The Future of Education

Michael B. Horn
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  • EDUCATION
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Interviews with the top innovators & changemakers so that you can stay on top of the trends transforming transform learning, education, and the development of talent worldwide so that all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose michaelbhorn.substack.com

  1. FEB 9

    Why Friday Night Lights May Hold the Key to Mainstreaming Microschools

    Two past guests of mine—Tom Arnett and Tyler Thigpen—joined me on this episode for a wide-ranging conversation on what it will take for microschools, or low-cost private schools, to “go upmarket” and attract more high school students. Our conversation revolved around whether one of the key current stumbling blocks is too many of these schools don’t offer enough “Friday Night Lights” and prom-type events—and if the reason those things are important is because of the critical role they and other such traditions play in identity formation and community connection for high schoolers. Our discussion dove into the challenges and innovations around helping students develop a sense of identity, community, and belonging within smaller, learner-centered school models. Tyler shared practical strategies from his perch leading the Forest School at Acton Academy, including student-led sports, theater, and flexible approaches to high school structure, while Tom reflected on the importance of supporting identity formation and building a strong value network around alternative school models. After listening, we’d love your take as well. What will it take for microschools and other self-directed learning environments to go mainstream? How might they tackle issues of scale, social connection, legitimacy, and supportive ecosystems without undermining the things that make them valuable to the students and families initially enrolling in them? Michael Horn Welcome everyone, 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. And to help us think through an aspect of that, today I’m bringing back two friends who’ve been on the podcast at least a couple times each, I believe. We’ve got Tom Arnett at the Christensen Institute, and of course Tyler Thigpen, CEO of the Forest School at Acton Academy and of course the leader of the Institute for Self Directed Learning. We’ve had Tyler on, talking about that in his fantastic book on the topic of self directed learning. So, Tyler, Tom, great to see you both. Tom Arnett Good to be with you, Michael, great to be with you. Rethinking Education and Identity Michael Horn Well, we’ll see how we all feel by the end. But the topic I want to get into today is really this question of, you know, Tom and I have observed a lot of times that microschools have a lot of the characteristics of disruptive innovation. They look, you know, by traditional metrics in terms of the scope and breadth of services that your comprehensive schools can provide. They look primitive. They don’t have all the, you know, every single offering you can imagine, from cheerleading to football to volleyball to science labs to bands to choirs, you know, five different versions of beauty shop, quartet, et cetera. And so they come in at the low end, right? And the theory of disruptive innovation says for them to actually over time change or disrupt traditional schooling, they have to actually improve. And so the way disruptive innovations typically do that is by using some sort of technology enabler, they start to creep up the Y axis, if you will, and pack in more and more functions and features, but without replicating all the traditional trappings of the existing paradigm. They don’t replicate the cost structure. They don’t replicate, in this case, we would think the time bound sort of nature. I would think of the existing school districts and sort of the grammar of schooling that David Tayak and Larry Cuban have historically written about when it comes to K12 schools. And I think a real puzzle, Tom, for us has been what will it take for these schools? And microschools may be the wrong word. I think that’s sort of too small an idea, no pun intended. But these new schools, like, how would they go up market, right, to start to displace the way of education that we’ve typically seen. And one of the things that we’ve both talked about is that in some ways they have to speak to in high school, in particular, this notion of identity formation, that a big part of high school, middle school as well, is sort of learning who you are. And so we can sort of joke, oh, those schools, these startup schools, they don’t have football and Friday Night Lights and they don’t have prom and things of that nature. But I think for an individual family looking to say, hey, am I going to make a jump to one of these schools, those sorts of things are actually very important. Not just because of the traditions, although that’s probably part of it, but also because of the coming of age experiences that they provide and the way individuals sort of learn, who am I and how do I relate to the rest of my community? And these sort of shared experiences that you can talk about in the cultural lexicon. So we’ve been wondering, how do you tackle that? And we both wanted to talk to Tyler because we think he’s done such a thoughtful job of thinking about this in the context of the Forest School at Acton Academy, as they do run secondary schools. So, Tom, what would you add before we get Tyler’s voice to make us smarter here and we all sort of bat this around? Tom Arnett Yeah, I think I’ll just add an anecdote from my own family. Michael Horn And you’re telling your own personal story. Your son’s story. Tom Arnett Okay. In that it’s really ironic. I spend all my working time thinking about studying, learning about really innovative school models. And my own kids attend the traditional district schools that they are assigned to based on where we live. And I have advocated to my kids for finding better options or creating better options. But the real holdbacks for them are there’s nothing that they’re struggling with to the point where they feel like they need an escape valve. Right. Like they’re getting good grades, their teachers like them, they have friends, they’re not getting bullied. None of those issues have come up for them. And for them, they don’t want to give up that common school experience. In other words, they want to be on sports teams with their friends. They want to be in the band that their friends are in. They want to just be able to speak the same language as their friends so that when kids say, hey, did you, you know, did you see what happened at the football game last Friday night? Or did you, you know, what did you think of so and so’s class that they can relate to that they’re not like, I don’t know what you guys are talking about… Balancing School and Sports Option Michael Horn Before you move on from that, just one question because like my observation is a lot of towns like the youth sports and stuff like that, it’s happening less at the schools. Like it is getting unbundled into various leagues and stuff like that. So I’m, I’m like. That still held sway for your boy? Tom Arnett Yeah, but it’s funny because we participate in both. Like they participate in leagues and they participate in the school sports. And so that does make a little bit of it. Like. Okay, so to get real specific, over this last winter break we had a conversation about like our district has an independent study program where you can do your classes independent study but still participate in the sports teams at the school or there’s an option through the community college where you can do something similar, but you don’t have access to the sports. And one of the things that came up as we were, you know, there’s different constraints and different challenges that each come with. And we talked about, well, you could do water polo just through the club instead of through the high school. Like he does both of them right now and a lot of his friends are at the high school. So he doesn’t want to give that up. But he does have friends in the club league and it is an alternative. So I will say like the barrier is lower than maybe it was in the past. But it still is, there’s a sense of like I have to give something up if I want to do this. It’s not just all upside. Michael Horn Okay, Tyler, let’s bring you in on here because you’ve, as you all have operated your school network which goes K through high school, right? You all have thought a lot about how to run a thriving high school and get skeptical, maybe parents say, yeah, like I want the benefits of that self directed learning experience and not maybe give up some of these things. And, and you’ve thought about a lot of these identity forming rituals and some other pie it. So, so I, I don’t know where you want to take it, but I’d love to hear your opening reflections. Tyler Thigpen Yeah, well, we’re, we’re trying and we’re trying hard and once we get them, we’re trying to keep them. You know, I think one of the interesting, in my mind at least, differences between the league sports, the club sports and the school sports is the audience. You know, for so many of the league and club sports, you know, the audience is really just kind of parents, caregivers, you know, coaches, referees. But for the school sports, it’s their friends. And that’s just, I think that’s a game changer, you know. And I’ll say, I think the two biggest reasons why high schoolers would leave our high school at some point, is the, they sort of cite the social, you know, friends wanting to have more quantity because we are a microschool. So we got 45, 50 high schoolers on average at our school. And then sports opportunities, you know, that they may have. So what we’ve done over the years to, you know, address this is. And it’s evolved, but number one is we sort of said, hey, if you want to start your own sport or start your own club, all you need is a critical mass and a parent volunteer and let’s do it. And so that’s how basketball got started. And they actually went t

    47 min

  2. FEB 2

    Using AI to Make Math More Accessible

    Two of my former students and now entrepreneurs Abdi Guleed and Kedaar Sridhar of M7E AI joined me to explore how they’re using AI to make math curricula more accessible for all students, especially those facing linguistic barriers. Abdi and Kedaar shared their personal stories and the research that inspired them to create M7E AI, a tool that works with curriculum providers to streamline and clarify math content before it reaches classrooms. Our conversation highlighted challenges districts face when evaluating curriculum, the platform’s innovative seven-factor framework for language accessibility, and the ways AI can help districts, publishers, and educators create more equitable learning experiences. Michael Horn Hey, Michael, here. What you’re about to hear is a webinar that I hosted for a company, M7E, that full disclosure, I’m an advisor to. It’s two of my former students that founded it. And it’s a very cool AI tool that does something different from a lot of the tools out there on the market. It’s not student facing, it’s not teacher facing. What it does is it works with curriculum providers to take their math content specifically and use the AI with a set of clear rules to reduce the language complexity so that the curriculum is actually teaching and assessing on the math skills rather than some of the language things that might run interference for multilingual learners in particular, I hope you enjoy the webinar that we recorded, find it interesting, informative, and that it sparked some questions for you about how else might we use AI that sort of steps out of the typical notion of just, hey, it’s a chatbot, and where are the applications that might take off that could make an impact in education. Let me introduce the two folks first who have been digging into this problem from both the research and product perspective. First of all, we have Abdi, I’m looking for you on my screen. There you are, Abdi Guleed. He’s a Harvard Education Entrepreneurship fellow and the co-founder of M7E AI. And we also have Kedaar Sridhar, also a Harvard Education Entrepreneurship fellow and also the co-founder of M7E AI both, as I said, former students in my class. And together they’ve built this company and product that really evaluates these existing math problems and tasks for linguistic clarity and accessibility. They flag hidden barriers that can trip up students and then they suggest, I think, importantly, revisions to keep the mathematical rigor intact, but while making the language and design more equitable. So I’m excited to bring them in. And Abdi, Kedaar, welcome. I want to get into it. The way we’ll do this is I have a couple questions for you guys up front and then I’m going to sort of give you the stage, if you will, to maybe show what you guys have developed and how you’ve been using it with some curriculum companies. But I think your own personal stories to this, I got to watch it a little bit up close. But for those that don’t know, you tell us your own personal stories about how you came to build this tool. Why did you see it as a big problem worth solving? Because I know a lot of folks don’t even tend to think about these challenges a lot of times. So Kedaar, Abdi, whoever of you wants to take it first. AI Tool Enhancing Math Curriculum Abdi Guleed Thank you so much, Michael. And thank you everyone for joining us today. My name is Abdi. I grew up in Norway and like Michael said earlier as well. But I remember very clearly how math content was created and how that shaped my experience as a learner. And a lot of that stuck with me as I was growing up. And then I came to the US as a student athlete in track and field and built a career always around the core theme of using technology to make learning and organizational process more effective. I spent years working with data and AI, especially my master’s program with Kedaar, where most of our work was focused on how AI can streamline complex manual processes. So M7 education is a natural extension of that work and curriculum creation is one of the most complex and time consuming processes in education. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. And we think AI can dramatically improve both the speed and the quality. And because I personally know the impact of curriculum design, this mission is really, really important to me as well as is to Kedaar. So over to you, Kedaar. Kedaar Sridhar Awesome. Thanks for that Abdi. And thank you Michael. And thank you everyone for being here today. We’re excited to chat about what we’ve been working on. So I’m Kedaar Sridhar, also an international student who grew up in Oman in the Middle East. And I sucked at math like it was. I just wasn’t, I just wasn’t doing well. And turns out a lot of the things and the questions didn’t make sense from a lot of these big publishers, questions about lacrosse which I had never known or played, questions about skiing and I live in, you know, in a very hot country. And like all of these different contextual clues and things that were actually distracting me as well from what I was actually trying to do. Fast forward to, you know, I ended up coming to the US and doing my undergrad at UCLA in computer science. And I ended up in the STEM field. And I think a big focus for me is how can I improve access to that field and to those oriented careers. My career is in product and tech, but specifically I worked as well at an undergrad admissions for UCLA focused on improving access to higher education and then ended up at a nonprofit focused on STEM literacy, digital literacy, AI literacy, helping people bring into more technical careers as well. And, and so this passion, this through line for both of us has been how do we now provide a way for students, for people to access content when the thing that is being tested for is the wrong thing being sort of expressed and shown, you know, people spend more time decoding language instead of actually testing their own math ability in this specific case. And so with Abdi, you know, our master’s was in learning, design, innovation, and technology here at the School of Education, and we worked across the board, you know, across Harvard, across MIT and rest of the Cambridge schools as well, to continue diving into the space, doing research, and figuring out how do we best tackle this problem, that was very close to both of us. Michael Horn So I think it’s perfect, lLifts off, and I love that, well, you probably didn’t enjoy it Kedaar, that personal story of a kid struggling with math. But when I think a lot of people think about AI in education right now, I think a lot of people, like, the thing that comes to mind is chatbot, right. And I think a lot of people are fearful of, like, the student facing chat bot in particular. What I think is so interesting is that you all have built a tool, actually, that is like a couple layers before the student, right. To make sure that the curriculum getting to them. What I think is so interesting, though, right, is before we get to the solution and what. How AI, you’ve been able to use it to help districts and so forth, let’s focus on the problem first. And where do you see districts, schools struggling most in their current evaluation processes, especially when they’re comparing multiple math publishers or frankly, like the homegrown materials that we see or materials that teachers are taking from other teachers in all of this. Kedaar, why don’t you start off on this one? Kedaar Sridhar What we’ve heard and what we’ve also sort of experienced while, you know, speaking to district leaders and just speaking to all the, you know, all the people in the system, right. Whether you’re a teacher, district leader, or part of assessment teams, researchers, editorial teams, or, you know, publishers themselves. There is the core problem of I am a district leader or I’m an instructional specialist or a curriculum manager, and my district has its own needs, right? In my district, I have a specific type of students. Maybe there’s more bilingual students here, or maybe there’s more students that, you know, with a lower average literacy rate or a lot of these other things, but every district has such a different profile, and yet content is sort of dispersed equally to everyone. And so for something that we’ve been trying to tackle as we’ve gotten into more of these conversations, is how can we help district leaders specifically and districts themselves have visibility into all the publishers that come to them, be able to see which story aligns with their populations, which publisher and material best speaks to. And best shares that voice with the students themselves and the educators themselves. And in general. And Abdi will expand on this as well. There is just right now a very manual process and there’s limited bandwidth in general when looking at how this is best aligned not only with my district and our goals, but also coverage in terms of the broader, you know, the broader ecosystem as well. Aligning Curriculum with Diverse Needs Abdi Guleed What we’ve seen, just to add to that is we’ve been talking a lot with district leaders, a lot with Kirkham developers and editorial teams, with teachers, with principals across the board. And there’s the idea when it comes to district leaders and schools mainly is there’s a heavy reliance on that idea that these curriculum developers know, kind of best. But then there’s this almost sort of like a little bit disconnect when it comes to the diversity of students in the classrooms that is changing dramatically. And we’ve been looking at it from multiple aspects of how can we help build something that could help the district leaders and others to evaluate the content, to evaluate the curriculum and be part of the design process before it reaches their specific district. And again, there are 50 mil

    44 min

  3. JAN 26

    Reducing Friction to Scale Real-World Work Experiences

    Lynn Liao and Taryn Campbell from Cambiar Quest joined me to talk about their approach to scaling real-world work experiences for secondary students through micro-internships. This is an important topic because while people like me have been arguing for more real-world learning opportunities for middle and high school students, how to source those opportunities and make sure they are meaningful such that it’s not a burden on businesses and other organizations is a real challenge. Lynn and Taryn discussed how Cambiar Quest handles this in their partnerships with schools and local businesses to create team-based, class projects that help students develop essential “durable skills” like communication, critical thinking, and collaboration. They shared insights on how the program reduces burden on partnering businesses so that it’s widely accessible, the scaffolding provided for both students and educators, and the strong positive outcomes they’ve seen so far. It’s early in their learning journey as you’ll hear. Highly recommend. 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. And to help us think through that, today, I’m delighted. We have two guests who’ve been at the front lines, I think it’s safe to say, of really thinking what that looks like in the current era, current age that we are entering as a society. We have Lynn Liao, she’s the managing director at Cambiar Quest. And Taryn Campbell, the director at Cambiar Quest. And so first I’ll just say Lynn, Taryn, welcome. I’m delighted to have you both here. Lynn Liao We’re thrilled to talk to you. Our mission is so aligned with what you just described. Michael Horn Well, it’s going to be a fun conversation because you all, the three of us, had a chance to talk maybe a month or so ago and frankly, I had no idea the breadth of the work that you all were doing. And I think it really answers a key question that I think is so important at this moment in time. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Maybe let’s just set the foundation for folks. And Lynn, I’ll start with you. Just what is Cambiar? What is Cambiar Quest, sort of set the stage for our audience so that they know the organization in which you work and the work you’ve been up to. Essential Durable Skills for Success Lynn Liao Sure. So Cambiar Education is a venture studio that is seeking to change the marketplace for education so that the products and services that truly make the biggest difference for students and educators and parents really succeed. And we know that that is not always the case in how the marketplace works right now. Our goal, our, our big vision is to have a life changing impact for more than a million students. And we do that both by incubating entrepreneurs who are creating these new ideas and supporting their development and growth. And we also direct run programs. So Quest is an example of a direct run Cambiar program. Quest is solely focused on career exploration and development for students, very much in line with what you described your mission is. So we are really, we have multiple programs where we help students really build the durable skills necessary for career exploration and for them to really be the ones navigating their way to the future that they are seeking. And then we can dive more into the micro internship, which I think is the program we’re focusing on today. Michael Horn Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely want to do that. And before, before maybe we jump in that you mentioned durable skills. As we discussed when we had this offline conversation about a month ago, everyone has a definition for durable skills. Maybe ground us in how you all think about durable skills and how they port from one context to another or maybe which don’t and have to be specifically engineered. Lynn Liao Sure. I’ll toss it to Taryn just so we make it a three way conversation. Michael Horn Perfect. Go ahead, Taryn. Taryn Campbell Sure. I think we think about durable skills like, what are the key things that kids need to be able to do to navigate their life? They need to be able to communicate with people that they don’t know. What does it mean to work in a team and to work alongside others? How do you think critically about the decisions that you’re making and understand how to break problems down into smaller pieces? What does it mean to take initiative? Right. And so I think there’s a million different definitions and words for some of these core key concepts. Whether people call them durable skills, 21st-century skills, sometimes it’s pushed into social and emotional learning. Right. There’s a million definitions out there, but we’re really talking about the foundation that really all kids and all adults need to be successful both in school and the workplace. Michael Horn And what strikes me about that and Lynn, this may be the perfect place then to start talking about the micro internships is one of the things that I’ve come to is for, you know, kids to really understand how to communicate real world context is incredibly important. Being in real world situations, but also frankly, like to develop agency and things of that nature. They need to know what’s even possible in the outside world. And most of us as high schoolers, middle schoolers, just don’t. So maybe that’s the. Lynn Liao Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. So our micro internship is a team based project where students work with a real employer on a current business challenge they’re facing. And what’s different about it is it’s actually embedded in class time. So when you think typically about an internship, a student goes off site. Maybe they’re learning from osmosis, like many of the things you’re talking about. But because they’re very brand new to the world of work, there’s really limited time for a manager to truly support someone at that skill level. So students are picking up things, but they’re not really digging into the skills that Taryn was talking about. So we’ve created a really scaffolded experience where we’re hyper focused on Students building those critical skills. So critical thinking, communication, collaboration. And because it’s in that work context where they’re directly talking to an employer, it raises the stakes in such a way that it actually really juices the learning. I was stepping back to reflect because we have 30 hours for our micro internship. That’s typically what we spend in an average school year. For a high schooler, it’s about a thousand plus hours. I bet you if you ask an average high schooler, they do not remember anything about most of those hours. And our goal is completely the opposite. We want every one of our 30 hours to be high impact, sticky, memorable. Learning Through Challenges and Growth Lynn Liao And that’s oftentimes where the deepest learning comes from. It’s like context rich, it’s unique, it’s something they, they’re slightly uncomfortable, but we also work super hard to support them to get through that so that on the other side, they’re reflecting exactly what you had mentioned, Michael. Like, they’re able to say, not just like, oh, I worked on some project. Instead they’re able to say, I supported a client to figure out how they’re going to reach more customers for this new product. And I was able to actually take in this really tough client feedback and do a 180 and come up with a new presentation by the end. And I was really proud of myself for being able to do that. So that’s the kind of thing that we’re really seeking, that students can talk about their own competencies, whether that’s to a future employer on a college app or even frankly, just to say it to themselves. Right. To feel like they have that sense of personal power and sense of agency as a working, working professional. Michael Horn Can you talk a little bit about maybe a couple case studies? Right. Just to give our listeners a sense of what kinds of businesses are they working with. It was a pretty diverse group, as I recall. So maybe just a couple examples. And Taryn, maybe I’ll kick it to you for this, to give a few examples, but then also maybe you know that scaffolding that Lynn talked about, like go deep into one of them where like day one, how are you making sure that they’re able to competently do this so that they’re actually getting something out of it. Taryn Campbell Sure. So the first thing I’ll say is all of our content is industry agnostic. Right. So we have built it to make sure that there are no technical skills that students are required to have to be able to engage. And so we have worked with really small mom and pop shops like a local ice cream shop that is around the corner where they were trying to figure out, how do I get more of the foot traffic passing by my store to actually come in and buy ice cream, to really large advanced manufacturing firms… who’s trying to figure out, you know what, we have a talent pipeline challenge that we’re trying to solve. How do we get more young people interested in advanced manufacturing? So what does that look like? What insights can students help us gather and synthesize? And so those are two totally different ends of the spectrum, right? One highly technical and industry related, one really community based. And we see engagement from students regardless of the type of project that they’re engaging in. And what we do at Cambiar is we help right size. What’s the right grain size for a business challenge? We write up a project brief alongside those employers and then they come in at three specific points in the project. So they come in at the beginning to launch the project, live with students. Students get to ask questions based

    32 min

  4. 12/22/2025

    Preparing the Teacher Workforce through Microcredentials

    One programming note: I will be publishing just one more general update before the end of the year—on Friday, December 26th—which will be free for all to read. I hope many of you are able to unplug for the most part and spend some time with loved ones over the next several days. I’ll be back in your inbox in the new year on Monday, January 5th with an article for paid subscribers. We’ll then get back to our regular publishing schedule. Thanks for all this year—and happy holidays. For now, enjoy this conversation that my colleague, Danny Curtis, hosted. — Michael B. Horn Danny Curtis sat down with Tommy Hodges, dean at the University of South Carolina’s College of Education, to discuss the innovative CarolinaCrED teacher education program. Tommy explained how the program leverages a competency-based, micro-credential approach to better recognize the skills that aspiring educators bring from diverse backgrounds, while personalizing their training to fill specific skill gaps. The conversation explores the collaborative design with school districts, the data showing strong retention and instructional quality among program graduates, and the unique advantages and challenges of developing such a program within a large university. Danny Curtis Welcome to the Future of Education. I’m Danny Curtis and you’re joining the show where we are committed to creating a world in which individuals can build their passion, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through that today we are so excited to be joined by Tommy Hodges, who is dean at the University of South Carolina’s College of Education and recently the interim Dean at the College of Arts and Sciences. And I’m so excited to have him on to learn more about the innovative commodity based teacher education program that he helped to create at U of SC called CarolinaCrED. Tommy, thanks so much for joining us. Tommy Hodges Danny, thanks for having me. It’s an honor. Competency-Based Teacher Education Danny Curtis Awesome. Well, let’s jump right in. So I’d love to start just by hearing in your own words what Carolina CrED is and how it’s different from other teacher certification programs in the state. Tommy Hodges Yeah. So Carolina CrED is a broad umbrella with a number of outreach programs. So we’ve encapsulated a number of different entities that are grounded first in community based needs. So it includes the Carolina Teacher Induction Program, which provides induction supports. It includes an alternative preparation program which is really where much of the focus today, I can talk in some detail around the microcredential work that we’ve done there. That is a career changer program that’s predominantly focused on rural regions across the state, but it also has personalized and tailored degree programs that are offered through it. So we see a number of our different outreach efforts in the College of Education having their intellectual home inside Carolina CrED. And then one of those is the MCrED or the Microcredential Enterprise. So that is something that’s now supporting upwards of nearly 300 aspiring educators across the state. To date, the Carolina Teacher Induction Program has supported nearly 1,000 teachers. And then countless individuals have participated in those contractual degree programs too. So really has these multiple arms of it, one of which being really grounded in the microcredential enterprise and then others of them also picking up pieces of that. Danny Curtis Yeah. And I want to stay with the model here. Could you talk through a bit, the role that competency-based assessment and education plays within the Carolina CrED model? Tommy Hodges Yeah. So I would like to believe that teacher education has always somewhat been competency based, certainly through accreditation. We’re deeply interested in the outcomes that we have for our teacher candidates and their ability to engage in high quality instruction with kids and children in the community. But what I would say we’ve lacked is a recognition of the skills and competencies that individuals already walk through the door with. So we design degree programs as if everyone needs the same kind of thing at the same pace, at the same dosage. And where the competency based learning for us has been a key driver, again through the alternative preparation, where it has its origins, is that we’re able to identify an individual who maybe was a paraprofessional inside the school, or an individual who maybe was a wildlife biologist, a park ranger doing educational programming. Individuals from a multitude of different fields and disciplines, they bring skills with them to the table, that one we don’t need to replicate, but more importantly, we need to harness and build off of to help build out and round out their skill set. And so when we design the microcredentials associated with our alternative preparation, it’s done so in a way that we identify the skills that an individual already walks through the door with, and then we can in some ways prescribe to them the kinds of things that they need to help build skill gaps around in order to be competent educators. They do that. Some of it’s independently, some of it’s with practicing teachers, and some of it’s with the institution, but all of it creates a hyper personalized experience for the learner. Danny Curtis Yeah, that’s a really helpful overview and really excited to dig into a number of different pieces in there. But before we do, I want to go deeper on some backstory. So taking us back to the before times, what were you seeing in the state that gave rise to this idea and motivated action on it? And I’m also thinking if this were easy, we would see a lot more programs like this in other states. What were those barriers or those changes that needed to be made that you were able to overcome in the creation of this program? Tommy Hodges Yeah, part of it originated in policy. So prior to 2019, there was no mechanism for an institution of higher education to be able to deliver an alternative preparation program or any preparation pathway recommend for certification an individual that was not a degree completer, meaning they had to complete a bachelor’s degree, they had to complete a master’s degree, Unlike other states where they may have like a postbacc certificate that has a certain number of hours. And so we had one hand tied behind our backs up until 2019. And there was a policy change. So we were thinking deeply about what we wanted that to look like. And we had a partner at the time, it was the Center for Teaching Quality. It’s now known as Mira Education, a national nonprofit who had already gained a good bit of ground in competency based learning for the in service space. And through our partnership with them, they pushed us to consider what might it look like if you foregrounded microcredentials rather than traditional three credit-hour courses and a 36-hour master’s degree. Alternative Teacher Certification Tommy Hodges Fortunately, our state department of education was willing to think creatively with us as well. And so we put forward a plan and gained approval for an alternative preparation program for individuals who held a bachelor’s degree almost exclusively outside of education to be able to gain teacher certification at a timeline that was up to them, that it was paced according to their need and according to the kinds of skills that they came in the door with. And then that was approved in February of 2020, which is a very interesting time to try and launch something in the months that followed. So a lot of our beginning thinkings were done in rooms, kind of like we’re in right now, in some sort of a virtual environment with one another, but trying to think through what we wanted this thing to look and feel like. But what we knew from the very beginning was that it was an antiquated model to think that again, the three credit hour course and 36 hour master’s degree was going to be tenable both from a cost efficiency for either districts or individuals, or perhaps more importantly, philosophically about the kinds of skills that individuals entered with. So that’s where we began. What we didn’t really anticipate was the momentum that that would gain inside of districts to engage in learning for their in service teachers. So once they saw the modularization of the program for pre-service teachers who wanted to gain teacher certification, they loved it for their practicing teachers just as well. So they were able to develop thematic learning experiences. We were able to tailor the microcredentials according to their needs. And then we engaged with some nonprofits in the state that also wanted to engage in microcredential learning. So then it became about supporting organizations in their professional learning in ways that the traditional academic offerings in an institution just don’t afford. Danny Curtis Yeah, I want to stay with this professional learning piece. Yeah, obviously these microcredentials afford a new way of certifying new learning and upskilling. I’d be curious to hear how are districts engaging with your library of microcredentials to facilitate that type of professional development? Collaborative microcredential Development Tommy Hodges Well, one of the things that we committed to early on is that we were not going to have to come visit our website, type in a credit card number and buy a microcredential and have it scored. That our engagements were going to be at the organizational level because we’re committed to systemic change, not one off kinds of pieces. And so our engagements with, particularly at the school district level, we’re doing a deep dive into essentially a needs assessment around where do they want to take their school, what are opportunity gaps, what are ways in which they want to see their professional

    27 min

  5. 12/01/2025

    How Digital Curriculum Can Scale Career-Connected Learning in K12

    Amanda Kocon, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer at Edmentum, joined me and Danny to explore how digital curriculum can help scale career-connected learning for all students. Amanda discussed the driving forces behind the shift toward career readiness in K–12 education and emphasized the need to close exposure gaps and lower switching costs for students exploring different career paths. She detailed Edmentum’s recent acquisition of MajorClarity and their partnership with Interplay, which is enabling districts to integrate CTE courses, simulation-based trades training, and comprehensive college and career planning tools. I was excited to dig into how exactly we can scale opportunities for all students to have broad, student-driven career explorations in every district to ensure every student graduates with valuable skills and real career options. 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. And to help us illuminate that today, I’m thrilled that my co-conspirator Danny Curtis is here because we’ve got a very good conversation teed up today. Danny, good to see you. Danny Curtis It’s great to be here, Michael. Always nice to chat with you and especially today because we get to talk about one of our favorite topics. Michael Horn Exactly. And you and I wrote this piece, I don’t know, about a year and a half ago at this point, I think, for Education Next, where we said, look, career-connected learning really should not be a “for some,” it’s really a “for all,” increasingly. And I think we’ve also though, been puzzling how do we help schools actually execute on that vision? And we’ve found someone that I think can start to shed some light on that. So I’m excited about this conversation, Danny. Danny Curtis Yeah, me, too. We wanted to bring on a guest today that is going to help us think through one approach to scaling up more career connected learning and helping districts overcome some of those challenges that they encounter when they do make the decision to move towards career connected learning. And so we are really delighted to have Amanda Kocon, the chief strategy and operations officer at Edmentum, a K12 online learning provider, join us here today. Amanda, welcome. Amanda Kocon Thank you. It is tremendous to be with you, Danny and Michael. Elevating CTE for Workforce Readiness Danny Curtis Amanda, as we mentioned up-front, we along with many others nationwide have been pushing for more career-connected learning in K–12. And as we’ll discuss you all at Edmentum, have a big announcement and have been doing a lot of work there. But before we dive into the work you’ve been doing, I want to start with the big picture “why.” In your view, what is driving this shift towards career readiness in K–12? Amanda Kocon It’s the question right now. Right. So if we think back to when Edmentum started this journey of really leaning into career connected learning for all, which is an important part of the story, we started paying attention to what was being provided to kids. So we are at our core a digital first curriculum company. We are a 60 year old plus ed tech company. We’re one of the oldest. We actually started our journey in workforce redevelopment and then focused many years later on the K12 space. But it’s always been sort of part of our DNA. We have always provided CTE courses and curriculum as part of our sort of comprehensive catalogs of offerings. And one of the things about almost four years ago now that we started talking about was what’s the sort of quality of offering that we have and how do we make sure that the same level of intention and rigor and learning design that is going into our core courses, so think your core four, your electives even, is also going into CTE. And so we started this build out in part to say what kids that are thinking about a path direct to direct to the workforce, whether they stop at college or not. Very few people exit high school and retire. It really is career for all. And so how do we get kids better ready with better materials, if you will? And so that’s where we started the journey. I think a huge part of the why for us was paying attention to the nearly 50% plus of that, like really won’t go to college and how do we make sure that they exit high school with something of value? So that’s when we started really building out our own CTE course catalog that we’ve built out over the last three years. And a huge part of that for us was then beginning to realize that as you think about what’s available, how do we combat, two things in particular, so we had started with like, what’s the curriculum that we need to deploy? And then we said, there’s two issues. One is a massive exposure gap. Kids actually don’t have a sense of what’s possible. The second thing we really focused in on is what’s the switching cost? So if we move kids, any kid, through a program of study, if you will, where they don’t learn academic, technical, durable skills and they don’t have a sense of what’s possible post secondary, we probably are going to continue to fail these kids. We will exit them from high school, but they won’t actually be future ready or job ready. Danny Curtis Yeah, you lay out a really compelling rationale for this movement towards career and connected learning. And now I want to really zoom in on the offerings that Edmentum is providing in this area. You all just made a big acquisition, the MajorClarity College and Career Readiness platform. And there’s a lot to unpack here. But I want to start with the vision behind the acquisition and the opportunity that it represents. Wondering what challenges have you seen districts face as they implement and scale these programs? And what is the role that digital tools and curriculum play in helping them to address those challenges? Scaling Work-Based Learning Solutions Amanda Kocon So I think one of the big challenges you laid out, actually, in the intro, which is how do you at scale, bring sort of the level of awareness, exploration, planfulness, curricular apps and programmatic options and then begin to manage what is the holy grail, which is work based learning for kids, in the middle school and high school arena. We, as I said before, started with what is true to us, which is we could become really good high quality digital curriculum providers. So we’ve built up as a starting place over the last three years, well over 200 semesters of CTE courses that is inclusive of 57 pathways and building. And that was an important starting place for us. But we also knew that in order to land a solution that allowed teachers, educators, counselors, superintendents to think about the programs that they offer and how to do that, not just in one building, but across all of their buildings. And we can get into a little bit why that matters in a second. We needed to actually bring the tooling and the solutioning that surrounds our curriculum that sort of integrates better with what is available in a brick and mortar, plus what we can bring that can be digitally or virtually available. And so for me, the whole vision has been let’s bring these two things together. How do we bring the workflow, the tooling, the planning, the career exploration starting in middle school and integrate that with the curricular options that are additive, not reductive in a place so that you have truly an interconnected solution of content, curriculum and tooling. And so the putting these two things together, it has been the vision. And so we’re very excited about the acquisition of MajorClarity and putting these two companies together. Michael Horn So I want to make sure I’m understanding the different pieces, right? Because 57 pathways, 200 semesters of content is already a lot. And so that’s like, I think if I’m hearing you right, that’s like the additive we can’t give exposure to learn about X. Here’s a way to do it. And so then now you have the MajorClarity piece of it that it sounds like makes this more integrated. But I want to make sure you’re putting a pin in it, like, how does this actually work for schools? And sort of what differentiates the Edmentum approach from, you know, because this is a hot space, as you know, a lot of folks are doing different stabs on what college and career readiness mean to them. What differentiates this approach with this integration? Amanda Kocon It’s a great question. So for us, our ability to use MajorClarity really as the entry point. So I’m going to just take you through the student’s journey. So starting in, starting in middle school. And that is where we have decided to start for now. It doesn’t mean we won’t move down into elementary, but you all know that in middle school is really the first opportunity the kids have to change classes. There is actually truly time for things like college and career exploration. And career exploration in particular, whether that’s advisory or in electives. We have interesting inventories that allow students to really think about what they are interested in that generates over time, both in that moment and later, sort of a fit score. Here are some things that you might want to investigate. Edmentum has built out elective courses which help students. Actually we’ve done these with America Succeeds. So they embed durable skills. We’re the first ones to bring it down to middle school. We think middle school is particularly important for students as they start to understand what are those work based skills, terms, terminology. How do you think about and understand what it means to develop communication skills and collaborative skills and even metacognition? How do you understand how you learn start

    30 min

  6. 11/24/2025

    Building a Public Education MarketPlace

    Jamie Rosenberg, founder and executive chairman of ClassWallet, joins me to explore the evolving landscape of education savings accounts (ESAs) and the broader push toward education choice. Jamie shares the origin story of ClassWallet and discusses how the company is innovating digital wallet solutions that streamline the flow of public funds to families, educators, and nontraditional providers. The conversation sheds light on the challenges families and entrepreneurs face in navigating new ESA programs, the delicate balance between agency and accountability, and how states can design effective policies that empower both families and innovative education providers. Michael Horn 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. And to help us think through that today, delighted to bring Jamie Rosenberg to the show. Jamie is the founder and executive chairman of ClassWallet, which we’re going to hear a lot more about the show. And Jamie and I were in a conversation a few months back with a bunch of others around this growing education savings account space with a bunch of insights that really struck me around the market and how to create a really robust one between demand and supply. So delighted to get into all of that today. Jamie, welcome to the Future of Education. Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you being here. Jamie Rosenberg It’s great being here, Michael. I appreciate the invite. Michael Horn Yeah, no, I’m delighted to learn from you. And before we get into some of the ways that the market is emerging, I, I want to start out with ClassWallet origin story, if you will. You all were founded in 2014, well before education savings accounts was sort of the movement I think that it’s becoming national at the moment. And so I’m just curious, like, what did the company start out as? What was the opportunity that you saw that you felt like ClassWallet can really fill this need in the country’s ecosystem? Jamie Rosenberg Sure. This is my second company. So to understand the formation of ClassWallet, let me just share with you how I. Michael Horn Yeah, origin story. Good. Jamie Rosenberg Yeah, of course. So my personal and professional mission has always been to try to get the dollars as close to children as possible. I started my career as a lawyer, at one point in time was mentoring a student at a nearby school in Miami for mentally and physically delayed pre kindergarten aged children. And during that experience, I really just had a life changing experience and really wanted to understand how I could help children in an educational environment as much as possible. So I started my first company in 1998, which was Adopt a Classroom, which was a crowdfunding platform for teachers as a way of trying to get philanthropic dollars as close to that child and in that learning environment as effectively as possible. So I grew that to be one of the larger education philanthropies in the country. By the time I left, I had raised and distributed about $25 million to teachers in 30% of U.S. public schools. Education Funding for Children’s Success Jamie Rosenberg The origin of ClassWallet germinates from there because in that journey I had developed a way of getting money in a compliant, impactful way as close to that child, and realized that I could help more children, more students by taking that technology and delivering it to the system, the school systems and state systems. And that was the impetus and catalyst to start ClassWallet in 2014. Michael Horn And so what were those initial customer relationships like what was the dollar flows funding from to and so forth? Jamie Rosenberg Yes. So the initial focus and hence the brand name was really helping LEAs and school districts get their funding down to the classroom more effectively. K12 is a trillion dollar budget, yet teachers spend $1,000 out of their own pocket every year. I mean, it’s just a huge disconnect. So we started out selling to school districts and today about 6% of public school teachers in America actually have a ClassWallet account, almost like a teacher savings account, where they get access to a wallet and can purchase the learning goods and resources they need to meet the learning needs of their students. And then in 2017, we evolved to sell ClassWallet into the state agency space, really solving similar problems for education savings accounts. And since then we have become a market leader in school choice, but have also been used in other agencies like early child care, workforce development, and health and human services. Michael Horn Yeah, I noticed that. And before we get to the ESAs, just, just say a word about those other three areas because I think it’s interesting that you get to serve those as well as sort of this core K12 ESA market. Jamie Rosenberg The underlying theme is that it’s all the same problem. The challenge in trying to get public money to the right people and ensure those people not only use it for the right purpose, but ultimately have the biggest impact for that program lies in a point of intersection where policy intersects with rubber hits the road implementation and compliance. And our innovation has been able to unlock that friction point and maximize that impact of that dollar. And that applies to a dollar reaching a family for ESA equally as it implies reaching a family who might be getting early child care subsidy or an adult learner who has a grant from an agency to further their career journey. So it’s all the same problem. And our innovation has been able to maximize outcomes of programs across various types of programs. Michael Horn Say more about that because I think then as we get into the ESA space, sort of the counterfactual right. If ClassWallet hadn’t existed, I imagine would be we have dollars theoretically flowing from state coffers, to families in a private wallet to spend on education providers, both schools, as well as other options, tutoring and so forth. I can imagine that would have been a very bureaucratic application, paper and pencil, sort of heavy set of things like that. Friction would have been really real. How do you all come in there and facilitate and streamline those dollars reaching the families themselves? What’s the innovation there itself look like? Jamie Rosenberg So to talk about our innovation, I’ll give you just a touch upon briefly what existed before our innovation. Michael Horn Perfect. Jamie Rosenberg So you can understand the impact. So prior to our introduction of digital wallet technology, states really only had two choices, a debit card or reimbursement. Michael Horn Yep. ESA Funding Solution Jamie Rosenberg So how does the state get $100 million to, you know, 30,000 families on a debit card? Not only that ensures using it according to the rules, but can get the data it needs. You can imagine how challenging that might be. And reimbursement of course is equally challenging, forcing families to spend their own money and submit receipts. So that was the ESA market prior to ClassWallet. What our innovation does is a digital wallet that gives families immediate access to the funds and allows them to spend those funds within vendors and for goods that the rules of the program are already embedded in the system. So they have agency to get what they need, but also the ease of knowing that what they’re doing and what they’re buying is compliant to program rules. Michael Horn So you’re effectively solving the compliance thing proactively. So it’s hard coded, if you will, into the digital wallet and the set of market options that they’re seeing has already been vetted. And you have solved that sort of question in their mind of if I’m allowed to do this, is that a fair way of saying it? Jamie Rosenberg I’m saying that we solve an outcome problem, not a compliance problem. The compliance is the root cause as to why programs don’t get the outcomes they want. But what we’ve been able to do is by solving the compliance problem, we create a two sided marketplace and give families access to the breadth of innovation and all the providers that can support that child’s unique personalized learning needs with an incredible powerful market. If that makes sense. Michael Horn Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. So then talk about how many states are you supporting today in their ESA policies out there? Just give us a sense of the market that you all are serving at the moment. Jamie Rosenberg We currently serve nine ESA programs and in addition we serve other programs that give money to families but may not necessarily be used for tuition. So they’re not school choice under the classical definition, but they are what I would call education freedom, where families are getting funding from, from state agencies and can self direct how those funds can ultimately improve their children’s outcomes. Michael Horn Gotcha. And then so you have this fascinating bird’s eye view effectively into these markets that are getting created, the supply side, new school models, tutoring, right, entrepreneurs coming in and so forth. The demand side, families getting comfortable with this option, with using the dollars to get whatever set of services they need for their students. I’d love maybe let’s start on the supply side and thinking about lessons of regulation and policy. And you can go either way, positive or negative. I guess I’m curious what you’ve learned that really facilitates a robust supply side. And then the flip side, what stymies it, what holds it back or gums it up? And as we think about what, what are the right set of policies and regs to really make these marketplaces flourish. Education Market: Innovative ESAs Jamie Rosenberg So first, I would appreciate that what the education market is doin

    34 min

  7. 11/10/2025

    Launching Vocation, the AI Coach to Help Individuals Make Career Progress

    Cliff Maxwell joined me to announce the launch of Vocation, an AI-powered career coach. Built on decades of research, Cliff and I cofounded Vocation with Bob Moesta, my coauthor of the bestselling book Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career. Cliff and I discussed how Vocation now brings the process from Job Moves to you with the help of AI—so that you can identify what truly drives and energizes you at work and move beyond traditional resume-based or job title-focused career tools. Cliff shared some early stories of how Vocation has helped individuals. I’m excited that this resource can now be in all of your hands—and we look forward to your feedback. Links: https://www.joinvocation.com/ Michael Horn Excited to be with you, Cliff, as we talk about this new company we have created together, with Bob Moesta as well, called Vocation. It is based off the book Job Moves that we did. We had, you know, over a decade of research with a thousand-plus individuals who had made job changes and started coaching them and so forth. Ethan Bernstein’s class at the Harvard Business School, one of our coauthors pivotal in doing this, and then you sort of looked at this [book] and you’re like, hey, we could create a product out of this. And you were actually one of the early victims, if you will, of our research and tried out some of the work on you and I think it, I think it helped [you]. But before we start to introduce what Vocation is, maybe let’s tell your own personal story into this work and how you got to be here. We’ve been collaborators and friends for I think over a decade at this point. But why don’t you tell it through your own, your own words, your personal story into this. From Semiconductors to Education Innovation Cliff Maxwell Yeah, no, it’s so great to, to be connected again here and, and it’s so fun to be building something that, that has really, when I look back, has been a passion project all along but, but now is manifested in some really, you know, powerful tools and research that we can use. But yeah, my career is pretty winding. I started out in semiconductors actually. When you’re 18-years old and have to pick a major, you just go with what sounds interesting and, and I love math and science, studied electrical engineering, but really quickly started to find a lot of passion and energy in other things that, that frankly just didn’t offer. One of which was startups and, and innovation was doing some, some venture capital work in, in undergraduate and, and working with some entrepreneurs in that capacity and was dabbling with start of my own and then also education and teaching. I had never been obviously a K12 teacher, but had taught in various different capacities and really loved just being in classrooms and thinking about how to help people learn. And so when I was struggling with unfulfillment and trying to figure out what’s next, the first time, which was my first job out of undergrad, I stumbled upon your research with Clay Christensen and really just fell in love with the idea of, of how to innovate and make change in education and where that space was going, which is obviously much earlier on over a decade ago and so left engineering entirely, came to work with you as a researcher and product manager, building tools for educators and thinking about that space. And then it was during that time when Clay Christensen asked me to be his chief of staff and help manage everything that he was involved with, obviously with the Institute, but also his teaching efforts at Harvard Business School and his consulting work and was such a remarkable opportunity to meet so many wonderful people, so many, you know, insightful leaders from all over the world, and just exposed me to, frankly, what’s possible when you, when you think, you know, think big and try to help, help people at scale. And so that turned into business school and then I use that really to think about how to get back into some of the things that I enjoyed, which is startups and innovation. And so I have been at venture capital for the past several years working with early stage tech startups, usually in the AI and robotics and more deep tech space. You know, even that process, you know, you mentioned that I, I connected and was one of your early victims. I was navigating the transition of my own between firms, thinking about what I wanted to do. And you know, Bob Moesta, one of our co-founders, said, hey, we’re, we’re doing some research. We’re working on a process to help you think through this. And that was so impactful for me, I think, just to realize that I could focus on progress and what I needed rather than what was expected or what I should be doing or what my resume says I should do. And so when the research came out last year and I got to see the book and see the implementation of that thinking and that process, it was just a light bulb to me that there’s a huge opportunity to scale those insights to job seekers everywhere who, like me, have struggled and, and tried to get through this question of what do you really want? What are you really trying to accomplish? And so it just started tinkering and prototyping and here we are now, right, building together and it’s been a lot of fun. Michael Horn Yeah, no, it’s been a ton of fun. And so we’ve launched officially the new company Vocation. I’ll put the link up there for those who are tuning into the live stream as well—joinvocation.com—but Cliff, you sort of alluded to it, how it’s helped you and so forth, and you’ve been a part of it and you read the book and you’re like, this should be a bigger product to help people. talk about what the product is like, what just at its fundamental core, what is Vocation? If folks go to joinvocation.com, what’s their experience going to be like right now? Navigating Career Changes Effectively Cliff Maxwell So we take as a starting off point really the underpinnings of the research, which, you know, many of your followers might be familiar with, which is how can we help a professional who’s in the middle of a potential job change? Something’s off at work, they feel like they want something new. Maybe they’re starting to apply to a few roles, maybe they’re networking, or maybe they’re even seeking out coaches or other tools. And what we try to do is basically give you a process to work through that uncertainty, to work through that fuzziness of trying to navigate what should my next thing be, what do I really want? And so we take you through effectively the research in Job Moves, but in a more consolidated and focused fashion of a multi step process. Each step builds upon itself, gives you a bit more clarity and guidance and direction. Starting with what is your career quest, what is ultimately driving your desire for change? A deep dive into what gives you energy at work and what drains it. So we can really pinpoint the types of work you want to be doing fundamentally. We look at the themes of your career. So we try to help you understand what are the common trade offs that you’ve made, what, what are the common choices that you’ve made that have guided your decisions. And so that we can kind of stay on brand, stay on purpose. And then we take a user through a prototyping exercise where we look at a whole host of opportunities, some of which maybe you’ve never considered, some of which maybe you think I couldn’t do that, but it gives us a chance to really have a job seeker wrestle with trade offs and wrestle with opportunities and put themselves in the shoes of different places to see where do I really fit. And then the last step of the process is narrowing down and guiding that process to drill down on a role that actually based on all of that discovery process makes sense for you and is going to give you the progress that you’re seeking. And then once you’ve gone through that process, we then have a whole host of tools and resources to help you then put the plan into action. Right? So now let’s go get that job and help you get the progress that we’ve helped you identify. Michael Horn Gotcha. Okay, so that’s the basic process, that’s the what we’ve talked about, the why, because you’re sort of the why like, and maybe we should make it a little bit more crisply, right? Like we see Literally millions of folks right now frozen in jobs where they’re disengaged, if Gallup is to be believed, like 2/3 or 3/4, right, of the workforce is disengaged, 50% looking to quit. And so there’s a huge amount of dissatisfaction, fear, anxiety in this place. But there’s like a long, you know, standing industry Cliff, right. Like career coaches and, you know, other places you can turn. There’s lots of job searching tools that are out there right now. There’s tons of AI companies popping up that will take your resume and they’ll adjust it for you and blitz it out to like a thousand different online postings and the like. Right. So, like, why is this different from the typical career tool or the coaches that are out there and so forth? Traditional Career Tools’ Limitations Cliff Maxwell Yeah, I mean, I think that if you’ve used these tools. Right. And I’ve used some of these and, and played with a whole bunch of, not just in building this, but also just throughout your life and even in high school, you kind of, you come across career assessments and, you know, things of that nature. I would say that the vast, vast majority of career tools are focused and still stuck, I would say, in a very traditional and narrow mindset of what a career needs to look like. And so they take as a starting point one of two things. Either, number one, what job are you looking for? So it assumes you know exactly what you want and then let’s put in the tactical how to go get that job. And that could be useful, right? Particularly if you know exactly where you’re going

    33 min

  8. 11/03/2025

    Khan Lab School's Growing Partnerships

    Kim Dow, executive director of the Khan Lab School and Khan Schools Network, and Elizabeth Dean, head of learning design at the Village School, joined me for this conversation. Together we explored the evolution of the Khan Lab School, as well as the Village School. We talked about how these schools are designing forward-thinking, mastery-based, and self-directed learning environments, the impact of AI on education, and why collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the network are vital for supporting new educational models. I was interested to hear about the Village School’s goals for expanding into high school and Elizabeth’s view on the importance of fostering authentic experiences and character development for students in the age of AI. 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. And to help us think through that today, I’m really excited for our two guests. We have Kim Dow. She’s the executive director of the Khan Lab School and the Khan Schools Network. So first, Kim, great to see you. Kim Dow Thanks for having us on your podcast. Michael Horn You bet. And then we’ve got Elizabeth Dean. She’s the head of learning design at the Village School and the first Kahn School Network partner on the east coast, which we’re going to hear more about today. But first, Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining as well. Elizabeth Dean Thanks for having us. Khan Lab School’s Growth Journey Michael Horn Yeah, you bet. So, Kim, let me start with you. Just Khan Lab School, I’ve been there probably a handful of times over the years, but if I’m being honest, it’s probably been like seven or eight years since I was last there. I was trying to do the math this morning as I was preparing for you to come on. And of course, Sal’s been on the show a few times, but still, I think the audience would love an update. Sort of like just Khan Lab School. We’ll get to the network in a moment. But just like, you know, the current state of it, how many locations do you have? How has it evolved over time? What’s the student body look like? Day in the life students, just give us a little bit of the color. Kim Dow Khan lab School is actually going into its 12th year this year, and I’ve been here for about eight years and it’s been quite a journey. And the school, as you know, is a Mastery based school. One of the earlier Mastery based schools, we’re located in Mountain View and we’ve also just expanded to Palo Alto. And so the school has grown over the past decade or so. And so now we have a campus for our lower school folks, and then we have a campus for our middle and our upper school students, which is based in Mountain View. In fact, our middle school this summer we just did some rehab and just moved into the old Khan Academy space. So we have moved from about, which the students love, and so the program has grown from the early days of about, you know, 20 students. I like to say it’s achieved escape velocity and we now have just tipped over 300 students, which is super exciting. So we often say that we have evolved from being scrappy to established, but not too established. And so we’ve really tried to retain those kind of startup, innovative roots and everything that, everything that we do. But it’s been, it’s been amazing to grow to, you know, a larger school. Michael Horn I love it. One more question, Kim, before I bring Elizabeth in. Just—300 students. I’ve always thought of Khan Lab School as a microschool. Do you, do you all still consider yourself as such at that size or like, how do you think? I mean, some of these classifications are sort of silly in some sense, right? It’s more about the educational experience. But I’m just sort of curious how you think about that. Kim Dow I think that we have evolved away from being a traditional microschool just partly because of the number of years that we have been around. And I think that moving into kind of being more of a grown up school based on, you know, the number of years that we’ve been around. Some of the things that, you know, are part of our operational elements, I would say are part of being, you know, a larger school. It’s interesting, you know, most recently about three years ago, we also decided to expand the program and we can get into this in a little bit later, but we expanded the model to open a school in Wichita. So we are now three campuses. One in Mountain View, one in Palo Alto, where Lower School is, and a new campus in Wichita, Kansas. Michael Horn All right, we’re gonna have to get more into all of this in a moment. But Elizabeth, I want to bring you in because before the partnership, the Village School was alive and well, and has a good history. So tell us a little bit about the Village School, its roots, who it serves, you know, what a student experience is like and so forth. Elizabeth Dean Yes, thank you. So similar to Kimberly, we started eight years ago. So this is theVillage School’s eighth year with 12 learners, preschool through elementary school age. And now we have close to 80 learners and we’re pre K through 8th grade. And we’re hoping to launch a high school in the future, which is where our partnership with Khan comes in, hopefully helping us with that, with all of their wisdom and launching a school and growing it to 300 learners. Our school is really built, we have our roots in a self directed learning model and we have a really entrepreneurial founding community. Some of those founding families are still here, really active and have just kind of pushed us to continue to expand and explore. We’re really focused on self directed learning, of course, as that’s, you know, really where our roots are. But focused on project based and mastery based learning and really wanting to make a school model and a learning experience that is really the future of education. Focusing on those, you know, human skills that are going to be really important as we continue down this road of AI and all things that come with that. Michael Horn And tell us a little bit about, like, that founding story with those founding families. You’re all in Northern Virginia, right? So just a little bit about, like, what was the why the rallying cry, if you will, that said, hey, we gotta. We have to put something different together. Elizabeth Dean Yes. So I can speak to that as I was one of those founding families before I worked here. So I was a member before I was an employee or I think there’s a famous line about that. But I might be dating myself with that. But you all get it. I see you laughing. Michael Horn Yes. Elizabeth Dean Families come from really, you know, I wouldn’t. It’s hard to describe. It’s not like they come from one particular background, really, just families that were looking at their current young, you know, their children’s school experience and just wanting it to be more than just fine. And I think something that all families, especially that founding group, really has in common and something we hear every time we take our new families out to a coffee is that, you know, they played the game of school and they either played it really well or they didn’t play it well at all. They figured it out either way, but they wanted something different for their kids. And so it’s really that just knowing that they’re just really wanting something else, which is like what I like to call them, entrepreneurial. Right. They’re really seeing that disconnect or seeing something that could be better and wanting to figure that out. So that’s really what I feel like brought us together. And we are, we’re located in Arlington, Virginia, right outside Washington, D.C. and we really take advantage of our close location to all things in the District of Columbia that are, you know, take the kids on really great field trips and have access to a lot of really wonderful professionals who are willing to come in and share what they do with our learners. So we’re really. We try to take advantage of our location for sure. Michael Horn Very cool. Very cool. All right, Kim, let me go back to the Khan Lab school because that’s also part of your title, Khan Schools Network. Right. You guys started to expand, I think, a few years back, if I’m not mistaken, and it’s global, in fact, at this point. So sort of tell us about that evolution of Khan Lab School into thinking about it as more of a network, if you will. How many partners at the moment? Where are they? What do they look like? And why partner as opposed to, like, just build lots of Khan Lab schools yourself? Kim Dow Very early on, I would say. And it’s actually a separate entity from Khan Lab school. And so. But I would say, you know, one of the things that, like, innovative schools in the Bay area and all over the country, everybody gets requests to come and visit their school, especially like Elizabeth, if you’re in a large metropolitan area. And what we were finding is, in fact, we’ve got a visit this morning. I’ve got another visit later in the week. You know, one of the schools is from India, and one of them is from France. This happens to everybody who is in this space. Building Collaborative School Partnerships Kim Dow And one of the things that I found was these conversations were so rich and that we, you know, folks would come, they would spend an entire day at the school, but then, you know, we would sort of drift away. We would stay in touch. You know, we would email each other every now and then, but we really weren’t continuing that relationship and those opportunities to learn from one another. And I would say probably about two years ago, we started thinking that we had gotten some things together about our model. And we have

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About

Interviews with the top innovators & changemakers so that you can stay on top of the trends transforming transform learning, education, and the development of talent worldwide so that all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose michaelbhorn.substack.com

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  • Creator
    Michael B. Horn
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    127
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Michael Horn
  • Show Website
    The Future of Education

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