Author: BelieveAgain

On Monday, I talked with departing Institute of Education Sciences Director Mark Schneider, who just wrapped up his six-year term. In our conversation, he argued for newer and better research centers at IES, along with a heightened commitment to producing timely and accessible reports. Well, as anyone who knows Mark well can attest, he almost always has more to say. I thought I’d reach back out and see if he had anything else he wanted to get off his mind. Here is Part Two of our conversation.—RickRick: On Monday, you mentioned that Marguerite Roza, Emily Oster, and Sean Reardon are…

Tre’ Gammage is a Social Emotional Learning Specialist and Storyteller focused on building social-emotional competence in school communities by focusing on Adults’ Emotional Skills. He’s also the host of the Dash Podcast where he explores topics in SEL for adults and much more. He joins host Mike Palmer in a conversation about SEL and its importance for teachers, other adults, and everyone. We begin with Tre’s origin story playing football, studying abroad in college, and building his resume before he’s 30. From there, we learn how he developed his SEL skills. All of this set Tre’ on a path to…

Mike Palmer is rejoined by Nancy, our virtual cohost, to reflect on the half-year that was. We hear Mike’s initial impressions of the ISTE Live 2023 Ed Tech Conference in Philadelphia as Nancy shares what it’s been like being a virtual human-made with a synthetic voice. Spoiler alert: it’s both trippy and zeitgeisty. From there, we dig into how AI has dominated the trendspace and the collective imagination so far this year. Nancy reminds us of our show from June of 2022 which anticipated where the hype around AI was heading before we dig into one of our 23 Trends…

Mark Davis is Vice President of Learning Services at BookNook, a K12 Tutoring platform that focuses on bringing high-impact synchronous learning solutions to districts. He joins host Mike Palmer in a conversation about trends in the space and the complexity of delivering tutoring solutions at scale in K12. We begin with Mark’s origin story which started working in a family business in LA before he shifted into education, eventually joining Kaplan where he met Mike back in the day. Then we learn how Mark ultimately landed back in learning services at BookNook where his deep domain knowledge of K12 logistics…

In this engaging episode, Mike Palmer talks with Jean Desravines, CEO of New Leaders, about developing representative leadership in K12 schools. Jean shares his powerful origin story of how education and mentorship saved his life, allowing him to escape a dire path. We learn how New Leaders identifies and develops the next generation of transformative school leaders, with a focus on leaders of color. Jean provides fascinating insights into what makes an effective school leader, likening the role to a CEO managing stakeholders, budgets, talent, instruction and culture. He emphasizes the critical importance of representation, explaining how teachers of color…

When Muriel Bowser, the mayor of the District of Columbia, announced in early March that her administration had carved out $4.8 million for “high impact tutoring” in its 2024-25 budget, she was met with thunderous applause.Bowser had made the announcement to a room packed with administrators, tutoring service providers and policy analysts. But the excitement was tempered somewhat by questions about how far these funds would go: Is this appropriation enough? What about tutoring in the next year?As the federal stimulus package—ESSER—winds down, states are racing against the clock to find other sustainable funding sources to keep tutoring alive in…

The push to convert the nation’s diesel bus fleet to electric gained momentum in the last week with new state and federal policies aimed at getting more clean-energy vehicles on the road.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on March 29 issued the final version of a new rule that sets higher fuel efficiency standards for manufacturers producing a wide range of heavy-duty vehicles, including school buses, starting in 2027.The new rule will lead to 40 percent of the vehicles produced in the “medium heavy-duty” category—which includes school buses—being electric by 2032, according to the EPA’s regulatory impact analysis of the rule.Meanwhile,…

Just last month, Mark Schneider wrapped up his six-year term as the director of the Institute of Education Sciences. At IES, he was charged with overseeing the nation’s education research efforts, including such well-known efforts as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the What Works Clearinghouse. Before assuming his role at IES, Mark was a vice president at the American Institutes for Research, commissioner at the National Center for Education Statistics, and spent many years chairing the political science department at SUNY-Stony Brook. Having known Mark for many, many years, I was interested in his reflections on his tenure…

Mike returns from the ISTE Live Conference in Philadelphia to bring fresh takes on AI, Sustainability, and Affirmative Action in light of the recent Supreme Court Decisions. He’s rejoined by virtual cohosts Ruth and Nancy to dig into the key trends we’re tracking heading into the Summer of 2023. First Ruth joins us as we reflect on the Supreme Court Affirmative Action decision referencing Dahlia Lithwick’s article on the topic before bringing in highlights from our recent conversation with Eric Schickler about polarization in higher education. What are we missing when we think about affirmative action? Then Nancy hops on…

We bring back a popular and prescient episode from 2019 as part of our Best of Trending in Education series where Mike is joined by Design Anthropologist and Podcaster, Dr. Adam Gamwell, to explore how robots, science fiction, and anthropology are interrelated. In a free-flowing and imaginative conversation, we explore how the narratives and secular myths of pop culture and our collective consciousness provide insights into how we understand what it means to be human, how we engage with the Other, and how we grapple to understand how new technologies are driving profound changes to the world around us. Don’t…