Episode 23 - Why School Leadership Matters More Than Test Scores | Principal Baruti Kafele

In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe Sebestyen sits down with Principal Baruti Kafele, Milken National Educator, NABSE Hall of Fame inductee, and bestselling author, to explore why school leadership is the driving force behind student success, school culture, and long-term educational transformation. With four decades of experience as a teacher, principal, speaker, and author, Principal Kafele shares how his journey from struggling student to nationally recognized education leader shaped his belief that every child has brilliance waiting to be unlocked.

Dr. Joe Sebestyen and Principal Kafele discuss the difference between the achievement gap, opportunity gap, and what Kafele calls the “attitude gap”—the gap between students who have the will to achieve excellence and those who have not yet been convinced of their own potential. The conversation explores how principals and educators can transform school culture, speak life into students, build belief, strengthen instructional leadership, and stop relying on poverty, home life, or neighborhood challenges as excuses for school failure.

This episode is especially valuable for parents, educators, school leaders, and families who want to understand what truly drives student achievement beyond grades and test scores. Whether navigating high school readiness, college preparation, school culture, or leadership development, Principal Kafele offers a powerful framework for helping students build confidence, purpose, and the mindset needed to succeed.

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Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. All right, welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. You know, families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college admissions, uh, college prep without wasting thousands of dollars and years of time. And the answer usually involves finding the people who have figured out the rules of the game and the system that schools aren't necessarily telling you. So that's why I'm thrilled to have Principal Baruti Kafele here today, principal, otherwise known as Principal Kafele, is a Milken national educator, hall N-A-B-S-E, Hall of Fame inductee, author of 14 books, including seven ASCD bestsellers and one of the most sought-after education speakers in America. He turned a failing New Jersey high school into one of the best in the country three times over. And he spent 39 years showing educators how to transform school culture from the inside out. But more importantly, for our audience, his frameworks apply to every parent trying to change their child's educational trajectory. Principal Kafele, welcome to the show. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I appreciate that. And I'm I'm good. I'm I'm I'm really good. I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Very, very impressive resonance. Good stuff. I appreciate that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So yeah, just kind of like start me through your journey here. Like, where did you start first off? Where did you want to be an educator? Where did that journey really start for you? And a lot of people, maybe in high school or earlier, but just kind of walk me through your early stages getting into the educational journey.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah. Um I never wanted to be an educator. It was never the goal. I um went to undergrad school after spending five years in high school, failing everything, dealing with my own challenges and traumas. So five years after graduating from the five-year stint in high school for over four different schools, went to uh Kane University here in Jersey and graduated summa cum lade. Oh, wow. And and never looked back. But the but the challenge in terms of the career was that I didn't study education. I studied marketing. And while studying marketing, I discovered through just reading independently on other things besides business that education was my pathway. So I I went into the world of business, but I only stayed there for two years and then went and got my first assignment as a fifth grade teacher in Brooklyn, New York City in 1988. And from there, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. But in terms of the question, it was never the goal. This was just something I felt like I wanted to do. My goal was always to be a speaker. That's the only thing that I've ever wanted to do in my adult life. But I had nobody to speak to yet, nor having to speak about. So I said, let me go to my secondary goal, which is to teach. And then ultimately I wanted to be a principal. And I did that for 14 years. And then I said, well, let me go back to that first goal because I had been doing it all along. I've been speaking for 40 years, but it was on the side. So after those 21 years, 7 and 14 teaching and leadership respectively, I said, it's time. It's time to pursue the initial goal full-time, uh, independently as an entrepreneur. And I've been doing that for the past 15 years. Wow. Kudos to you. You got out.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Not everyone gets out. You know what I'm saying? But you know, you talk about how like one person can alter the trajectory of a student. Who was that person for you?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, well, in terms of what shifted my attitude when I was in undergrad school, I stumbled on a book written by the late great Dr. Carter G. Woodson. He is the founder of what was once known as Negro History Week, which became Black History Month. So we just finished the 100th year anniversary. Well, he wrote 14. Okay. And I'm not sorry, 16 books. I wrote 14. He wrote 16 books. I'm I'm chasing him literally. And uh this one book he wrote was entitled The Miseducation of the Negro. He wrote it in 1933. I read that book soon after I enrolled in Kane University.

unknown 4:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

And it was a passage within a paragraph that I want to I want to share with you and your audience where he's be and the reason I want to share it is because it became the foundation of everything I did educationally for young people and staff. He said, when you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his quote-unquote proper place and he will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door, he'll go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he'll cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary. That paragraph, it did a few things. Number one, it woke me up. But number two, it said, you're an educator. That's that's your pathway. But number three, it gave me a basis for the work that I did. I didn't go the traditional route. So so I don't I don't have the foundation that a lot of folks may necessarily have. So that passage, that book became my foundation. So whatever success that I, my my staff, my students, the community enjoy, it was all rooted, grounded, planted in that book and that passage that I just shared with you.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

That's uh that's incredible. So it wasn't directly a a teacher, it was an author.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

No, I I got no teacher that I could look back on and say, you know, it was a source of inspiration. They're they're not in my life, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So you went from struggling student to teacher of the year. Straight F's. Yeah, straight F's. Straight Fs.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

So what I passed PG though. I was an athlete. So I passed physical education. But yeah, and from there, as you say, teacher of the year. In my fourth year teaching, um, I was selected as the building teacher of the year, the district teacher of the year, the county teacher of the year, New Jersey State finalist teacher of the year. But as I often say to people, audiences and just conversations, a lot of it's because I didn't go to undergrad school to become a teacher. So I wasn't corrupted by, and I say that in a jokingly way, but wasn't corrupted by some of the stuff that they're impacted by. You know, I went in there with my own mind, my own approach, my own way of doing things. So yes, I was unorthodox in how I approached it, but I got the results. As the young people would say, I got receipts.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

And then you moved into principalship, which that's not always the goal of people getting into teaching, is they want to be a principal.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

No, not at all. Wasn't on the radar. I think by the end of my third year, I said, man, because I'm I'm looking at the success that my students are having as meet with me as their teacher. And I said, Man, I can do this on the building level through uh other adults, meaning through teachers. And I went to my superintendent and introduced myself to him because he didn't know me and told him what I could do if given the opportunity. And he was impressed by my initiative because you know, I made the appointment. And he said, Go get your degree and show it to me when you get it. And I came back to him two years later with that master's degree, and he said, All right, let's go. And you made the rest of this history.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Now, you've turned around four different urban schools in New Jersey. Yeah. But the big one, Newark Tech, walk us through what that is like because a lot of the families we serve in the in the company, their students go to public, private schools. Not all of them have had that experience of what a potentially turnaround school looks like. I shared with you before we started recording. You know, I've worked in an inner city charter school in DC, so I have seen elements of it of what it is and the amount of good, not only good work that needs to happen, but does happen in a lot of ways. But you actually turned around a failing school from the and on the brink of uh state takeover. Just walk us through what that is like and what did you focus on to get it to turn around?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah. Um, you know, I will take to my grave that principal leadership is everything. So it hinged on, and I don't want to say it hinged on me the leader, but it hinged on my leadership. I always say that when I'll go and visit a school as a consultant, I want to see the leadership without having to necessarily see the leader. So everything that's been that's being put in place, the systems that are in place, the processes that's in place, the the morale of staff, the the excitement, the energy and enthusiasm in the building, but the obvious leadership that is taking place in that building. So, as leader of a low-performing school of young people, of a large number of young people who made decisions to join gangs, my male students, um, a large percentage of them, I said, I have to talk to them regularly. Right now, every principal's not going to have the advantage I have because I am a speaker, right? So, but I said to the, I say to whomever is listening to me, you and I have to talk to these young people regularly and speak life into them, right? Particularly emotionally, so that they become believers in their possibilities. Because so many of us are in schools who have young people with with a wealth of potential, have the capacity to be phenomenal, but the belief is not there within them. And I wanted to make sure that young people believed in the possibility, right? So I'm so I'm speaking that life into them literally every day, right? Every day until I feel I don't need to do it. And that's the way I live. And and I made those connections with young people. I made those connections with staff because they needed too. And hence we saw what we saw. We saw it immediately, or from day one, and we and we just kept growing, kept evolving until we got to the point where you know where so you know, you talk about the attitude gap.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Now, over the past 30, 40 years of educational reform, a lot of work, research, publications around the achievement gap. I had a resident professor during my pit doctoral program talk, it's not about the achievement gap that separates the differences in students, is actually opportunity gap. And a lot of students don't have from different backgrounds, don't have the same opportunities as their peers. But you talk about the attitude gap. So what is that? And how is that different from the achievement gap that we we so familiar with in education?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, you know, I I appreciate you asking that question. You know, I as well talk about the opportunity gap. Everyone does, but but it's not my end-all because see the opportunities could be out there for you, but do you have the attitude to go after them? Right. And if if if you don't bring that necessary ingredient of the attitude to pursue it, right? And although the opportunity may be there, it doesn't mean that it's it's devoid of a grind and a hustle to make it happen. So do I bring the attitude to grind it out in order to ultimately achieve whatever that goal is relative to the opportunity, right? So so in an achievement gap, I find that language laughable, right? And what I mean by that, they you know, we look at achieve the language of achievement gap, and we say we look at it on a number of different levels. We'll say the racial gap in achievement, the socioeconomic gap in achievement, the language gap in achievement, the um the special needs, general aid gap in achievement, and whatever other gaps that people want to talk about. And I say, wait a minute. I said, you know, I I understand theoretically, logically what that means, but and I understand what the test data says, but the bottom line is the children are brilliant, right? It's just a matter of have we been successful in convicting them of all brilliance? So I started talking about that I wanted to change attitudes. I want to change attitudes, I want to impact attitudes, I want to influence attitudes. That's me from the very beginning as a teacher. But then I started adding this word gap to it, attitude gap. And then I gave it a definition. I said, the gap, the attitude gap is the gap between those students who have the will to achieve excellence and those who do not. And when I say achieve excellence, I'm talking strictly in school in this in this scenario. So the gap between those students, this student over here on my left that that has the will, and this student on my right who seemingly doesn't have the will, but when you peel back layers, you find this student has the same will, but has different has a different set of challenges that he has to grapple through. So I said, I want to close that gap. I want to I want to have a classroom, ultimately a school of young people who are fired up and want to maximize their potential. So that was always my focus, not achievement, because as I've been saying for I guess 40 years now, maximize the attitude, right? And the content will take care of itself under the premise that the children are brilliant. So therefore, my role, this the role of every adult in the building is to play their part in convincing young people that you're you're no lightweight, right? You you you may, you know, my kids are always born in poverty and in communities where there's crime and and drugs and all that kind of stuff, gang. So, but I want to I want to be able to show demonstrate to kids, young people, scholars, that despite those challenges, you can achieve with the youngster who was born in wealth and privilege. Your your pathway to get there may look different. It probably looked very different, but you have the capacity to achieve a certain level. That's what I mean by when I talk about attitude.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focus on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. So, because I mean, like I I see it a lot in students who've, you know, in no matter what the background is, it's more like there's they're apathetic, right? They're they don't they don't have that fire, they don't have that desire to learn in one way or another. Maybe the systems beat it out of them. But like we say, right, we both agree, all kids can learn, but not all kids want to learn or have that desire to learn. So it really seems like the work that you've done really stems from building those relationships. Because, and do you think that's where we go wrong in education today? Is we're so fixated on the grades, on the achievement, on the content, and not those like, well, I'm giving you the gift of being able to learn. I'm teaching you how to learn because now if you can figure things out on your own, it's not that the the content, the subject matter, yeah, it's all important. But at the end of the day, if you don't know how to learn, where are you gonna be at in life? Was that part of this process and how you turn around these schools?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, because see, you like like when when you say that, it takes me to a line of thinking where I say, but learn what and for what reason? Like, like what is what is this math and science and language arts and social studies? What is it gonna do for me? That was my thinking as a youngster. What is this gonna do for me? So now let's let's go a step further. So, in the environments upon which I work, so youngster leaves school at three o'clock, whatever time the dismissal bell rings, proverbially at three, and and walks back through the neighborhood, sure, uh which he or she lives, and then looks around in the neighborhood and sees, and this this is just a hypothetical example. I don't want to be accused of painting with too broad of a brush, but youngster looks around and sees zero evidence of any people in that neighborhood who have benefited from this sermon that my teacher is teaching this preaching every day. That that education is so important. Okay, I go through my go to back to through my neighborhood and I'm looking around, and I and all the people I see, they are not benefiting from this. And they all went to these schools. In fact, they went to the same school I go to now, right? So that's that's that's the first stop on the way home. Now, youngster keeps walking and goes home. And now youngster looks around in his or her home, and man, there's nobody in here that has benefited from this pre-K to 12 education. Why am I going to go hard and give max energy to this thing that I don't see any evidence in my world? I may see it on television, I may see it in the movies, I may see it in the magazines, but I'm but that's not my world. I don't know these people. I'm talking, I'm speaking for the youngster. The youngster said, but in my world, where's the evidence that this works? So so here's what I did. I said, I gotta go outside in these streets, and I gotta bring that evidence into the building in large numbers. So so we literally transformed Mondays, and we call Monday Power Monday. And what power Monday meant was because I'm a I was an old school principal. When I say old school, I mean I wore a suit every day. You're not gonna catch me without a dress shirt, a tie, a jacket, the slacks, the shoes. That's old school. Not a criticism of the new school, it's just I'm old school. So since I was old school, I said I want my students to be old school. So I put them in a suit. So every Monday they came to school looking like they were the principal of the building. So that was the external. We got that down. Now let's look at the internal. And we said, let's bring these men in for my boys, women for my girls, and let's address just a plethora of different things as it relates to their growth and development. Let me tell you something. We watch these young people grow before our eyes. You know, it's like you watch a plant and it and it grows over a period of time, but you but you don't see it happening. It's just wow, this thing actually happened. There was nothing happening, and now it's it's it's a full-grown plant, right? Flower, whatever. So for our students, we literally watch this like wow, look at them. It's changing because we made that lesson that the teacher was delivering. We made it concrete through some people outside of the walls of the school that they could identify with who were benefiting from it, right? And that was inclusive of talking about the pathways of how they got to where they got to, the obstacles, the challenges, the the dead ends, the the pitfall, right? All all that kind of stuff. They talked about that, so that they didn't have any any any rose-colored glasses that if I work hard, the doors of opportunity will open up for me. No, sure. We don't want you to think that. We want you to understand that you work hard on the one hand, but now you got to understand how to navigate the world as it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Well, plants grow before our eyes, but as a result of the nourishment we give them, right? And so you're essentially changing out the fuel of that school with proper nourishment to watch that growth and accelerated growth. Because you know, we grew a we grew a tomate, my kids got into growing plants. We had like a little planner here over the winter. We grew a tomato plant at 10 feet tall. I could not believe inside. This is insane. All the all the nourishment. So um, you know, you've said publicly that there's nothing wrong with the kids, and you've pushed back on the idea that home life, neighborhoods, and poverty are the excuses for a school's failure. That's a strong position.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Well, I'm not gonna say the excuses. I'm gonna say they are they they are their impediments. I mean, I I could be in a class, and just just to make the point, I could be in a in a school, in a classroom, and and the neighborhood could be fine. Home life can be fine, but I'm walking into a room of a teacher who doesn't have the the the wherewithal to make the connection with me. So in this case, the word I was trying to avoid, but I think I'm gonna use it, may not have the cultural competence to make the connection with me. So that so that now I can I can I can listen to you, I can relate to you, I can identify with you because you're making sense to me. Right. So So that dynamic is important as well. So for me being a teacher, I mean being a principal, I had to make sure that my teachers, and I don't care what race they were, you know, they you could be you could be black, you could be white, the kids were black and Latino, you could be black and the teacher and the students black, but culturally you're not in the same place. So I had to make sure as leader that staff understood the children that we were.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

So I I kind of this call back to me that you called the assistant principalship the most misunderstood underutilized position in all of education. Why? And what's the cost when it's misused?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah, it's uh it's it's it's common. You know, I um I've been blessed to be in hundreds of schools and to be in those schools on school days and get to see them working, particularly urban and rural schools, and see the assistant principal being a full-time disciplinarian. You some high school student can come over and um be a disciplinarian, right? It doesn't take a lot of a lot of skill, it doesn't take a degree to be in an elementary or middle school as a high school student and be that full-time disciplinarian. So here you are, you've got this AP assistant principal, vice principal spending entire days disciplining students. So the so the natural response to that is principal cafele, somebody's got to do it right. Yeah, but that somebody's not a real person per se. It's called culture. The culture of your school is giving license to these undesirable behaviors, and when you start giving maximum energy to the culture of the building as opposed to individual student behaviors, so still so that so that we increase the probability that individual student behudds understand expectation when they go to a school principal with your name on the building, right? That matters. See, see, see, all of our names are on the building, but it's invisible, but everyone can see it, right? So if my name is on a building, then then I've got a certain expectation is very high for everybody in there, on the sole reason that my name is is plastered on the outside of that building. So culture is everything. You show me, I always say the culture of a school is a direct reflection of the leadership in that building.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

So you want to hear mine for assistant principal, what I say. So I said, you know, being a I think assistant principal has become one of the worst positions in education because it's like, what do you mean? Well, it's kind of like going from the classroom to being assistant principal, it's kind of like going from being the star athlete in any sport. People love you, right? Your kids love they know you by name, they're excited to see you, right? To being the referee, where everyone hates you, you always make the wrong decision, everyone questions your decision making. So it can lead to burnout. And I think we've seen that accelerated. I think we've lost a lot of good educators in the system through COVID. I think COVID is a good reason and excuse, but it's a catalyst to what you're talking about deeper that we are becoming more managers and not leaders.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

And in fact, you've your newest book actually is What is my value instructionally to the teachers I supervise? And you're making the case that too many principals are building managers. And I love that because that is exactly what a lot of the position has become. Doing logistics, discipline, paperwork, instead of being instructional leaders. Why is that so dangerous? And how does that, and I think to add on that, how does that impact the learning of a parent watching of their child?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah, my analogy, you know, we can go back to sports on this one, it's football. Think about that team on a Friday night. High school's got a Friday night game, and the coach is in the locker room with with the team. We'll just focus on one team. So the coach is in the locker room, the players are putting on their pads, putting on their uniforms, and they're ready to go. So the coach reels them in for that final message. Could be rah-rah, could be low-key, could be anything in between, but that final message. And then the coach finally says, All right, gentlemen, let's go get this win. And this and the players respond, you know, ah, let's go. And now they're about to walk out, but the coach says, Oops, wait a minute. I forgot to tell you one thing. Come on back. So they come back in puzzled, like, what's going on, coach? And the coach says, You know, I forgot to tell you one thing. Throughout the game, if you need me or any of the assistants, any of my seniors, simply come back in the locker room, let us know what the concern is, we'll address it. And then you go back out there. So now on the sidelines, there's nobody except for the players who are not in the game. So I feel the defense is on the sidelines and and the players who were second and third street. But there are no adults on the sideline, no coaches on the sideline. Now, I've never asked an audience before, have you ever seen that? There's no need because they haven't. Nobody's seen that. But if we switch genres, we've seen we see it every day. So now the teacher is the athlete, and the head coach and the coaches are the principal and the assistant principals, right? So now we'll have a first day of school staff meeting and say, let's get this win, right? Let's win the Super Bowl this year. You know, we'll we'll we'll do that, you know, meaning, meaning achievement levels, yeah. However, we're gonna measure it, honor roll, student of the month, fours, whatever, right? And then we'll go a whole year. Some assistant principal somewhere will go a whole year and and visit the classroom twice, for both times because it was mandated because of the formal observation and evaluation. That's it. And now after that, that teacher is on his or her own. But then the the saddest part of that whole equation is that because there is no paperwork, no paper trail on this teacher, chances are very good that despite the fact that that the teaching may pedagogy may have been been under uh um unsatisfied, we will still reward that teacher because we have no option but to reward that teacher. So now we're saying we're saying to that teacher, good job, the good work, right? Instead of being that full-time coach, like I said to everybody, going into a classroom is not instructional leadership. Going into a classroom is a fraction of it, but it but if there's no conversation on the front nor the back end, then all you're doing is going in as a fan, a spectator, like you do when you go to a movie or a sporting event. That's that's that's all it is. But but once you have that pre-conversation or that post-conversation, now we can get serious about instructional leadership. So I'm saying all that to say that assistant principal who may have 10, 15, 20 students, I mean teachers that he or she supervises and evaluates. Well, huh? If if if you have those teachers under you and you never get to go see them, then then then who's making them grow? It's not a book they're reading. It's not a it's not a podcast, it's not a live stream, it's not a conference, it's not a breakout session or a keynote speaker, because none of those folks are coming to your school on Monday morning to inform you of your effectiveness in implementing what they wrote or what they spoke about. The real professional learning is at the building level with that instructional coach, assistant principal, principal, and anybody else, central office that can work with a teacher in a coaching capacity.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

So I see it, I see it twofold. Obviously, I could see it and speak to it in the day-to-day as an as an assistant principal, but I see it in my program, kids coming into my program, you know, and I like I told you before this, we we work with a lot of AP students, and their alarm bells go off when their parents see a B. They're bringing home a B in a college-level class, they're struggling. What's going on? And I can pretty much pry out of it pretty quickly that a lot of what's going on is these kids have been told they're amazing their entire life. They're very smart, they're super smart, but they're great at school. They're great at compliance-based education, sit and get learning. And so what happens is a lot of those high school teachers default teaching the class like a college-level class where I'm just gonna lecture, I'm gonna give you information, and there's really no transformation of learning. So, what happens is now we're taking tests aligned with college board or the IB exams, and it pushes back on critical thinking. And what we end up finding is it's like skinny dipping and the tide goes out, is that these kids don't have critical thinking skills. You're basically making the argument that that comes down to the building leadership, that there is the a good instructional leader that can solve that. And like basically, is the players on the sideline have just been left to their own devices for years without getting that coaching.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

That's right. That's right. If I'm coach, and again, I and and I put a heavy duty emphasis on that instructional coach as well, right? And also those those supervisors of continent areas in it's central office, right? I put a heavy duty emphasis on them. But if that's if the volunteer AT students and and that's what they're accustomed to, but they're not getting a well-rounded education, then then then where's where's that person that's in that that's in their space as that coach to help them to transition to something that's a lot more beneficial for everybody in that classroom? That person doesn't exist because that person is reading disciplinary referrals, working cafeteria duty and all those things.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

So, yeah, that it's because I mean, honestly, it was beaten into me year two when I was teaching in inner city, DC from my instructional coaches, not my principals. They had three coaches. Shout out to Mike Stevens if he ever's watching this. But just I was I thought I was a good, I didn't, I knew I wasn't my first year teaching. I taught in North Carolina in a military school that had a lot of military kids and uh a lot of military uh spouses that were teachers. And the new assistant principal said, Joe, you're like one of the best teachers I've ever seen. I'm like, should I be though? My first year teaching, right? And I taught, I was just very passionate. I had no structure, no pa, like no procedures. And that all came, that all went out the window come spring. Because it was just like, oh man, it's not so. But when I when I went to DC, I had to learn classroom management because else you could not survive. Like it was a test every day, but I learned it and basically every other environment I've ever been in has been a piece of cake. But what I did learn was good instructional design. And I I try to iterate this of like actually having a learning target and measuring what actually transpired those two rest, those two pieces of the recipe of what learning transformed in the class. Because a lot of times it's just here's what I'm covering today. See you later, like go through for whatever the time limit is, see you later. There's there's not a transformation, there's just information.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

So you run the AP and New Principles Academy on YouTube every Saturday morning for free for six years now. You started this during COVID as an 18-week virtual academy and just kept going. Um so you've over 150 guests, hundreds of hours of content, just why why would you give this all away for free? What drove that?

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, about 300 guests. Um, 305 consecutive Saturdays. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People ask me that why, why, why are you doing this for free? That type of thing. It's a labor of love. You know, it's a lot of work because when you got when you're bringing on three guests at a time, you gotta, you gotta like you did this homework on me. Whoever did the homework, I'm very impressed by what you have there in those notes. Because uh, I don't think anybody's ever known that much about me when she's interested. Teams get to get some good opera research. Kudos to you guys, man. Yeah, you know, so um, yeah. So I've I've got to I've got to do the same thing with three guests every week, plus my regular travel schedule, you know, my life schedule, you know. So it's it's a lot of work, but um it's just some it's just a decision that I made that um, you know, it's just something to kind of compliment the work I do. It's fun, you know, it's a labor of love. I I enjoy the Saturday morning sitting right here or in a hotel somewhere talking to folks for two hours about um about leadership.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Okay, okay. We're gonna move into the lightning round here after this one last question. I'm gonna as a kid say, I'm gonna give you your flowers here.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

You have been recognized as one of the world's top 30 education professionals for six straight years. Yeah, you've received over 150 awards, but I'm guessing not every school leader is doing what you teach. So after 39 years and three years, it became 40 on January 1st. Well, congratulations, 40 years, thousand presentations. What is the biggest pattern you see in schools that are still failing? And what's the number one thing that they refuse to change?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Yeah, um, I I think is what we the the conversation we just had as it relates to instructional leadership. That that piece is just not there. You know, it's it's it's it's in some places, but in the places that invite me out, I don't, I it's it's a rare day that I see it happening. You know, they'll they'll talk to me theoretically, they understand it, but they've got so much on their plate, they tell me. But then we start having the conversations about the culture, the school. Of course, you have so much on your plate because this culture, this prevailing culture, is forcing you to do so much more than you have to do. And then the misutilization of um not only the AP, but various different people in the building. You got all that human capital in the building, and you're probably only using them according to their job description. But there's there's so much more that they can do if they're into you and your leadership. You know, I've I've had teachers who who enjoyed being on my staff working for me. So therefore, I can I can maximize my usage of them, right? But you know, all that all that matters. All that matters.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Well, I do want to move into lightning round, respect your time too, because it's been incredible having you here. So I break the rules on lightning round, so I'm I'll I'll make a difference for you. Just no problem. You could just say one, you don't have to explain the answers. You could just you could say the answer. But if you want to, it's sometimes there's controversy in here, but you know, so all right. So you ready for it? Lightning round? All set. All right, one book that changed how you think about education.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

The miseducation of the Negro.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

If you can go back and tell yourself as a first-year principal one thing, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 37:12

That you gotta you gotta put more emphasis on instruction than discipline.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Worst advice you hear people giving educators right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Giving educators. Um, oh, this is supposed to be a lightning round. It's okay. And I'm and I'm and I'm stuck. Usually I get mad at my guests for doing what I'm got it. Children are children. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Most overrated metric in education. Test data. One sentence you wish every parent of an eighth grader heard before high school.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

That high school is is is is is meant to be difficult.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

What's the next big shift you see coming in education?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Probably the continued explosion of AI.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Someone could only do one thing after listen listening to this episode. What should it be?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Instructional leadership.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

And uh after 39 years, 14 books, 3,000 keynotes, what keeps you up at night about the state of education?

SPEAKER_01 38:05

That black and brown students particularly find themselves on the wrong end of the, and I'll use the language, achievement gap.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Okay. And before we wrap, what's the one thing you want people to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 38:18

That I guess I'm gonna say the same thing I've been saying, that instructional leadership is where the rubber meets the road. Everything else you do in that building is secondary.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate you sharing everything you talked about today. It's awesome. It was great having you as a guest. Uh, you know, no, I mean you dedicated your life to education, and you know, I don't know if all of us are gonna make it as long in the system as you did. But um, you know, if people want to learn more about um, you know, about you, about your your books, where should the where's the best place for them to find you?

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah, um, website, principalcafele.com, and then social media, everything is principal Kafele. So Facebook, Principal Kafele, Instagram, Principal Kafele, LinkedIn, Principal Kafele. X would be one word, Principal Kafele. Principal Kafele.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

All right. Well, we'll put all the links that we talked about in the show notes and make sure we we put them in uh the descriptions as well. Um, again, thank you so much for your time. It was great meeting you. Um and uh good luck with everything as you keep on keeping on, keeping on.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, you as well. I appreciate you. Thanks. Thank you. All right.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.