sort of do their coursework in the evening. And it's, it's been exciting for us because they are taking folks who largely before were like in these minimum wage service industry jobs through four months.

With Stepful, they are learning how to become phlebotomists and nursing assistants and pharma techs and then moving into these jobs where they can get a starting salary of say $70,000 a year. So it's great in terms of their economic mobility. But what Stepful has figured out, which a lot of boot camps and other folks couldn't, is they really have these unbelievable relationships with employers, hospitals, labs, doctors, offices, et cetera. Right? Everybody needs a phlebotomist. And so you're pretty much guaranteed a job when you finish the Stepful training. And so that has been an amazing portfolio company for us. And we're really trying to figure out could that model be replicated in other industries and for other specific job classifications because it's been so successful. The employers are thrilled, the participants are, are, are really happy.

And you know, from a business and investment standpoint, we couldn't be more thrilled.

Michael Horn

That's super interesting. And frankly, I mean, all the workforce development stuff is interesting in that you did the apprenticeship built within as well. And you're. I was just on a conversation around this that, you know, the number of high school graduates going on to college has dropped significantly down to 62% at last count from a high of roughly 70. And the interesting thing to me is that we don't really know what those individuals are doing. We don't have narratives around what are they finding pathways and so forth. And so it's sort of a lot of one off anecdotal things, but we know apprenticeships probably are part of the solution.

Again, to your point, there's not a silver bullet here either. I'm just curious, like your sense of, as you think of the map of things that could help those individuals, what else are you excited about in that workforce development space or maybe churning over that we ought to keep an eye on?

Michelle Rhee

Yeah. So, I mean, I learned this when I was at BuildWithin that, you know, this notion that kids are going to go to school for 16 years and learn, learn, learn, and then suddenly they're going to go to work and do right. It was such, it's such an antiquated notion. First of all, there are so many new job classifications out there right now that there are no, you know, university kind of programs of study. Right. That would link to that. And, and so as educators, we know actually that the most effective way for someone to gain skills and knowledge is for them to be learning and doing kind of simultaneously. And that's what the apprenticeship model allows for.

And so we saw that firsthand at BuildWithin and In. In occupations that people wouldn't necessarily think. Right. When people thought about apprenticeships when we first started Build within, people automatically thought, oh, this is like trades. Which is, you know, they utilize the apprenticeship model, which is great. But, but there are, I mean, through BuildWithin, it was, you know, medical assistants, it was teachers going through teacher apprenticeships.

Evolving Perceptions of Work Among Youth

Michelle Rhee

I mean, there was just such a broad range of professions that were well suited for the apprenticeship model that people just didn't really think of. I think though, you know, as we think about the workforce development space at Build within, one of the things that I. We're sort of noodling on, which is interesting, is that I think that people are missing the boat on just how young people are thinking about work generally these days. I think it's very different. We have another portfolio company called JobGet and JobGet is sort of like the job sort of placement site for the hourly wage employees. And one of the things that the JobGet folks told me was that a lot of people come onto the platform and they say, I want to work on these days in, during these particular shifts. Right. And they don't really care a ton about like, what the, what the work is.

Right. They want it to fit into their lifestyle. And it's clear that those folks, like, they need income, right. They got to pay the bills, they gotta have something to eat. But I think there's also something else out there that is, you know, more meaningful to them that they want to spend the majority of their time on potentially. Right. And I don't think that us old people have really dug into this and really understood, like, how is the next generation thinking about work? And you know, is it just work is a means to, you know, survive and have the money that you need to put a roof over your head and food in your mouth versus I think when we were younger, we thought, oh, you have to have a job that you feel passionate about and that you love, you know, going to every day, that sort of thing.

Like, are those notions changing? So I, I want to make sure that we as a society are not like missing the boat on that because is that going to impact things like, you know, worker productivity and like, motivation? And how do we, how do we make sure that people, you know, don't see their passions and their work as two different things? I actually think it's important for those things to be married.

Michael Horn

Yeah, it's super interesting you bring that up because it's something we found in the research for Job Moves as well. Right. Which is that for some people, purpose is met through work, but for other people, work is a conduit for them to get purpose in their lives, not at work. Right. And so it's sort of funny. I think you're right. It's like a dichotomy for those of us who want all those things to converge in neat ways in their lives, as certainly I have as well. But it's definitely a shift.

Balancing Social Impact and VC Returns

Michael Horn

I want to shift with the remaining time we have. You know, Roland Fryer, you mentioned social impact and I'm sure he's the one that came up with the formula to help you all think about that and measure it. I'll never forget when I saw him at Milken years ago, at this point, probably 15 years ago or more, and he talked about the heart test in a mocking way in education, can you feel the good we're doing and saying, no, we have to measure this. And to be brutally honest, I'd love to hear you reflect on how that works,you know, actually measuring impact from the companies you all invest in squares with the returns as a VC firm that you're looking for. And what are your investors, you know, the limited partners, like what do they expect on the other side? Do you guys have longer time horizons? Are you playing with that so that you sort of get out of the unicorn or bust mindset of some VCs or how do you balance these two sides of the equation?

Michelle Rhee

Yeah, it's interesting. Roland has a very specific point of view on this which will not be a surprise right because we only will consider an investment in a company if they are impacting social mobility and economic mobility in some way. Roland always says, like we are not double bottom line investors because he believes that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes that makes people think, oh you, there's a trade off to be made here, right? Sometimes sacrifice your financial gains because you want to, you know, have that impact. And he sees the work that EOV is doing as no. The first hurdle is are you going to move economic mobility for our populations? Right. And because the answer to that has to be yes in order to qualify for an investment. He's like, we are single bottom line investors and that single bottom line is the economic returns. And we're just then, so we drive at those.

Social Money Multiplier Impact Model

Michelle Rhee

And because of our thesis, right, we know that the impact is going to be there. But we, you know, as you would imagine with Roland, he's very, he's very disciplined about making sure that we're, we're measuring everything. So that social money multiplier is a model that he came up with. It's like, how much are we investing? How many people are being impacted by this particular company and in what, what way? Like how, how, what does that multiplier look like for this particular company given what they are doing? And so our portfolio companies are required to set targets around SMM to report against those. Right And we look at those just like we look at that metric, just like we do all of our other metrics in the company. So, you know, I think that for us, Bill and Roland very much think that when founders are taking on some of society's biggest and most intractable issues with the right solutions, you are going to you know, you don't have to compromise. You're going to see those incredible financial returns and the impact is going to be there as well.

Michael Horn

Love things that break trade offs because that's when we have opportunity in the world. So Michelle, huge thanks for joining us for talking through the work, for doing the work that you are doing for getting sucked back in a little bit into the education world although maybe not in the fractious policy craziness that divides and actually with the entrepreneurs that just putting their heads down making an impact really appreciate it.

Michelle Rhee

Absolutely and thank you for everything that you're doing. I think talking about this work and making sure that we're encouraging more people to start and found companies is critically important. So thanks.

Michael Horn

Well I hope everyone takes a look at EO Ventures website and checks it out. If you're an entrepreneur and you're making an impact in this way definitely, definitely reach out. And Michelle thank you and for all of you tuning in we will be back next time on the Future of Education.

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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 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. 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-Brown

Thank you very much for inviting me. I am very, very honored and very happy.

Michael Horn

Well, 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-Brown

Yeah, 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 Horn

Oh, wow.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

And 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 Horn

Unbelievable. 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 Kids

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yeah. 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 Horn

Yeah. 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-Brown

The 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, the entire school is learning the program, let's say we are taking the first three years of the program. We are talking about 400 students, right? So he made the calculation and he said okay, $50, 36 weeks, 400 students, it brings you to over $600,000.

Michael Horn

Wow.

Foundation's Community Impact

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

So this is, this is the value which we as a foundation are bringing to the community, to the school community. And of course we can make this even further. And when we say we have now 100 schools and as you know, the $60 is almost like $60 million annually, what we are bringing practically back to the community. So what the, this is the value of the program. And so this is how our grants are working. The same is with the Young Scholars. The Young Scholars. We are taking those kids and we help them to develop the artistry because of course they are in the fantastic schools, they have fantastic piano teacher.

But yesterday for example, I spent the entire day watching the master classes which we organized here in New York. So we are sending them to the festival, to the competitions. We have created piano academies in Beijing, in Cleveland and in Cambridge where we are sending all those kids with, and you know, to, to make the exchange with the best professors of piano, you know, which you can get it. So this, this is the money where we are spending. We are not giving the 500 in the hand and say what you want, but, you know, I think this is much more important.

Michael Horn

Yeah. So I, there's a number. I'm buzzing with numbers of questions right now, but I want to stay with the let's do the Young Scholars program first. Just. It's interesting to me because when I was in middle school, I competed in an international Chinese music competition. And there was a young Chinese woman who blew us all away in the competition. And then I remember my grandparents being so blown away by her that they sponsored her to come to America and study at Juilliard through the rest of the time. And so I have a lot of excitement, I guess, for what you're doing for these people.

Are, are these individuals, when you identify these young scholars, these talented people, are, are, you know, are they from the same demographic as the Keys for Inspiration or is it anyone when, when you find these people and send them to these incredible academies?

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

This program is open for everybody.

Michael Horn

Okay.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yeah, the program is open to everybody and it's open for the entire world. Yeah, it is open for entire world. So every three years now I have extended. Before it was two years. Now I extended to the third year. So every three years we are opening the application process practically for everyone. Everyone who is not older than 16, 17 years old can apply. And you are sending the two videos.

The one video is where you are playing and the one video is when you are talking. So we will know also, you know, your personality. You know, and then we have agreements from very esteemed professors like, you know, we have professors from Juilliard here in America and Cleveland Institute of Music. We have professors from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. We have professors from Royal College of Music in London. So those professors, they are practically selecting the finalist.

And, now we have created also like three halves which we have the Asian, Asian students, you know, like China, Japan, Korea, when we are doing with them. Then we have the, you know, European and they had like the rest of the world, we have here in the States. And, and this is, this is something what makes me very, very proud because, you know, like when I know those kids when they were 10, and we have a lot, a lot of alumni. And now, now I see that the guy is 20 and play with the orchestra and then winning the festivals and, and next week, one of my really, like, son, he's calling me dad, you know, Clayton Stevenson, he's getting the, the, the Medal of Excellence in, in, in, in Washington, D.C. you know. So this makes you so proud, you know, and they are finishing Curtis and Juilliard and Harvard and Columbia and you know, playing all over the places. And, it is really very rewarding program.

Educating: A Rewarding Experience

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

It's very rewarding. And, and then you have, on the other side, you have, you know, you know, those elementary school kids, you know, and when you are going there and they welcome you and they are so proud because they never see the piano from close and you know, and they are starting with one finger, you know, and, and then next year you are coming to the school and they play already, you know, maybe with one hand or with the five fingers, you know. So this makes you really, this is exactly, you know, Michael, my entire life I was working in corporations. I was working, you know, in Polygram probably you know, Polygram from the previous times, you know, the biggest, you know, record company. So Polygram, then Universal, then Phillips Classic, you know, etc, etc Virgin. And I was making somebody more richer and richer. And now for the first time and as you know, since 15 years I am giving back and I feel so rewarded. I feel so happy when I'm going to those schools, when I see my young scholars and, and, and you know, this is something what I never thought I will, I will witness and this makes me probably so very happy person.

Michael Horn

So I want to dig in now to this Keys of Inspiration program where you've outfitted these piano labs with Roland. I have a Roland keyboard right over there. I love the electric instruments that they make. It's a beautiful piano sound. The question I would love to know is, I mean you're building the curriculum. They have the headphones on so they're able to play. What does the class look like? Are they able to move at their own pace as they, someone perhaps masters, you know, two hands before someone else masters, you know, just the five fingers. Do you give that kind of personalization? Are you helping teachers learn how to do that?

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yes. So this year we switched from Roland. We switched to another company. Okay. Which I found it which produced the Smart pianos. So this is kind of like, like step up of this what we did, you know, in the past few years. So the One Piano. This is the name of the piano, the one Piano.

The Smart Piano has integrated also a software. So now our classroom looks really like from 21st century. And I think kids are love it because you know, now kids are probably much more advanced than we are with all this telephone and play games and everything, you know. So now that every piano, every instrument has also a screen. And the screen is connected automatically to the piano. And in this screen you have already the software which is practically an animated curriculum which we have created with Royal College of Music in Toronto. So it is kind of like because they are kids, we are going to the second graders, second, third, fourth grader, you know, they are kids we want to make and this is practically the philosophy of Lang Lang. And he wants always to make happy children learning the piano.

So he wants to make this happy moments when you are coming to the piano labs. And by the way, the program in China, here we call Keys of Inspiration. In China they call this program Happy Kids. So this is exactly the philosophy. It is like the kids are supposed to be happy when they play, when they learn. They don't know even when they learn and how they learn. They learn, right? Because learning by playing. And this is exactly, this is what we want.

Of course it is very serious curriculum. Of course they are making the progress. Of course it is, you know, it is learning the music and of course this, learning the theory and you know, and this is what I said. I'm always saying they don't need to, to, to play Bach and Schumann. You know, they can also play, you know, John Legend and Beyonce as long they know how to read their score. You know. So this is, this is, this is exactly the, the, the, the, the case. And, now they are sitting in this room.

Music Education Visualization

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

It is a beautiful, you know, like picture when you are coming and you see those pianos with the screens and then you have a main kind of like, like conductor is that the teacher and the teacher is connected to every single kid and he see and he heard or she heard the progress of the, of the kids and you know, and you can individualize, you can say Michael, you play this because I heard that you struggle with, you know, with the half note. Right? And then you know, Mika, you know, will play for example, something different because she's already a little bit farther than Michael. Right. So they can, they can also personalize this. And of course you can also you know, make kind of like little bit show and you take the headphones off and you can play entire class.

Michael Horn

Wow. Yeah, so you learn a little bit of performance then.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And you know, and the kids are very proud and very, you know, they even with, with one finger. But they are very happy, you know. You know they play you know like.

Michael Horn

Well, they're making progress. It's a beautiful thing. Let me ask, let me ask this question. Yeah, let me ask this question which is. Um. I think I read somewhere that the classes, you all say that they should be twice a week or something like that. Is that what you've done in places like Boston? And how, how can we make that everywhere? Because at least when I grew up and my kids school, right now I remember music class was once a week. If we're being honest.

We didn't really learn much. It was more about exposure. It wasn't really about the learning. How do we, how do we get to where you all more systematically across our schools?

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

The two weeks is of course a dream and I, I'm. I'm very, very proud because most of our schools have a two weeks program. So you know why we started and why program, right? It is because the, the first and you know this, the, the best. You know, the first what is kicked out of the school is the music. When the principals, they have the choice, you know, sport or music or something, you know, they will always choose the sport, never the music. So this is why we say, you know this is really. It is a lot big need here in the country. And I realize not in the, in this is not only the, the you know, the America, you know situation this practically everywhere.

And so to you know, I have a very big sentiment to, to Boston because Boston practically was the birth place of Keys of Inspiration. And I tell you that very, very short. I was warning you that I'm talking a lot.

Michael Horn

No, this is great.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yeah. So you know, when we decided and we were so excited, Lang Lang and I that we want to go to the public schools in you know and, and bring our program and, and, and, and teach the music. Everybody, everybody laughed us out. Everybody. This was not even the best friend. Everybody said that we are crazy. And they said, you know, you are Chinese, you are Polish, Austrian. You don't know what you are talking about.

You know. You know the public school system in America is so complicated and, and you know, every principal is like the king of the kingdom and you know, you cannot do anything with them. Forget it. Why you are not making some, you know, claps or whatever. You know, the kids maybe on Saturday can come and, and I look at Lang Lang and I said hell no, I don't want this. You know, we have this. No, I want to go to this, to the public schools. And then I was in Boston.

He has a concert in Boston. And I met people from Boston Arts Academy. And, and you know, and Mr. Hold and you know, and, and I, I told them, I said listen, this is my dream. This is a piano lab. You know, we can build a piano lab. This will be crazy. You know, this entire class is learning this with headphones.

And they said we love it. And they connected me with Orchard Garden. Yeah. This was our first schools in Boston, you know, public school, you know, elementary school. And they install also a piano lab in the public. In the Boston Arts Academy. And this was for me, Michael, the moment when I started to believe in this program.

Global School Support Expansion

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Because I said when one school got it and, and making, then I will go and I will do really a lot. I, I, there's no. Nobody can, can stop me. And, Ariela, my education director, she said me, you know, two days ago that we just achieved 100 schools in America. You know, we support hundred schools. So, this is, you know, it makes me really proud about this, and I'm really very happy about this. And, we have 150 schools in China and we have now expanded the program to Europe. And so practically when you.

And I'm always the conservative, you know, mathematician, I'm always taking only that the first three years. I'm not, you know, some of the schools they have already programmed for 10 years or for the eight years. So you can multiply this. But let's say today on, on Friday, you know, over 180000 kids learning our program in different schools. So you know, from the first school in Boston, you know, to those school across the countries, it is something very special.

Michael Horn

That's wonderful. Well, one of the times when you were in Boston, this is where I live. So I'm gonna have to come with you and, and see this in person because it just sounds amazing what you've created and frankly it sounds like a model not just for music education, but in terms of the progress and delight for kids that all of their classes perhaps could learn from and take some tips from how you've built this curriculum for each individual child and teacher and support them all. It's really something.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Yeah, yeah, it is. And you know, it is showing you also that you are on the right path. You know, it shows you there is a need. You know, somebody I remember a few years ago was asking me why we have only, let's say, 80 schools and not 800 or 8,000. And I'm saying. And I answer, and I said, listen, you know, the program at least cost me $50,000 per school, right? We are bringing every equipment. We are bringing, like, 30 pianos, etc. Etc.

I said, if I will do like other foundations are doing and bring one keyboard to the school, I will have already 5,000 schools.

Michael Horn

Right? But the impact would not be what it is.

Lang Lang's Music Education

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Exactly. This is not what we wanted, you know, so some, Some other foundations, they are, you know, they bring one guitar to their school and they said, oh, we support music, right? But, you know, this is not what we believe, we at the Lang Lang foundation, we believe really that it has to be a genuine, you know, genuine teaching.

This has to be really taken seriously. And this is how we believe in this program.

Michael Horn

I love it. Lukas, thank you so much for coming on the future of Education to describe not just the commitment, but then the actual impact and the depth of that. And I think you've created a model that I hope a lot of folks learn from, and I'm excited to spotlight. So thank you so much.

Lukas Barwinski-Brown

Thank you so very much, Michael, for inviting me. And if you want to have a, you know, talking companion, I am always for you.

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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 Horn

Welcome 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 Goldstein

Yeah, great to be here. Six miles south of you in Watertown, Mass. The weather's unbelievable down here.

Michael Horn

I'm just jealous.

Mike Goldstein

Yes. 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 Horn

So 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 Goldstein

I'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 Shift

Michael Horn

So 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 Goldstein

So 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 Horn

but it's not like an all hands on deck. I have to be babysitting my kid.

Mike Goldstein

Yes.

Michael Horn

Eight hours. Right. Totally pulling them tooth and nail through this.

Mike Goldstein

Right. 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 are

Michael Horn

Like 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 Goldstein

It'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 Horn

Let 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, that's crazy. Some people, they're like, yeah, amen. Like where's the line on that?

Preventing Misuse of Public Funds

Mike Goldstein

Okay, so you're right and I'm going to try to organize it this way. Would, would everybody, including the most advocate oriented type purse. It is, you can't be spending it on buying laptop computers and then reselling them out of a van so that you know, your home is making money. You can't hire grandma for $8,000 and put her on the payroll. Like there's certain types of use that is much more, I think more like borderline fraud or actual fraud that we see in some other public, you know, like housing vouchers, other things. So job one is like the unquestionable 99 out of 100 people would agree this isn't okay. Then there's this next level of turf where you and I might, for the sake of discussion, have a healthy disagreement. So I might be more on the side of like, well, schools offer music, public schools offer music lessons, public schools do trips to D.C., public schools do a bunch of enrichment type things where they're using public monies to pay adults to do stuff to give lessons to kids. And I would say, why couldn't the homeschool, in my opinion homeschool family use that? Each state calibrates that tightness a little bit differently. Like how much enrichment versus not Mike G. might have a very wide latitude. If you can show it happens in any public school, you should have the right to do it as a homeschool parent would be sort of my rough rule of thumb. Other people are like, no, we want narrower scope of activities and there's a reasonable level of policy disagreement we could have there. So okay, so that's like the starting point.

But the next level is that these software providers and the state treasury department that runs this, have different skills in how much friction they're going to set up for the basic ability to buy and the basic ability to get reimbursed. And so in West Virginia, if you look at these homeschool moms that are on Facebook, nice people literally just trying to get like $300 reimbursement for a science kit they bought. It's a friggin nightmare, like page after page after page just every day. So I'm on these Facebook groups. And by the way, that's probably the number one source of information for these families is peer to peer on Facebook. I think that's probably the top platform. How are you doing this? Other mom chimes in 'here's what we did' in the comment section. So there's a lot of that and these states vary quite a bit in their ability to execute this.

That wouldn't drive a parent crazy. And you know, so unfortunately sometimes like the school choice people, I would say you should get a lot more, if you're an advocate of school choice and an advocate of these kinds of education savings accounts and homeschooling, you should probably flex a lot harder on making this friction a lot lower without losing like, without drifting into scandal world where you lose the productive friction.

Michael Horn

Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. Okay, so they're using Facebook. They are a variety means to find out the funding. What did you like, what was surprising to you? Or insights about their experience. Before we go to the first archetype that you, you laid out that you think other people are not getting about their stories about how they're navigating this world or sort of things that surprised you. Aha's that you had as you dug into these stories.

Mike Goldstein

So you mean for like the vitamin parents?

Michael Horn

Yeah, for the vitamin parents. Before we go to the trouble, get me out of trouble parents.

Enrichment vs. Academic Market Challenges

Mike Goldstein

I feel like the people that were more vitamin parents. It's the market for experiences for your kid, the general market, however you educate your kid, you and me, anybody in greater Boston, if you want to buy music lessons, got a lot of good choices. You want to buy certain sports type opportunities, you got a lot of good choices. I think that's a healthy, well developed market because it's so used by the private sector that it's not that hard to find good bass guitar lessons for your kid. And so I think you can navigate the enrichment side pretty well. And these parents are less likely to need the academic enrichment stuff, which I think is a harder market to navigate because here's why. Most of the tutoring, in my opinion, that's available, let's say, for math, is geared more for tiger parents whose kiddos are at the, you know, and as you know, as a provider in this space, like kids at the 80th percentile whose parents want them to be at the 90th percentile. The skill of those math providers in helping a kid who's at the 20th percentile is very low.

It's not their target customer. Whereas everybody has sort of the same, like, your kid's new to bass guitar. We start with that kid. You know, like, it all sort of starts at the same place. Whereas they're not starting with a kid who took guitar for four years, hasn't made any progress, is super frustrated, like you might have with a reading or math skill type thing. And so that's why I think the vitamin parents, they have a pretty good experience with these education savings accounts.

Michael Horn

Okay, so it sounds like you're foreshadowing that the story might be different with the help me get out of trouble parents, but maybe I shouldn't jump to that conclusion. Tell me what you learned.

Mike Goldstein

Yeah, so I do think one. I remember Tiffany in West Virginia was telling me, you know, they're getting information from a wide variety of sources and they're trying to sort it out solo in a way that strikes me as challenging. Like if you're new to the space like, you're not from K12 World. And Tiffany herself had been like a teacher, public school teacher, an administrator for many years. So she wasn't even new to the space. And she was like, well, one thing I learned about my kid pretty quick that I did not know, is his phonics are pretty bad. And, like, I kind of knew, but he was kind of coping. And then I heard, you know, the podcast Sold a Story, right? The huge sort of mothership activator of a lot of phonics stuff.

She's like, oh, my God, this is what's going on. I'm a little embarrassed as a professional educator to be saying this is going on in my own home with my kid. She then was able to find in West Virginia a pretty skilled old school phonics, I know what I'm doing lady. And so her kid has been responding pretty well, and she's using the education savings account to pay for that. So at the time we recorded, that was like a pretty good purchase. And I think she had substituted away from what had originally sounded like a really cool class online, like Chronicles of Narnia, lLet's go deep. It's like, wait a minute, I don't think that's what my boy needs right now.

And sort of made a good adjustment and made what sounded to me like a smart purchase. But if you look again at these Facebook threads, you see a lot of sort of desperate, these are invariably moms, it's like 95% of the communicators about homeschool are moms saying, kiddo has a problem. I tried X, it didn't work. Now what? And the thread is just a whole. It's like 20 different random ideas. There's nobody who's able to.

Navigating Education Savings Uncertainty

Mike Goldstein

It's not like, yeah, you have your pediatrician to take a whole bunch of different competing ideas and synthesize it in an expert way. What is not yet well developed in this market, it could appear, because Education Savings account, like, who knows? The guidance that's available is not particularly strong. And the mindset of the moms is mostly like, I'm supposed to be able to figure it out by myself in a way that you would never do with medicine or law. Like, in theory, you could represent yourself and you can like, oh, we got into a fender bender and now there's a letter and we're being sued. I guess I could read it all online and figure it out, but who would ever do that? You got to call the guy and be like, we're being sued, it's fender bender. I don't understand my insurance. What do I do? And then somebody sorts you out.

There's very little of that , remember, the ethic of homeschool that you've covered for so long is not that it's much more like we're the pioneers here. We figure it out and we ask each other. But really, you're asking people who themselves, as homeschool moms, they have like a sample size of like two or three kids. It's not like they have a hundred use cases. And they know what works well in what situation. They extrapolate from their own kid.

Michael Horn

Yeah. So I want to stay on that for a moment because I'm curious how you see the market evolving or what your prediction is around how the market will evolve or maybe should evolve. You can choose which one you want to do there. One of my hypotheses is that the back end systems actually need to start helping people navigate this more meaning not Yelp, but more prescriptive recommendation engines to help point you in the right direction if-this- then- that sort of things. And my instinct has been, yes, certain states have tried to legislate guidance into it, but I think more likely there's a market that gets borne out over time. If the volume actually gets high enough where you actually might pay for folks to help you navigate or even diagnose where you are, you may think both of those are really dumb. And so I want to know what you think.

Mike Goldstein

So I agree with you in the long term. And the question is how to build the bridge. So an interesting thing that came across in West Virginia, for example, they had just changed vendors from vendor A, which was doing fine, to vendor B in this kind of way, where the vendor B promise was to build what you said with AI, not only have they been totally unable to build that, they broke the whole basic reimbursement system. Right. In other words, if you look 12 months ago, you don't see the Facebook thread of West Virginia homeschoolers filled with like, how do I get my Hope Scholarship thing? So they sort of shot for the moon and came up super short and sort of broke the underlying almost functionality. I would say the following. Yes. In the long run.

And where you see, for example, AI work. Well, a good example is radiology readings. Right. We both know that. And it's like you had all these skilled, very well trained doctors for a while who created this base of expert knowledge. We've looked at 5 million x rays. We've pretty correctly diagnosed most of that, now the AI is going to vacuum all that pretty good content up, and now it can do that as well or better. Right? Now, nobody has done that.

Years of having the MD read the X ray and give expert opinion. So it's sort of like what the AI is trying to vacuum up is a whole bunch of random and hodgepodge moves like, oh, let's change curriculum. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's, there's nothing. It's all noise. It's really, it's like, you know, so, you know, garbage in, garbage out situation. If you were the king of school choice and you wanted this in the long run, your intermediate step would be to manually inject and finance expertise into the system to help a lot of families build the loop. Like, how do I prove we're actually helping the families? Let's have competing groups.

Mike Goldstein

Look at satisfaction. Try to measure improvement, whatever those things are. You build that through the human thing. Before then you would say, okay, now I'm going to use the AI to replace the human, to make it more, you know, affordable, et cetera. We don't need it to always be that.

Michael Horn

Do you think then it'll be through mandates that mandate, that guidance function, or do you think it'll be its own organic market where people say it's actually worth spending, you know, 500, a thousand of dollars of the ESA for someone to help me navigate this world or come up with the bespoke package for my kid?

Mike Goldstein

I mean, I don't know, it's possible to me that in four years we'd be saying this is a broken market that nobody's been able to figure out because the barriers to entry are not high. But the barriers to like, providing good advice for 500 or $1,000 are high. Like, it's not a great, you know, unit level if you're going to really spend time with a family. And so usually when we see education services like that, it does go to, you know, like, you think about college admissions counseling, like, I don't know, either you go to the local high school counselor for nothing or you're paying, you know, $500 an hour for

Michael Horn

$ 8, 10, 12,000 by the time you're done with it.

Mike Goldstein

Yeah, totally, Right. So it would eclipse the whole amount of, so that's why there are places. And again, there's like false starts. So it's not like a open. Nobody's done anything. So for example, in Florida, there are already a whole bunch of people that are homeschool certifiers. So it's typically like a teacher and at the end of the year in Florida, you're supposed to send in some kind of proof that your kid learned something.

How do you do that? You pay 75 bucks to some nice teacher who set up shop as one of these certifiers. And, I don't know, they talk to your kid for 10 minutes and then they give you the letter. And so it's. That one is just meeting a weird function of the state. Right. Florida's getting no actual benefit from this, but they get to say, well, we certify that everybody does something reasonable. But what that means is there's all these latent people. So I asked one and I was like, I asked her, well, if somebody gave you a thousand bucks instead of 75, could you actually meaningfully evaluate the kid and then meaningfully help? She's like, oh, yeah, I would love to do that.

That's what I thought I would do. Nobody wants that. But so some of these are like, you know, it's like classic. How do you build a new category? You know, you watch Shark Tank. It's like, duh, you're trying to build a new category. That's a challenge because it creates a whole bunch of additional consumer education that might not be in the interest of financial interest of any one firm, because once you build the market, then everybody else can enter it. So it's more, I think it's more, it might be more of a philanthropy problem, possibly, than a market will solve it itself problem.

Michael Horn

Super interesting. Okay, let's switch gears on one to two other topics. One, I'm super curious. Like, we got folks like you, Kerry McDonald, others in Massachusetts who are really interested on these on the ground stories. In her case, she's often profiling the entrepreneurs behind the microschools here. You've gone to the families, right, Consuming all these different bespoke education solutions. We don't have any prospects in Massachusetts, of which I'm aware that move us in this direction. Maybe you'll tell me otherwise, like, you know, sort of what's driving this curiosity of pioneer others here in Massachusetts?

Education Choice: Red vs. Blue States

Michael Horn

And, and I don't know where the question leads, but I'm curious to hear you pontificate there. But I guess the other question is just to get political for a moment. It does seem like there's a red state strategy at the moment in this country of a lot of education choice and yes, a lot of progressive educators participating in those states. So it's not super political in the state, but the state right. Tends to have a political leaning. The blue state strategy at the moment, I'm not sure what it is in this country, but it's not this. So like, where does this go? Like we're going to have over 50% of students eligible for some form of universal choice pretty soon. Is it going to grow?

I don't know. I'd love to just hear you blank-spoken on this because I'm not quite sure what the question is, but it's something I'm curious about because I think it's interesting we're interested in it here.

Mike Goldstein

Yeah, I would say so. I agree with your basic read. I don't see, you know, a ton that's likely to happen in blue states, but at the margins, you know, there'll be some interesting stuff. Like I interviewed rather a guy in Denver, Colorado, sort of blue purple state without his embark microschool. But yeah, the path for a red state governor, table stakes is clearly now you have to have kind of a school choice strategy. And so if you're interested, like you and me, broadly speaking, I guess I'm like, oh, I happen to live in Massachusetts and I think there's a lot of kids, like my kids who go to the public school down the street are doing just fine. And in all the country there's a lot of kids in public schools who do just fine.

But there's a lot that are struggling. And unfortunately in our home state, nobody's going to do anything about that. In these other states they're going to try. Maybe they'll put some wins on the board. They'll probably put some losses on the board. I'm interested in that. So I sort of think like I happen to live in Massachusetts, but, you know, I can get to other places.

Michael Horn

Yeah. So let's understand this. Okay, last question as we wrap up. Big insights, things that people are missing, things that surprised you as you dug into these individual stories that you'd say people need to understand this. What would you list under that?

Mike Goldstein

Yeah. One of the things that you and I have talked about before is how do you measure learning? And should you try to measure learning for a homeschooler?

Michael Horn

Yeah. Or for bass guitar.

Measurement Challenges in Education

Mike Goldstein

For bass guitar. Right. For any of these, like public expenditures or an easy way to hold that at bay is like the measurement seems to have made things worse off in a number of ways sometimes. So we're both, you and I are measurement nerds. We love that. And yet we can acknowledge the other side of the argument that even if you could solve the technical issues around, for example, it'd be cool to know what is math and English achievement like if your kid went to public school in grades three and four so you got a sense of their annual progress and then happened to shift to homeschool for grades five and six, like, did the learning rate accelerate or decelerate? It'd be cool to know that. There's a bunch of technical issues with that that are probably solvable depending, asterisk, but who wants to know that? And it's sort of like since you and I are more interested in like, what's the kid side of this, what's the real life experience and how do we make that better. But a lot of the political decision making is much more tribal.

School Choice Debate Nuances

Mike Goldstein

So what you and I would expect is people that are in favor of school choice would be like, I'm not interested in that question unless I know it comes out on my side. And the blue tribe people would say the same thing in the other direction. And what Patrick Wolf, the scholar, you know, has sort of written even recently about school choice is, look, you know, it's pretty close. You're not going to see large gains in academics from this per se, if that's what you were hoping, like these breakthroughs where the kids make skyrocket in their literacy levels. But you're not going to see these big blow ups like perhaps school choice opponents would prefer to see because then it makes the case that we should just keep the system as it is. And so I think there's ways, interesting, challenging ways to go at that question. I'm sort of fascinated by that. I know you are too, but who would sort of organize that, fund that? What would be the purpose of it all? Kind of interesting questions here.

Michael Horn

Gotcha, gotcha. Super interesting. Mike, thanks for coming on and talking us through what you've been learning. And as you continue to go down this path and designing for these individuals, whatever you choose to do, come back on and keep us posted.

Mike Goldstein

Awesome. Great to be with you, Mike.

The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 Horn

Welcome 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 Kramer

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Michael Horn

Yeah, 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 Kramer

Sure. 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 Horn

So 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 Philosophy

Matt Kramer

Yeah. 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 get in their seat and sit down and be quiet.

And then the second part of it is the idea that there are better and worse developmental experiences to choose. And she spent a lot of her time during the early development of Montessori empirically trying out, well, what if we tried to teach the kids one to one correspondence, the idea that the numbers line up with the number of beads and that you go from one to two, not one to three. She spent a lot of time thinking about ideas like that and trying out different ways of teaching them and slowly refining it in the set of materials that does all the different skill areas that you want kid to build on. And because they refined this for so long, they got a lot of subtlety into the system. As one example I give people in a Montessori classroom, all of the little drawers and trays have these little knobs on them that are about the size of an eraser for a pencil. And the reason why they're there and they're that exact size is what she found, is that kids actually have the ability to write by moving around letters like little Scrabble tiles before they have the ability to write on paper. And it's actually a muscle control problem that prevents them from writing on paper, not an ability to form words with letters. And that you can actually accelerate the development of the muscles for holding a pencil by having them keep squeezing things about the size of a pencil.

So it's just sort of like a second thing she just slid in there on the side. Because they spent like 30 years developing the materials. And so the frame of Montessori is like on the one hand, kid choice, on the other hand, this carefully developed set of materials that were developed by watching what made what sort of helped the kids learn stuff. And then a framework for teachers that says your job is not to be the main presenter to the class. Your job is to facilitate the connections between the kids and the learning environment and materials that are around them. And as you do that, we are going this is I think one of the funny things people don't know about Montessori, it's actually a scripted curriculum. The teachers go off to Montessori training programs and they literally memorize the introduction presentations for every one of these hundreds of lessons and materials.

And they sort of check out on them one by one. Like you present the lesson, reading the script out of your memory to an instructor who's like, okay, you're ready to do this particular one. And they go through that all. And the reason why, again back to Maria, is she realized if you didn't put the teachers on a script, they talked a lot longer. They spent a lot of time sort of like wandering around. And whereas if you gave them a script, you could keep it down to like a three sentence introduction. And what she found is the length of the introduction was really not like a long winding introduction was really not helpful for kids, like locking in on the thing and deciding to explore it.

Three sentences was about right. And so that's sort of Montessori. You know, as you get to the older level, kids, what kids needs evolves. And so 6 to 12 year old Montessori is following a slightly different theory of the environment and the case of what they do, but it's also in the case of like, well, what do 6 to 12 year olds need? What do they do naturally? And how do we create an environment that works for that and it just keeps on going up.

Michael Horn

Yeah, and I will say it, I mean it's known for the children house years, as you said. But like the LE and UE lower elementary, upper elementary experiences for us have been even more magical in many ways because it also builds right on itself through those materials and the connections that are made from abstract or, you know, what's concrete to abstractions and things of that nature. It's been pretty cool to see. And I think the way you described it is interesting also because it, it sort of, if people can get over that first objection wherever they're coming from on the world of priors, there's like an answer for it. Right. So if you believe too much choice is bad. Well, you know, scripts and constrained choices. Right.

Like, and really thought out curriculum materials is an answer for you. And it turns out every lesson has a direct instruction component. So we got that right. And then, you know, if you believe it's too regimented so forth like the incredible choice that is brought to bear in a daily and weekly basis and then the executive function skills that people are developing, these kids are developing is just extraordinary as you're going through it.

Montessori and Project-Based Learning

Matt Kramer

Yeah, I think one, you know, to look at the elementary years, I think one of the interesting things, you know, there's, I think there's a growing number of project based environments, especially at the, you know, at the preschool level. Maria Montessori's work has substantially influenced the rest of preschool over 125 years. And at the elementary level, you're starting to see more of that too as you see more choice driven situations. But generally it's project based is sort of mostly what we mean by choice or child centered at the elementary level. And what you see in Montessori, that's a little different. But actually personally, I think is sort of inspiring when you think about it, inspired when you think about it for a minute is Montessori treats all of the first through sixth grade as actually one big project. And they refer to it in a slightly culty way as cosmic education. And the goal, the project is for a child to understand the world around them and to find their path through it.

What, like, what are they going to what interests them? What's going to draw them towards being an adult, which is like on the other side of this journey. And so they, this starts out in elementary, in Montessori with these five things that are called the great lessons that are like dramatized stories that the teachers tell the kids. You know, one of them is about the formation of the universe and earth and planets. One of them is about the emergence of life. One of them is about the emergence of human beings. One of the story of communication and one of the story of math. And each of these are these involved detailed stories that sort of give them a sense of like, how does this huge thing, like when I look around the world and I see mountains and streams, how do I understand it? That's story number one.

Right. And so, and then the kids are drawn into picking things to do out of the things that are triggered by that. So, you know, the kid. I'm really interested in the piece about the solar system and why the planets don't spin away and the teacher will guide them into a research activity for that. And so the projects don't like get rotated. We don't have like a monthly project like, okay, now all the kids are going to do this. Like we have a six year project and then we just keep helping the kids connect to it again and again and again.

Michael Horn

That's a really good way of saying it. And it's not something. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but it also helps handle, again, I think a lot of the objections you hear around project-based learning when it goes amok. Right. So. All right, let's move from Montessori at a moment. So you sort of chose that as the organizing philosophy, if you will, for the Wildflower Schools. But then you have like a fairly decentralized model of educator led created schools that are spawning themselves like wildflowers a little bit across the country.

So talk us through the organizational model and some of the decisions that you made there and how that reflects the network that you now have of 72 schools.

Personalized Education vs. Standardization

Matt Kramer

Yeah, well, I, I shared at the beginning that sort of philosophy which is like, how do you, how do you think about creating an environment in which the teachers total experiences, passions, beliefs about the world, which all of that is energy fodder for the creation of a great humane educational experience. You know, I think about, when I think about big schools, of course there's a lot of great big schools, but when I think about big schools, there is a premise problem, I think, which is that if you need to get 20 or 30 or 50 or whatever teachers to teach the same program, that program can't have very much to do with the individual teachers. Right. It sort of has to be made generic to be a curriculum. And you know, God forbid, when we're talking about a curriculum that is statewide or countrywide, then you really have to sand off all the edges.

Michael Horn

A lot of lowest common denominator there.

Matt Kramer

Right. And if you believe as I do that actually the stuff that makes a teacher unique is actually the most exciting stuff. Right. It's the thing like when you think about your favorite teacher in your life. Usually it's the idiosyncrasies about that person that are the memorable pieces. And so, for me, it's the entrepreneurial spirit of the teachers, the space in which that can come out that's sort of the essential idea. And in a lot of ways, it connects to the theory for kids. Right.

Like, the theory for kids is that there's something good in them and we create the right environment to help it develop and emerge. And, you know, back in the day, when Maria was doing her work, that that journey sort of ended at around 24 years old. You know, neuroplasticity for adults was not a thing 100 years ago. She sort of thought you were a fully formed adult, and then you were like that way for the rest of your life. But we now know that that is not the case. Right. We now actually have learned quite a bit about how people continue to develop. They continue to become things, become new things over the course of their life.

And teachers, in that sense, are actually a lot like kids. They're in a process of becoming, too. They have things that are inside of them that you can't reject and think you're going to turn them into something they're not. They also have the capacity to adapt. And so that really is like the idea in Wildflower is like, how do you create a Montessori for adults space where this is a prepared environment for people. Montessorians, who want to create schools that reflect everything they've learned and everything they believe and everything they are as full participants

So that's really the idea. And. And what we do, you know, in the process of starting schools are what we say to people is, on the one hand, this all the schools in the Wildflower network are going to be authentic Montessori schools. So your school that you're going to create is going to be that. And on the other hand, that does not say everything about what your school is going to be like. Montessori is sort of like one dimension of the total, total experience of being in the school. And so you see these other things that are the teachers, like life lessons, life experiences that show up. I'll just, you know, a few examples of them. You know, you and I were talking earlier about a school in Boston, Roxbury.

Yeah. Before we hit record. Yeah, Roxbury Roots. Yeah.

Matt Kramer

Yeah. And. And that is a. It's an absolutely beautiful school, and it is an authentic Montessori school. And you go in there, if you know what you're looking for, for Montessori, you're like, ah, this is Montessori done right. But also the school's founders had a vision of an Afrocentric culture in a Montessori school. And this just comes out in so many ways when you're in the program.

Intentional School Environments

Matt Kramer

From, you know, the, you know, somewhat trivial things about just like art and decoration to the vibe and the schedule and the food and the like, it all comes out and you just feel like you're in a space that is intentional, it's coherent. And so I would say cultural alignment is like one dimension that you see in schools, but there are a bunch of others. There's a school on the west coast of Puerto Rico that is actually housed in a local special education services program and has basically developed a version of Montessori that is focused on kids with neuro differences. And they, you know, and in their particular case, they take kids with a very wide variety of, sometimes very intense, different styles of learning. But because of the heritage of the teachers and the site, building a very one on one individualized program fits with the way they see the world. You know, another, another example is we have a school in Indiana called Montessori Field. And it's basically an outdoor school. It's like set into a nature preserve and they never go indoors.

And you know, and, and you look across network, there's 72 schools and there's dozens of themes and really 72 individual implementations using those themes that come up. And they just, they reflect the teacher answering the question of what is it that a school that includes all of me in it, what is it that a school like that could do that would be wonderful for children, wonderful for families, wonderful for community? Not like, what is the generic answer to that question then? How do I get myself to do the generic ideal, the platonic school concept. It's like the one with me in it. What's that one look like?

Michael Horn

Yeah, and there's a real color to your point. Right? It's not Montessori frozen in time either. Right. There's some evolution there. There's bringing you. It's. But it's still distinctly Montessoril every school that you go into are these.

So each of these are educator owned, is that correct? Or like what's the structure?

Matt Kramer

The schools themselves are non profits. Okay. And Wildflower, the whole is a nonprofit as well, but they're sort of tiny little nonprofits, like one or two rooms, 20 to 50 kids, two to four teachers, is sort of the typical size. Each one's a nonprofit, and the teachers are the co executive directors and the actual leaders with kids every day. And that's sort of one of the core implementation thoughts about, like, what does it look like to create environments in which the teachers can do this? It's, you know, we don't have a lot of rules. We put a lot of authority in the hands of the teachers.

But one of the rules is the people who make the decisions for the school and the people who spend all day with the kids have to be the same people.

Michael Horn

Okay.

Matt Kramer

And the reason why is we don't think. We think there's something massive that gets lost in translation when the expertise of a teacher has to get packaged up and turned into something for a principal to make use of, or the wisdom that a principal's acquired, making hard choices has to get, like, retranslated back to a teacher, and they have to understand and embrace that experience. We just think that translation is too complicated. You need it to happen inside the head of a single person so that the teacher can, you know, I think, you know, we've all spent a lot of time in schools. You know, like, for example, one of the, one of the big challenges in school is the fight over class sizes. And in every school I've ever been in, there are economic pressures that lead the principal to want a few more kids. And there's other factors that lead the teacher to want a few less kids.

And that tug of war is like a permanent feature of school life. And in Wildflower schools, it's not. And it's not because those two forces don't exist. The same forces exist, but the teacher's got both of them inside of them. And so they're thinking, what are the pros in the context of my program of having a few more kids in the classroom, what does that do for me and the kids? And what would I do with the money and how do I feel about all that, and what are the downsides of that? And let me weigh it all and decide what I think is best. And there's no communication problem. It's just like, you know, it's the parts of me. And they get to sort it out and figure out what to do.

Michael Horn

It's really cool because it's a personal trade off. Then let me ask you, so the core organization, if you will, the spine, the wildflower schools that you run, what's the role of that within the network? What's the relationship between these small microschool that have spawned out across the country. What role does each play?

Matt Kramer

So we think of ourselves sort of as a membership organization that the schools join and are part of. Our particular role. I guess there's probably a few things that we do for the network as a whole. One of them is we support the process of new people entering the community and starting schools. And so we have this thing, it's called the school startup journey. And it's basically, you know, again, it's like a Montessori prepared environment for adults. It's basically like a Montessori space for creating space, not physical space, but like space for creating a school. It's sort of structured. And, you know, we have.

We walk people through it. There's, you know, they don't have to do it in exactly the order that it's laid out. You can move the pieces around and do it the way that strikes you as right. But it's a structured way of figuring out what your school is going to be. And it has two points in it where you get advice from people who have already been through this, starting Wildflower schools, once, sort of at the end of your visioning work and again at the end of your planning work. And the teachers are, you know, they're sort of designing their program, and then they stop, they pull back, and they.

And they share with this panel of folks what they're up to. And the panel folks gives them advice. They don't have to take the advice, but they do, because these are wise people who've been through this. And, you know, unless it's somehow the panel doesn't appreciate something really important to the teacher, in which case they don't take the advice, but they incorporate what they feel they should, they revise their thinking, and they eventually turns into a school. That whole process, the tools, the support, the advice process that are. We support all that. We help them get access to financial resources and technical experience, et cetera.

You know, mostly we know things like how do you create a school in this community? And what are the rules? And all that stuff. And so we help them with all that. We help them by providing it once the school's up and running, we provide an ongoing suite of supports, tools to be helpful to them. And it's, on that one, I would say it's a fine line we're walking because there are things. None of this happens in a vacuum. And our American context teachers have largely heard the message that their work is not very important and that they should mostly follow the orders that they're given.

Empowering Teachers with Budget Management

Matt Kramer

And teachers come to us acculturated by that set of messages. And so one example of a thing that we sort of do in a way that I think sometimes strikes people as funny is if you ask the Wildflower teachers, do you want to have control over the finances of your school or would you prefer if Wildflower would actually run the back office for you? The wide majority of them would say, we'd prefer if Wildflower run the back office for us and we don't do it. And the reason why we don't do it is we have concluded that there are subtle lessons you learn from doing your, from managing your budget, about trade offs, about how much money you can invest in things, about which programmatic things should be considered reasonable to try out, and not reasonable, try out this subtle stuff you pick up about that from owning your own budget that you just cannot get another way. And so rather than create the back office that sort of everyone kind of wishes we would do, instead we create a bunch of tools that make it possible for people, most of whom have never run a small business, most of whom are not administrators by background,

Michael Horn

And won't necessarily want to, to your point.

Matt Kramer

Yeah, right, but, but who are going to need the lessons learned. And the, and the power that comes from understanding something essential is like what the money is for and how you use it. We create tools to make that possible. And then the last thing we do is we, I would say we sort of hold together the fabric of the network, right? In a decentralized environment, people are relying on other people to do certain things that align with the community's values and standards and the brand that we share, things like that. And so, you know, we basically create the environment to like make sure that that's true. We get people together, we gather them all in person so that they can learn from each other and things like that. So those are the sort of main roles that we provide. And you know, if we do a good job of it, we are both making it easier for them and also not, not changing the fundamental feeling that a teacher has.

You know, I use this as sort of my personal test of whether we're doing it right is if a teacher has a thought in the afternoon about something that could be done better and they go home and sleep on it, can they implement it in the morning? If the answer to that is no, if there's a staff meeting required or approvals required, we've done something wrong. Right? The cycle is supposed to be observe, learn something, sleep on it, implement the next morning. And as long as that stays true, stays the case, then we're doing what we're supposed to be doing in terms of the facilitation of the network.

Michael Horn

Very cool. I have like a million questions based on things that you've said that I want to ask, but I want to keep it to some reasonable time. So I'll do maybe a little bit of a lightning round and then maybe a couple other probing questions and then we'll wrap. But on so, you know, you're 10 years old, right. Talk to us about the state of Wildflower if you will. What's been the impact? Where's the growth? Yeah, let's start there.

Matt Kramer

We've got 72 schools now, up from one a decade ago. There are a growing number of them that are operating as like micro charters.

Michael Horn

Do not just micro, private, like microschools that are private?

Matt Kramer

Yes. The original ones were pre K and they sort of made themselves accessible to low income families. We serve a diverse group of families in all of our schools, made themselves available to families who couldn't afford to pay preschool tuition by the use of child care subsidy programs, which are different in every locality in America, but you know, follow some similar patterns. And then we created K through 12 schools or you know, first through third, third through fourth through sixth grade schools and those can't access child care subsidies. And so we needed a system that would allow those to be intentionally diverse too. And so we created an idea of how you could run tiny, tiny charters. And we now have five charters in Minnesota, New York, D.C. and a couple in Colorado.

We just got approved actually for our first charter in Ohio and we have eight other charters that are in development in other places in the country. And then this was less true 10 years ago, but it is increasingly true now. More and more states have ESAs or vouchers or some other school choice type program. And a lot of our schools at the elementary and secondary level use those programs. And so, you know, back to your question of like, where's the growth? I think that, I think there has been real energy. The pandemic was a factor in this, but post pandemic I think has continued to show the secular trend here. There's been real energy both from families of wanting to do something that is more customized and more adaptive to their own kid. And there's been more teachers who have sort of seen the, oh, this is really, it's hard to be myself in these big systems and I would like to try something where I can bring more of myself.

Empowering Passionate Teacher Leaders

Matt Kramer

And I think that pattern has been you know, that pattern is a secular one and we are seeing energy behind it. And, and the schools sort of pop up everywhere, geographically, I guess, is the last thing to say. You know, at one point we put energy into whether we would like grow in specific locations. And what we've learned over time is the secret sauce of this is the teacher leaders. And so when somebody comes to us and they have a vision for a school that they want to create that reflects their learnings about the world and a community that they've lived in, that they want to create it in, and they're like, they've got passion to do this. It doesn't matter where they are. We should help those people. And so that's where we see the growth.

Michael Horn

It's interesting because I think a lot of people tell the story through the parent, student demand side. But you're right, educators are demanding this as well. And it's been through this conversation. Right. The student journey and the educator journey come together in these schools. It seems one of the big hypotheses that you had when you started, and I'll try to get this right, was that the ed tech world had misfired by trying to create student facing tools, and that the most powerful place technology could actually be an aid was as a, basically a boost to teachers to better observe students and understand what they needed when they needed it and so forth. Did I get that summary right?

Matt Kramer

I'll add one edit to it.

Michael Horn

Yeah. Okay. Make the edit first.

Matt Kramer

Yeah. Which is, I think to me that the core thought for edtech is that the tech should follow the curriculum, the pedagogy. So if your idea is you're creating a tool that is basically a math facts drill tool, a child facing iPad app is a perfectly good way to replace the old paper and pencil drill tests that we did when I was a kid. Like, you know, even in Montessori classrooms, we had a stopwatch and a worksheet filled with little one digit addition problems and you see how many of them you could do in a minute. Right. An iPad's a great replacement for that pedagogical thought.

Michael Horn

Right.

Matt Kramer

But Montessori's pedagogical thought is about children's choice in an expanded environment. And when you put an iPad in front of them, it narrows the whole world down to that little experience. You can't have the expansive world of choice that way. And I think technology offers us things that we can do that reflect that more open, expansive, real way of engaging with the world, technology can help that too. But it's a different kind of technology.

Michael Horn

Well, so it's interesting, right, when you say that, because the argument I've made actually is Montessori has tons of technology. It's just not digital technology. And so your example, the iPad there makes a lot of sense. Right. It's actually one more tool in a suite of bead cabinets and all sorts of things. Right. That students can use to learn whatever, you know, they're struck by or what's on their plan or whatever at the moment.

So. But you were talking about building technology specifically to aid teachers, I think, in the observation work. What have you learned about that? Where is that work at the moment?

Matt Kramer

Yeah, I mean, it sort of emerged out of this thought at the beginning. Montessori teachers are trained to observe the children carefully and they have this whole note taking, observation system where they make note of what the kids are doing. And it's sort of the data that that leads to, the equivalent of lesson planning of Montessori is like, what do the kids do? How engaged are they in it? What things seem to draw them in and what things seem to pull them out? And like, you make notes on this. But if you talk, Montessorians all learn that process in Montessori training school. And then if you talk to the Montessorians and if they trust you, they will tell you that it is an overwhelming task to try to keep track of what all the kids are doing any fraction of the time. And so you have to make massive approximations of things. And the more you are making approximations of these things, the more it is an intuitive data set rather than observational data set.

Data-Driven Montessori Teaching Tech

Matt Kramer

The less Montessori is a data driven pedagogy. And the data drivenness, you know, that goes straight back to Maria. It's like core to the case. And so what we said is, well, what if we could teach computer vision to look for and make note of all the things that the Montessori teachers are supposed to be looking for? And so this was, you know, this was 10 years ago we set out to do this. A lot of the technology has matured substantially since then. But at the time we were, you know, basically saying, can you teach a computer to recognize when a kid sat down with a piece of work and how long they worked on it and how concentrated was that work, and then when did they put it away and those sorts of things and then produce it all for the teacher so they could have a robust data set on which to do again their Montessori equivalent of lesson planning. Of which things am I going to introduce to who, which day next week? And you know, who do I need to reconnect to something because they seem like they're bouncing off of the material as opposed to getting engaged in it. And so we built this, we built a prototype of it.

We piloted it in five of our schools. It's really quite amazing I think in that way it's a proof of concept for this different thought about technology of if you have a pedagogical model that involves the children having broad freedoms in the real world space, can you still use technology to capture something really important about it? And the answer to that is yes, you can. It has been very challenging to figure out how to fund or I'm going to use a dirty word here, commercialize this technology. I mean, it's nonprofit for us, but still the same sort of general phenomenon. And because there's a lot of R and D work in getting things like this to work, it involves like custom hardware, you know, in these pilots you have like these little ultra wideband sensors that are tucked into the tongues of the kids shoes to keep track of where they are and what they're interacting with. And so, you know, we did all this sort of thing and, and it's sort of complicated. You got to get over some threshold before it's useful enough that anyone wants to try it. Like they don't want to try, you know.

Matt Kramer

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you got to do that. But it's sort of not the normal way that ed tech develops for the most part. For the most part, the edtech models like create a, you know, minimum viable web front end that does something and show that the kids are interested in it and then you upgrade, upgrade, etc. You know, it's not a high R and D field in part because it's not a field with big home runs generally like the, the net, you know, there's no equivalent to like Uber in edtech. And so, so, you know, we just found it's really hard to figure out how to do it.

And so we recently actually paused the project. And you know, I actually, I'm a real believer in it. So I hope someday we find a way to breathe new energy into it because I really do think the future of educational classrooms at the preschool and lower elementary level does lead you down that path. It leads you to think like actually we don't want the kids 100% engaged in computers. Their brains are not ready for the abstraction from reality that that type of environment creates. But we do want to know what they're doing and we do want to be able to be data driven, responsive. Not just by, you know, giving them a test every now and then, and then, you know, presenting new material based on what they do and don't answer on the test. And I think that, I think the world is going to want responsive, smart classroom designs that enable that.

Matt Kramer

But I think we just are not quite there yet.

Michael Horn

No. Super interesting for those listening. If you want to help on this, this is a good way to get engaged. Shameless plug. But it's also interesting because I think a lot of the tech first first microschool networks that have also popped up over the last 10, 15 years, a lot of them have come back to the same observation about younger kids as well, that a more Montessori physical environment makes a lot of sense developmentally. And then as kids get older, more and more of the work or certainly sort of learning the core knowledge or skills can be done online and then right the, the abstraction becomes more possible as you age up. Let me ask, do you have time for two more questions if we keep geeking out? Okay, so this may be a strange question, but you're like 10 years of students served.

Matt Kramer

Yeah.

Michael Horn

How do you think about outcomes and what you've done for those students? Like how do you all think about that as a network and what, you know, as impact from the student side. And I say strange question just because like it's not a test that shows you this or things like that. But what do you all look at?

Matt Kramer

Well, it's a really good question. For most of Wildflowers history, the overwhelming majority of the kids we served were preschool and kindergarten age kids where there are some standardized tests out there. But I think they are particularly weak, especially for when we're talking about three year old kids where like the basic brain structures that we refer to as intelligence in older kids and adults, those are actually not settled in 3 year olds yet. Like they have not formed yet. You can't measure them until they exist. And so a lot of our history we actually use assessments in especially as the kids get older, both ones that other schools are used to. I mean especially for the kids above third grade they're taking state tests if they're in either a charter or a voucher state where they require tests.

But even in the, you know, kindergarten, first, second grades, we're using things like NWEA. But we also Use other measures like Minnesota Executive Function Scale as a test of, you know, basically kids ability to manage their own thoughts and choices. So we've tried a bunch of things. I would say my comment on assessments is I sadly think we're not there yet. I think the thing that we really want and I, somebody recently told me that there is a new thing that Stanford's been working on that actually might be really good in this one. What we want is a tool that can be used for an assessment of a kid's learning on early literacy and early math where when you get the results back, as a teacher, it tells you what you need to know to think about that kid's education. It's sort of the same standard that you would ask for if you thought about sending a kid for a special ed related review. Like we're going to have this kid evaluated for ADHD and you bring a professional in and they would observe, they would write a bunch of notes down, that observation, the output of that observation is the thing you want to try to figure out what to do next. That has to me that is the standard for assessments of academic things. It has to produce the guidance to the teacher about what comes next. And I don't think we meet that standard most of the time. I think the sampling methodologies lead you to be like, oh well, it's more accurate at the level of a whole class that it is at the level of an individual kid. The level of individual kid. It often tells you the things you feel like you already know. To me that's unacceptable.

And we can't, we're not going to get assessment data that we feel good about using in the Broadway set of ways you could use assessment data until we clear that threshold. So I would say for most of Wildflower's life when we're talking about the really young kids, we have not cleared that threshold. And so we've been mostly like on a journey to figure out how to do it rather than to be really excited about it. That said, you know, we do use NWEA results. We just saw the ones for our New York charter come in. They were really strong, you know, so they're fine, but they don't, they don't feel, it doesn't feel like a good measure what we do in the absence of that, and this is a controversial thing I would say what we do in the absence of that is we put a lot of faith in parents to understand whether things are good for their kids. And we ask them what they think of the kids' experience and we ask them whether they would recommend it to a friend.

And we put a lot of trust in their ability to say what is in their interest and in the interest of their kids. Because in the absence of having a more reliable, objective measure of things, we think they're the people who know best. And you know, we asked the net promoter question and the net promoter scores for Wildflower families are in the 80s. And I think that,

Michael Horn

And for those that don't know, that's really, really high.

Matt Kramer

But yeah, it's about as high as you can get in terms of their enthusiasm about the schools. And it reflects the fact that the school experience for kids is really bespoke. Right. Like kids do not have the same experience when they come to Wildflower. The beauty of a 20 kid school is the teachers can actually think with the parents, with the kid. What does this kid need for this to be the experience that will help them become who they're meant to be and deliver that. And turns out that's mostly what families want. They want an educational experience that reflects who their kid is and what they want.

And they want somebody who loves their kid and takes care of them. And in our environments we can do both those things.

Michael Horn

All right, last question. You're 10 years old now, still growing, you know, several school openings a year, as you said, starting to do more elementary school, as charter and ESA have become more and more viable, on top of the three through six age three through six that you were doing 10 years from now, where do you think you all will be?

Matt Kramer

Well, yeah, I think it's a great question. I don't know the answer to it. We've been growing at around 20% a year for the last few years. So last year we, you know, the school year right now, 13 new schools. We're thinking this coming fall, maybe 15 to 20 new schools. And you know, like a lot of sort of network type designs, it sort of grows in that like proportional way. And so, you know, if we can do our part, right, if we can do the part that's about making sure we have the resources available to make startup grants and startup loans to schools, making sure that the tools get better, making sure that we're continuing to put the invitation out into the world to educators that this is something that they could think about doing and being helpful, my anticipation is that we will just keep on growing at the sort of clip and you know, as you do compound 20 a year over a period of time, it starts to get to be a big number.

You know, when I think about, like, how many Wildflower schools could there be in America? Like, how many kids. Would it make sense to have an environment like this available? I mean, listen, kids need different stuff. I'm not proposing that we have a Wildflower school for every kid, But I would not be surprised if Maybe this is 20 years, not 10 years, but like, I would not be surprised if there were tens of thousands of schools like this, you know, and it may not eventually all be Wildflower. At the moment, there aren't a lot of networks of decentralized microschool concepts growing very quickly. There's sort of only a few of us. But I think there's something powerful in the idea of really small schools, especially for the younger age kids and, you know, some degree for the older age kids too, that, you know, was once the way of things in America. We let it go for reasons that I think, looking back on, it turned out not to be persuasive.

They were persuasive at the time, but. And I think I don't see any reason why things won't migrate back in that direction. So that's, that's what I think our job is, is to create a set of tools in an environment in which if the, if, if it is meant to be, that there will be tens of thousands of these, our job is to make it possible.

Michael Horn

He's Matt Kramer, CEO of Wildflower Schools. Check it out online. Wildflowerschools.org Congratulations on 10 years. Thank you personally for the time you and many of your team members have spent with me teaching me, but also for supporting my own family and just really appreciate it. And for all you tuning in, Check it out, learn more. And we'll be back next time on the Future of Education.

The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 Horn

Welcome 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 Thigpen

Thank 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 Horn

Yeah. 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 Thigpen

I 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 Horn

Yeah, it's amazing to watch.

Tyler Thigpen

Incredible. 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 Environment

Tyler Thigpen

And 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 Horn

So 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 Thigpen

Yep. 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 Horn

Very 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 Thigpen

Yeah, 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 Horn

Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

Founded 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 collaborating, really, Michael the, with the leaders of a new development, you know, down here in the great state of Georgia, we still got a lot of space and some, you know, developments that are happening. And so we really build a trust building relationship with some leaders here. And they really wanted a school that would fit the neighborhood. And so I started just pro bono consulting with them to help them think through options, you know, district options, charter charter options, independent school options.

Choosing Educational Models for Kids

Tyler Thigpen

I just so happen to have children that I was looking for a high school for. And so the stars kind of aligned and we, you know, I was working at Transcend, a national nonprofit at the time and was familiar with a lot of different options and models, you know, public and private, to consider. And so I just brought all the models to the table with this group and, you know, they're not steeped in education. So they asked me what's my opinion. You know, the district option was great. We have a great relationship with the district here, but it's just going to take a long time. And they weren't really open to, you know, a new version of that in the ecosystem. Charter, you know, the charter constraints I'm very familiar with, we just didn't feel that we'd be able to be as innovative as we wanted to be.

And so we went with independent because of nimbleness and because we were going to have a public purpose and be a nonprofit. We thought that was a good speed and could be appropriately innovative for the kind of people we wanted to attract to the neighborhood. And we went with Acton. When I heard Jeff and Laura Sandifer, the founders, say on their video, we believe that every child is a genius and can change the world. I was like, I think that too. I wonder what their school model is like. And so I did a deep dive. And they're just lovely, people in the network are awesome people and a lot of parent entrepreneurs who have skin in the game with kids in their schools.

And, you know, early on, Jeff and Laura said, they said, you know, we feel like we figured out about 15% of this learning model and we feel like the founders and the network are going to figure out the other 85%. And I really took them seriously. And I was like, this is a place to, you know, join as well as play. And so I pitched that to the town developers and showed them some of the videos and talked about my vision for it and, and they, they cut a check, you know, for our founding funders.

Michael Horn

Amazing.

Tyler Thigpen

That first morning.

High School Microschool Challenges

Michael Horn

Amazing, amazing. A few different directions I want to go. But let me start with this: high school. Because when a lot of folks talk about the micro school movement, broadly speaking, high schools, where a lot of people sort of, I don't know if squeamish is the right word, but like, they get, they're not sure it's going to grow into that. Here you have a high school, you know, you're sending your kids through it, right? And, and I think the criticism, you know, it probably as well as I do, right. That bundle of other things, right, that creates the high school experience, is that something kids really want to forego for a smaller environment that's more bespoke, perhaps in, in all definitions of that word. How have you thought about that? What have you learned? What have you seen in terms of high school and micro school?

Tyler Thigpen

It's a great point, Michael. And obviously a ton of your work is connected to that handshake right between the high schools and the life's next steps. And high school is my bag of donuts. That's been the vast majority of my career. I worked, I'm actually an ordained minister. I worked with high schoolers as a full time minister for years before I moved into education. And then I taught at Georgia's largest public high school, served as high school principal. And so most of the bulk of my experience was with the high school model in general.

And so it was less fearful to me. A lot of the microschool founders that I'm familiar with, they just have less connectivity to it and there's so much to learn. It feels a little bit overwhelming. Not so for me. It felt very empowering for me. And I could see in the even very innovative high schools I had led that were teacher centric before, I saw some of the gaps and flaws and ways in which to kind of really change it out. So I felt bullish about that. In terms of what's being offered.

You're right. I mean, it's a trade off. And for some families, you know, it's not worth it to move into a smaller environment. You know, for some learners, it's not worth it. They want the friends, you know, they want Friday Night Lights. I mean, American football is a social institution in our nation, especially the south in Georgia, but we're actually part of a sports league where our learners can actually participate in American football with neighboring schools.

Michael Horn

That's cool.

Tyler Thigpen

We have a team. And because we're learner led, we say to kids when they have an idea, we're like, all right, if you want to start something, you got to get a critical mass of people to help do it with you. And then you've got to have a parent volunteer who can help. And that's how we got our boys basketball program started. Last night, we literally had our parent player end of season scrimmage. I'm happy to say that we won, the parents by three.

Michael Horn

You're hanging on. Yeah.

Tyler Thigpen

My son did block me like two or three times during the night, though, so I was humbled. And then, you know, our girls volleyball team got started that way. An environmental club gets started that way. Dungeons and Dragons club gets started that way. And frankly, I'm okay with those programs even dying over time because it is learner led. I mean, if the learners lose a will for it, you know, we'll.= move on. And then the other thing I've noticed in, you know, in independent schools and working with them, and not just independent, but, but also public schools, millennial parents these days, you know, tend to, instead of, you know, paying for a larger chunk of tuition so that the school has and offers all the services they want to be able to do with their funds, what they want to be able to do.

Michael Horn

More à la carte.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, à la carte. Right. So the fact that we have a core tuition that covers our operations and then they can, you know, bespoke choose what they want to do. They seem to like that model, you know, at least for now. So that's kind of how we're overcoming it, you know, but that's where we're at.

Michael Horn

Very cool. What, what is the tuition, out of curiosity, because that's always been a hallmark of Acton, is affordable also.

Tyler Thigpen

It is. Right now it's 12.9, $12,900 for the year, which if you look at, I mean, Atlanta has a very competitive independent school market that is very reasonable. And, and what's more than that is that more than covers the cost of our operations. Most independent schools, you know, in the United States, year after year, have increased the rates of tuition over and above the rate of inflation. And so it's priced a lot of families out. Yeah, we have sliding scale because we're economically diverse. We make use of our state's funding program, it's a tax credit program to be able to raise funds for lower income families to provide financial aid, financial, financial based, you know, scholarships for them. And that, that really works well for us.

And we don't have, Michael, an annual fund, which, you know, it was a learning moment for me when I moved into the independent school sector at one point. You know, it's just a common thing for a lot of private schools to have an annual fund and raise money over and above tuition. We don't have one and God willing, we never will. You know, that's my commitment. So.

Michael Horn

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because an annual fund can be quite exclusionary to some of those families that cannot afford right above and beyond. So it makes sense. Let me ask this question then. You lead the Institute for Self Directed Learning, your new book, the Playbook for Self Directed Learning. Self directed learning is a big part of the Acton model as well, building learners who are self directed over time.

How do you like, tell us about how that journey is? Do you know of, of helping learners take ownership over what they, you know, what and how they learn and so forth. And where's the autonomy and where are the guardrails and scaffolds perhaps?

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, great question. So the way we define it is self directed learning is happening when learners are. It's not alone. It's not learners sort of off in a cave.

Michael Horn

Doing this is not autodidact by yourself. Okay.

Tyler Thigpen

Totally, totally. Which would be a Legit critique, know, self directed learning. But it's, it's when they're in the context of a community of peers, you know, trained educators and caring adults. But they have a ton of choice. They get to choose the process, the content, the skills, the learning pathways, you know, the outcomes of learning. And, and they're doing it in service of finding a calling, you know, that will change the world. And, and what we've been trying to do is study that pathway.

Phases of Self-Directed Learning

Tyler Thigpen

So we do have a, through our institute, we have a peer reviewed study that our head of research, Dr. Caleb Collier, he's got a PhD in self directed learning he put out that describes four phases of the pathway of a self directed learner. The first phase, you know, very familiar to all of us, just building the desire for learning, you know, making sure that kids feel like they belong, they are safe, they're having their core needs met and then they see relevance in their learning, you know, which is not to be taken, you know, for granted by any stretch. But that's just phase one. You know, phase two is when learners start to go into advanced player mode by instead of choosing to do something easy and, you know, just amusing, they will choose to do something challenging. So instead of, you know, watching Netflix on the phone or talking with their friends, they're going to choose to do a challenging task where they have to learn and they experience the learning pit, you know, know, and, you know, hitting that brick wall and feeling that frustration. That's phase two. We call it resourcefulness. The third phase we call initiative, which is where learners are now not just starting to, you know, solve problems, they're actually finding problems, you know, and they're seeking them out and they're making their plans, they're setting goals.

They've got a structured process for, you know, setting their goals. At our school, we use smart goals and whoop goals, you know, wish outcome, obstacle path, a great, a great protocol for goal setting. And that's, so that's initiative. But then that's not it either. Phase four, and this is, you know, ninja mode, this is, it's persist, right? It's where regardless of whatever struggle comes their way, they're going to be resilient, they're going to overcome it and nothing's going to stop them from learning, you know, and so we, we care a lot about that pathway. We talk about that pathway a lot. We invite learners to consider where they are on that pathway.

We invite parents and caregivers to consider where they believe they are on that pathway, and their children. And then we think through like what are the different guide moves, educator moves, mentor moves at each one of those phases, you know, but that's the end goal. And typically Michael, I mean, as you would imagine, like when we share that pathway with education leaders across the U.S. I mean, they very much resonate. Oh yeah, that's what we're trying to do. You know, regardless of the subject, they all want to get there.

Michael Horn

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I'm curious. My observation of a lot of the Acton’s that I've been in is it's a really neat blend of self direction on the knowledge or foundational knowledge, maybe put it through the technology and then in pursuit of these bigger goals and the projects and sort of the larger arc of the year. And it does a really good job of balancing like for each kid, some of the things that maybe people would worry about. Right. Of Michael's only going to study underwater basket weaving, which doesn't have a lot of, you know, outside applicability.

What have you learned about some of those questions in the institute? And then let's start there and then maybe we can transition in the book.

Tyler Thigpen

Well, we've learned about how to systematize that for sure. I think, you know, which for us and other Acton’s and I think other competency based schools who hold similar approaches, you know, it is making a very transparent process even at the beginning of each year to say, okay, what are the skills, knowledge and competencies that the learner is going to encounter and strive to master over the course of the year? You know, the way we do it is we present that to the parents, caregivers and learners at the beginning of the year and ask for their feedback. Say, is this right? You know, and then what do we want to add, subtract or change and then what are your goals in terms of pacing for finishing that? Right. And then, and then let them, let them go. And then as guides, we hold them, hold them to that. So we keep the onus on the learner. So it's not our time frame, it's not even our goals.

We're just the coaches. Yeah, yeah, facilitators. And then, you know, you'll have some parents who care a ton about not just the foundational skills, but even bulking that up even more and making sure that the foundational skills are super strong. And then you have the opposite end. You have some parents and caregivers and learners who are like, yeah, we don't really value that. As much. And. And then we want more exploratory components or we want more electives, you know, and the cool thing about having a guide instead of a teacher is you can facilitate that instead of, you know, direct instruction, it's.

It's managing the quality of learning through multiple channels. You know, I think in the young ages, they're still heavier on direct instruction. You know, we happen to have, for ages 3, 4, 5 and 6, they're in, It's a Montessori environment.

Michael Horn

Yep.

Tyler Thigpen

Which definitely includes, you know, some direct instruction, but some letting go over time. Our second, third grade is still pretty heavy direct instruction. I think we found that to be crucial. And then when it starts to get into grades four and above, we've learned that's when you can really wean learners off of that direct instruction. But what's so important is making sure our guides and staff know different facilitation protocols to help learners, you know, reflect and self assess, and then making sure the learners grow in their own ability to assess and self assess, you know, their own learning and then their peers learning as well without that's kind of a missing.

A missing piece for all this. And they can be just sort of adrift and not, you know, not know what they're learning, what they have learned, what they need to learn,

Michael Horn

Where they're doing it, et cetera. Yeah, exactly. Makes a ton of sense. And sort of the gradual release, if you will, through the ages so that they can have more agency and choice because they know more of what's out there, also makes us, you know, makes sense, I suppose. I'm curious. Last question before we transition the book, I promise. But I'm super curious to ask you this. When I hear people talk about direct instruction, I think a lot of the mental model they have is one teacher, 30 students.

I'm telling you the information. My observation to your point is, in a Montessori classroom, direct instruction is absolutely happening. But it's like one on one, one on three, one on four. Occasionally, you know, we do certain lessons right that involve everyone, but it's. It's like a much more varied direct instruction. Let me show you.

Now you try with me here. Now you do. Right. Sort of release. And that when your students get older, as you just described, they're still sort of getting direct instruction in the sense of, like, from computers or, you know, like. Right. Like, it's not like they're not learning content or engaging with a demonstration of how to do this thing that I think is important and I'm trying to learn.

And so it sort of gives lie, I think, to one of the weird dichotomies we've constructed in education. You can tell me I'm crazy and I'm wrong, but I'm just sort of curious your take on that framing.

Tyler Thigpen

I totally agree, Michael. I think it's a great observation to me when I think about where direct instruction can go wrong is when the teacher structures it such that the teacher really is the sage on the stage, you know, and that the answer, the content, the expertise, the assessment, whatever has to come from that individual, you know,

Michael Horn

and so it's all dependent on that person now.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Rather than, you know, the teacher is facilitating, you know, facilitating the learning. And I was actually with a group of superintendents, principals in Ohio last week. We were talking about this and I just sort of off the cuff mentioned the fact that, like, what I've observed and what I have done myself. So I'm confessing here as a teacher, I mean, like, we can get addicted to, you know, the dopamine rush of explaining something to a kid and them getting it and us being.

Feeling good about ourselves, you know, and be like, yes, like, thank God my.

Michael Horn

Yeah, the magic moment is cool. I help facilitate that.

Empowering Learners Through Self-Differentiation

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah. My existence is worthwhile because I explained it to them, you know, rather than letting them, you know, productively struggle and wrestle with it and. And different. Helpfully differentiate ourselves. And I am using a term there from family systems theory, self differentiation, which I think can be really helpful here, where the teacher appreciates the fact that, like, the job of the learner is to learn and that cannot be forced, you know, and to help support and create the conditions, the inspiration, the incentives, you know, the structures, the milestones, the celebrations, all that. But ultimately it's a win not because the learner got it, because we explained it, but the learner got it because they came to it on their own, because you cannot take that away from them, you know. And, you know my parents.

I love my parents. I grew up with a lot of. A lot of. A lot of commands, you know, a lot of. A lot of direct instruction. And it came from an unbelievably great place. But it wasn't until I was outside of that environment, you know, as an adult, as a professional, where I started to appreciate the benefits and the power of coming to things on your own, discovering them on your own.

You know, people are so, in my opinion, I mean there's so we all have thoughts, you know, we all have feelings, we all have a will and plans that come from a beautiful, beautiful place. And so structuring the learning such that it really appreciates those things and creates space for them to be explored and developed. It's just the way direct instruction. If it's only that, you know, it doesn't provide for a lot of the plan making that a young person be doing. It doesn't plan, it doesn't allow for a lot of the like sense making and feelings working through the feelings, you know that, that I think learner centered schools are really latching onto.

Michael Horn

Very cool. Okay, let's turn to you the book now, the Playbook for Self Directed Learning: Leaders Guide to School Transformation and Student Agency. Why did you write the book? What are you hoping comes out of it? Yeah, and I should, I should mention it's not just you. Caleb is a co author who we mentioned. Amber Bryant, Brittney Toles. It's the four of you who have come together to do this work.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, and that's an important point, Michael. Those are dear friends, also parents of learners at the school. Two white men, two black women who we've been working together for the last seven years and we all bring our different backgrounds to this work and you know, love our community and together have sort of tried to with our team, broadly, you know, figure out what works, what doesn't work. And we have, we have pivoted so many times, you know, and so this is our attempt at sort of capturing, you know, some of that learning here. And, and so yeah, in terms of the book itself, you know, what would be, what would be helpful to riff on?

Implementing Educational Principles in Schools

Michael Horn

Well, so I know that each chapter sort of lays out strategies, right for how to put these principles in place in a school. I guess I would love to hear, you know, is this something that can really be done in an existing school or do they need to have Tabula Rasa to create something blank slate? Like how, how do you think about that? Because that strikes me as one of the biggest questions facing the country right now is do we actually believe this will come from the emergence of a vast diverse array of new schooling types or do we think we can actually move districts and existing schools to embrace the principles you're talking about?

Tyler Thigpen

Yep, I'd love to, I'll address that last point last I think the, are you familiar with the book Teach Like a Champion from Doug?

Michael Horn

Of course. Yeah. Doug Lemov.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, massive you know, for the listeners, a massive, you know, power, powerful book at a moment in history in education that, that a lot of really empowered and inspired a lot of educators and, and you, you know, I've read it and had used some of the techniques and really I use the word techniques because it was, that it was a book of techniques. It was like a playbook that you could tick it off. I'm going to do this. And it was to really manage a classroom to get learners focused on a discrete standard. And I do think the techniques did an effective job of that. I think we see our book as a companion to that for a different purpose. It's techniques for learner centeredness. It's what are the techniques adults can do to create responsibly, the space for the feelings, the plans and the thoughts for learners to take hold of their own learning.

So that's why we did it. And you're asking what we hope to do with the book now. Maybe all of us will have rose colored glasses. We do think it's possible. And so we speak in the book to both public and private school leaders and educators, you know, public school leaders who are, and educators who are dealing with the constraints of a standards based environment and private school leaders who are dealing with the expectations of parents and caregivers, you know, for you know, life's next steps. Some, you know, college prep environments. And then of course there's that both of those things exist sometimes in the other sphere as well. But you know, the process that we've explored and have discovered and continue to work with districts on is we have identified sort of principles that are true about learner led classrooms and learner led schools versus teacher led classrooms and teacher led schools.

Shifting to Learner-Led Education

Tyler Thigpen

And that, that's actually the different outline of our book. And we kind of, and their examples are like in a learner led school the learners are typically doing the choosing, whereas in a teacher led school the teachers typically are choosing things and there's a whole host of things they're choosing. Another example is in a learner led school, learners are doing the assessing for the most part or they're being assessed by experts or by peers. Whereas in a teacher led school the teachers really are the ones who are doing the assessing. And so it's, it, it's a different set of spectra on, on those, along those lines. But what we've done with districts, which is more of a, it's not a let's blow up the model and start something new. It's like, let's slowly work towards this is you've gotten with teachers in public school settings, in teacher centric settings, and we've taught the principals and we've inspired them to take a lesson that they're going to do next week, you know, and say, okay, now that you know these principles and here's the lesson that you have in front of you. What's one thing you can do to make it more learner led, you know, or what's two things you can do along these spectra? And which one did you choose and why? And then share that out and they share it.

And now go try it. And they'll go try it. And you know, usually it goes really well because learners are amazing. And you know, when they're given the choice and voice and agency, they will take it. And even when they make poor choices, if the natural consequences are in place, they'll learn from that. And so teachers come back and they'll share about that experience. And of course, if they're sharing about this experience in the context of other educators, then, you know, they're sort of stealing ideas shamelessly from one another, which is great. And then, you know, teachers.

And then it's rinse and repeat, do it again. And so teachers will take another lesson and just make that a little bit more learner led. And then as they do that over the course of a year or so, really we've done partnerships for multiple years at districts. They get better and they sort of as a default, they're building their muscles at making their classrooms or their departments even more learner led, even more learner centered, where kids have even more agency. And then at some point we'll stop them and we'll ask them, okay, what are the barriers? You know, like what. What are you encountering perceived or real that is stopping you from doing more? And of course, they're incredible at naming barriers. The teachers are. And when you have leadership that's on board, leaders will listen very, very carefully to those barriers.

And then they'll get together and they'll say, all right, what can we, you know, what barriers can we completely remove? Which ones can we tweak to make it easier? And then which ones can we just. We got to keep. But we can help them navigate around. And then the leaders and teachers have that conversation. And in our experience, when, when a district does that, the ball really can move, move forward, but it's playing a long game. You know, it's having a lot of courage. You know, it's having some skills in change management, for sure. And so a real deep belief in the trajectory.

So it's not, it's not for everybody because not everybody's there yet. But our book aims to be that thing that one can take off the shelf, open up and be like, okay, this week I'm gonna do this.

Michael Horn

And so super practical, super down to earth. Maybe as we wrap up, are there places, district schools, independent schools, but existing schools that you're like, excited about, that you'd say, you know, check out this place because they're doing this one thing that's really cool and you wouldn't believe it if I didn't tell you it existed.

Tyler Thigpen

Yeah, absolutely. So we worked for years with Pike County Public schools in Georgia, Rural district. Former superintendent Mike Duncan, who's state superintendent of the year, he was there for, you know, over a decade, which that's a part of it.

Michael Horn

You know, that's right. You need continuity. So we're all swimming toward this goal. Yeah, right.

Tyler Thigpen

You know, they, they took a stance around, you know, moving their educators towards the role of a guide in a public setting, you know, unapologetically, enthusiastically. I'm thinking about there's another school, I'm touting Georgia schools while I have the opportunity.

Michael Horn

No, go for it.

Tyler Thigpen

North of Atlanta, North Hall High School has this math department led by this guy called Jason, who has got a real switched on team there. And you know, one example of how they've made it learner lead is this one teacher at high school level math decided to, at the beginning of a unit, give all the kids in that classroom all the standards for that unit and give them all the resources that they would need, both human and material and online and say, all right, you've got six weeks. I'll be here if you need me. Go. And let them prove mastery in their own way. And sure enough, they did, you know, and now he's doing it over and over. But those are the kind of, I think, examples I'd highlight. But again, what's true about those is you've got leadership that's on board and, and stay and hanging around. You know, you've got courage because there's pushback always, you know, when change happens and, and you've just got folks who have rolled up their sleeves and are committed, you know, for the long haul.

Celebrating Self-Directed Learning Guide

Michael Horn

Well, and that is a worthwhile goal. We will leave it there. But Tyler, thanks so much for coming on. Congrats on the book, the Playbook for Self Directed Learning: A leader's guide to School Transformation and Student Agency. Something worth aspiring to. Appreciate the work you're doing on the ground online at the Institute and now with this book. Thanks so much.

Tyler Thigpen

Thank you, Michael. Great chatting with you. And all the best.

The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 Horn

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 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 Levesque

Thanks for having us.

Michael Horn

And then Ben DeGrow, the senior policy director of Education Choice at ExcelinEd., Ben, good to see you as well.

Ben DeGrow

Thanks. Great to be with you.

Michael Horn

I'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 Levesque

Sure. 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 Horn

Ben, 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 DeGrow

Yeah, 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 Horn

All 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 Autonomy

Patricia Levesque

Sure. 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 Balance

Patricia Levesque

Right. 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 Horn

Ben, 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 Guardrails

Ben DeGrow

It 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 tests that more closely align with their curriculum. So they are actually offering, you know, genuine options and alternatives for students and inviting participation for these schools into these programs. So it is less of a deterrent than mandating the state test as the sole instrument. I would also add, when we think about accountability, the evolution from the traditional volunteer scholarship into the ESA has put an added emphasis also on the need for fiscal accountability. As we think about what kind of guardrails do you need to put in place as families have more flexibility to spend money on things beyond just private school tuition, but also an array of goods and services. And every state, as I set up an ESA program, has to think through these things. And part of the work we do in implementation and our ESA administrator network and areas like that is to help states which are already, the administrators are already very focused on making sure those guardrails are high is to help them balance that consideration with the need of families who are driving the creation of these programs, and that's probably an area we can delve into more.

Michael Horn

Well, I think that's a perfect launching point, right, because that's one of the big conversations. Maybe let's start like where these ESA programs even live and how you manage them and how you help families access the dollars and their set of choices. We see, you know, Step up for Students in Florida. We see Odyssey in other states some places the Department of Ed is trying to do this work directly. How do you all think about where these programs live and who manages them?

Ben DeGrow

It's one of the first and most important decisions to be made when crafting An ESA policy and one that gets easily overlooked, especially in the early days. State lawmakers, policymakers would think, well, we just obviously put this in the Department of Education, right, because it's an education program within our ESA administrator network, which encompasses about 20 states. And we bring these program managers in to share best practices, to share technical resources with one another, hear the same common issues and concerns that they're dealing with. We have representatives from Departments of Education, we have Departments of Treasury, we have agencies that oversee that some states do, the higher ed financing authorities. And we also have nonprofit organizations like you referenced, Step up for Students, Children's Scholarship Fund and most recently ACE Scholarships. We have over time come to see that these nonprofit agencies are probably the preferable option to run them because they're not only mission driven, they get involved in this because they believe in the power of opportunity and choice for kids and families. We also have the flexibility to adapt to the needs as these programs scale up. That includes personnel decisions about contracting out to review expenses or other things along those lines.

So flexibility, mission driven. We like to see nonprofits, but we'll work with all agencies and help them work on focusing on that student centered, customer driven approach.

Michael Horn

One of the other things that this then raises the window is right, what can you spend on how far afield, right, how wide you make the sets of choices? You talked about balancing the desires of parents with the state's concern. I imagine some of what Patricia was talking about in terms of what's the participation of various providers is also an interesting data point. And thinking about getting that balance right, what's your own take around how flexible and how much freedom you give families to spend on whatever they want, that connects to education? And then my assumption, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, is the further afield you get out from the topics that a norm reference test would measure, the less relevant those sort of external markers become. And it's more about the parent understanding. Did my child make the progress I had hoped for?

Ben DeGrow

I will say we again, we would always want to focus on making sure that we're trying as a lot of our ESA administrators that we work with, their goal is to try to get to yes and help serve parents needs and make sure that they are getting the services, the goods they need. Whether it's curriculum, whether it's tutoring, whether it's a therapy for a child with dyslexia or autism, transportation to an education program. Every state has a lot of the same allowable expenses, but every state's a little different in the nuance and what's allowable and what's not. And that starts in the statute and it comes down to the level, how it's interpreted at the agency that's administering. So lots of challenges. We would say do the best you can to get to yes, but I recognize that you need clarity for families. So if you're going to set up guardrails, and you should set up guardrails.

For example, if a child needs a laptop for educational purposes, how often should they be able to purchase a laptop? Do they really need one every year? And an agency could say, well, we'll allow one every three years, for example, to make sure that families are balancing that the vast majority of families are legitimately working to help get goods and services to their child that they need. And so really the agency has to police the boundaries of those, that small percentage of people who might want to misuse the system. But we want to make sure that all those guardrails are in place that focuses on helping families get to the yes.

Patricia Levesque

And Michael, I would add to that. I think Ben was focusing on, you know, those kind of discrete expenditures that are maybe some of them are on the periphery. I would like to point out too that what private schools are eligible is also, you know, an actual difference of opinion in some states, there are some recent states that decided, well, the way that we're going to ensure that it's a real, for real private school is the schools have to be accredited. And what that essentially does in many states is cut out half of the supply that exists in the state or even the opportunity for some of the newer types of models like micro schools to be able to participate. Whereas what you see in a state like Florida is that there is more of a checklist of. Here are the 10 things that we want to see to ensure that you are private school to participate.

Ensuring Accountability in Education Policies

Patricia Levesque

We want to see background checks on the instructional personnel and we want to see that you've gotten your fire inspection or your health inspection or your radon inspection. There's more of a list of health, safety, general welfare, financial, you know, accountability type of provisions. And we do a site inspection and then, yes, you're eligible to participate. When we work with states on policy design, before it even gets to the bill passed and you're implementing, we would encourage states to be broader in the types of entities or institutions that can participate. It'll bring a healthier marketplace into existence in your state and actually give families more opportunities and options and there's still again a balance. Right? I think you're going to hear us say that word often. How much do you open up the market? How much do you have to do you narrow the market? So there's quote accountability. I think there's a good healthy balance in all of these things.

Michael Horn

So let's actually stay with that, Patricia, because what you just raised in thinking about that balance, it suggests that maybe there's another principle as states are starting to look at this, which is, and I want to check myself here, but in the policy itself, start broad, don't over prescribe, but know that when you get into the regulation there's a good deal more work to be done. And that's where you know, figuring out where you're assigning the, you know, what, what entity is going to manage this, the guardrails you're going to put up, striking the balance. Is that how you would think about it? Is like start broad and then sort of hone in on, on the finer details as you get into the specifics of operationalizing. Or is there a better approach as states are looking at these various policies right now in your, in, in both of your view?

Patricia Levesque

I agree. Broad is better for the, especially the places and the institutions and the tutors and the therapists that you start broader so that you have a lot of opportunity out there for families. I think what we would also say is ESAs are not brand new creations anymore. Right. They've been around for a while. You have a program like the state of Florida where there's 500,000 students that have been awarded for next school year either a full ESA or what some people call micro grants. Right. It's just for transportation or just for reading tutoring or, or math tutoring.

But that's a lot of information and data over multiple years on what you know, different policy prescriptions make it easier for families to access as well as give whomever is the, you know, administering agency enough guidelines so that they know how to administer the program well and that goes to not only just what kind of schools, but what's the window for parents to apply? What is the order like it, I think states that prescribed specific time frames of this student gets eligible on this date before this next group. All of those add administrative challenges to getting a program off the ground or making it parent friendly. Right, family friendly each year as parents have to enroll or re-enroll their child.

Ben DeGrow

I would concur. I mean there's definitely always a temptation to write legislation that can become too prescriptive. But at the same time using that word balance, you do have to include some level of detail to identify the categories of things families can spend money on to demonstrate legislative intent. And once you get down to that next level, that's as Patricia was suggesting, the administrative challenges pop into place. For those of us who've worked in the field of policy for length of time, we always talk about how there's a gap between what's written on paper and what gets put into practice from the implementation. Now I don't see anywhere where that's more true than ESAs. We created programs that originally were designed to serve students with special needs or learning challenges. In Arizona and Florida, the earliest programs, really around the principle of giving families the ability to customize, recognizing that each child is unique and has individual needs.

And so trying to define exactly what families can spend money on in statute is impossible. And you do the best you can to kind of identify and categorize those things. But as you get down from statute into the program rules and then to the policy handbooks and then the actual day to day decisions as they review expenses and things, it has to be a way to find that individual child's means within clear, consistent, transparent guardrails. And that's. It's an ongoing challenge. But we're seeing states grow in this area and get, and get better at it over time.

Michael Horn

Yeah. And so I guess the principles don't sort of cut off the ability to tick and tack and get it right from the get go. Start with some models that are already out there that are pretty proven at this point. One of the pieces that's getting a lot of conversation right now is around the funding piece at the moment. There's, you know, it moves beyond special needs students to universal choice. There's been a lot of conversation about, well, it says universal choice, but a lot of these programs are not funded such that they could serve every single student in the state. Or there's a lot of double funding. Right.

Where we continue the funding flow to districts. We have a separate line item in effect around the ESAs that are getting created. How do you think, you know, a state getting into this should do it? Is there a right way to maybe baby step and then grow into this? Is that an evolution or is it get it right from the get go? How do you both think about the funding piece of this and how it should be set up?

Phased Approach to Education Funding

Ben DeGrow

There's no one perfect script or roadmap for states, but there are some good principles for states to consider as they're going down this path and, and lots of factors are going to help determine it. Even for those who want to make the opportunity available to as many students as possible as soon as possible, we recommend states, you know, step back and think about the fiscal impacts and the administrative challenges. So phasing in a program over multiple years is something several states have tried, and that usually just means phasing in the eligibility. So in year one, you are only including students up to a certain income level or students who previously attended a public school or otherwise limiting, you know, maybe the, the amount or the number of slots available. We don't want that to deter the ultimate goal, which is to create a system that's open to everyone and a system that creates a fair, equitable funding for students regardless of which path their families choose for them, even if it takes three or four years to get there. The other thing we're looking at more and more seriously is helping states think about. And some states are doing this to some degree, but most states have a lot of work to do is serving the students who bring like, low income challenges, learning challenges, and helping to fund them at a rate that's right,

Reflects that to make them more, you know, palatable, to have more options to, to access private schools. But also they may need more services along the lines of tutoring or just support navigating the system. So building that phase and plan, building an equitable system are two of the things we help states think about.

Patricia Levesque

And I would say over the long run, you need to contemplate where do you want to be 10 years from now? Right? Do you want to. I think Florida is one of the few states where the funding is built into the funding formula. So when the legislature meets, they're basically funding the public school and educational opportunities in one funding formula. And it's based on estimates of, you know, how many students are going to be in, in each of the different systems. And it's more of an automatic process where in many states it's a line item that has to be adjusted every single year that you're in a legislative session. And I think those, it's not that those are bad. I mean, I think it's wonderful that that's the way programs have been able to get off the ground. But if you really want to have a system where it's going to grow based on where parents decide and how the systems evolve, it probably needs to be more of an automatic type of formula that's Set up what Ben talked about in either system, in the public system and in your choice system, students that have higher needs, low income students or special needs students should generate more funding, whether they're going to a public school, a public charter, or taking a scholarship with them to a, to a private opportunity.

Those types of things are going to be really important to have built into your, your funding streams and how you think about having the program work.

Michael Horn

Yeah, it strikes me that it allows for scale, Right, organically as demand grows in either sector, I guess in either direction, but particularly in the choice one. It also occurs to me and Patricia, I'd love your take on this, that Florida, because of just the number of years of choice that you all have had. Like if I think back to how Florida Virtual School got started back in the 90s or early 2000s, if memory serves, it got written, I think into the state funding formula in like 03 or something like that. But it was still like a hold harmless double funding for like some number of years, I want to say. And so maybe that's like a baby step in Florida just because of the experience in years that has been able to really move to that full fledged model that you'd want to see ultimately. Thoughts on that?

Patricia Levesque

I do think started small and slow, you know, very, very small. Right. The first private school choice in the state of Florida, that was called the Opportunity Scholarship Program, only for students in failing schools. I think the first year had 42 students in it. Right. The first in Florida, special needs voucher. The first year only had two students in it because it was, you know, assigned to one county. But then the programs grew, the eligibility grew, or the region grew, or allowing a student to stay in the program if they met initial eligibility requirements.

All of those things allowed the program to grow slowly. And so what you see in Florida is a really mature ecosystem. I think for other states that are going from zero to universal in one or two years, they might have more hiccups like normal things like how do you make sure the private schools feel comfortable participating and receiving public funding? How do you communicate? How do parents find out about these programs? A lot of those things. There, there, there's going to be a lot of really heavy lifting quickly for implementation. And that's what makes, I think, the work that Ben does, having a network of mature ESA administrators and the very young new ones learning and sharing with each other. What are those best practices? What do you have in your handbook? How do you define what we sometimes refer to as gray area expenses. How do you treat them Arizona versus how do you treat them Florida? And it can really educate a new administrator as they're having to make some of these decisions quite quickly in order to get a new program off the ground.

Michael Horn

Ben, maybe just talk a little bit about that work and what it looks like on the ground. Right. And for those unfamiliar with what you're doing with those states and how they're supporting each other, just to give a view of, as Patricia just said, to rapidly, right, gGet these programs off the ground. When you know it passes in legislature and a couple months later you expect to have something up and going for families.

Ben DeGrow

Yeah, it's a venture that takes a lot of humility and cooperation because no state has really mastered this and completely figured this out. But as Patricia is suggesting, some states are more mature in the things they've learned and are able to share those lessons with others. So we work through something called the ESA Administrator Network, which ExcelinEd created back in 2020. And we're now up to 20 states participating in any, any state that's kind of overseeing a complex parent directed spending program. Whether it's a full fledged ESA where families can use their funds for private school tuition and or these other education expenses, or we have a handful of states that operate micro grants or supplemental ESAs that are smaller allotments where families can just spend on certain services. There's a lot to learn so we come together multiple times a year with the group and share our learnings and have them share formal learnings in these settings. And just a lot of conversation.

Resource Sharing for Program Implementation

Ben DeGrow

The feedback we get is all the conversations that they have with each other during the off program time is where they get a lot of value out of it. But we also try to keep in touch with them in multiple ways. And then we collect the technical resources and documents and things that it takes to get these programs off the ground. Whether it's contracts with vendors, RFPs to help secure the vendors, whether it's handbooks for parents and providers and marketing materials and half a dozen other things. We collect and share those resources with new states, especially as they're coming on board, and we try to give it to them in small doses to help them think about the next step. We also came up with an ESA implementation guide drawing on the wisdom of our some of our veteran states and leaders. And we use that as well kind of highlight the steps, all the steps you have to think about to get from we pass the legislation to now we can start a program and there's a lot to think about and a lot of lessons that we are continuously learning alongside them.

Patricia Levesque

I'll give you one specific example. I won't name the state. There's a state that had a brand new ESA and the administrator was really concerned and said we're going to need to delay the launch of the ESA because we did an open call for providers, vendors to get signed up and we, and we only had a handful of vendors signed up. We can't launch the program if we don't have vendors signed up pre approved in the system. And it was really helpful to have another state that had one year of implementation already under their belt to be able to say don't worry about getting vendors or providers pre approved. The parents will bring you the providers. Right? The parents, once they choose a school or a tutor or wherever they want, they'll make sure their provider gets into your system. So it was really reassuring to have that lived experience of that, you know, one year more mature administrator giving the new one kind of that reassurance. Don't worry about that. When you're, you're fine, you're fine.

Michael Horn

It's a great story and I love it also because it shows that, you know, we don't have to have all the answers from the top, the bottom. Right. The parents, the actual demand can, can bring us the supply if you will, over time as well. Last question, maybe as we wrap up here, there are several other areas I know we could geek out on and work through. The other one that I've heard come up in a few different ways recently is around financial safeguards and specifically like curtailing providers from unreasonably inflating their tuition. And on one side you have folks saying like, hey, and I literally just heard this anecdote about a provider in Florida actually being like, I'm raising my tuition by 7K or whatever, you know, the amount of the ESA because now I can, there's, there's public money. I'd be foolish to just leave that on the table.

And then some states that have said look, if we see a price hike like that, we're going to take action. You know, that's not okay. And others being like it should work out in the end because if you're talking about an esa, it's effectively a wallet. And so parents, you know, supply, demand can sort of take over over time. And maybe they do that in short term, but over time. Right, it should rebalance. How do you guys think about that conversation and where states ought to land, because it pertains directly to the ultimate thing around how do we get supply and really participating supply right in, in these marketplaces?

Inflation, Tuition, and Scholarships

Ben DeGrow

I'll take, I'll take the first crack at it. I think one of the lessons we take away is, well, first of all, there might always be isolated operators who will try to do that. If you look at the larger data trends, what we see in Florida, for example, is more correlation between rates of inflation and tuition than we do the advent of scholarship program or no scholarship program or universal access to scholarship programs. There's basically two effects that work and this is why we push states toward a more open, competitive model. There's, of course, the subsidy affect you talk about. As you give families more access to funds and they have more funds to put in the marketplace, it can encourage providers to raise the price. But there's also competitive effects that can offset that. So if we, if we set up a program like Florida or Arizona or Utah, New Hampshire, a lot, much of these states where families can use the funds not just on a narrow set of private schools, but a broad marketplace that includes private schools of different varieties, as well as micro schools and hybrid options and homeschooling and customized services.

The more competition you put into the market, the more it deters individual providers from trying to game the system. So there's never going to be a perfect solution. But an open approach like some of these states are doing is one way we see to really to address that problem.

Patricia Levesque

Yeah, I would agree with Ben and just say that we hear those anecdotal stories, right? There's one school here that's going to immediately raise tuition to eat up the full amount of the ESA. But the only state where we have a lot of data over many years is Florida. And so looked at 11 years worth of almost 2000 private schools and looked at their, their actual tuition increases based on the data, and we looked at the average increase each year and then looked at the prior 12 months of inflation data, and it's exactly what Ben said, is that private schools really, you can see their tuition increases are very much in line with inflation. The other thing that when we talked with private school operators in the state of Florida and asked about what's going on with tuition, this is what we're hearing from lawmakers. And they pointed out something else really interesting, which is in the state of Florida, at the same time lawmakers have been increasing educational opportunities through universal ESAs, they've also been purposefully putting billions of dollars into the public school system to create higher minimum teacher pay in the public school system. And so the private schools have been saying the only way we are, we're losing teachers to the public system because their salaries can be so much more, because taxpayers are funding, right, greater teacher salaries in the public system.

The only way we can be competitive and keep or recruit teachers is to increase tuition, because that's probably primarily how we fund teacher pay. So it's really interesting. A lot of the states that are doing ESAs for parents on one hand, are also doing increases in minimum or starting teacher pay, which distorts the market a little bit as well.

Michael Horn

It's interesting and it makes me think sort of in the higher ed world also, right. In terms of title4 federal financial aid, but those can only be spent on colleges and universities. It strikes me that the other thing that's unique about the space is it's not just a private school option, but I could be going to a micro school for two days, tutoring for two days, some menu of services, and sort of the fragmentation of that can actually really be, I would think, a downward price. And then as you said, Patricia, at the same time, sort of competing with, with the public marketplace choices for teachers in terms of where they're teaching. It's a very complicated landscape to almost overthink as a policymaker.

Right. And when you look at, even in that Florida data, even though you're looking at averages and average private school tuition increases each year, you can see also by what percent of private schools didn't raise tuition at all in a given year. Right. And so, and what is the base that their tuition is starting out from? So, a Catholic school that was only charging $3,500 a year. Right. It looks like a huge tuition increase for them to just do $1,000 increase, but it's still half of what the scholarship amount is or what the average is. I think it becomes really risky if policymakers want to put in artificial caps that could have such a different impact based on all the different range of providers and really can't take into account historical increases or what was the base that you even started from. All of those types of things will only depress the vibrancy or the ability to have a really vibrant market.

And we have to recognize that there is still a governor on all of this, and that's the parent. The parent knows how much their scholarship was awarded for. They know what the private school tuition was before the scholarships came into effect, and they're going to be pretty upset at the private school where they thought that they were only going to have, you know, the delta of what they were going to have to cover was only going to be $1,000. And now it's not. You know, there's parents actually are quite vocal on this stuff with policymakers and with their private schools because now they have the power, right, to be vocal on behalf of their child.

Michael Horn

A lot of checks and balances built in there. I think that's a good place to leave this conversation. It's been a whirlwind through a lot of issues that get a lot more complex that you all are working on on a daily basis. I know, but just really appreciate it. I think one thing I will also take away from this is not only is there not a one size fits all kid, if you will, there's not one size fits all suppliers. And so to have a one size fits all rule to treat them has some pretty big downsides. And same place on the academic accountability conversation, really understanding the context is very important as we think about putting policies in place. So, Patricia, Ben, really appreciate your time and the work you continue to do.

And for all you tuning in, we'll be back. Next time on the Future of Education.

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