Former U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. John B. King, Jr.

How can collective bargaining promote strategic school staffing? 

In this extended cut, Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers joins Brent Maddin of the Next Education Workforce™ to discuss this and other issues educators face in the one teacher, one classroom model.

Rob Weil previously appeared on the podcast to preview his session on collective bargaining at the Strategic School Staffing Summit on Feb. 7–8, 2024. The annual event convenes hundreds of leaders in the field, researchers, educators, school and system leaders to share ideas, strategies, practices and conditions that enable a more diverse, team-based education workforce. Learn more and save the date for the next Strategic School Staffing Summit on Feb. 5–6, 2025.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Join the conversation with #NextEducationWorkforce.

The Next Education Workforce™ podcast is back! For this three-part miniseries, we have invited experts from across the education landscape to discuss elements of strategic school staffing in advance of the virtual Strategic School Staffing Summit from Feb. 7–8, 2024.

Kelly Kovacic-Duran, principal consultant at Education First, joined Brent Maddin of the Next Education Workforce™ to discuss how strategic school staffing can benefit both educators and learners. Kelly shares how schools can be the unit of change in addressing challenges in education and how this is a pivotal moment to think about how we organize staff in our schools. She will expand on these ideas at the 2024 Strategic School Staffing Summit from Feb. 7–8. Nearly 100 presenters will discuss ideas, strategies, practices and conditions that enable a more diverse, team-based education workforce. Register today for this virtual experience to hear more from Kelly and other leaders in the field, researchers, educators, school and system leaders, and so much more.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Join the conversation with #NextEducationWorkforce.

The Next Education Workforce™ podcast is back! For this three-part miniseries, we have invited experts from across the education landscape to discuss elements of strategic school staffing in advance of the virtual Strategic School Staffing Summit from Feb. 7–8, 2024.

In this episode, Chris Torres of the University of Michigan joined Brent Maddin of the Next Education Workforce™ to discuss findings from his research on Michigan’s education workforce and the state’s multi-stakeholder approach to strengthening it. He’ll expand on those ideas at the 2024 Strategic School Staffing Summit from Feb. 7–8. Nearly 100 presenters will discuss ideas, strategies, practices and conditions that enable a more diverse, team-based education workforce.  Register today for this virtual experience to hear more from Chris and other leaders in the field, researchers, educators, school and system leaders, and so much more.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Join the conversation with #NextEducationWorkforce

The Next Education Workforce™ podcast is back! For this three-part miniseries, we have invited experts from across the education landscape to discuss elements of strategic school staffing in advance of the Strategic School Staffing Summit from Feb. 7–8, 2024.

In this episode, we discuss collective bargaining and how can we use it to promote strategic school staffing? Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers joins Brent Maddin of the Next Education Workforce™ to discuss this and other issues educators face in the one teacher, one classroom model.

Rob Weil will be one of nearly 100 presenters discussing ideas, strategies, practices and conditions that enable a more diverse, team-based education workforce at the Strategic School Staffing Summit. Register today for this virtual experience to hear more from Rob and other leaders in the field, researchers, educators, school and system leaders, and so much more.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Join the conversation with #NextEducationWorkforce.

Brent Maddin talks with planetary scientist and professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton about distributed expertise and the power of teams — in both space exploration and education. Dr. Elkins-Tanton is the Principal Investigator of the NASA Psyche mission and vice president of the ASU Interplanetary Initiative. She is also co-founder of Beagle Learning, a tech company focused on training and measuring problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Dr. Elkins-Tanton will be the keynote speaker the 2023 Next Education Workforce Summit. This fifth annual event on Feb. 8–9, 2023, is hosted by Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. It includes sessions from experts from K–12, research, policy, government, advocacy, nonprofit, edtech and business. Register or learn more at next.education.asu.edu.

Brent Maddin talks with Dr. John B. King, Jr., former U.S. Secretary of Education, and president and CEO of the Education Trust, an education civil rights organization focusing on education equity for low-income students and students of color, about equity and the education workforce today. 

• 2:48: Dr. King describes how his perspective has been influenced by his experiences as a student, as a classroom teacher and as a civil servant and policymaker. “The thing that saved me was school. The consistency, the nurturing relationships, the engagement at school is the reason I’m alive today.” He goes on to describe the enormous tasks that are assigned to educators and the lack of support systems to help teachers achieve everything society asks of them. “We don’t always provide the working conditions that folks need to stay in the work and feel good about the work, so we have work to do as a society.” 
• 5:09: Dr. King sees how the pandemic has affected students and the inequities it’s revealed. He hopes that this moment in time will be a “New Deal” moment, bringing major systemic change to the field of education and opening the eyes of society to the importance of investing in education for all students. 
• 6:19: Dr. King details the work going on in his state of Maryland around the concept of “schools as communities.” The idea is that schools are already involved with so many different agencies like healthcare, social services, and the criminal justice system. 
• 7:57: Dr. King gives examples of teams that are designed to address student needs as a group instead of relying on one classroom teacher. 
• 11:15: Dr. King offers suggestions on how to broaden the definition of an educator by looking at the work of our international peers who have found ways to subsidize their work to improve outcomes. Diversify the teaching profession by creatively including people in positions that are not always in the spotlight like tutors, coaches, behavior specialists, etc. 
• 14:07: Dr. King looks at healthcare as a model that takes a holistic approach to care for patients by assembling a team of specialists to serve them. Healthcare also offers an enormous range of career pathways to support the interests of healthcare professionals. 
• 19:03: Dr. King believes in the importance of social and emotional well-being as part of overall student success and shares his perspective as it relates to outcomes being more than just reading and math scores. “We have to be careful In our desire to be metric-driven that we don’t mistakenly narrow how we think about the purpose of education.” 
• 22:16: Dr. King shares his experience as a new teacher and some of the creative ways he had to figure things out. He also shares a strategy that one local program initiated to help their teachers better understand the students, assigning new teachers to community groups prior to student teaching. This allowed the teachers to get to know their students and their families as a whole before they worked with them in the classroom. 

What Dr. King is currently reading: Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families by Nicole Lynn Lewis

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Brent Maddin talks with Dr. Lynn Gangone, president and CEO of American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, in advance of Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, where Lynn will be a featured expert.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Follow MLFTC on Twitter at @asueducation and follow Lynn at @LynnMGangone. Share this episode with #NextEducationWorkforce.

• 1:11: Lynn shares the story behind AACTE’s new vision 
• 3:28: Lynn asserts that educators and those who prepare them are undervalued in society and make direct connections to issues of educational equity
• 6:38: Lynn proposes educational policy priorities
• 7:48: Lynn describes a learning environment and educator team that stand out in her memory for providing an excellent education to a diverse group of students 
• 10:01: Lynn suggests ways to increase the number of college and university students entering the field of education
• 11:33: Lynn connects the big idea of the Next Education Workforce to the work she does at AACTE
• 13:33: Lynn submits that the K12 education system will need to change before innovative teacher preparation programs are likely to have a “revolutionary” impact and identifies a need for colleges of education and K12 districts to work together more closely. 
• 16:50: Lynn recommends readings educators might consider before they join her at Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.  

Brent Maddin talks with Brad Jupp, former Senior Program Advisor, U.S. Department of Education , in advance of Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, where Brad will be a featured expert.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Follow MLFTC on Twitter at @asueducation and share this episode with #NextEducationWorkforce.

• 0:53: Brad reflects on parents’ perceptions of students who choose to pursue a career in education and makes recommendations for how the profession needs to change in order to increase its appeal to prospective educators.
• 5:39: Brad compares the team-based approach embraced in other professions and the siloed nature of the traditional educator role and connects his reflections to on his own experience in the classroom.   
• 8:58: Brad proposes three questions that should drive effective educator and educator-leader preparation.
• 10:21: Brad connects Richard Elmore’s Instructional Core to a team-based approach.
• 11:52: Brad describes how a team of educators can work together to support students’ deeper and personalized learning.  
• 16:01: Brad talks about the policy changes that help to advance the big idea of a Next Education Workforce.
• 18:31: Brad recommends readings educators might consider before they join him at Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.

Brent Maddin talks with Dr. Mahnaz Charania, Senior Research Fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute, in advance of Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, where Mahnaz will be a featured expert.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Follow MLFTC on Twitter at @asueducation and follow Mahnaz at @mahnazcharania. Share this episode with #NextEducationWorkforce.

• 0:58: Mahnaz defines social capital, makes the connection between social capital and equity, and describes the framework she has developed to measure social capital
• 2:55: “You can’t be who you don’t know:” Mahnaz explains what it looks like to build students’ social capital and provides specific examples of schools, networks, and organizations (e.g., Big Picture Learning, Future Focused Education) that design and measure students’ social capital
• 7:04: Mahnaz proposes shifts in policy that might be conducive to helping students build social capital  
• 8:57: Mahnaz talks about bringing “outside” resources into schools and shares examples of how other districts (e.g., Cajon Valley Union School District) are doing this effectively
• 10:46: Mahnaz describes the intersection between teams of educators; community stakeholders; and diversity, equity and inclusion.
• 12:11: Mahnaz shares her thoughts on professional learning for educators, educational leaders and community members.
• 14:12: Mahnaz reacts to the idea that the pandemic may have accelerated innovation in education and shares her concern that we might be “innovating in the dark.”
• 16:10: Mahnaz recommends readings educators might consider before they join her at Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.  

Brent Maddin talks with Virgel Hammonds, Chief Learning Officer at  KnowledgeWorks, in advance of Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, where Virgel will be a featured expert.

Comments? Feedback? Ideas? Drop us a line at edworkforce@asu.edu. 

Follow MLFTC on Twitter at @asueducation and follow Virgel at @VirgelHammonds. Share this episode with #NextEducationWorkforce.

• 1:10: Virgel describes the learning communities he has served in the past and communicates the importance of giving students the opportunity to develop their critical consciousness
• 3:08: Virgel explains how co-designing systems with students and community members in order to deliver on the promise of personalizing learning
• 5:21: Virgel shares the policy changes he would make in order to support learner-centered approaches and describes bright spots he has observed across the country (e.g., South Carolina Department of Education’s Office of Personalized Learning, Arizona Personalized Learning Network)
• 8:24: Virgel proposes how leaders should think about bringing change to complicated systems and suggests ways leaders might bring learners & community members to the table to help guide change
• 11:42: Virgel shares the importance of building aspirational, collective vision and makes connections to growing inequities and gaps highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic

14:22: Virgel recommends readings educators might consider before they join him at 

Building the Next Normal, the January 2021 convening hosted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.