About the Getting Smart Podcast
The Getting Smart Podcast covers trends, innovations and insights in K-12, higher ed, lifelong learning, leadership, investing and more. You can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Every other Friday we publish an episode called “Catching Up” where Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia try to make sense of what’s going on in education, learning and human flourishing. Check it out.
If you’re on Spotify, we have built some great playlists to help you jump into some conversations we’ve been having over the last few years. You can go long on the following topics:
- Student Voice
- Pathways to Postsecondary
- Green Skills & Schools
- Microschools
- What’s Next in Learning
- AI in Education
- Next Generation Leadership
Interested in placing an advertisement in the podcast or sponsoring a series of conversations? Check out our sponsored content page to learn more.
Know of someone who would make a great guest on the podcast? Email Mason to pitch your suggestion or learn more about being on the podcast.
Subscribe to Our Podcast
This podcast highlights developing trends in K-12 education, postsecondary and lifelong learning. Each week, Getting Smart team members interview students, leading authors, experts and practitioners in research, tech, entrepreneurship and leadership to bring listeners innovative and actionable strategies in education leadership.
Find us on:
How Can Public Schools Benefit from the Education Freedom Tax Credit? | Antonio Parés
A landmark federal tax credit is arriving in 2027, and public schools may be the sector best positioned to benefit from it. In our latest podcast episode, Nate McClennen speaks with strategist Antonio Parés about the Education Freedom Tax Credit, how scholarship-granting organizations work, and what district leaders, school board members, and foundations should be building right now. This is a rare window where early action translates directly into community benefit, and Antonio explains exactly why waiting is a risk public education cannot afford to take.
The Attention Span Myth: Ronald Yaros on What’s Really Failing Students
What if the attention span crisis is not a student problem but a design problem? In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Mason Pashia speaks with Dr. Ronald Yaros of the University of Maryland's Digital Engagement Lab about why the way we structure content matters as much as the content itself. Dr. Yaros introduces the Smart Story Suite, an adaptive AI tool that restructures existing materials into selectable learning paths, and shares research showing that learners engaged more deeply and retained more when content was organized around their time, interests, and environment. For education leaders searching for evidence-based strategies to close the gap between how students naturally consume information and how schools deliver it, this conversation is a necessary listen.
Are We Designing Schools for Systems or for People? | Jane Shore
What if the most powerful learning technology we have is other people? Dr. Jane Shore, founder of School of Thought PHL and author of People-Based Learning, joined Rebecca Midles on the Getting Smart Podcast to make the case that human connection is not a soft skill but a cognitive engine. Jane shares her connect, reflect, and affect framework alongside practical moves any leader can try tomorrow, from rethinking how staff introductions work to mapping the ripples of impact a single student conversation can create. This one is for every educator working inside an inherited system who wonders where to begin.
What If Every Graduate Left School with a Credential That Actually Meant Something? | Edson Barton
What does it look like when a state mandates that every graduate leave school with a verified, stackable credential? In our latest podcast, Mason Pashia sits down with Edson Barton, CEO of YouScience, to explore how Utah's House Bill 260 is building a first-of-its-kind education-to-workforce infrastructure, and what that blueprint means for the rest of the country. From aptitude-driven career guidance to industry-recognized certifications at every step of a student's journey, this conversation challenges education leaders to move beyond vague career exploration toward verified, meaningful readiness. If you are a superintendent, principal, or CTE director wrestling with how to make credentials matter, this one is for you.
Catching Up: Job Cliff, Enrollment Drop, and the Hidden Crisis No One Is Talking About?
In this episode of Catching Up, Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia wrestle with three of the most urgent tensions in education today: what a landmark study reveals about how AI-generated lesson materials are quietly eroding student motivation, why chronic absenteeism strategies keep ignoring the one lever that actually works, and how a looming job cliff is colliding with AI displacement in ways most school advisors are not yet discussing. This is the kind of layered, honest conversation that helps education leaders cut through the noise and design schools students genuinely want to attend.