Field Building for Educational Equity with Kim Smith of LearnerStudio

education. She was also the founder and CEO of the Sahara Institute, a national nonprofit that aims to identify, strengthen and sustain diverse high potential leaders who are transforming public education. Immediately prior she was co founder of Bellwether Education partners. Earlier in her career, she was a founding team member

at Teach for America. She created an AmeriCorps program serving community based leaders in youth development, she led a tradeshow startup, and did a stint in online learning at Silicon Graphics. After completing her MBA at Stanford, she co founded the new schools venture fund, a philanthropy focused on catalyzing a bipartisan cross sector community of entrepreneurial change agents for public

education. Kim was featured in Newsweek's report on the women of the 21st century as the kind of woman who will shape America's new century. Kim Smith, Welcome to EdTech insiders.

across systems globally. So it was a great way to come into the field. I also learned from them, my parents grew up in rural Tennessee, I grew up in suburban New Jersey, and I went to college in New York City where we also started Teach for America. And so I guess the other lens that came to me is recognizing we have these three pretty different Americas that kind of approach problem solving, and learning and schooling in pretty different

ways. And I think that also informed my thinking around people how they operate, systems change. So both have been helpful. And me as I think about innovation and change. Yeah,

You've been working with, you know, individuals and companies, very, you know, on the ground, but you also sometimes zoom out and sort of support field building initiatives between multiple sectors that's, you know, investors, philanthropic giving big projects, like Teach for America, which are really about systemic change of the entire, you know, teaching system. Tell us about some of the principles that guide your work and how you think about change broadly.

bridging leadership. And a lot of folks talk about it, but we're in a moment where we're gonna have to bridge across the sector's we need the nonprofit, the for profit, and the philanthropic and public sector to all do what they do best.

We're seeing clashing of domains are sort of a bumping into each other of domains from systems engineering to the underlying technology and edtech, to the human system to psychology, etc. A big emphasis on bridging across difference which you saw through Mahara and other parts of my background around how do we get people to work together across lines of difference, whether it's race or geography

or pedagogy or ideology. And the last one on that one that's really sticking out for me that I think a lot of people are ignoring is the need to bridge the generations. So not only to the generations of students from the adults working in the system, but even within the adults working in the system, we're in a big transition between generations that has

some really big impacts. The second piece is, across my career, I've realized that bold innovation takes it sounds kind of simple, but people ideas and resources. So it seems pretty simple. And yet, often I find people are focused on two of the three and think the other one is the problem. But depending on where you are, we often focus on money as the biggest problem. But often, like moments where now people ideas are equally

important. So just the idea that we need these learning cycles of bringing those three things together. That's a big piece of how I've made decisions about where to focus, my energy. And my career is at this moment in time, when you think about learning cycles with people ideas and resources, where do we need to focus? What's the missing link? How do we bring those things together?

But often, it's actually the people and the expertise and the sort of, you know, just the right people in the room, aren't there. And bringing people together can be just as important as actually funding. And then I hear this idea of connecting the dots, putting together all the different elements in this incredibly complex education ecosystem, so that they're talking to each other, and we can come up with really innovative solutions.

Yeah. So tell us about how these principles come into play, I've learned our studio.

education? So how do we connect the dots across the innovators who are already doing that work? And there are many of them, but they're a little bit fragmented, and they're not supported and connected into a big vision and, and a strategy for systems change? How do we move into that learner centered active learning beyond the classroom, you know, combining SEL and competencies and content, like I think most of us can see that picture emerging of what this new system

needs to look like. But it's much murkier when we stop and think about how do we get there? So we want to focus our energies on working on the how do we get there, connect the dots amongst the people already working on it, expand the resources, and the people who are working on it. And lastly, accelerate the work of ed tech to pave the way into that new system. As you know, most ad tech investors, I have to focus on the market as it exists now, right, like product market fit is where is

the market now. And I totally understand that, if we want this new system to emerge, it has to have a strong edtech underpinning. And that infrastructure, those utilities, and even some of the point solutions, they need to be built ahead of that demand curve. And that's just not the job of traditional ed tech investing,

right. So part of what we want to do with the learners to do, again, is connect the dots across the people already doing the work that's through policy leaders, two point solutions to model providers, expand the resources and the people working toward this next horizon of education. And on the tech front, try to rally philanthropic capital to invest in ed tech solutions ahead of

that demand curve. So we can try to pave the way and also de risk some of that, given the understandable and intense focus on kind of the current market for most edtech. Investors.

Right? Yeah. And it's like, and then people think that their solution is going to be the one thing that really pushes the system into a totally new paradigm, but then they hit the realities of the market and a product market fit. And if investors you know, asking them, what's your exit, how are you going to grow this fast? And they often have to adjust to the current conditions and say, Oh, well, this is hot right now or schools, procurement, you know, divisions look for this kind of

compliance. So we're gonna have to do that. And they end up sort of changing the vision, you know, bit by bit, often still having an enormous effect. Don't get me wrong, but doesn't change the entire paradigm, even incredibly successful edtech companies don't change the way education works in the

classroom. So I'd love to hear you talk even more about that tension between the venture funded, you know, we have a 10 year horizon versus long term systems change, the kind of change that can actually make the whole system shift.

systems change, right? Like, we need to invest in energy, intellectual and financial in what is the picture on top of that puzzle box that we're trying to drive toward. And many of the existing puzzle pieces we have will be amazing component parts to that new system. So that's terrific. I love entrepreneurs who are able to create solutions that are both sellable now, and can get a good product market fit now and pave the way into the future system. It's a it's hard to do, but it's

possible. And even if we added up all those points solutions, it's still not going to get us the systems change, they'll still be fighting against kind of the architecture, or some people call it the grammar of schooling, right? There's the grammar of schooling at the school unit level. But there's also architecture at the college gateway and around assessments and accountability, like the way we use time, all those architectural pieces, pretty much all of them need to be

redesigned. And so you'll see little places people are able to stretch past them. Often by exiting the public system. There's some innovation happening in the direct to consumer space, obviously, and the private school space. But we're kind of leaving the public system untouched in terms of its basic grammar and architecture. What's heartening is there are people working on every single lever, we would need to re engineer that system. So that's

really, really hopeful. We just now need to kind of like I said, connect those dots and pull those pieces together.

that. We have to figure out what are the guardrails we need to bake into the architecture? How do we think about prioritizing equity in the way tools are developed, and the way we think about evidence, and in the way the future System Preferences, both equity and kind of the public good, and not just consumers who are able to pay?

of what that looks like. But I think realistically, it is murky, and not everybody has the exact same vision getting aligned on what we want, public education and classroom education to look like feels like a big lift, but one that could completely change the way that all of this money is invested the way that philanthropy works, because if everybody's headed towards the same goal, one in which you know, skills or entrepreneurial education or SEL, or, you know, learner choice, I mean, there's

project based learning, there's so many different pieces that we all want to happen. If we all really shared a vision, it feels like it could make a big difference. I want to ask you about your investing piece, you found a NewSchools Venture Fund, which originally was the incubator for reach capital, which is one of the largest ad tech focused venture firms, you've been really close to the venture system for quite a

while. I'd love to hear you talk just a little bit about, you know, what role do these entrepreneurs and venture capital firms play? And then what's missing in that? And what would complement that really amazing work that a lot of them are doing?

in that. Originally, the model for new schools was if we want systems change, then we're going to need to leverage philanthropic capital to invest both in scaling nonprofits, and ad tech solutions ahead of the curve. So pretty similar to what I was just describing. I'm thinking about what the learners to do. As the market evolves, the way you need to think about that next wave of change also

needs to evolve. So part of what I'm seeing as we talked about is there's a fun The line, you know, I think about purpose driven entrepreneurs. And as you said, Most people who get into education are purpose driven. But there's kind of a fuzzy line between those who are most interested in serving the current market and building a successful and quickly scaling company, which is an amazing

thing to do. And as you said, there's an increasing demand for an evidence base that inside the current system, things are making a difference. So that's terrific. And but if we want to push into this future system, we're going to need a set of purpose driven entrepreneurs who are willing to shoot for that long term change. And that's going to require incredibly patient capital education already, in many cases requires patient capital compared to some

other industries. But this is going to require really patient capital. So how do we think about leveraging and combining capital from philanthropy, all different kinds of tools to bring ed tech into that future space ahead of where traditional investment is willing to go? Once we can get the system engineered a little differently, and the incentives are set up a little differently, you know, private capital smart, they're gonna move into that space as soon as the incentives are

fixed, right. So that's sort of how I'm thinking about the initial DNA we had at NewSchools, and kind of applying it into this space. So one of the things you and I had talked about before was kind of what were some of the lessons from that early work in new schools, and we're going to need to use philanthropy to help us build edtech ahead of the market. I think about a quote from a philanthropist many years ago, he said at its best philanthropy

is society's passing gear. And that's really what we're going to need to do is engaged philanthropy in this next front as kind of a passing year. And then as we get the incentives realigned in the system, rearchitected, private capital is going to jump right back in there. And there are entrepreneurs, purpose driven entrepreneurs, all across that spectrum, who are excited to build things to really move things forward for kids.

So when I think about the timeline, like we were just talking about patient capital, right, just think about the timeline of how long it took for that to really be able to sort of fit into the current market.

But the other thing that occurs to me is the way as that spun out from Carnegie Mellon, sitting at that board, I saw traditional investors really, were primarily motivated by top line growth, like they wanted to build successful scaling enterprise that required top line growth, they were really helpful in helping the organization to build an infrastructure that would allow that, but the founders were

mostly researchers, right. And they had this deep commitment to the research behind what they were doing already, as they spun it out, and really wanted to bake in that kind of research and learning cycle to the future of the company and the way they operated. But they were speaking

two different languages. So in my new school seat, I was a little bit of a translator, and also kind of a third type of voice at the table, which was, I came to think of us as almost more akin to like, corporate VC, you know, like, when Intel shows up at the table as an investor, you know, they want the company to be successful, but their purpose is to drive chip usage. And everybody understands that. And that's an important piece of

that conversation, right? And I think the same is true with new schools where there's about systems change, or was at the time in that context. And that was a little bit different. So when a conversation would happen about the trade offs, and the balancing between sales and marketing, and building the infrastructure, and the research and learning cycles, like those are almost three different languages being spoken, right,

which I think is tricky. There's not a lot of investors or entrepreneurs, frankly, who can sort of speak all those languages at the same time. It's really

learning outcomes. And that's, as you mentioned, yet another language outside of product and outside of, you know, systems to So there's this idea of how do we know if an edtech technology is actually working to create learning gains? And which types of gains? Are we trying to measure? What types of learning outcomes are we trying to measure? Sometimes this is called Impact. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that particular aspect of this world, because it's getting really

interesting. But it also creates even more complexity when people are trying to decide what to do.

forward. We've had a recent, I think, big leap forward with a set of folks on many fronts, the ally alliance for learning innovation and others, helping to push us toward a bigger r&d investment in education, I think that's really going to be one piece of being able to do better on this front is having a better r&d infrastructure, so that we're intentionally connecting researchers, and we're intentionally thinking about how the RND connect and how we think about evidence and efficacy. So

progress on all those fronts. So that's good. One of the challenges, though, as you were just hinting at there is, as we think about moving into the new system with competencies, and SEL lifeskills, were doing a good job of broadening the definition of success. So that's good. But most of the systems we have set up currently to think about efficacy and evidence are really set up on the sort of old paradigm set of outcomes, those

still matter. So we want to keep doing better and better at those, we obviously want kids to be able to read and do math and master science, so all that matters. And now we're adding these new fronts as well. So I think it's a huge opportunity for impact by investing in better, smarter, faster tools to assess impact. And obviously, AI and machine learning is going to help us on that. But we also have to get clear on what we want to prioritize in that new sort of emergent evidence base,

right. And that's a job where we're going to have to invest some time and energy in some coalition building common definition. So I look at it as kind of two fronts, both of which matter the current one, which we're making good progress on, and the next front, which is early, and we don't yet have real clarity on exactly what we want to measure for evidence around those competencies and life skills and poor it's not as mature, I guess we could say.

are still in that system. The second curve, which has been an ascent for the last couple of decades, which has been really helpful is innovation within that, essentially efficiency based system. So how might we innovate within an efficiency system to help make it more equitable, we had a heavy emphasis on equity, which has been a really important innovation and improvement, but fundamentally still within that

same efficiency based system. So how do we get better outcomes, but still, with kids largely sitting in chairs, largely with the teacher at the front of the room, right? Largely didactic, the third curve is kind of at the skunkworks stage now, so it's low, but it's eventually going to pass both of those curves and its volume over time. But it takes time for that new system to emerge. And so you have Skunk Works, and small scale innovations moving in that

direction. And the work we've talked about earlier in this conversation around reengineering the system, is what's going to help us really pave the way for entrepreneurs to just explode into that system. There are so many entrepreneurs and edtech creators with great ideas for how to better serve young people, and parents and teachers in that new architecture. And we need to get the barriers out of their way. So we're kind of thinking of these three curves

happening at the same time. How do we support the innovators who are working inside the system, while also doing a better job of paving the way into that new system, so they can do even more?

current model. But there's all of these ideas that people really want to happen in the education system, which there's just no room for them. There's no room in the day, there's no room in teachers, you know, training schedules, there's no room and parents willingness to

try new things. You know, a report just came out about homeschooling really exploding of the 1.2 million students who have left the public school system during the pandemic, you know, there's two people going to homeschooling for everyone going to private school, which implies to me, I'm curious what advice you implies to me that people are seeing that there may be better ways to do things, and they're actually willing to take it on themselves. And I'm sure

Tech is a big part of that. What does a stat like that mean to you in terms of this framework?

was a different use of time. So they had stand up and debates and dialogues, they had project based learning, they had a lot more learner centered and learner driven experiences. So they were classified as homeschoolers. But we were as parents, leveraging a set of different resources, including some local resources and micro

school type thing. So when I hear that stat, what it says to me is, parents, and this is true of the populace research that we've all seen recently to parents want something different, they don't merely want better in the old system, they want different, and innovators want to provide different, so they're finding cracks and places where they can do that. And right now, a lot of that is in homeschooling, or supplementary or direct to

consumer stuff. So I think of it as both a really important promising signal that, in fact, we can need to re engineered system because people are kind of making it up as they go along. And an opportunity for us to rethink about those categories. Right to not just think of that as homeschooling, but also think of it as parents who are willing to go to the trouble of creating something totally different for their kids. And that's a huge lift,

gonna agree with this. Right? I feel like what we see in there confirms what so many innovators and entrepreneurs have been saying that we have to go back to what is the fundamental purpose, and it's not just being able to pass standardized tests, right? It's lifeskills, SEL being prepared to be in dialogue across difference being engaged

in democracy. So careers, my career preparation, all that amazing innovation and workforce development that a lot of your listeners are doing is going to work its way back into the K 12. system. So the populace research, I think, is just super helpful in making really concrete that the college degree as the one and only single holy grail at the end of this pathway just isn't true. And so obviously, you have a lot of folks pursuing ed tech to help with multiple pathways and

workforce development. And now we can see that coming back into the even the K 12 system, parents are clear that they want a similar breadth of opportunity in K 12. But also as sort of the ultimate purpose of K 12.

Students advanced once they've demonstrated mastery of subject. What is your reaction to that? super interesting.

didn't make sense. So now with this data, it's clear that parents really do see the opportunity to move toward mastery based learning. Now we need the tools and the architecture to make that easily accessible.

speed of their own mastery. This is the whole philosophy behind Khan Academy, they end up moving in a very different, different pace. You know, I met a really interesting entrepreneur a couple of weeks ago, and I love to hear your thoughts on sort of this as a possible use case, as a sort of case study in the kind of change you're talking about. This is a company called Class equity. And entrepreneur named Abby coil, really interesting

product. It's basically entrepreneurship, education, financial literacy, it turns the classroom into a set of like jobs, basically, people can get, you know, virtual payments for what they're doing in school. And they can use that payment to invest and learn about finances. It's a such a neat product. And the thing that she's been saying is, there's just no time in the day for entrepreneurship education, and she's been bending the product in every way she can to make it fit into the

current system. But with this kind of populace research, of course, people want their kids to have practical skills. Of course, they want them to have financial literacy, of course, they want them to have entrepreneurship education, how might a company like that be enabled, be empowered by systems change, such as the type of you know, larger scale change you're talking about?

of the classroom. And so great that this example we talked about before, where you find a product market fit in this tiny box, now well done. And if we can move into mastery base, and if we can move beyond the classroom, then imagine how many different contexts they can offer that entrepreneurial development in, students can actually create entrepreneurial enterprises, they can solve problems in the community, rather than just in the

classroom. So they could scaffold, maybe they start with money for a job you did in the classroom, and over time, move into work like big picture learning has done and internships and summit has done with their expeditions like you can just imagine their goal of financial literacy and entrepreneurial skill sets, they'll be able to achieve so much more if we can take them beyond just the box of the classroom and let them do mastery based skills for kids.

completely new ideas. I'm curious if you've seen that model work where sort of either charter schools or private schools or alternative schooling, you know, approaches like pods or homeschool can become places that really paved the way and then traditional schools might see might follow along.

learning and makerspace. But interestingly, districts can also make space too, I think of building 21 in Philadelphia that's doing some really amazing work around competency progressions. And so it's just a reminder of the incredible ingenuity of entrepreneurs that they've managed to do this, and districts charters privates in the community. And that list isn't that long, right? So we could we can name a whole bunch more, that's inspiring and

great. But they're all having to push against this infrastructure that's not supporting them. So imagine all those great leaders, and how many more folks could do similar kinds of innovation, if we could get the barriers out of their way. But yeah, I think there are really Tremendous Innovations already happening.

this vision of the world. But you also don't often see it even in places like Gates Foundation, which ostensibly really does go

under that idea. You know, they're doing math right now, middle school math, but at the same time, it's not that clear that exactly what they see the end goal of middle school math being, how do you think that the different organizations might start to turn towards more of that type of, you know, we know where we're going, and every investment is feeding towards that same end goal,

the fronts that it tackles. And the incentives just aren't set up for either of those kinds of institutions to do what we're talking about, which is systems change. So all of them are trying to do amazing work within the current infrastructure and

set of incentives. A part of why is that learners to do up to be a nonprofit intermediary is to be able to pull together a bunch of those philanthropists who might not yet have clarity on their own to steer their whole portfolio in this direction, but could do a small part, I'm imagining partnering with the ALS and reaches of the world, if we can do risk some of this stuff, obviously, they'll have to be great investors like them to take them forward and get to

scale. So I think we're missing a way to kind of coalesce those different kinds of institutions into a common vision for this new system. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be exact. But if we could say it basically looks like this. And back to that picture on top of the puzzle box, it basically looks like this. And if states do a portrait of a graduate, and if what we call district kind of looks like this. And if the way we think of licensing, the adults kind of changes to be

more flexible. And if the content is more modular, like there are a set of principles, if we could get clear on those, then I think it would loosen up all those players who are currently operating within that old picture, to pivot at least some portion of what they're doing into the new picture. And I think the reality is, it'll be a small portion initially, and

then over time, it'll grow. But right now, we're not collectively sharing a picture that people feel confident moving a portion of their philanthropy and investment into so that I think is goal one is to start to get clear on what does that picture look like? How are we going to assess and measure progress? And then where are the opportunities for entrepreneurs to just do amazing, explosive, innovative things to increase impact and create opportunity for young people and educators?

education. But finding that shared vision, and then measuring impact against it feels like a very exciting, very big, but very exciting goal. I want to ask about one aspect of it we haven't talked about yet, you know, we've reported on here on this show about the teacher shortage, about the educators in the classroom are starting to, you know, vote with their feet in various ways. But you tend to look at the K 12 system, you know, from an even broader

perspective. And you've noticed that, you know, superintendents, principals, admins are also, you know, changing their view towards what they do. So, what do you see when it comes to the pipeline for educators? And I mean that broadly, it could be teachers, principals, superintendents,

flexible and isn't modular. So we're just going to have to change that profession. But I do agree with you I am seeing at the principal level and at the superintendent level, a lot more change and turnover than we're talking about. And we need to figure out what that means. means and how to create sustainable jobs at all those levels. The principal job, the teacher job, we've created jobs

that are virtually undoable. So how are we going to redesign those jobs to make them appealing to the next generation of folks coming into the profession, and right now, they're just not, we're seeing so many more applicants to Ed Tech positions to do virtual teaching than we are to teaching positions in school buildings. That's not a shock to any of us who are working in this space. But the system itself hasn't responded to that yet. So we are going to have to be attentive to

that. And I am worried about the tail on the leadership level at this point, I think it's going to be a significant issue in the next couple of years, which is also tricky for ad tech companies, because SR monies, which a lot of them are working toward haven't really been distributed. And a lot of the decision makers in that process

are turning over. So it matters both in the longer term for the system stability, and I think in the immediate term for how we think about getting great stuff done in the short run.

beginning. And from my perspective, and I think a lot of others agree with this, one of the biggest legacy, you know, impacts of Teach for America is not only that, it created a lot of teachers, but it created a huge generation of education reformers, it took so many young people and put them into the classroom and up against, you know, the conditions that make education, as you say, almost undoable, and so many of them have gone on to become, you know, education reformers in the

system at tech leaders. I mean, I can't tell you how many people we've had on the podcast who are like I did TFA. And that's what first got me interested in this. I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Is there a moment right now where a whole generation of people can be sort of taught about what this whole system is and how to create the next wave of it so that it gets better?

underlying the change. I do think teacher America has an opportunity to kind of retool itself and to think more about the next wave and reinvention lab and other pieces of it are helping on that. And I think your question is a really good one. If we imagine the talent pipeline for the future of education, how would we construct that pipeline differently? How would we draw in a whole different generation to do that work? Now? I don't have a speedy answer for you. But I love the question. So I

want to think about that. You think it's a different more flexible, modular kind of pipeline? You know, one piece of what I'm seeing is, I happen to sit on the board of city or they're a part of the National Student Support coalition. And they're bringing a pipeline of young people through AmeriCorps. So I do think we have a number of different early pipelines. And it's just still not enough. So I want to really think about your question. It's good.

change. So we've been talking this whole episode about how learner studio is working to put together all of these different players, all of these different stakeholders, including some that are not even in education yet to create an entirely new system, which would then empower entrepreneurs and VCs and, and also, and parents and all sorts of people to really make a new

world. I guess my question is, you have been in the space for a while you've seen a lot of these waves of change, and some have crashed on the shore and disappeared, and others have sort of really gained some momentum and made a difference. What is your core, you know, understanding of what type of organization can truly be a catalyst to change at the level that you're hoping to be?

without us re architecting. The incentives, people operating in the system can't pull it off without the technology in that new way of operating. Your point about the pipeline is really important. We can't assume we're getting the same kind of people into the system. So So we're at one of those moments that feels pretty overwhelming people have trouble metabolizing this amount

of change. And so the Crispus answer to your question is, what it's going to take is a coalition of a whole different set whole different, all these different kinds of organizations coming together. And that's a complicated story. And it's not a simple answer to your question. So sorry, but, but the good side of that is, it means a whole lot of people have a role to play. And we need tech, and we need policy. And we need people to think differently, and

we need human capital. And we need adults to be prepared differently. So all these pieces are already in motion. And the last piece, I guess, to your point is to kind of sew them together. And I happen to focus on philanthropy, you know, angel investors are helping us too.

But philanthropy has a special role to play and tech can value for instance, techniques to value the capacity building organizations like the transcends on the learner centered, collaborative and redesigned, because they're going to pave the way forward to drag tech in behind them, right. So that cross sector partnership is an example of what it's going to take. I wish I had a simpler answer. But it's a big system change. So it's going to take everybody,

world. And vice versa. I'm sure people deep in the policy world or deep in the ed reform world, don't know, three quarters of the of the tech tools that we talk about on this. So I like that idea of if we bring people together, that's how it could

happen. My glib, short answer is, if China, you know, takes AI and runs away with the ball, maybe there's a Sputnik moment where you know, the entire system just changes around a rat towards, you know, careers and just a totally different thing, the same way that it did in the 60s just sort of pivot around around the sciences. But I mean, who knows? I don't know if you know, that might be a moonshot to say the least. So we always finish the podcast with two questions. I'd really love to

hear your answers. What is unique in many things in this podcast that are rising? What is the trend that you see in the tech landscape right now that is really about to sort of peak about to break through and be something that we should all be keeping our eyes on?

also changing assessments. So that's the space I think that's most in motion right now in a way that could create huge ripple effects, like you were talking about with the pressure from China. None of that will be surprising to any of your listeners, probably. So I don't have a secret, secret trend to

highlight. But I do think that confluence of the blockchain and AI and the Rethinking assessments and rethinking college entrance, may the last thing that some of your folks probably aren't thinking about is the impending Supreme Court decision affecting college admissions around affirmative action. It's focused on affirmative action, but it will serve to be kind of another straw on the camel's back of

college admissions. And so I do think it's possible we're going to see some real breakthroughs on really rethinking how that gateway works. So sorry, that was more than one.

do. And I'm hoping that, you know, as, as the taint wears off, that people rediscover some of these ideas, and I love your idea about assessments, we're in a very test optional world already, and all these different changes that are happening to admissions. You know, as you mentioned, from Todd versus research, it's really changing how people think about what education is even for, and that can shift, you know, opinions in

a big way. What is a resource that you would recommend for somebody who wants to learn more about any of the topics we talked about today? And, you know, you can take this at any direction, because I think this idea of big systems change can lend itself to resources from almost any domain. Well, I

both books. China was anathema to a lot of us modern folks, but an Andre Harada his most recent book, The persuader and an old book by Jonathan Hite called the righteous mind, both of which really focus on the need to do that messy engagement with people across lines of difference to really figure out how to move forward. You know, I sometimes feel like a lot of us in education, particularly those of us connected to Ed Tech, kind of pretend that if we change the technology, all the human stuff

will just follow. And it's just not that simple. Like, we do need the tech for sure. And that can change some behaviors. But at base, we got a human system, it's got a lot of values, like when I ask entrepreneurs, and I'm talking to, you know, what are you worried about? It's the

human stuff. Like they talk about the ideological battles with school board, they talk about the incredibly fearful psychology that drove the Silicon Valley Bank run like, like, there are human things happening that are what are really worrying people. And so I guess I just want to like encourage all of our incredibly brilliant ed tech innovators to like, yes to what you're doing

in tech. And to recognize there are these values, conflicts underneath, we need you to care not only about your technology, but how what you're doing contributes to a stronger democracy, and inspiring young people to solve problems and climate crisis and creating connections with people. So we don't just, we have to figure out ways to pull the people together into a system that's coherent, and not just overwhelm people with the pace of

technological change. And I think we can do it, but we just have to add it to our list of things to pay attention to, as we're continuing to build all this great technology.

teaching is political. And you have to understand how people come to these things. I remember, this may be a silly example. But I remember the moment when the comedian Louie CK started tweeting, I think about the Common Core. And it was literally him and his daughters at the kitchen table. And and just being like, this is so ridiculous. These math problems are so goofy, I don't

know who came up with this. And it was just like, it was such a goofy human moment, from somebody who is a controversial figure in their own right. But it was I considered it one of the sort of nails in the coffin of the the true public acceptance of the common core curriculum, because it was just like, it was just a parent going, I just don't get it. And people were seeing so many parents just going I just don't

get it. And there was not enough attempt to just get people to be on board or say, this is why we're doing this, or let's let's open it up and talk about it. I think sometimes we we forget in the hallowed halls of education and tech, how some of these ideas land when they land in, in homes or in schools. And I like these ideas a lot. Righteous mind is one of my favorite books

as well. incredibly interesting about, you know, how the different political parties literally have different values about how they see the world. But, but that that's sort of what underlies so much of confusion and polarization. And I have it on my bookshelf, I can't wait to read it. I know, I just talked a lot. So Kim, I'd love to, you know, any responses to any of that tell us a little bit more about the human side, and then we can wrap up,

of our ad tech innovations. And so the main message for me is how do we inspire them to want to do things differently? How do we give them tools to make it easier? How do we remove the barriers to redesign? And in parallel to that, how do we get all of our brilliant at Tech innovators to recognize and kind of factor into their designs, helping people to come together inspiring people to want to be problem solvers, strengthening our democracy, making things

work better? You know, it goes back to that old thing about that old adage about, you know, the two wolves the light in the dark, and the optimism and fear and kind of like which wolf wins? So when you feed, okay, so we've been feeding the innovation engine a lot and we've been feeding techno Knology we have been less attentive to the human ecosystem that we need to bring along with us. And to think that's someone

else's problem. And I guess for me, I just want to challenge the tech entrepreneurs, they're brilliant people. Just make that also a part of your problem. I know you have to just markets I know you have to address revenue. I got it. And don't forget, it happens in a system that's got all these people that we have to move along to.