Live at the Uncharted Learning Summit: Why Entrepreneurship Is for Everyone
What if a single class could help a burned-out teacher find her spark, turn a student's grief into state policy, and make a first-generation business-minded young person feel like she finally belongs? In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Victoria Andrews and Shawnee Carruthers bring back voices from the Uncharted Learning annual summit in Chicago, weaving together stories from students, alumni, community champions, and educators at every stage. For school and district leaders searching for programs that build durable skills, dissolve hierarchies, and connect classrooms to real communities, this conversation is essential listening.
Transformation Journey: Bostonia
What does it look like to build a high school entirely around what students need, inside a district that was never meant to have one? In this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Rebecca Midles talks with Bostonia Global CEO Nerel Winter, Principal Johanna Simko, and alumnus David Rios about designing a dependent charter high school grounded in competency-based learning, a K-12 world-of-work curriculum, and an advisory model where every adult is also a life coach. From a Committee of 100 that shaped the school's Portrait of a Graduate to a growth transcript that helped a first-generation student gain admission to UC Riverside, this is a story about what radical, community-rooted change inside public education can actually look like.
What Is the Future of School Design? | Mike Posthumus
What if the building itself was the lesson plan? In this week's Getting Smart Podcast, Nate McClennen sits down with Michael Posthumus, Learning Design Principal at Fielding International, to explore why $113 billion in annual school construction is either education's greatest untapped opportunity or its most expensive missed one. From Singapore American School's research-backed campus transformation to a single renovated wing in Cranston, Rhode Island, Mike makes a compelling case that when vision drives design, the architecture itself can make great teaching more probable. If you're a school leader, teacher, or policymaker with any stake in how learning spaces are planned, built, or used, this conversation is essential listening.
Why “the Superhero Principal” Needs an Update | Lindsay Whorton
The superhero principal model is not a leadership strategy, it is a design flaw. In our latest podcast episode, Getting Smart host Nate McClennen speaks with Dr. Lindsay Whorton, president of the Holdsworth Center and author of 'A New School Leadership Architecture,' about why distributing leadership across four intentional levels is the most sustainable path to better outcomes for students. If you lead a school, work alongside principals, or care about whether great educators stay in the profession, this conversation will reframe how you think about who does what, and why it matters.
Khan Academy’s founder on AI: “Hope isn’t a strategy” | Sal Khan
What does the founder of Khan Academy think about AI's impact on education, work, and human development? In our latest podcast episode, Sal Khan joins Nate McClennen for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from mastery learning and Khanmigo's next chapter to the launch of the Khan-TED Institute and the durable skills that no algorithm can replace. For education leaders navigating the pressure to adopt AI while preserving what makes learning deeply human, this conversation is essential listening.
A Grammy Nominee Says AI Just Made the Case for Music Class | Tony Mazzocchi
In our latest podcast episode, Getting Smart host Mason Pashia sits down with Grammy-nominated music educator Tony Mazzocchi, President and CEO of New York City's Kaufman Music Center, to make the case that arts education is not a nice-to-have but the most human-skills-rich environment a school can offer. Tony challenges the myth that talent is rare, argues that the real scarcity is sustained access, and shows how one K-12 public school is outperforming the city in ELA and math precisely because music is embedded into every school day. For education leaders navigating budget pressures and the rise of AI, this conversation reframes the question: not 'can we afford the arts,' but 'can we afford to keep treating them as optional.'
Are Schools Collecting Too Much Data? | Dr. Kelly Page
Digital badges and verifiable credentials promise to transform how we recognize learning, but are they built to serve learners or surveil them? In this episode, Getting Smart host Mason Pashia speaks with Dr. Kelly Page, author of When Credentials Cause Harm, about the surveillance risks, data equity failures, and vendor lock-in traps hidden inside many credentialing systems. Dr. Page offers school leaders a practical framework for auditing edtech tools, building data governance policies, and designing recognition systems that center consent and human storytelling. This is a must-listen for any education leader navigating procurement decisions in an era of accelerating edtech adoption.
Catching Up: Meta’s Billion-Dollar Payout, AI Search Bias, and Fixing Student Voice
In the latest episode of Catching Up, Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia move from Meta's billion dollar settlement to a sharper question: what if we funded real life instead of more apps? They also untangle the difference between AI as an efficiency tool and AI as an efficacy tool, walk through a clear framework for how school systems actually learn, and trace the growing shift from tokenistic student surveys to genuine intergenerational co-design, complete with a student-drafted AI policy bill and a constitutional lawsuit filed by Kentucky students. This one is built for leaders who want less noise and more signal on where education is actually heading.
Chicago’s Former Schools CEO on Phones, Power, and the Future of Public Education | Janice K. Jackson
Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Dr. Janice K. Jackson joined Mason Pashia on the Getting Smart Podcast for a conversation that refuses to stay comfortable. From why blanket tech bans risk leaving low-income students further behind, to what Chicago's governance shift reveals about accountability gaps in large urban systems, Dr. Jackson offers the kind of grounded, systemic thinking that education leaders are hungry for right now. If you are navigating enrollment decline, edtech fatigue, or community trust erosion, this episode is essential listening.
Shaping an EdTech Company From the Inside | Kennedy Davis & Taylor Shead
What does it look like when students are not just testing an edtech product but actually building it? In this episode, Stimuli founder Taylor Shead and Student League member Kennedy Davis pull back the curtain on a co-design process that shaped two products from the ground up, and Kennedy estimates students influenced 60 to 70 percent of the outcome. For education leaders thinking about equity, engagement, and what it means to center real learners, this conversation is essential listening.