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For over two decades Chicago scholars, a 501 c three nonprofit leadership development organization, has empowered nearly 6000 high performing under resourced students to overcome systematic barriers to success in college. Chicago scholars is the largest education nonprofit in Chicago, a city of over two and a half million. In addition to its wraparound support for Chicago
Bay students. Chicago scholars has recently created reach pathways, a first of its kind app designed to connect top talent with professional opportunities in ways that feel less like homework and more like a video game. Jeffrey Beckham, Jr. is the CEO of Chicago scholars and CO CEO of reach pathways. Jeffrey is a community leader, an artist and a tech entrepreneur, known for advancing the fight for equity for youth and marginalized communities throughout the
United States. Jeffrey lives by the quote to whom much is given, much is required. He strives to support traditionally underserved youth, working as a mentor with 100 Black men of Chicago Kappa Alpha side paternity, and other Chicago programs. Brooke McKean, the president at Chicago scholars and CO CEO of rich pathways has over a decade of executive level experience in fast paced and startup environments. In addition to experiencing managing teams in over 12
countries. Brooke is an expert in change management and has developed dozens of systems policies and infrastructure across all areas of business operations. Brooke believes in service oriented and values based leadership to ensure that Chicago scholars embodies the values that define its programs to quote Be The Change, Jefferey and Brooke, welcome to EdTech insiders.
Thank you for having us.
Great to be here.
So first of all, I want to make sure that our listeners know what Chicago scholars is. It's a fascinating organization, college and career success seven year program. Give us a quick history of what Chicago scholars is and does some of the results you've achieved and how you both got involved in it in the first place. Jeffrey, let me start with you. Sure.
Well, Chicago scholars is the largest college access nonprofit in the city of Chicago. Chicago is a city full of talent and leadership. But too often Chicago's talented young people don't have the resources and opportunities to go to college graduate and fulfill their potential as leaders. Since 1996. Chicago scholars has built a legacy of success by investing in youth and amplifying their
leadership. There are scholars are all high achieving first generation college students and students from low income communities all over the city, Chicago, and they have the talent heart in big dreams to become our next generation of leaders and transform our city. At its core, our work is really about economic mobility, leadership, development and
belonging. It's about making sure young people have everything they need to journey from Chicago's classrooms and neighborhoods to our boardrooms, or wherever their dreams may leave them. I came into this work after leaving the tech sector, actually, my background is in computer engineering. And so seeing some of the challenges
in that sector. With regard to diversity and inclusion, I wanted to get more active in helping solve the challenge of pipelining young people to opportunities in the field. Chicago scholars initially brought me on five years ago to be their vice president of
Korean leadership development. I got to build an internship program and work alongside Brooke, and really taking organization to where we are now, two years ago almost to right around this same timeframe spring of 2020, I stepped into a leadership role as CEO and now had the opportunity to really move the organization forward and serve more young people throughout our city and throughout our country.
And that's fantastic. And I know you're using technology to help amplify the effect that you've already had for so many of Chicago's youth and first generation college students. Brooke, let me go to you give us a little bit of an overview of your role in Chicago scholars as president and how you got involved.
Yeah, I started Chicago scholars in 2018. really leveraging a whole over a decade of experience working in international development, human rights and developing operations for humanitarian crises, systems and kind of the backend infrastructure that make organizations work and scale successfully and brought to Chicago scholars to help with continued scale and growth of
the organist. as Asian, I've always been passionate about youth and education, and ensuring that the next generation of young people have opportunities. And so my role has transitioned from being more operations focused to be leading up strategic initiatives and growth for the organization. Under Jeff's leadership as CEO, we've set a really ambitious vision of serving every possible eligible student in the city of
Chicago. And with that, I've had the opportunity to build the strategy to make that possible.
That's fascinating. And, you know, I'll tell you some of the stats that I've seen about Chicago scholars, you know, normally 48% of Chicago Public School students have a six year graduation rate, you know, finished college in six years, but 78% of Chicago scholars do. So you follow people through high school and through their college years, to really get them into, as you say, positions of leadership and fulfilling careers. It's a really powerful
program. But you know, we haven't talked about tech yet. So you've recently announced reach pathways, which is an app that connects students, employers, colleges and community partners in the virtual world, driving awareness and closing the gap between talent and opportunity. So you're really leaning into ad tech, which is very exciting for all of us. Tell us about reach pathways and what this virtual world is going to look like? Jennifer, let me start with you again.
Sure. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that happened during the pandemic was us really leaning into understanding what kids needed in the moment. Now we heard time and time again, whether it was from young people, our parents, that they were over the traditional methods and ways in which folks were trying to connect to them text messaging just weren't working. And by the month nine of the pandemic, we saw email
engagement down to as well. And so we had the vision to start and really leverage technology to communicate in a way with them that made more sense for them. As we did our homework, we use a lot of human centered design, brought students into the fold brought our partners into the fold. We understood that students wanted something that engaged with them, but also
was fun was gamified. That was easy to use that created a user experience, and an interface that was more relative to the things and the kinds of tools that they were using the Roblox of the world. The fortnight's. And so we went after starting initially building something that was more 2d, our MVP, our alpha version, we call it was a
traditional style portal. But we noticed that engagement improve that when students were actually rewarded for engaging in answering questions, taking part in content, connected with mentors, that it really allowed us to deliver our curriculum, which is 26 years old, and research backed in a way that made sense for them. And that was phase one, Brooke had the idea to turn it into a game she'd say, Jeff, I think this really needs to be a game. And
kids confirmed it. So we went about finding a partner, we actually worked with the company stimuli at a Texas who had done some gaming education work, and alongside our curriculum and really enhancement to deliver this platform. And what we do well, for college students and high school students reach pathways was born. I mean, I'm excited for it, because it really is the nexus of how colleges companies and young
people meet. They meet in a world that is gamified that is at their fingertips, you know, we always say less like homework and more like a video game. And so it's really a fun and powerful platform.
Yeah. Tell us more about this sort of gamification, Roblox fortnight keeping students engaged through, you know, quite a multi year curriculum.
Yeah, we have interviewed hundreds of students over the last several years to really understand and meet their needs. And it really comes down to three things. It's about belonging and community. It's about pathways, it's that step by step, what do I do one, and each step of the journey is about having those financial resources, job opportunities to
be successful. And so you know, in keeping students engaged and rewarding them, it's about meeting them what they need when and each step of the journey and curated content, rewards for that thing that they need right now and need help with in a space that's designed by and for them, where much of the world is
not. So that's the ways that we're keeping students engaged, keeping them excited, we have a group of scholar advisors that we pay contractually to give us advice on the platform to ask their peers for fat feedback. We've trained them in design thinking, so that we're really centering student voice and each step of this journey so that we're meeting their needs to be successful.
Fantastic. So you know, I'm hearing from both of you that you're using, you know, human centered design, you're really bringing your learners into the process, finding out what they want, what they like testing the platform with them. One thing that strikes me, you know, this time period can be so fragile for everybody, you know, the end of high school, figuring out what you're going to do next in your career or college or how far
away you're gonna go. And you know, the mentorship that you provide is obviously so important. You know, the distractions I have to ask is like, this is such a moment where any little thing can pull people off a path. And I'm sure you've seen that for years in your In person work, how are you looking to sort of keep students from falling out of these pathways to college for financial reasons for, you know, other obligations for any, there's so many reasons why people might lose the thread.
How do you keep them on? Yeah,
I mean, in this world of web three, and this world of, you know, thinking about connection differently, I think a lot of this was birthed on the other side of the pandemic, we recognize the power of community as the real way in which our scholars thrive. And so, you know, the app actually allows us to really harness and amplify the power of the Chicago scholars community, in a way
that we haven't before. You mentioned that a lot of the work we had to do previous to having our application required us to have folks calling people reaching out, there's so much in terms of the human capital required to build that social capital, for students to feel confident and connected to make sure that they're, you know, navigating those distractions, when they pop up the challenges that happen along the way life's journey, right, we always say, life is going to life, the
application allows us to do that in different ways. So it actually provides a tool in which we can really leverage the special parts of Chicago scholars community, which is a grit and growth mindset component that our students have, you know, Chicago scholars has really worked for the last seven years, and enhancing how we think about leadership, and how we infuse that in our
curriculum. So part of the work that we do when students come on board, and even before as they apply in interview, we look for that leadership that grit, it's not easy to get in to Chicago scholars. And we think we know how to identify that using our
platform. So reach actually will allow us to find more young people, we call them hypers, high performing under resourced students, you know, sourcing more of those hypers across the landscape, who have that grit, who have that growth mindset, who want to take hold of their own agency, and really push towards the success opportunities for them. And so you all reached us is like create a community for them to lean on each other first,
mentors there as well. And our goal is to make sure that there's a wealth of companies and opportunities colleges, too, as well, there who also looking for students who have that same grit growth mindset, and really want to push towards success.
Just to add, you know, one of the biggest barriers we know from experience
is finances for students. And so that's why an opportunities board with job opportunities, internships, financial resources, scholarships is core to the platform, because that's what they're going to come for is they have an immediate financial need, and we'll be able to provide those resources and that's embedded into the content, we also are really try to tell that story of kind of the behind closed doors, what everybody is told if they have access to a network and pillage,
but if you are a first generation college going student, and we're doing it playing on those short video clips that our students are engaging with on other platforms, and a way that's raw that tells the story of what it's really like to have these jobs, how they really got them what their lessons were, and they're gonna see themselves and the people that are telling those stories.
That's fantastic. I love that term hypers, the the high performing under resourced students, and as you mentioned in your publicity about this reach pathways, many of these students don't necessarily have friends or family who have experience with college with don't necessarily have experience with the type of career trajectory or the, you know, aspirations that these students would like to pursue
for a variety of reasons. Tell us about how people will connect in the platform in terms of finding role models, do students see their mentors, as you know, themselves? In five years? Do they see people who are you know, have really broken through and see themselves in them? How do those relationships get built? First, you know, how do they get built in Chicago scholars in person, which you have you've done for decades?
And then how are you transferring that kind of deep relationship to the metaverse?
Yeah, looking at Chicago scholars model, and we're pulling some learning from that for sure. But we're doing it a little bit differently. Because it's a digital platform. The mentor model is cohort based. And we're thinking about how to integrate that into the platform as well, because we know that has a much higher success rates for learning, and that one to one support and
community. But there's a couple of different ways where students will be able to see themselves, we are interviewing leaders of color, first generation leaders across the country, in tech industry in business and healthcare, telling their
stories. And so even if those individuals aren't on the platform, you'll be able to meet the avatar that tells the story and watch the video clips of students will be able to see mentors, even if they're not live on the platform, and see themselves in those mentors, as well as engaging through the strategy of engaging mentors through Chicago scholars bringing on individuals who are passionate about the next generation. And we're really building a culture of reciprocity into the platform.
So a lot of near peer support as well. If you just got into college, you can reach back to the person applying right now. If you just graduated, you can talk about that struggle of finding your first job if you're further on any A career you can help coach young people.
It's amazing. One of my favorite social science papers in education is by Nicole Stevens from Kellogg at Northwestern. And she did an intervention for first generation college students that basically it was a panel of students who are already in college talking about everything that threw them for a loop when they first got to college, everything that they didn't realize and they weren't
prepared for. And by telling incoming students what that was like, it made a huge difference in those incoming students trajectories, just knowing that they weren't alone, knowing that what they were facing people had gotten through before, and you know, really seeing the inside track there. So that seems really relevant to what you're
doing there. Jeffrey, I'd love to hear more from you about how you know you mentioned in person, it's all these calls, you have to really, you know, knock on the door and find people and email them and text them and call them and really chase them down sometimes. How will this work in a technology supported platform is that if students do not come in for a week or two, what would be you know, some models to help them get back on track?
Well, you know, one of the things we learned is that gamification really works to do that, you know, when you have a leaderboard there and you see your peers climbing up the leaderboard, because they're taking part in the quest inside of the application, and they've done the three things to get the points and you're behind. It's motivating. It almost really resembles a lot of what you see in like the peloton. model,
right? Yeah, if you think about why peloton, so it's so successful, it's like, yeah, my friend's output was higher than mine. And I need to get on this thing right a couple of times to catch up. And we're utilizing a lot of the same psychology there. And the platform. And so, you know, we know, with hypers, in particular, the motivation to be successful is there, the you know, grit, again, going back to that they really do want to push towards that. And so we're utilizing that as part of it.
But also, the reason why we've had students actually develop the content, the reason why we focus so much on making sure that young people are the faces in the application that they see it so that you feel compelled to co see your near peers be
successful. Some of the like most outstanding videos that we have in the platform are of scholar alum who have done some of the most amazing things out there started consultancies, lead change opportunities and initiatives across the country, ran for office, and one served in elected roles and even taken on senior leadership roles at very young ages. So when you see that it is motivating, you want to come back, you want to
connect with them. And I think the other part that's really beneficial is that the people, the adult volunteers who are vetted and if signed on to be mentors in the application, are
there for you. So knowing that you have a welcoming environment, it makes it much less off putting and eases those nerves and kind of calms the nerves, as opposed to going to a profile platform like LinkedIn, where you don't know if the person you're reaching out to, by actually ever respond, these people are there because they want to connect, which I think, again, like really leads towards giving students that comfort.
And you know, the encouragement and motivation, they need to do the things they need to do to find their opportunities.
Yeah, I'd add to that. The advantages we have with the technology platform is 24/7 content and support our original alpha version, as Jeff mentioned, some of the most engagement is like 10 o'clock on a Friday night, our staff aren't available then to answer questions, but the platform will have those answers in that resource for students, when they're actually available to engage.
It's so interesting to hear all of the different techniques that you've employed both in Chicago scholars, traditional, and the new version, you've talked about, you know, grit and having a growth mindset. And all of these psychological, you know, working with near peers, working with cohorts, having financial incentives and sort of reasons to come into a platform. That might be you know, very pressing for somebody, and also allow
them to keep accelerating. And the selectivity as well, the idea that upfront, getting into a program like this, you have to show that you're high performing, you really have to sort of prove some of that grit upfront. It feels like a really exciting recipe for success. And you've recently won the future of work award at South by Southwest pitch competition, which is really exciting. And that's for those listeners that South by Southwest, not edu.
It's full South by Southwest. So that's the you know, that's a pitch competition with lots of different kinds of entrants. Congratulations, first of all, that's amazing. What was that experience? Like? And, you know, what do you hope that recognition is going to do to to accelerate your initiative? Brooke, let me start with you here.
I mean, it's surreal. I, I was shaking on that stage when we were to come up with the cheque and when, you know, in some ways we applied as thinking it was a longshot even to get into the pitch competition. We're still pretty early in our process. We're nonprofit, a lot of people just kind of treat us like we don't know what we're doing because we're coming out of nonprofit roots and it just provides us validation that we are on the right track. We know we're doing and we're gonna win.
You already won. It's fantastic. How about you, Jeffrey? What was that like? And what is it going to mean for reach pathways?
You know, as a former athlete and a salesperson for many years, you know, I've done the National Sales competitions. And you when you get to go up on stage, I don't think I felt that kind of enjoyment since like high school sports, right? Like it was, it felt like we won a championship. And I think it was because of the brick mentioned the validation from the external
marketplace. And from the for profit sector saying this idea not only has legs, but the way you've built it out, and go on about thinking about how you can scale this business to really support young people across the country, but also generate revenue, because that is our goal was exceptionally exciting for me, both personally and for
the organization. And so I think that it'll help us in a few ways, a, as you mentioned, the validation of having South by Southwest, next to us first was great to make it to the finals, then to actually say, South by Southwest pitch winner, and being able to put that logo on our website, on our social media, on our LinkedIn profiles as we go after working and seeking out, investors both
precede. And hopefully, as we started getting into raising rounds of money to grow, and scale this business even more, I think it just really opens and unlocks a lot of doors for us. And I think that it really does, again, speak to the merit of the idea. I also was exceptionally just think beyond proud, but also appreciative of the fact that the judges in the competition saw the merit of the idea, but also saw the value in the community were supporting. And that, you know, felt really
good. They asked the question of me, as I got to speak in their award ceremony about what I wanted people to know about Chicago. And if you see the video, my voice is trembling, because I'm so passionate about people understanding that when you look at the City of Chicago, and you really dive into understanding who young people are here, they're talented, they're creative, they're brilliant, they are really the
future of this country. And it was nice to have a group of leaders from all over the world support that in support that narrative in that moment.
That's really exciting. And I love the point about, you know, nonprofits, sometimes in a world surrounded by venture capital and private equity, and, you know, people not give nonprofits the respect they deserve for doing really innovative work, especially in education. But I think in many, many fields, so it's great to
get that recognition. And as you say, you're working in Chicago, it's, you know, one of the larger American cities, but doesn't get as much attention as it deserves either, because it's not the home of the media industry or the movie industry. So it's really fantastic to be able to really highlight Chicago and Chicago's youth and nonprofits all at once. It's really, really amazing to hear it. We're at this really
interesting time right now. I mean, we interviewed a guest on the podcast who's building Metaverse cities, and they call them digital twin Metaverse cities where they basically create versions of college campuses in the metaverse which then people can use for, you know, for all sorts of things they can use for campus tours, they can use it for community building for hybrid learning.
And it strikes me as I hear you talk about your Metaverse plans that it's possible that some of the students who are learning in your Metaverse may then actually attend college in a Metaverse or partially in a Metaverse is that part of the thicket? Here, I'm curious how you see these students futures as they grow up in a world of this very accelerated tech change. rug, let me start with you on that.
Jeff is the futurist who's gonna have so much more to say, but I'm like the one who figures out how to implement it. But I mean, as someone with a six year old, who is obsessed with Minecraft, I am seeing a generation of young people engaging with the world and what's real in a fundamentally different way than we have and how we grew up. And I think that that is going to change how students want to engage with each other, how community is built, where
learning happens. And I do think it's the responsibility of all of us in the education sector, the nonprofits face that college space, trying to understand what the next generation needs and meet them where they're at. Because otherwise, we're gonna have a lot of loss learning, especially as a result of the pandemic.
Yeah, Jeffrey put on that futures tab, what his college is going to be like for students that are starting high school now.
So it's interesting. I've done a few interviews recently since the win. And I've shared that, you know, I hope College has figured out that they need to adjust and change that. The world we live in where skills based learning and demonstration of skills and being able to validate those demonstrated skills using technology is the future of
education. You know, I was wrestling with this as we built our own platform and thinking through like, man, we can add things in this world where students actually can then have digital wallets of demonstrated skills on our platform. We can use blockchain technology to actually make sure that it's verifiable and that's all We are headed. That's the long play for
us. But then what would it look like to work with colleges who also have degree programs and Master's tracks for those same students that say, we see in your chain in your wallet, you've done X, Y, and Z. And all this can be automated now does now send students in real time things that they need that that provides a revenue opportunity for colleges as well, as they think about continuing learning opportunities post graduation, you know, when I went to Mizzou, undergrad, I did Objective C and
C, that's how old I am. I know, given my age there, by the time I graduated the CS program and move to Java, right, I could imagine a world now where 10 years from now they know I got that undergrad degree in CS or Objective C, and now they're sending me automated emails to content marketing around we've got this advanced, enhance your skills, right. And it just allows for us to think about learning in a way that is continuous, that is fluid, it's
not rigid. And that also will mean that there's a different level of value attached to what our degrees have. Because now I can go back and show you, here's my portfolio of all the things and that that's what the reach platform will do for students and young people. I think that it allows them to also learn, I think we're here now where we think about VR, AR web three, now students will be able to interact with our platform and learn and actually build those
skills. So that when they're out in the general marketplace, they can say, hey, we helped our advisors can say we helped develop a web three platform that uses a gaming engine to game of five skills, basic skills demonstrated like I mean, it is outstanding to be able to have that on your resume. Now in a time when the world is trained, changing literally every single day. And so I'm you know, you can hear my voice, I get really excited about it.
Because I think about what that means for young people and what that'll mean for the future and how they enhance engage with learning.
I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, the number of the the trends that you both mentioned, this idea of, you know, skills based hiring and skills based learning or Burcu said, you know, where learning happens is just going to be totally different for the next generations. I mean, they're already they're learning from YouTube and Tiktok. They're learning from all sorts of places that we would not have
expected us older folks. And now it's moving to even more interesting platforms like Metaverse, like blockchain enabled learning experiences, we've talked to people about educational Dows on this podcast, and the idea that, you know, people that people can get together and create their own school or their own credential that, you know, there's incredible stuff on the horizon. And it's, it's so great that this is being incorporated into the lives of these high schoolers, you know, early on.
So by the time they are applying to colleges, and getting their first jobs, they're prepared to have a portfolio, they've been working on really important skills. This feels like a strange question to ask right after this. But I have to because I think it's very
relevant here. You know, many of the listeners to this podcast know that we talk often about alternative credentials about you know, in a world of skills based hiring, maybe you can get that job with just a portfolio without necessarily needing a bachelor's degree or a computer science major. I love your point about lifelong learning, by the way, we can talk more about that
as well. But like, there was a Wall Street Journal just came out with a poll just this week, saying that, for the first time ever, the majority of young people surveyed think college might not be worth the return on investment. And that's changed a lot. Just in the last few years. It went, it used to be 44%. And now it's 56%. So that's a big
deal. You know, I'm curious in your conceptions of college and career readiness, are things sort of shifting around in terms of what that means, as these alternative pathways start to gain more and more prominence. Jeffrey, let me start with you here.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting, because we talk about that often in the organization. We also go right to the data, right, we looked at like how, and what happened, the number of jobs still open right now, I think 10 million jobs in
America are still open. And the number of jobs that will require a degree in terms of high skill, high wage jobs, which are about 30% of those civilian aren't going anywhere, which means that if less people are going to school and coming out with the degrees required to do that work, especially managerial and C suite, track talent, then there's going to be more opportunities and less people to fill roles. We already have a
labor shortage. So I see our unique opportunity and providing what we provide is still telling students that college stuff does still change so much for you that you should go yeah, you need to go, especially if you are hybrid, you've done it on the academic rigor, the persistence to actually make it through. You've got the right and Moxie to get to school and
thrive through school. The thing there is though, I think we have to start to have different conversations with young people about what college actually means. And I think part of it is like twofold. First, the network, you know, I'm with you, I don't think you have to go to school to be successful, many people have done it, many people will do it. And I think the data is showing us many more, will continue to choose that pathway.
However, I do know there's networking opportunities, that the only thing and the only place that would have gotten me there at 18 year old leaving the Southside of Chicago, was going to that University's campus and meeting folks from all over the globe, who I never would have met had I went right to work coming from here for me. And I think a lot of young people like me, that was the best
opportunity for me. The other part of that, too, is, you know, we talked about in how we see the application skills, building skills, and being able to do things and learn things that again, would have been very hard for me to get here in Chicago. Yeah, online learning is great. YouTube can teach you just about
anything. But there's still benefit and value when I started to learn Softimage and Maya, and other modeling softwares, as a 19 year old kid, to have that person sitting next to me, who had been doing it for 15 1011 years, is shown in real time to demonstrate, because there's different types of learners to not everyone is an online learner, not everyone is an auditory learner, some people actually need to see and then
replicate, to learn. And I think those are the values, that college still provides that you don't get, where you stay home, and when you go a different route. So I think it's multiple pathways for multiple people. And I think it's being able to have information earlier for a lot of our young people to understand what the best pathway
is for them. Because we know even if it's AI, VR, AR and a lot of the places, things that are replacing certain jobs, there's still prompts and people and humans on the other side are required and tell the computers what to do. And if you have an ability to think logically, and you can actually reason well, and you learn that through college at a very high level, you can even be more successful than those that may not choose to go that route, I think it's a yes in approach to that.
Adding to the data, Dr. Chedis research shows that the largest indicator to making more than your parents is going to college. And so for students from low income families, that is still the pathway out of poverty in this
country. I do agree all pathways are necessary, there needs to be vocational opportunities, our focus with high performing students, and I would argue in recent research has has added to this that every student has the potential to be high performing, there is opportunity and going to college to to be the manager to hire the vocational staff that will go on their pathway to and I this is a topic that is so important in it, I struggle with the push for vocational, because
it's happening in black and brown High School, it's it's not happening in the white high schools. And so you know, it's great to encourage being a plumber in you know, the south side. But if you go to the North Shore and try to do that, that's gonna be a very different reaction. So I think we will perpetuate inequity if we're not thoughtful in who vocational training opportunities are going to and who college opportunities are going to.
We both make amazing points on this. And, you know, I admit, I am always very torn on this question because on one hand, I think, you know, alternative pathways are makes so much sense, there shouldn't be a monopoly on mobility, there shouldn't be only one way to get ahead in society, and it happens to be a way that's extremely expensive. But at the same time, you're right, I mean, higher ed has a very good record of getting people to change their
socio economic statuses. It is it is, as you say, the path out of poverty for so many students. And also it's transformational.
In terms of your outlook on life, I one of the things I I remember very well from my undergraduate years was them talking about how people who went to it's basically one of the biggest fault lines in society, people who go to university, it's about a third or a little more than a third of people in the US have a totally different set of friends, they have different likelihood of getting married to somebody who also has a degree different jobs, different hobbies, like a
lot of things change for people when they go to college. And that's so transformational at the same time. It's expensive, it's difficult, it takes a long time, and you have these high dropout rates. I wrestle with it all the time, I'd love to stay on this topic, just because it's so important. And you both clearly thought about it so deeply. But like, I guess the question is, Geoffrey, let me start with you here. You're focusing on high performing students. So the college pathway
makes a lot of sense. But do you see a world in which those alternative pathways aren't seen as a sort of secondary idea? It's not it can go from the south side to the North Shore, as Brooke puts it, or is it part of the stratification of society?
No, I actually think that the business community is going to have to catch up to see alternative pathways as an opportunity for students just because, you know, I always talk about this jokingly, but you can't manufacture more people right? We'd know now there's a labor shortage, and so many critical
roles. You know, we've got people at the state federal level making policy to try to fill roles to pay for college for student people that want to be social workers to, you know, get more people into advanced manufacturing to get more people into some of the skilled trades roles as well, there's a shortage of people across the board, which means that when we think about the business community and the private sector, they're going to have to think about what credentials
look like to mean to attract and
do certain roles. I think that that's needed to happen for a while, even in college, when we talk about college admission, right, some of the early data in Chicago through the to and through projects within our Chicago, it's showing that students who typically wouldn't have gotten into certain schools and highly selective schools are going and they were able to access schools, because schools want test optional in a pandemic, I think we need to apply some of the same mindset
to how we think about the corporate sector. I, you know, we know that the reasons why some of the barriers exist in corporations is because they were intentional, right? Like, you know, you don't go to HBCUs to source talent for engineering. Why not? Because someone many years ago said that the only places we go to these four or five big 10 schools, and that's all we go to hire our engineers, our finance folk,
that's going to change. And I think that the alternative pathways, the alternative credentialing models will do that, because people will come in and show and prove that I did. It's a program here in Chicago called IC stars, that really helps people in tech, get skilled in areas, whether it's coding data, and database management, I mean, all of these different pathways. And the data shows those young people go in
and they kill it. They kill it, they do really well, that one thing I see star six, as they bring students on board and their cohorts is they look for people with grit and growth mindset. So I think that the through mind as we think about alternative pathways, and even our program, you know, everyone isn't fit to be a Chicago scholar, we look for young people who have shown that they have, they can lead, they want to persevere. They want to push through, they want to take their
own agency. And I think that you'll see even in alternative pathways, it'll be those folks that get through and make it through, but the corporate side has to catch up. And I think they are I think we're starting to see it, you see programs, people, companies like Amazon, that if you know, you go to AWS and you do their training program, if you've grow with Google, you can get into their programs and actually become
engineers through Google. So I think that they're thinking about it differently, too, as well. Hopefully, they, you know, apply an equity based mindset. And don't get individuals who come in through apprenticeship programs and or alternative pathways, that they still have the same opportunity to move up into management and leadership. Because we've seen this before.
We've seen this in healthcare, years back when we needed medical coders and billers and we needed folks to do you know, some of the entry level health care work. So what did community colleges do? They stood up programs to train people to that, and then folks were kept. And what we don't want to have happen is that we create a nother substandard labor market in the tech side, folks who can literally just process data entry, right? Like you get we get back to that because we were
there for a while, too. We don't want to do that. So we tell folks to go get alternative credentials. And that's what they do, than it needs to be pathways available for them to as well. Right. And I think, again, it's a massive Yes. And we need many people to go to college. We need folks getting alternatively credential, we need folks focused on the jobs of the future because they're there we need people we are we have a shortage in almost every industry we think of right. So
what does that mean? That means that all of these things have to work in tandem. And there needs to be cross functional collaboration, as well like collective impact models to make sure that we're working together to make sure that the no student in the journey from K, you know, K through college, or K through career is left behind.
My long term vision and goal would be that reach has all of the pathways on it. And every job should be treated as having value. My father is a third generation construction worker, my husband's a reseller mom, being a mom as a full time and really important job that contributes to the society, there shouldn't be the same I think differentiation and if you've gone to college, or if you haven't, like I think that that's why some of the vocational training, language is
so important. All of those jobs have value and they're necessary to this country in this society. And at this point to be at a C suite level role in most fortune 500 companies, you're not getting there without a college
degree. And so we need to, and that might change in time, but I kind of doubt it at the highest level like we can't have a glass ceiling with directing marginalized youth to vocational opportunities that will prevent them from tapping into those roles and opportunities, especially the high performing students with that growth mindset who have the potential to be leading this country. We need to give them the pathway to get there.
Fascinating, truly, very nuanced and thoughtful way As of looking at this incredibly complex and fast changing social, social issue, and it's something we talk about a lot on the podcast, but these are some of the most, you know, thoughtful and and really, you know, careful takes I think this idea of a yes. And how do you
put these? How do you make these pathways all work so that, you know, no matter what choice people make, there is a pathway to a fulfilling career that careers are respected, that there isn't that huge polarization that we see, based on college splitting society, which it really has, we have to end on that note, because it is so powerful, you both give such powerful ideas. The last question we always ask on the podcast is about what do you see as one of the most exciting
trends? And we've talked about a lot today, but what are the most exciting trends in the education or edtech? Landscape right. Now? Let me start with you, Jeffrey.
Yeah, I mean, for me, it's all of the AI based stuff, whether it's Chad GPT, or mid journey, or Dali, to, in a way, enhance, I believe, I hope, enhance educational opportunity and outcome for learning for young people. It's just fascinating to me. I know teachers are already, you know, I've heard multiple lanes of thought from different teachers about it, like some educators are saying, if you use it, and you've used it to build the paper, with your thought behind it, and you edit the
paper, it's still your work. And then I've heard others say it's not. So I'm like really excited to see what comes of this from an educational policy landscape. But also like, what can young people create, I saw a young person create a whole NFT release in art, where the descriptions of what they want it created was so detailed and so finite, that like, you know, you're writing prose, in a fiction work to create these things. And then they took them and created a whole storyline
out of it. It was amazing. And so I'm like, if this is what's happening now, as the tools get even sharper and cleaner, and more accessible, what comes what kind of content what kind of things will be created for the world? So I'm excited. Some folks are scared, but I'm a futurist. I look forward to seeing what's built
with you, Brooke, how about you most exciting trend in ad tech or education?
Yeah, I mean, everyone's talking about AI. And I see a lot of really interesting opportunities to apply it to reach in terms of college counseling, career counseling, being able to have someone available even if there isn't a person there to get a lot of your questions answered, I think is really exciting. I also think restricting access to AI is really scary for for the careers of the future for young
people. I'm really just fascinated about the way in which video games are evolving to be places of learning and that oversexed intersects with our work. I think there's just there's no reason why learning has to be so painful. There are times when learning will be hard. And we can't stop that. But there are so many ways in which our journey should be rooted in plan and having a young daughter like, there are times when Yeah, they gotta memorize the addition like that.
I can't help you with that. But But there's so many ways in which the journey to growth and learning shouldn't be based in play.
Fantastic answers. Oh, one thing I'm always pitching is, we should get AI to develop educational games that actually park for our students, because we've been trying for generations to do it. And there have been some successes. But I kind of think that artificial intelligence might be the final piece of the recipe that cracks that idea that every student can have a game that is authentically fun. And they actually learn and remember and retain and can use the material. I'm going to put
that in Jeju PT tonight. So interesting. The last question, what is a resource you would recommend for somebody who wants to learn more about any of the topics we've discussed today? That could be a book, a blob and organization a white paper? Jeffrey, let me start with you.
Yeah, so I'm a big consumer of all of the things, you know, resources right now. But I've been using TED Ed a lot to learn about web three Metaverse, all of these things education in the way it's going to interplay. There's so many great ones out there right
now. And then you're leaning on following some of like the leaders in this space on Twitter, believe it or not, because there's a lot of conversations happening on Twitter where you can sit, hop one, Twitter spaces and have conversations about what's happening in the world. And YouTube. It's interesting that like, these, of course, new texts, not as new now, but still new tech are driving a lot of the conversation and informations happening in the
sector. And so big fan of all of those, and then from like a platform based side of all of this as well. I really, really, really love Storybird you know, the way kids can bring amazing stories to life has been a fun thing to watch working with some of the young people I work at teach the youth bible study at my church. And so seeing the kids use that to share comic books and poetry and novels.
It's beautiful. And I think again, it's like the precursor to what they can build when they work with us decide to reach down the road.
It's incredible what kids are already able to build with these tools and what they're about to be able to build with all of these enhanced tools as you said, a fantastic I've never heard a storyboard. I'm looking forward to seeing that and I love to edit under leveraged people don't talk about it enough. It has some amazing things on it. Brooke, how about you? What are some resources that you would recommend? Yeah, you
know, as I went from kind of a nonprofit background to this ad tech space, I found there's not a lot out there to help with that journey. So I actually started my own blog, just kind of documenting that navigating the nonprofit to for profit that's changing the business model journey. I will say I'm a little bit of a research nerd. So my inch I like really like the behavioral economics of learning and college persistence ideas. 42 has some great stuff out
there. Dr. Shetty is research I find really powerful to really ensure that we're, what we're doing is grounded in really robust data. So that's probably I spend more time on that than I do blogs or other things.
And we will get some links to particular papers Raj Chetty is a is an incredible researcher, I think single handedly changed a lot of the conversation about education and equity in this country. But you know, we'll work with you to put a couple of different papers as well as a link to your blog in the show notes for this episode. This has been a blast.
I'm really excited to see rich pathways launch, get big, use that human centered design to get every student every high performing, under resourced student into a incredible pathway. Thank you both so much for being here with me, Jeffrey Beckham, and Brooke McKean from Chicago scholars. Thank you. So thank you. This is fun. Thanks for listening to this episode of edtech insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the
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