Episodes

  • The Future of AI-Powered Assessment at Learnosity with Dan Goldstein

    The Future of AI-Powered Assessment at Learnosity with Dan Goldstein
    Oct 22 2026
    What if the most important edtech company in your classroom is one you've never heard of? Live from EdTech Week 2026 at Teachers College's Digital Futures Institute, Mike Palmer sits down with Dan Goldstein of Learnosity, the assessment engine that powers some of the biggest names in education from behind the scenes. Dan's path ran through College Board's SpringBoard curriculum, where he led implementation across Texas and New Mexico, and district-facing sales at Cengage, before he joined Learnosity in 2019, just as the "beforetimes" ended. Dan explains how Learnosity works as a suite of white-label APIs covering three areas: authoring, assessment delivery, and analytics. He then gets into how AI is changing each one, from Authorate for content generation and translation, to Item Bank Health Check, which can revise thousands of items at once (goodbye, flip phone references). He also shares Learnosity's long-running goal of killing the multiple choice question, and how FeedbackAid's AI essay scoring and student-facing feedback drove big gains in course completion at Penn Foster. Mike and Dan also cover Learnosity's new Product Builder MCP, which turns static documentation into something developers can query straight from their AI tools, and the live customer demo that put it to the test. They talk about the techlash and Learnosity's new Paper API, which lets students take exams with pen and paper, outside the screen, while teachers still get the analytics. Along the way they touch on stealth assessment, tacit knowledge, solar calculators, and why culture still eats strategy for lunch. This is one of four conversations recorded at EdTech Week 2026. Thanks to StartEd and Alyssa Miller for making it happen. Guest: Dan Goldstein, Learnosity Listen, subscribe, and explore more episodes at trendingineducation.com
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    21 mins
  • From Ukraine to EdTech | Brighterly's Journey with Founder Eugene Kashuk

    From Ukraine to EdTech | Brighterly's Journey with Founder Eugene Kashuk
    Oct 22 2026
    When AI can tutor anyone, anytime, why are parents still choosing human tutors? Live from EdTech Week 2026 at Teachers College's Digital Futures Institute, Mike Palmer sits down with Eugene Kashuk, founder of Brighterly and the show's first guest from Ukraine. Eugene is a serial entrepreneur with a go-to-market and operations background. Over five years he has grown Brighterly into a direct-to-consumer platform with one-on-one live tutoring in math and reading for grades 1–9. It now serves more than 20,000 American families, with over 1,200 tutors and a team of more than 250 people around the world. Eugene describes the two camps he's seeing at EdTech Week: the disruptors who think AI will remake everything, and the folks banning screens in schools. Brighterly sits in between. It's built around real human educators, and it uses AI as a supplement, including an AI reading practice tutor. Eugene explains how Brighterly vets and trains tutors through a three-week program and requires them to teach standardized, state-aligned curriculum. It also reviews session videos for feedback, assesses students on a regular cycle, and keeps pricing about 2.5x below the average US tutor so it reaches families who need it most. Eugene also gives a candid look at building a company from Kyiv as the war nears its fifth year, and at the resilience of his team. He then turns the tables with a question for Mike: Brighterly's own parent survey found that most kids are bringing home As and Bs, yet more than half of parents feel their children are falling behind. Mike shares his take on grade inflation, the power of tutoring, and why parents may be leaning toward trusted humans over AI right now. This is one of four conversations recorded at EdTech Week 2026. Thanks to StartEd and Alyssa Miller for making it happen. Guest: Eugene Kashuk, Founder, Brighterly Listen, subscribe, and explore more episodes at trendingineducation.com
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    17 mins
  • Revolutionizing Literacy through Outcomes with Karl Rectanus CEO of Really Great Reading

    Revolutionizing Literacy through Outcomes with Karl Rectanus CEO of Really Great Reading
    Oct 22 2026
    What if schools stopped paying for books, licenses, and PD days, and started paying for kids learning to read? Back on the show for round two, Really Great Reading CEO Karl Rectanus joins Mike Palmer live from EdTech Week 2026 at Teachers College's Digital Futures Institute. Karl started out as a teacher and charter school CFO, taught overseas, and then founded LearnPlatform, whose rapid-cycle evaluation work helped shape the four levels of evidence in the Every Student Succeeds Act. After Instructure acquired LearnPlatform, Karl led K-12 and platform strategy there before taking the helm at Really Great Reading, a 20-year-old OG of the science of reading. Karl describes what he calls the education outcomes movement. For decades, education policy has swung between accountability, standards, local control, and evidence. Now that the technology has caught up, he argues, we can go straight to the question underneath all of them: are students learning? Outcomes-based contracts started in tutoring, and Karl explains why Really Great Reading is bringing them to curriculum, tying payment to results across print, digital, professional learning, and coaching. That thinking drives RGR Nova, the literacy outcomes system Really Great Reading launched this fall with its district and state partners. Mike and Karl also get into what the Mississippi Marathon really shows (math and science scores rose too, because kids could read), why the science of reading is about much more than phonics, and Karl's three ingredients for teaching every child to read: learning science-aligned curriculum, a caring human, and a feedback loop. On AI, Karl argues that focusing on outcomes settles most of the arguments. He covers the partners behind the work, including MetaMetrics and Learnosity, why learning is still relationship-driven, and why literacy is the best defense against cognitive surrender. In his words: when literacy improves, everything else gets better. This is one of four conversations recorded at EdTech Week 2026. Thanks to StartEd and Alyssa Miller for making it happen. Guest: Karl Rectanus, CEO, Really Great Reading Catch Karl's first appearance: Talking Outcomes-Based Literacy with Really Great Reading CEO Karl Rectanus Listen, subscribe, and explore more episodes at trendingineducation.com
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    21 mins
  • Disrupting Higher Ed with SFBU President Nick Ladany

    Disrupting Higher Ed with SFBU President Nick Ladany
    Oct 22 2026
    What would you build if someone handed you a university with almost no students and told you to start over? We kick off our EdTech Week 2026 series live from Teachers College's Digital Futures Institute with Dr. Nick Ladany, President of San Francisco Bay University (SFBU). Nick is a first-gen college student and a counseling psychologist by training. He worked his way from professor to dean across Maryland, Temple, Lehigh, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, and the University of San Diego, then served as president of Oglethorpe University. In 2023 he arrived at SFBU, a 40-year-old institution with a large unrestricted fund and a mandate to build a university from scratch. Nick explains what SFBU did with that blank slate. It capped classes at 20, offers full wraparound services including unlimited mental health support, pays faculty top salaries to teach year-round, and trains every faculty member how to teach. It rebuilt general education around industry-validated durable skills: five identities, 15 competencies, and 45 behavioral indicators. Tuition averages about $10,000 a year, the bachelor's degree is 90 credits so students can finish in three years, and the target is an 80% four-year graduation rate. SFBU also has no athletics and no Greek life. From there, the conversation turns to AI as a co-teacher. Nick introduces Bailey the Bayhawk, SFBU's AI tutor, which is designed to lead students toward productive struggle instead of handing them answers. He also describes the AI faculty avatars at the heart of SFBU's $10,000 AI-enhanced MBA Pro+. In one course, students learn negotiation from an avatar of a real professor, then go head-to-head with an AI boss and get immediate feedback on their skills. That frees human faculty, many of them from industry, to do what they do best: mentor, build community, and coach careers. Nick doesn't hold back on what's broken in higher ed. He takes on the six-year graduation rate, the SAT, the Carnegie credit hour, athletics spending, faculty senates, and the trustees he says are "in collusion" with a broken financial model. Mike and Nick also dig into SFBU's neighborhood campuses, what community colleges promise and how they fall short, why "college isn't for everyone" can be its own form of exclusion, and how liberal arts thinking is the real disruptive mindset. It's a candid, punk rock look at what higher ed could be. This is the first of four conversations recorded at EdTech Week 2026. Thanks to StartEd and Alyssa Miller for making it happen. Guest: Dr. Nick Ladany, President, San Francisco Bay University Mentioned in this episode: Framing the Teacher Shortage as a Workforce Design Problem with Dr. James Lane Listen, subscribe, and explore more episodes at trendingineducation.com
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    39 mins
  • No Invisible Kids | Reimagining K12 Education with AJ Gutierrez and Dr. Susan Enfield

    No Invisible Kids | Reimagining K12 Education with AJ Gutierrez and Dr. Susan Enfield
    Oct 16 2026
    What would change if schools knew their students the way the best companies know their customers? Host Mike Palmer welcomes back Trending in Ed all-star AJ Gutierrez, CEO of Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) and co-founder of Saga Education, for his first Bring a Friend episode. AJ's friend is Dr. Susan Enfield, Executive Director of the Center for Educational Leadership at the University of Washington. Susan began her career as a high school English, journalism, and multilingual learner teacher and served as a superintendent for nearly 13 years, including a decade leading Highline Public Schools just south of Seattle. AJ and Susan have co-authored an upcoming op-ed arguing that K-12 education should be as intentional about understanding students as other industries are about understanding their customers. Their shared rallying cry is "no invisible students," rooted in the Highline promise to know every student by name, strength, and need so they graduate prepared for the future they choose. They make the case that this isn't just an equity play. It's a fiscally smart way to get more from the people and programs schools already invest in. The three dig into several threads: > Customer obsession for K-12: Gathering the right information from students and getting it to the right adult at the right time to act on it. > Hidden talent: A Mathematica study found EOS partner schools identified an average of 52 more students per school for advanced coursework. > The power of a trusted adult: An analysis of 1.8 million students in the EOS database found that students who name a trusted adult are about 10 percentage points more likely to take advanced courses. > Rethinking chronic absenteeism: Why chronic disengagement is the real problem, and why a family trip to Samoa, a traveling athlete, and an unexplained absence call for very different responses. > Loving kids to failure: Susan on the cost of low expectations and pity, and the eighth grader who advocated his way into pre-calculus and went on to soar through every AP calculus course. > Technology that deepens human connection: How EOS and the Learning Collider are exploring which insights can help any adult become a trusted adult. Resources Mentioned: Equal Opportunity Schools: https://eoschools.org AJ Gutierrez in Fast Company on the Mathematica findings: https://www.fastcompany.com/91369396/underserved-students-interested-in-stem-are-often-overlooked Center for Educational Leadership, University of Washington: https://www.k-12leadership.org Saga Education: https://saga.org The Pedagogy of Confidence by Yvette Jackson: https://www.tcpress.com/the-pedagogy-of-confidence-9780807752234 Situated by Angela Duckworth: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Situated/Angela-Duckworth/9781668005941 🔔 Subscribe to Trending in Education for more conversations on the future of learning, work, and what's next. 📩 Connect with Mike Palmer on LinkedIn to bring this kind of conversation to your own podcast or media program:
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    45 mins
  • Framing the Teacher Shortage as a Workforce Design Problem | Dr. James Lane | Unlimited Instruction (UI)

    Framing the Teacher Shortage as a Workforce Design Problem | Dr. James Lane | Unlimited Instruction (UI)
    Oct 13 2026
    What if the teacher shortage isn’t really a shortage of teachers? Host Mike Palmer welcomes Dr. James Lane, CEO of Unlimited Instruction (UI), formerly University Instructors. James started as a middle school band director and went on to be a principal, a superintendent in three Virginia districts, Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the leader of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. James argues that the teacher shortage is really a workforce design problem. The real problems are pay, a thin pipeline, poor retention and a confusing path to certification. UI tackles this through InstructEd Pathways, which grows paraprofessionals and alternatively certified candidates into fully certified teachers, and TutorEd, its high-dosage, in-person tutoring program. The two dig into several threads: Why AI should make teachers’ jobs easier, not replace them, and why UI is intentionally in-person Paraprofessionals as unsung heroes, and year-long coaching that works like “student teaching on steroids” for hard-to-fill special education roles Life after ESSER: don’t spend one-time funds on ongoing costs, and cut back on too many initiatives Leading with laser focus: Jim Collins’ hedgehog concept, a clear North Star, and using technology to find each student’s zone of proximal development Academic optimism: why teachers need to believe they matter, and how that belief may keep them in the classroom Resources Mentioned: Unlimited Instruction (UI) UI Teacher Shortage Solutions Leading with Laser Focus: The Seven Steps to School Success by Dr. James Lane Good to Great by Jim Collins 🔔 Subscribe to Trending in Education for more conversations on the future of learning, work, and what’s next. 📩 Connect with Mike Palmer on LinkedIn to bring this kind of conversation to your own podcast or media program.
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    33 mins
  • Sal Khan on AI Tutors, Durable Skills, and the Khan TED Institute | Trending in Ed w Mike Palmer

    Sal Khan on AI Tutors, Durable Skills, and the Khan TED Institute | Trending in Ed w Mike Palmer
    Oct 8 2026
    What happens when the original edtech pioneer gets an early look at GPT-4? Host Mike Palmer welcomes Sal Khan, founder and CEO of Khan Academy, for a conversation spanning two decades of edtech. Sal traces his path from hedge fund analyst tutoring his cousin Nadia over Yahoo Messenger to YouTube videos his cousins liked better than him in person, to a nonprofit serving learners in 50+ languages. He explains why he leaves his mistakes in, and why that human quality will be hard for AI to replace. From there, Sal recounts his first look at GPT-4 months before ChatGPT and how Khan Academy turned AI's risks into features. The two dig into several threads: > Building Khanmigo to be Socratic and benchmarking its error rate against human tutors. > Why only ~15% of students used a passive AI tutor, and the shift to a more proactive one. > Khanductor and AI-powered assessment that captures student reasoning, not just answers. > Higher ed ROI, AI's reach into knowledge work, and why durable skills matter most. > The Khan TED Institute: a degree for under $10,000 built on authentic projects and skill portfolios. 🔔 Subscribe to Trending in Education for more conversations on the future of learning, work, and what's next. 📩 Connect with Mike Palmer on LinkedIn to bring this kind of conversation to your own podcast or media program. Resources Mentioned: Khan Academy Khanmigo Schoolhouse.world Khanductor and Reimagined Assessments Khan TED Institute Brave New Words by Sal Khan The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow
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    55 mins
  • Trust, Tech Bans, and Centering the Rising Generations | Dr. Janice Jackson | Aspen Institute

    Trust, Tech Bans, and Centering the Rising Generations | Dr. Janice Jackson | Aspen Institute
    Sep 29 2026
    Are screen bans solving the right problem, or just creating new ones? Host Mike Palmer welcomes Dr. Janice Jackson, Executive Director of the Education & Society Program at the Aspen Institute and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, for a conversation that trades hyperbole for nuance. Janice traces her path from CPS history teacher and debate coach to superintendent, then to founder of Hope Chicago, and now to Aspen. There she helps lead the new Rising Generations Strategy Group, a cross-sector, cross-partisan, intergenerational effort that puts young people at the center of the conversation, not just on the input list. Janice draws a clear line between phones in classrooms (ban them) and technology that augments learning (hold it accountable). She makes the equity case against blanket bans, calls for digital literacy over prohibition, and pushes the edtech industry to prove efficacy. The two dig into several threads: > Aspen's first convening, where students opened with four provocations. > An "AI Futures" exercise weighing risk and opportunity. > Declining trust in institutions. > The role of state policy, like Illinois' new AI legislation. > A powerful lesson from Hope Chicago: getting help isn't cheating, it's what advantaged students have always done. If technology can level that playing field, we should embrace it. 🔔 Subscribe to Trending in Education for more conversations on the future of learning, work, and what's next. 📩 Connect with Mike Palmer on LinkedIn to bring this kind of conversation to your own podcast or media program. Resources Mentioned: Aspen Institute Education & Society Program Rising Generation Strategy Group Hope Chicago Dr. Jackson on The Education Equation with Jeremy Singer Edelman Trust Barometer Bellwether's responsible AI framework Digital Promise ISTE Kim Smith, The Learner Studio Timestamps: 🕙 00:00:00 — Introduction: Welcoming Dr. Janice Jackson. 🕙 00:00:50 — Origin Story: From CPS history teacher to superintendent, Hope Chicago, and Aspen. 🕙 00:03:15 — The Rising Generation Strategy Group: Cross-sector, cross-partisan, and youth-centered. 🕙 00:04:30 — The Equity Risk: Why quick screen bans can lock students out. 🕙 00:06:00 — Phones vs. Edtech: Doom scrolling isn't the same as learning. 🕙 00:08:00 — The Land of Hyperbole: Bringing parents and young people into the debate. 🕙 00:10:00 — Digital Literacy: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. 🕙 00:11:00 — Students First: Aspen's convening and the Center for Rising Generations. 🕙 00:14:00 — Trust Architecture: Gap-widening vs. gap-narrowing technology. 🕙 00:15:00 — AI Futures: Mapping risks and opportunities together. 🕙 00:17:00 — The Trust Deficit: What the Edelman Trust Barometer tells us. 🕙 00:19:00 — Guardrails: Government's role and state-level AI policy. 🕙 00:21:30 — Resources: Digital Promise, ISTE, and vetting edtech tools. 🕙 00:23:30 — Advice: Be authentic, keep kids first, hone your craft. 🕙 00:25:30 — Help-Seeking: Lessons from Hope Chicago on AI and "cheating." 🕙 00:28:30 — Final Thoughts: Join the conversation on the purpose of schooling.
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    30 mins