SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Academic Distinctions. I am Zach Chase, joined by Stephanie Melville. And on this episode, a very special episode of Academic Distinctions, not like a special episode of Blossom. We have former Secretary of Education John King with us. He will be discussing his new book, Teacher by Teacher, as well as the current state of public education, his thoughts, his ideas, and how we can all make a change. Stay tuned. Welcome to the podcast. I'm going to go real personal here. I'm generally not a fan of memoirs. Usually, I find myself saying, who are you writing for? And I usually think, oh, they're writing this for themselves. And instead of going to therapy and doing the work, they decided to write a book. But reading yours, and I showed you before we started recording, I showed you all the little tabs. I didn't get that sense. Can you tell us What led you to write this book at this moment, and who's it for?

SPEAKER_02: 1:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me on, and I'm excited to get to talk with you all. So, you know, over the years, people have said to me, you should write a book. You know, it's a thing people say. And I've always thought, oh, I don't really want to do that. And so I never really took it that seriously. But then... The Washington Post wrote a piece about my family history and my family connecting with the family who are direct line descendants of the family that enslaved my family. And Washington Post did this story and a book agent reached out to the Washington Post reporter and said, you should turn this piece into a book. And he said he was working on a different project and he really wasn't ready to do a book at that time. He said, but you should call John and see if he wants to do a book. And so it sort of like came to me, you know, it wasn't that I sought it out. But then when there was this opportunity to think about a book project, immediately for me, the thing that was fascinating most important about a book project was to talk about teachers and the role that teachers played in my life. And so the book really is about that. And I hope is a book that is read by young people who are thinking about teaching, by teachers, because it's an opportunity to say thank you. Because I think teachers make such a huge difference in kids' lives every day. Don't hear thank you often enough. Aren't compensated as well as they should be. And this book is really a celebration of the difference that teachers make in people's lives.

SPEAKER_00: 3:26

It came through. Each of those moments in your life could have stood alone as kind of a defining moment or kind of, I'm going to make this kind of explode this moment and make it into a book. But each chapter is really another one of those moments, which I thought was really interesting. And the gratitude really, really does come through. So it's just a lovely, lovely book.

SPEAKER_02: 4:18

Thank you. Thank you. That makes me happy to hear

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

that. So I, like Zach, have found reading this book to be heartening in times that are Deeply disheartening. What are you reading right now? Books or shorter pieces to find hope in our times or maybe distraction?

SPEAKER_02: 4:35

Maybe more on the distraction side. Right now I'm reading a book, All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. It's sort of a mystery novel. So it's not really an education book. It's just fun reading. interesting read that I'm enjoying. But one of the things that I do draw a lot of hope from is engaging with the work across the SUNY system. So my job now, Chancellor of the State University of New York, and there are so many researchers, and it's not just researchers, it's across higher education institutions around the country, who are doing work that could be so transformative. You know, whether it's work on renewable energy that hopefully can help us reduce the harm from fossil fuels and take on the consequences of climate change, or researchers who are figuring out how AI could be used to better treat disease and to increase the likelihood that people with a disease like cancer might be able to get treatment that could save their lives. And so reading those things, it helps you see that, yes, we have a million problems, but there are people who every day are thinking about How do we solve them? And making discoveries and progress that we should celebrate and be excited about.

SPEAKER_01: 6:20

It's reminiscent almost of, you know, Mr. Rogers, look for the helpers. That's right. Even when things are crazy, there are still people out there who are trying to do the transformative work.

SPEAKER_02: 6:34

A hundred percent. And we know in K-12 schools all across the country, folks are doing amazing things. They are changing kids' lives. They are creating spaces that inspire and engage. And the biggest problem we have is we're not very good at scaling those things in K-12, right? There are these pockets. But Every problem we have is being solved somewhere by somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 7:07

Our last episode was a conversation about the work of John Hattie and kind of the trouble of... of not considering place and context when we're thinking about solutions. So this idea of scaling doesn't necessarily have to mean you scale to as many people as possible, but scale of what is the depth of your impact or the replication of your impact. And, and so there's that piece of like, you're right. Teachers are doing this all across the country, all across the world, um, in the face of ever more uncertain times. What is it like to, to watch what's happening? Knowing the work that you, that you clearly dedicated your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:51

Look, it's heartbreaking and terrifying, right? Heartbreaking because you see the human toll, right? You see, uh, The amazing colleagues that we all had the opportunity to work with who come to the department having been teachers and principals and come there because they want to serve the public interest. And they're treated so horribly. And now they're losing their jobs, which is heartbreaking for them and their families. It's heartbreaking because of the toll of the policies on communities, right? You know, the... The consequences of an abandonment of the federal role in education will be felt throughout our country. It'll be felt in K-12 schools that rely on Title I funding

SPEAKER_03: 8:47

for the

SPEAKER_02: 8:49

services they provide to low-income students. So when that funding is withheld or reduced, You're talking about teacher layoffs and larger class sizes and fewer enrichment activities and fewer AP classes. It will be felt by the higher education students. So much of what the department does is to help people get Pell Grants that makes college possible for low-income students or help people get student loans so they can access higher education. Without the department, or with a much reduced department, will people be able to get their Pell Grants, their student loans? And what will it mean if, as the administration has proposed, we slash Pell Grants? What will that mean for Americans' ability to get access to opportunity? And then it's terrifying because we are at risk of sliding backwards you know sometimes people say to me well can't the states just do all the stuff and i always give people the example of the norman rockwell painting of ruby bridges such an iconic image and as soon as you think of that that image of course you you see ruby bridges there at the center but who's around ruby bridges u.s marshals well why u.s marshals because Louisiana and New Orleans did not want to respect Ruby Bridges' civil rights. They did not want to give Ruby Bridges an equitable education. The federal role was to ensure the protection of civil rights. And so when you see Not only is the department being dismantled, but you see this effort to attack fundamental civil rights protections for our students. That's terrifying. There's a risk of taking us backwards to a time where students were ignored because of their race or their disability or their language. So I'm very worried. Very worried about that. Very terrified about that. And then ultimately terrified because if we don't prioritize education, what is the future of our economy, our democracy? It's still shocking to me. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe that's naive, but it's still shocking to me that anyone could say education should not be a national imperative. This didn't used to be a partisan question.

SPEAKER_00: 11:27

Right. The news has come out. And I think folks who have worked in the education sector, education policymakers, education leaders have kind of, you know, a lot of think pieces and editorials and op eds have been written. To me, it also seems as though, you know, if I if I have a student, and I've got two kids in school, Stephanie's got two kids in school, I know you've got kids in school, right? That that parents are that grandparents, that aunts and uncles aren't going to see the impact of the things that are happening today for a few more months. Now is the moment for us to be able to stop or push back on some of what's going on. But by the time it goes into practice, right, by the time we feel what it's like for those funds not to be in schools or in states, they just won't be there, right? So there's almost something like deviously– maniacally beautiful about this, because if you were going to do it, you would do a thing that nobody noticed was gone until it was too late.

SPEAKER_02: 12:26

Yes. Yes. It's like a ticking time bomb. Right. And I think our challenge is how do we get folks to organize, to convey to their elected officials, whether it's members of Congress or their governors and legislators, the urgency of standing up for public education? Because it's the federal attack, but you're also seeing this in states too. An attack on teaching the truth about our history, the use of private school voucher schemes to steal money from public education. We need folks to... stand up, to speak up. And I think you're right. The worry is that consequences may seem far off in the future, but now is the moment for action.

SPEAKER_01: 13:18

What are some practical steps that you might recommend leaders and educators at each level, family members, you know, even to take to do that resistance, the dismantling of this situation, this public good?

SPEAKER_02: 13:33

Yeah. Look, calls and letters to your members of Congress still matter. Their staffs are diligently counting the calls and letters and postcards they get. So that kind of direct advocacy still matters. Going to the town halls that members of Congress hold and standing up and saying, will you fight for us? Will you fight for the schools in your congressional district? Will you fight for the teachers and the students in your congressional district? Will you make sure we have the resources we need?

SPEAKER_00: 14:09

One of my former colleagues, one of the best social studies teachers you'll ever meet, Diana Laufenberg, every Every semester when she was teaching government, in a high school class we taught in Philadelphia, one of the assignments was students had to attend a public meeting of some sort and write about it. And so they went to school board meetings, city council, any public meeting. And one, the kids came back and they were like, this is nutty. That's how government works, which I think all three of us could probably relate to. And then the second piece was nobody was there. Relating to that kind of ticking time bomb, How do we get people out the door? And I think the pandemic is still kind of echoing its effects is that we're just used to not going and doing things.

SPEAKER_02: 14:56

Well, there's, you know, I'd say there's a long-term and a short-term. The long-term is the work on civic education, right? It is saying we've got to make sure, and I was a high school social studies teacher, we've got to make sure that students are gaining both the knowledge and the skills for civic engagement, that they understand. how a bill becomes a law, what the three branches of government are, who does what at the different levels of federal, state, local. But we also need them to have the skills to write a letter where they effectively convey their concerns, to provide cogent political testimony at a political event. That's the long term. In the short term, we've got to organize like crazy. We've got to make sure that at the bus stop, at the playground, we are talking about what the consequences of these policy changes will be and making it as concrete for folks as possible. You know, when you say Title I or Title III or IDA, that's inside baseball. But if you say to folks, look, the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department is the place you go if you have a child with a disability and they're not getting the services they need. Isn't that important? And what will we do if we don't have the Office for Civil Rights to make sure those students get the services they're entitled to? Or to make it that concrete.

SPEAKER_00: 16:34

Make the national local. Yes. How... Are you taking those steps in your own life? What are some pieces that you have felt compelled to do to make this work happen?

SPEAKER_02: 16:45

I have spent a lot of time over these last six months trying to sound the alarm. and not just doing it myself, but trying to do it with other people, even with unlikely partners. You know, I've done a number of events with Margaret Felix, who was Secretary of Education for President George W. Bush. And Margaret and I don't agree on everything. You know, certainly our politics differ. But we both believe that Education is a national imperative. We both believe that the federal government has a responsibility to protect students' civil rights. We both believe that the federal role in education is hugely important. And I think what people see us both delivering that message in a bipartisan, really nonpartisan, way, that may break through in a different way. As I've traveled around the country talking about the book, part of the story I'm trying to tell is, if not for the teachers at PS 276 in Canarsie and Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island, I would not be alive today. Those are the stakes. If I hadn't had those teachers, if they had not intervened in my life, I would not have survived that period when I lost my parents. I'm partly telling that story to help people get fired up about what public education means in people's everyday lives.

SPEAKER_00: 18:12

You're speaking as a person of color. I come at this as a queer man. Stephanie is a woman. And so we are three people who have benefited from the protections afforded to us and the people. So we worked in the U.S. Department of Education, but... but the protections that we appreciated as students kind of unknowingly allowed us to, to make those moves as well. So it's just an, an interesting place to be of like me, this is about me and those like me who are coming up.

SPEAKER_02: 18:44

Yes. Yes. And don't we want to be a society where opportunity is available to everyone and we have the benefits of the talents of all people? Why, why would we want to leave any talent, on the sidelines.

SPEAKER_01: 19:00

Right. Isn't that a really, just at the crux of education is to help children identify their talents and their, their strengths and then to, to water, water that seed, if you will, to see what it grows into. And regardless of what that child does, looks like, where they come from, what assets they bring to the table that may not be immediately perceived as an asset. Regardless of any of that, I feel like education's responsibility is to nurture that child.

SPEAKER_02: 19:49

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01: 19:50

How are you talking to your own kids about what's happening in our country right now?

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

My girls are 19 and 21. And so, as young adults, I am trying to help them avoid becoming cynical. Because they grew up, not only because I was in the administration, but they grew up seeing President Obama, Mrs. Obama, the Obama administration team, the focus on advancing the good of society. It's not to say that everything the administration did was perfect or that everything was perfect 10, 15 years ago. Far from it. But there was a sense that we were moving toward progress as a society. And there was a sense that that we could have disagreement, but still respect each other's humanity. And now... Where did that go? Right? That's the thing, right? You know, if you contrast that maybe, let's say, with somebody who is in their 60s or 70s, they look around and they say, well, today... compared to when they were a kid, even with all the problems, there's been a lot of progress on expanding the circle of opportunity. If you think about Ruby Bridges, what she's seen in her lifetime, she can look back and see the progress, but I worry that for Gen Z, for young millennials, what they see is really deterioration. and things sliding backwards on fundamental issues of civil rights and social justice. And I worry that that could lead you to sort of despair And so with my daughters, when I'm always talking about it, it's like, so what do we do? What's our responsibility collectively to try to make things better? How do we stay engaged? How do we get

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

active? Do they have answers? Yeah. I could imagine. I don't know, Dad.

SPEAKER_02: 22:21

It

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

just seems

SPEAKER_02: 22:25

bad. They're both in different ways trying to figure out how to... contribute to societal progress. So my elder daughter just graduated from college, she's an actress, and she sees her creative work, her work in the arts, as a way to advance social justice. And so she thinks a lot about representation and the significance of representation in the arts and what that can do to move society forward. My younger daughter just is in between her freshman and sophomore years of college. And for the summer, she's interning at an organization that provides support for low-income parents around parenting strategies. here in new york city

SPEAKER_00: 23:12

and sounds a bit like somebody else's story in your family

SPEAKER_02: 23:18

but it's just it's nice that they're both they're both in very different ways trying to figure out like how on a micro level they can be a force for good in the world and you

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

know i

SPEAKER_02: 23:30

think as a parent that's what you hope for

SPEAKER_00: 23:32

the choices that they've made have said we are going to kind of join in this fight, even in those moments of despair and cynicism. Yes,

SPEAKER_02: 23:42

yes. And I'm really proud of that. And I'm proud that they both are, you know, politically aware and active and are voters. And, you know, they are impatient with where we are, but they aren't ceding their agency to try to make it better.

SPEAKER_01: 24:01

I think that's so wonderful, so important. How many times do we, do I, I suppose, look around and see young adults say like, well, there's nothing that I can do. They are so inundated with images of defeat right now. I think that it becomes very easy to be worn down and defeated. turn to apathy almost. Like the system is going to do what the system's going to do. There's my vote doesn't matter, like all kinds of things in that regard. And so I think conversations and putting out there to kids that are growing up in this time right now, that there's always something we can do and that getting involved and making our voices heard, et cetera, are still as important today, if not potentially more important than in the past. It gives me a little bit of hope.

SPEAKER_02: 25:03

Yeah. And let's be clear. We have faced worse. We have been through worse as a country. And we have made progress because people were willing to, at great personal risk, stand up and push for change. I think we stand on their shoulders and we have a moral responsibility to do our part.

SPEAKER_00: 25:30

A lot has been written about what we are seeing today being a response to folks who saw what happened to the Obama administration and got fearful of losing, right? Of losing a sense of where they live and exist. And I could be very flippant about that and very cynical and mock that, but But losing and mourning something, even if it is a system that has benefited you at the expense of others, there's a realness to that. That is authentic. It does not justify some of what's being taken. And so that response to that mourning feels so much bigger than maybe what we have seen before. for quite some time. You evoked the civil rights era in Vietnam, and that was a lot of organization and resistance there. But this, for whatever reason, just feels even bigger than what I have. And I don't know if that is true, and I don't know if that is just because we are in the middle of it right now, but people are just showing up at parking lots and the Supreme Court had to be like, no, you actually still need probable cause to the executive branch. Those pieces of infighting feel bigger and i think that that civics education right that we talked about three co-equal branches of government and it is difficult for me to think of an example of a time when one of those branches just said you know what we'll just see how this plays out which is what it feels like congress is doing at this point in time so i don't know it yes we have seen we have seen bad things I wish we didn't have to look back quite so far to see things that were worse, right? Normally, like, oh, we've seen worse. And we stop at the civil rights movement. And it's like, oh, no, actually, we have to take it farther back in American history to see worse. But what are the conversations you wish we were having right now? And we mean that at kind of all different levels.

SPEAKER_02: 27:29

This may sound painfully naive, but I think all human beings have immense capacity to For good and also for bad. Like I sort of think about people as having like an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder. And both are part of each person. And a lot depends on who leaders appeal to. Are they appealing to the devil or to the angel? And so I wish we were having conversations that were about speaking to that angel. because you think about what's about to happen with the Medicaid cuts, the way that folks are going to lose their health care. Folks are literally not going to be able to get the treatment that keeps them alive. I think most Americans, if you really sat down with them and they understood the stakes, they would not wish on their neighbor or or the person down the road, that they would lose their health care and die for want of their medication. We have to figure out how do we have the conversations in a way that breaks through to that moral conscience. The reason I invoked the civil rights movement is because I think one of the powerful skills that Dr. Kang and the civil rights movement movement exhibited was this ability to appeal to people's moral conscience and to move people from inaction or even apathy or even complicity to actually actively working to make things more just, insisting that their elected leaders try to make things more just. So I wish we were having those conversations. I wish we were saying to someone, telling the real stories, saying to someone when the administration says that they're going to cut funding for NIH, what that means is somebody who is suffering from cancer or ALS disease their likelihood of getting the cure that could save them is now being pushed further off into the distance.

SPEAKER_00: 30:02

Somebody you know, right? It's not just somebody. It's somebody you are related to, somebody you live next door to. That's

SPEAKER_02: 30:07

right. That's right. That's right. That's right. You even see this on the immigration issues. People have strong views about immigration. Then when you say, what about this person who you see every day at... Whether it's at school or at the workplace, this person you see every day, they're at risk. Their mom is at risk. Their partner is at risk. And then people start to say, oh, well, I don't, that's not what I meant. I voted for this stuff, but I didn't, I didn't mean for. I

SPEAKER_01: 30:44

didn't vote for that.

SPEAKER_02: 30:46

I didn't vote for that. I didn't mean for... I wanted Stephanie to still have healthcare. I didn't... Exactly. Exactly. But this, I think, is the challenge. And I think one of the complexities here is in order to move people in that way, you have to be willing to get proximate.

SPEAKER_03: 31:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 31:07

You cannot do it, I don't believe, just through 30-second ads. Right. You have to be going door to door. You have to be at churches on Sunday. You have to be with folks to have these conversations. Even folks who are very different from you, you have to be willing to go and see them and talk to them on their front porch. And you have to be willing to have the conversation the way regular people talk and not like you're you know, a policy wonk, although we all are, right? Or not like you're in a law school seminar. You have to have a real conversation with people. And I think sometimes we're not good at that. And that's a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_00: 31:54

The word you're almost saying that I keep waiting is vulnerable, right? Is that these are vulnerable conversations. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 32:04

Mm-hmm. from trying to ask more questions, being more curious. So, you know, what do you mean you didn't know they were going to do this? You didn't vote for that. You absolutely voted for that. Right. We were trying to tell you this was going to happen. Don't sit here and claim ignorance, but that doesn't win anybody over. Right. Shocking.

SPEAKER_00: 32:45

Anger tends to be a little antithetical to

SPEAKER_02: 32:47

vulnerability.

UNKNOWN: 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:51

And part of that is also being willing to acknowledge people's pain. That folks who are scared that their kids will not have as good a life as they did are upset about it and are upset that their government isn't, in their view, doing anything about it.

SPEAKER_03: 33:14

And

SPEAKER_02: 33:15

we've got to acknowledge that pain and that fear.

SPEAKER_03: 33:18

And

SPEAKER_02: 33:19

not just lecture to folks.

SPEAKER_01: 33:20

We just talked a little bit about a lot of dark stuff, or a lot of bit about some dark stuff. Where do you see hope right now? How can listeners build on that hope?

SPEAKER_02: 33:32

Look, one of the things I love about my job and really the work that I've done throughout my career is I get to spend time with young people. And to me, young people are a source of tremendous hope because they understand are creative. They are willing to ask questions that maybe older folks don't ask anymore. They're willing to press on why is it that way? Does it have to be that way? Could it be different? How could it be different? I'll give you one example from my work. We launched this initiative called the Empire State Service Corps. And the idea was we have 500 SUNY students who would be paid to do 300 hours a year of public service. They could tutor in K-12 schools. They could be peer mental health counselors. They could work on food and housing insecurity on their campus or in their community. And we had 500 slots. maybe three, four weeks, we had 2,000 applications for those 500 sites. Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 34:43

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02: 34:43

So many of our students want to serve. They want to make a difference. And spending time with the students who are part of that Empire State Service Corps, it's so inspiring and makes you feel like we're going to be okay because those young people, those are our future leaders and they are committed to knitting the our communities together.

SPEAKER_00: 35:09

That's pretty good. Yeah. That's a good one. I didn't think you were going to be able to bring us back from kind of the dark side of that, but you really nailed it.

SPEAKER_01: 35:19

I'll take it. Thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of Academic Distinctions. As always, we hope that you enjoyed today's episode and that you'll share it. But don't forget to join us next week for the conclusion of this episode. It's a real ray of sunshine and you won't want to miss it. Follow us on Instagram at academicdistinctionspod. Find us on Blue Sky at fixingschools or find us on Facebook. As always, your call to action is to share the podcast, like us and subscribe. You can find us online at academicdistinctions.com. And if you have a question for the pod or a topic you'd like us to dig into, email us at mail at academicdistinctions.com. Until next week, friends, this podcast is underwritten by the Federation of American Scientists. Find out more at FAS.org.