The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everyone. You are listening to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. It's a real thrill to bring you this episode today. I think we're gonna have a really wonderful conversation about a lot of topics, things that are happening right now, things that really also illustrate the power of our public school system to make a real difference.

Something that I know all of you listening care about deeply. My guest today is Dr. John King. John was the 10th US Secretary of Education serving under President Obama. Over the course of his extensive career in public education, he's been a high school social studies teacher, middle school principal, the first African American and Puerto Rican to [00:01:00] serve as New York State Education Commissioner, the college professor and the president and CEO of the education trust.

He is currently chancellor of the State University of New York system, which is the nation's largest comprehensive system of public higher education. Both of his parents were career New York City public school educators, and he still lives in New York in Brooklyn with his wife and his family. He has a new book out or coming out very soon, depending on when you're hearing this, called Teacher by Teacher, the People Who Change Our Lives.

Welcome to the show.

John King: Thanks so much. Excited to talk with you.

Ross Romano: It's real great to have you here and you know. I think even those who have worked with you, who have known your work maybe knew certain parts of your story clear. It was a a big thing for folks in education when you became a Secretary of Ed, that you had been a teacher yourself, right?

And there was a real significance to that. But there's also a lot more of your story that you write about in this book. It really is a [00:02:00] memoir of your life, of your career as a student and as an educator. I would love it if you could. Talk a little bit about how that story began and how kind of this journey started for you.

We'll get more into some of the particular people who made a difference in all of that. But I think that's a great way to welcome our listeners in to our conversation.

John King: Sure. Well, as you said, both my parents were educators. My dad, who was African American. American grew up in a very segregated New York City just after the turn of the 20th century and found a path to opportunity through becoming a teacher and principal and administrator. My mom, who was born in Puerto Rico came to New York City as a kid, learned English, the New York City Public Schools.

Her mom, single mom worked in a garment factory and had. A dream of my mother being the first in her family to go to college. And she was, she became a school counselor. And so they both spent their whole lives working in New York City [00:03:00] schools, and they couldn't have known the difference then that school would make in my life.

I was going to PS 2 76 in Canarsie, Brooklyn when I was in elementary school and in fourth grade my mom passed away. When I was eight and then I lived with just my dad for the next four years, and then he passed away when I was 12 in the period when it was just my dad and me. My dad was struggling with Alzheimer's, so home was incredibly difficult and the thing that saved me was school.

School was the one place where I felt safe and supported and nurtured. And as my father got more and more sick, home was really scary. You know, some nights he'd talked to me, some nights he wouldn't say a word. Some nights he'd be angry, even violent. But at school I had this escape from that, and that saved my life and changed my life because I, as I.

Grew up school always played [00:04:00] this very central role and I really decided to become an educator because of the role teachers had played in my life as a kid.

Ross Romano: Yeah. What is it about some of those teachers and we can talk about some of them because there's teachers that. Taught you in school, right? That their title was teacher. There was a lot of teachers that filled a lot of other roles in your life. That certainly taught you a lot. But what makes them still stand out so much today to the point that, I mean, you could sit down and write a book and remember specific things, specific stories.

'cause I don't know. If I could do that. I haven't attempted it. Right. But I find it's, I don't remember that much detail about things in my life, but clearly there are certain people here that you remember very specifically what they meant to you, things they said, what they did, and and I think that's really interesting to talk about.

John King: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I [00:05:00] was very fortunate to have in fourth, fifth, sixth grade a teacher, Alan Osterweil, who looped with us which is unusual. Certainly was very unusual in New York City public schools of the time for a teacher to stay with a class. For three years like that. But that was a critical period.

I mean, I was in his class October, 1983 when my mom passed. And then I was with him through much of the period as my father got more and more sick. And Mr. Oal was amazing he created this classroom space that was so engaging and compelling and interesting. We read the New York Times every day in his class.

We did productions of a Midsummer Night Dream Shakespeare in elementary school. We did a production of Alice in Wonderland. I was the rose in Alice in Wonderland with big felt red pedals sticking outta my head. Right? And I remember those things so clearly because his classroom was this place of, ah.

[00:06:00] Joyful intellectual curiosity. He took us on a lot of field trips. You know, we'd go to the Museum of Natural History and the ballet and the aquarium and the cloisters and just all these different interesting places that, that so expanded our world beyond Canarsie, Brooklyn, and. He also took us really seriously he was the kind of teacher who asked you a question and really wanted to understand your answer, your perspective, your fifth grade analysis of the world.

And he wanted to understand. And I've actually stayed in touch with him over the years. He had such a profound impact on my life and I think. That's what we hope for from teaching, right? That teachers will create a space that you know, sparks something in students, a passion for learning.

And he really did that. And I was [00:07:00] fortunate to have a whole series of teachers who gave me that opportunity to find the joy in learning.

Ross Romano: Yeah. How early did. You know, you were interested in becoming an educator 'cause I know you had aspirations to, and you did right. Attend Ivy League universities and I think commonly most people would not, they would consider that maybe dissonant that type of intellectual aspiration with how a lot of people think about.

Educators or like what a public school teacher would be. Of course. You also, your parents were in education and so it's not like it was a foreign concept to you, but but did you know relatively early that that was of interest? Did you discover it later?

John King: You know, I really discovered in college. After my dad passed, I moved around different family members, different schools, struggled at times in school but always loved the academics and that [00:08:00] was really what drove my interest in you know, going to a place like Harvard for college. I really wanted that academic environment and that competitive academic environment.

I thought I would go to law school after college. But while I was in college freshman year, I went to a activity fair put on by the Phillips Brooks House Association, the student undergraduate Public Service Organization, and they were talking about this program called Civics, where you would go into.

Boston and Cambridge public schools and teach about civics. And I thought, oh, that sounds cool and fun. And I I'm was excited about the opportunity to work with young people on civics, which was a subject I'm passionate about. So I started volunteering and that really snowballed into really becoming my.

Focus in college. I mean, obviously I was doing academics, but I was spending many, many [00:09:00] hours a week doing public service work, teaching civics, then teaching conflict resolution running a summer program in a public housing development in Boston. And, working with the afterschool program with those same students.

And so Phillips Brooks House and Public Service became my focus in college, and I found so much satisfaction and joy in trying to help young people the way Mr. Oster and other teachers had helped me and. So by the time I graduated, decided I wanted to be a teacher and I went on to get a master's in teaching.

And you know, your point about how people think about Ivy League institutions is right sometimes there's this culture around. You know, finance or consulting and lots of people choose that path. But I was fortunate in Phillips Brooks House to find a community of other people who are also passionate about public service.

And many of [00:10:00] my, I. Friends from Philips Brooks house chose careers in teaching or journalism or other service focus work legal advocacy. And we were a kind of niche culture within the broader community.

Ross Romano: Yeah, can you tell us there's a bit about your, your high school experience as well. So we've talked a little bit about kind of that elementary, middle school years and we've fast forwarded to the college years, but like it is when you piece together these parts of the journey and.

That's really what you're writing so much about is all these people that made a difference. But I think especially when you share some of the different phases, even just of that high school part I. What it required, like the miracle honestly, that it is, right. That how these pieces ended up fitting together and you know, were able to continue moving forward in that journey when there's [00:11:00] a lot of points at which there could have been alternate outcomes, I guess, right.

John King: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that's absolutely right. Look, you know, After my dad passed I went to live with my brother who's about 12 years older than me. It was a terrible situation. He was not ready to, at 24 to raise a 12-year-old. And, home life again was very difficult. He was drinking a lot, he was a lot of instability.

School was a really important place, although I was sort of outta place 'cause we were living on Long Island in a community that was very different from Brooklyn where I had grown up. So, it was a lot of adjustment to being in an environment where I was one of a very small number of students of color.

And then as home got crazier, I just felt like this is not going to be sustainable. I need to be in a different environment. And I had a friend from elementary school who had gone to [00:12:00] a boarding school, a New England boarding school, and I thought, oh, well that is an escape that will get me out of the situation with my brother.

And it'll be academically engaging. And my friend was having good experience, so I thought, oh, that's what I'll do. So, I ended up at Phillips Andover which is very elite boarding school. It's where both president Bush and President George Herbert Walker Bush and President George W.

Bush, they both went to Phillips Andover. Give you a sense of the kind of place it was. I was super out of place as a kid from Brooklyn. You know, issues of race and class were really a struggle, but also I just hadn't really had structure and consistency in my life since I was eight and I really wasn't ready for the.

The kind of mix of independence and rules that come with boarding school life. I got in a lot of trouble. I got kicked out of high school. And really at [00:13:00] that point things could have gone really off the rails as I do for a lot of young people who've experienced trauma and then act out and I feel very lucky.

I. That there were folks who intervened in my life at that point that they didn't give up on me because it would've been very easy to say, here is a black Latino male family in crisis. No respect for authority, and just given up on me. But I was fortunate that my aunt and uncle took me in. My uncle had been a Tuskegee Airman, ran a tight ship in his house.

Really mentored me and became a very important teacher in my life. But also I went to a New Jersey public school where the teachers and the school counselor gave me a second chance. They were willing to see me not solely through the lens of the trouble I'd gotten into but to see the potential in me more than I could see in myself.

And really that [00:14:00] period. In New Jersey at Cherry Hill West High School really helped me get my life back on track. And if not for my uncle's intervention and those teachers and a school counselor I would never have ended up at Harvard for sure.

Ross Romano: Yeah. What did you understand better once you went into professional life, right? Once you became an educator yourself, having, in having gone through in a relatively limited. Geographic range, south Jersey to Boston, right? If you look at the whole country, it looks, it doesn't look like it's that much of the map, but between Brooklyn, long Island, Boston New Jersey, these are, they're all very different communities, different environment, different people, different cultural expectations.

And you know, moving through all of that in a pretty rapid, what, a 10 year period? Maybe I. I'm wondering like what you, like, there are certain things that experienced and you were learning at the time, [00:15:00] but maybe you couldn't piece it all together right when you were a 12, 14, 16, and then later on you, you may have understood better.

But I guess, how do you feel like once you were able to internalize those lessons that prepared you for the job of then stewarding the number of different students that you then would have in your care? I.

John King: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think one, one thing I learned is really you don't know what students are going through outside of school, right? You see how they present in the classroom. You don't know what struggles they're experiencing, what trauma they carry with them. And so, part of what you have to do as an educator is bring, energy that is positive and loving into the classroom to create a space where kids can feel safe and cared [00:16:00] about.

Regardless of what's happening outside of school, and I think I my career as an educator, I tried, tried to be mindful of that. Second I saw a lot of disparities, right? There were the difference in opportunities between communities and the different experiences people have across communities.

You know, when you see that you. Become, I think, very conscious of the need for policies that will advance equity, social justice. That too became a driving factor in my career that I'm looked for opportunities to try to make sure that kids like me, kids who could get left behind, are getting the support they need to be successful including second chances.

You know, when folks make mistakes.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. It's, I kind of, I'm thinking in the moment of almost like for a school, for an individual educator, [00:17:00] for the system whatever it is. How can we have. Expectations without assumptions, right? Like that it doesn't mean lowering expectations, but I would think like at a place like for example, Philip Phillips Exter, you you know, you go there and I'm sure they have a stance of one I.

You're lucky to be here. You know, you should feel indebted to the fact that you're here, which in a sense, sure, right, like, it's a privilege to be able to be at the school, but also you're out of your home environment. You're isolated, you're alone, you're in a place where there's a lot of people who don't really understand you.

Where you're coming from, your life experience, right? So you're also, and you're a kid, and so you have the aptitude to be successful. But it also requires an environment that is encouraging of you. I guess it makes me [00:18:00] wonder what your opinion is. And this will also connect to, I'm sure you know, when you.

Got an education when you founded a school, right? What do we miss when we discourage schools from developing the whole person and and students from bringing their whole selves to the school. And when we try to boil it down to just the academics and yes, like there's plenty of academic things that we need to do better in schools, but.

All these other parts are an important component of what makes students who they are, understanding how they're motivated, what engages them what they're trying to work toward, what is their goal and how we support that. So I be, I better put a question mark around this somewhere or else I'm gonna leave you confused.

I guess it's to that point of what are we missing when we're, it's not only not encouraging, but if they were discouraging schools from [00:19:00] developing everything that makes the student, the person that they are.

John King: Yeah, and well, I think we too often we have students who fall through the cracks because we aren't addressing. Of challenges in their lives and that ranges it could be that students are hungry and so why is the student struggling in the classroom is 'cause they're eating breakfast. And so we should have breakfast and lunch in schools. You know, why is the student struggling in the classroom? They're experiencing this. Horrible trauma in their family. And do we have resources to get them counseling and s and emotional support to make it through what they're enduring? You know, why is the student struggling in school?

Well, there's violence in their community that they're exposed to that is causing them to live in fear. Or to [00:20:00] suffer the trauma of seeing violence firsthand. Right. And so I think what I've tried to do in my career as an educator is to work towards making schools. Whether it's at the K 12 or the higher ed level, more responsive to the challenges that students are facing in their lives.

And sometimes all it takes is somebody checking in. You know, I hope that Andover is a better place around that today than it was you know, back when I was there. But I was struggling. Not so much with class, but with everything else. And I was desperately in need of folks to intervene with me to really understand. What I was struggling with and to help me figure out how to navigate all the feelings I had a lot of anger anger about the things I'd experienced, anger about the things I'd suffered anger even towards my parents, although they may not be rational, I just, I was angry [00:21:00] and there wasn't really a vehicle to help me through that.

And when I got to New Jersey with my aunt and uncle, my uncle was such a key player of my. Life's journey because he really sat down with me and tried to help me work through not only the feelings I had, but how I thought about my future. And I, when I, as an educator I felt like, well, how do we create that space in schools, where we have real relationships that can help students navigate what they're experiencing.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would think that I. Being an educator is a lot. You know, like, I think one of the most important characteristics of leadership is humility, right? That it would be the same thing. Like there's a lot of things that your educators wouldn't, they wouldn't have necessarily need to know the specifics of everything that you had been through.

As a child. To have just [00:22:00] had the humility to say, I don't know everything that this person and could apply to anybody else as well. Right? That it doesn't necessarily require, I have everybody's life story and I know everything

John King: That's

Ross Romano: and this kid has this, but it's to say, we know that everybody has certain things that are affecting them and if somebody comes in one day and they're.

Acting uncharacteristically or they just are something is different than what than what we expect as the obvious or you know, I mean, you can, it's fair to expect that a you know, Ferrari can go 200 miles an hour, but, you shouldn't assume that it has a gas in the tank or else it might not make it very far.

Like we need to like you said, just simple things around breakfast and lunch or just a little bit of patience or understanding that there are just different ways to achieve our goals and having that being [00:23:00] able to. Demonstrate that belief in it and work toward it that it just is a little bit of that.

I'm com I'm comfortable enough to know that I don't know everything

John King: That's right, that's right. And to bring a a high expectations, high support orientation. Right, because not that you're gonna say to the, to yourself, well, this kid is struggling, so I'm gonna stop expecting them to learn. It's saying. This kid is struggling, I know that they can learn and I'm gonna try to work with them to figure out what do we need to do to make the environment such that they can make progress.

And you know, I think I, again, I was very fortunate that I had teachers and mentors who had that confidence that it could work out and their belief in me. Help make my journey possible. (ad here)
[00:24:00]

Ross Romano: I think there may be a misinterpretation of some of this as, that it's, that there's a. A failure to adhere to relative like roles and responsibilities. Like, I'm

You're the student, whatever but you write about like teachers, that teachers making a difference. Like teachers who treat students as worthy of respect, right? That doesn't mean that you don't establish roles and mutual respect and, you know.

Expectations and things in the classroom of who's in charge of the learning environment, who's not. Right. But it does mean that you cer one you shouldn't really expect much in the way of respect coming your way if you're not treating others with it. But also, like, that's the foundation for being able to have.

Common cause around how we approach learning or how we approach any endeavor if we wanna work on it together. Like everybody needs to be respected for what their role in [00:25:00] that is.

John King: That's exactly right. You know, I talked in the book about one of my favorite teachers I worked with when I was a principal Catalina Science, who taught math and I. Catalina would say to kids you should know your timestables like, you know your name. And I was thinking of that as reflective of like, she was demanding.

She wanted students to work hard in her class to demonstrate tenacity about their work, right? Because she understood that if you know your times tables well, you, that was gonna help you be able to do fractions and proportional reasoning and right. And. She had that sense of high expectations in her classroom and.

She was tutoring at lunch and before school started and after school and on Saturdays. And she was sitting with students and talking with them about what they might be struggling with outside of school or their struggles, even navigating the social dynamics of middle [00:26:00] school, which can be challenging, right?

And so it's that combination of wanting students to succeed and providing the love and support that will help them get there.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and each person, according to their own skillset, personality there's a lot of different ways to achieve it, right? But it's all those, what are those different. Doors and windows into academic engagement. Right. You write about like the fact that, rigor and joy mustn't, they're not mutually exclusive.

Right. That and I've, that's something I've thought a lot about over the past few years is like, what if joy was the. Number one goal, like to create joyful learning environments. What would result from that? Right? Like what would, if educators were encouraged and supported to be joyful in what they did, how would that influence students then?

You know, and because I always think, okay, we spend [00:27:00] so much time talking about student engagement, disengagement, the challenges, and. If we have a system that's creating a lot of disengaged or burned out educators, like what do you expect if the person in front of me is kind of worn down at like, I it's it's a very relational thing.

John King: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And you want teachers to feel empowered to share. joy of learning with their students. Right. And the like, the curiosity that drives excitement. You know, when I think back to all the schools I visited and I visited so many schools across my career the best moments you see students who are just. Excited about learning whose curiosity is being unleashed. And that could be because we're studying an ant farm. And we're looking at the ants and what they're doing, and we're so excited to, to understand the [00:28:00] behavior of the ants. Or it could be, I remember being in a classroom, in a school that served students who were deaf and hearing impaired, and the students were doing, they were talking about Shakespeare.

Everybody was signing and. They were having this impassioned conversation about the characters in I think it was Hamlet. And, it was just, it was beautiful to see and it was just a reminder to me that teachers can create this space that taps into so much passion from students.

I have a friend who says, teachers create the weather in the classroom.

Ross Romano: Yeah. If you can sign Shakespeare without your hands cramping up you're doing really well. I'm sure that's that's not easy. All of this is kind of like bringing me toward how it, of course reflects in our. Current era and and the current dialogue and [00:29:00] discourse around education and particularly public education.

I've thought a lot. I don't, I mean, I haven't investigated it as a research project, so I don't know, but I feel like there's something true about the idea that every. Modern historical major event or innovation. You eventually get to the point where it's been around long enough that it gets taken for granted.

Those who were there when it didn't exist or before it happened are no longer really around. And like public education strikes me as one of those things that people today maybe. Forget or don't, haven't thought deeply about like what a, the universal public education and how significant of a development that was for everything in history that happened after everything in.

United States and [00:30:00] what that meant and how that unlocked like every all the good things that have happened since. And because I think there's been, there's not just the. You know, the always ongoing conversation about what's the best way to do things. Okay, well we all have some sort of agreement around what we think positive outcomes are, but we have different ideas about how to achieve them.

That happens all the time, but it's even gotten to the point of, I think. Not insignificant certainly not majority, but not insignificant. Part of the dialogue being like, why does this even exist? Like, should this system even be there? You know, should it be supported federally? Of course.

But you know, and I guess like what is. Missing from that, what's even just missing from all parts of it because I think even once that part of the dialogue picks up even the pro education discourse [00:31:00] starts, you start arguing, debating on the terms of what your, like opponent is arguing and you start forgetting about you.

Look, there's bigger points here that we need to be making around like what this system is and should be and why it's important. I'm wondering if you have like a, an opinion on like what's just missing from that dialogue. Like what needs to be centered in the discussion about what public education is, should be like, why it just needs to exist, period.

And then of course, be resourced.

John King: Yeah. I mean I I think we have to go back to what does. What do public schools mean? What does public education mean for the country? And I really think of it as the foundation of the health of our economy and our democracy. Right? On the economy side, it's very clear that president Obama went to the nations that outcompete us, that out educate us today, will outcompete us tomorrow.

Right? And it is clear that. Education is the path [00:32:00] to economic success. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean a bachelor's degree, right? That could mean an associate's degree. That could mean high quality career and technical education, but you need skills in order to survive in this 21st century of con and so.

When you think about what it's gonna take for us to have the healthcare workforce, we need the nurses and the doctors that we need the the man's manufacturing technicians that we're gonna need, the, computer scientists that we're gonna need, right? You name the them. Job area and at its foundation is getting a quality K 12 educational experience. That's on the economy side, but on the democracy side, school is the place where we learn public school is the place where we learn how to function as a community how to work with people who are different from us, have different backgrounds than we do. It's the place where we learn how [00:33:00] to be in community with peers.

How to resolve conflicts constructively. It's where we learn. How government works, how a bill becomes a law, the things we need to do to be able to participate in our democracy. You know, how do you write a letter to your city council member about the traffic light you think ought to be on the corner?

Or how do you prepare your public statement for a town hall that you're a member of? Congress is holding, right. Your ability to engage in the democracy depends on that foundational educational experience. So if you take away. Public education, you undermine that economic future and you undermine the democracy.

And that's why I'm so passionate about protecting public education and protecting its role in American life and making sure that everybody has access to quality public education. [00:34:00] You know, I think about. There, there was a Supreme Court case Plyler Vido, which was a case about whether or not students who were undocumented were entitled to education.

And when you read that Supreme Court opinion, part of what comes through so clearly is. An acknowledgement that without education you would doom people to be locked in a permanent caste system unable to advance. And that Supreme Court decision said, no, we have to allow everybody access. If they're here, everybody has to have access to K 12 education.

And that was exactly right.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Education is at least should be in, in reality is it's the, the furthest opposite end of like a zero sum game, right? Like the more education that's available, the more people have access and to become educated [00:35:00] the better everybody becomes, the smarter the more we can do in collaboration and it's ever evolving. What are the most timely priorities and the how that connects to economic trends and what's happening in communities, right? But but if it, at least start with more is better, right? Like, better education is better, and then let's figure out what that education is.

It would be a good place to start.

John King: That's exactly right.

Ross Romano: What's the, like most urgent. Like right now, like, you know it, it's March, 2025. So in like this next year if you could say to the the people who are advocates who want to get out there and really start turning. Education in, in the direction that it should go.

What do they need to be talking about? And filling that? I don't know the atmosphere with Right. Like, be out there. 'cause I I would say like I've observed, I think it's the rare and if we think [00:36:00] about like the political landscape it usually is like the rare, elected official or even party or that really sustains, like continuing to prioritize and talk about education and really sticks to it and says like this. And then it makes it easy once you give away and give space to a variety of other interests then it's.

It's easy for people to be, again, thinking about it in kind of false terms or I think a lot of the debates around. You know, choice, parents rights, whatever. Like there's, there are good discussions to be had there, but the, but they're only good if we're talking about it within the terms of how do things actually function now and how would we like to see them function, and then we can improve them.

But if we're kind of talking around a bunch of stuff that's not really super connected to realities, then it's really hard to make a positive change. But I think that starts with the people who know. Who know this and [00:37:00] know that it's important and know that it's critical, need to be talking about it and doing something about it.

What, like what are the things in this upcoming period that, that we have to be discussing?

John King: Well look, I think on one level there's a lot of defense, right? It's, we have to defend our national commitment to public education. We have to make sure that title one funding that goes to schools serving low income students. The IDA, the individual with Disabilities Education Act funding that goes to support students with disabilities, that is protected.

The Pell Grant program that makes it possible for low income students access higher education. We've gotta protect those things. We've got protect principles of equity in our schools and making sure that low income students, students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, have access to, opportunity in schools. So there's a lot of defense to play, but if I could say a thing like which we should be playing offense.

We have a huge crisis of chronic [00:38:00] absenteeism in the country and we have to tackle that. And it's often very high rates of chronic absenteeism in the early grades. Then very high rates of chronic absenteeism in high school. And on the high school side. I think one of the challenges we have as a country is many teenagers do not understand what is high school for? Why am I here? Why does this matter? And we know, and when we look across the country at high schools that are succeeding.

Particularly high school serving high needs students. Part of what they do is they help connect every student with something they're passionate about, that they care about, that's gonna be motivating to them about their education. And we have to rema reimagine High School as a place that helps students find their passions.

And build meaningful relationships with adults around the cultivation of those passions. So maybe that's [00:39:00] career and technical education and maybe it's I've been to high schools where students are in a flight simulator because they wanna be a pilot and they are learning how to do that in high school, and they are as passionate about that as anything in the world.

And I've been in high schools where students are reading, great philosophers and debating deep complex ideas about, politics and the meaning of a good life. I've been in high schools where students are deeply passionate about dance and students who will tell you, I'm here because I'm, I wanna be here for dance class.

And I am honing my craft. And I, that's what I'm passionate about. I've been in schools where students are. Are involved in sports and that is the thing that motivates them. But what I know is if you have students who do not have a passion, do not have a thing, they're connected to, do not have meaningful relationships with [00:40:00] adults.

That is a student who's unlikely. To come to school regularly, un unlikely to be successful. And so what if we asked ourselves, how do we organize this experience for students to unlock those things that they're gonna be excited about? I. I think that would help us tackle chronic absenteeism. I help, I think it would help us get more students ready for success in college and careers.

And I wish we were talking about that instead of talking about the dismantling of the education department, like we're so off track from the focus on students that we should have.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean to students we need to show them like what is the evidence that it's worth my time to

John King: Yes.

Ross Romano: Versus wherever else. I could be what is the evidence that the things I'm doing here are going to pay off for me later? Help me get gainful employment, help me get into higher education [00:41:00] that I'm interested.

Help me have skills for life. And are we not only providing it, but communicating it and talking about it and asking questions and, 'cause it's everything from like the age old. Thing that so many students have felt like in math class, like, when am I ever gonna need to know this? Right.

To the entire concept of being in school and earning a diploma. Well, okay, but nothing I'm doing here relates to and so of course there's so much around better career connected learning and career and technical education programs and better. Alignment between students' choice and their interests and things they're working on, and also understanding, I mean I don't I don't think I've ever heard it, discussed this way, but I don't, I think it's kind of on track that why can't K to 12 have some element of that liberal arts education of like, not everything needs to [00:42:00] be about.

Workforce readiness. We need to make sure that that's a, an objective, that that's something we're really doing. But we also need to treat as equally important, all of the enrichment that that just again, develops people as people and keeps them interested and in, in that time. And and it's it's important but.

Why should they show up if it's pretty obvious to them that they're not learning anything that's of interest or that is particularly connected to their aspirations?

John King: That's right.

Ross Romano: Well it it's been really like amazing to have this conversation and and I guess you know, I guess to, to wrap it up, I guess a good way would be.

There's so many ways, you know what, here's how I want to do it.

John King: Yeah.

Ross Romano: What? What is the thing that gives you the most hope about the future of education in this country?

John King: Y you know, I just am continuously [00:43:00] exposed to schools, classrooms where amazing things are happening. You know, I was a couple weeks ago I was visiting a first robotics program and it was in, in the Bronx students from very varied international backgrounds, some relatively recent arrivals to the United States, and these students were building robots.

And totally excited about it engaging with each other. In some cases, the students you know, they were all learning English, but they were all so excited about the robots and their home languages were different. So English was the language they had to use to do their work together on the robots. They were just excited about it and excited about potential careers that would tap into what they were learning in robotics. And you walk outta that out of a classroom like that and you just feel hope about young people, hope about [00:44:00] America hope about education, and whether it's visiting our SUNY campuses or visiting K 12 environments around.

Around the country. I just am continually inspired when I see that combination of great teachers with a positive relationships with students doing exciting, engaging work, and that's happening all over the country every day. Not enough. We have to figure out how to scale that so that every student has that kind of experience.

But you know, bill Clinton used to say there's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America. And I would say there's nothing wrong with education that can't be fixed by what's right with education.

Ross Romano: I like that. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. The thing I've been saying a lot lately is, we know what to do, we just have to do it. The difference between knowing and doing are different, but it's not [00:45:00] that, it's not that we don't know. But I like that as well. Well, it's that's wonderful. Listeners.

The book is called Teacher by Teacher, the People Who Change Our Lives. I didn't get task. We didn't we had to cover a lot of stuff. So, what? You know, motivated John to write it, but it seems like it was a lot of work. I mean, it's a lovely book. There's a lot of good stuff in there. You can get it wherever you get your book.

So, check it out. I mean, if you're just interested in reading more about a story, reading about all these teachers that made a difference. I think there's a lot of good stuff in there. John, thanks so much for being here.

John King: Thank you. Appreciate it.