Episode 79- Schools, Open or Closed? A discussion with Dan Quisenberry

Rich talks with Michigan Association of Public School Academies President, Dan Quisenberry about the challenges of educating our children during Covid-19.  They talk about the limitations, barriers, and myths regarding face-to-face in-classroom learning vs. online classes.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Richard healthy's common bridge. The fiercely nonpartisan discussion that seeks policy solutions to issues of the day. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology health and finance space. He and his wife, Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children.

Speaker 2 0:24

Hello and welcome to the common bridge. This is the fiercely nonpartisan discussion about issues of the day opportunities of the moment and what might be some great policy responses. Today. We are going to talk further about the COVID 19 pandemic, the resulting public policy responses. And today we're going to focus exclusively on education and particularly K through 12 education. And we welcome to the common bridge as our guest today, Dan Quesenberry, he is the president of the Michigan association of public school academies. Dan, welcome. So glad you're with us today.

Speaker 3 1:06

Rich it's an honor. Thank you very much. Glad to be part of the common bridge discussion,

Speaker 2 1:11

Dan. Sure. A little bit about yourself with our audience. If you don't mind to tell us a little bit where'd you grow up and what was your academic preparation and what kind of work have you been up to?

Speaker 3 1:22

I haven't traveled far. I grew up, uh, just East of Lansing and the Oklahoma city area went to Michigan state university and I've worked, uh, my entire, almost 40 year career, pretty much in downtown Lansing. And, uh, out of those almost 40 years, 25, 27 of them have had something to do with education policy. So if years of experience means anything rich, I've learned by the school of hard knocks, uh, what's going on. At least I got some perspective.

Speaker 2 1:52

Great. And the Oklahoma's of course, a terrific community in middle America. Now, today you're with the Michigan association of public school academies or maps. What exactly is map? So what do you do?

Speaker 3 2:08

Yeah, great question. Um, it's an association. So we work with all the stakeholders that have anything to do with charter public schools. We call them public school academies in Michigan in the state. So it would be school leaders, teachers, uh, board members, uh, people who authorize the schools, people who manage or serve, uh, the schools in a broader sense though, if you ask my team and even our members, it isn't about them. That's the technical answer. Uh, the functional answer is we believe in, uh, moving education forward, innovating thinking ahead about how can we make this a thing we call public education. That's so important to everyone. Uh, how can we make it better and do this better?

Speaker 2 2:52

How is maps of funded

Speaker 3 2:55

Certainly by the stakeholders that are involved? So there's dues, but there's a value kinds of things. We do conferences and services, some philanthropy,

Speaker 2 3:04

The stakeholders are what type of organizations or individuals.

Speaker 3 3:09

Yeah, technically would be schools. Uh, the board, uh, the HR school is its own district has a public school board and those boards are members, but, uh, the school leadership would be paying dues. Other some of the service things where they, if we have a conference that teachers are attending, there might be some, uh, tuition, revenue, that kind of thing, but a typical kind of association for anyone's familiar with that world.

Speaker 2 3:32

So Dan in the fabric that makes up our education system, we have purely private schools. We have those that are faith-based those that are not-for-profit based. Um, we have purely public schools, uh, funded in the traditional way that has been going on for decades, if not centuries. And then we have the charter schools, which, you know, a lot of people, I don't think understand, have to operate inside of some very strong state guidelines, but yet there's still granted a level of autonomy that a pure public school wouldn't have. Did I define that correctly?

Speaker 3 4:17

Certainly. Um, rich, some of the challenge we've been doing charter public schools in Michigan for almost 27 years now, people still don't understand them well, so you're, you're correct. We are public schools and every sense of the way a public school Academy, which is its own school district that has a hundred students, has to do everything that the Detroit public schools has to do with 50,000 students from a legal compliance, regulatory, uh, taking special ed students, uh, transparency and reporting standpoint. We have to do it all, but you're absolutely right. If nothing more than the fact that you get to start on a mission, we want to set this school up as a Montessori program. We're going to serve kids that are homeless. Uh, we're going to do X. Then you've got a whole different opportunity, uh, in the way you deliver education and serve students and meet the needs of parents.

Speaker 2 5:14

We've been talking about COVID-19 and the impact on our society. And we want to zero in on what we've learned about the impacts on school, children, school, age, children, that are both living through a pandemic and all the trauma that may be associated with that and their education's being diverted or put on hold. And we'll take a look at some of the policies with regard to the schools, the school children, the staff, the impact on learning. And so I think our audience is going to really enjoy some education today. Some education about education, perhaps some policy ideas as well. Dan of the coronavirus, a massive disruption last spring, principals, superintendents, governors said, we don't know exactly what the contours of this pandemic is going to be. And ultimately 48 States, four us territories, the district of Columbia and the department of defense education activity that either flat out ordered or strongly recommended that school buildings closed. And they said, just close it for the rest of the year. And that affected over 50 million public school students. What results have we seen from this action in terms of public health and in controlling the virus?

Speaker 3 6:40

Yeah, rich a really important question. And yet one that frankly, we don't know a lot of things. Um, so, uh, we're all living in this world across the globe and people are saying, I'm making this decision based on science or I'm looking at this. Okay. Uh, there's not a lot of science. There's not a lot of evidence out there. So let me touch on a few things. Uh, when, when schools shut down, back on March 13th, within what, over the weekend, at least I'm familiar with the charter schools in Michigan, they responded immediately. We gotta do something. We gotta go remote. We gotta be prepared. Let's get information to parents. Let's get, uh, uh, mapping out the strategy. They're going to use. At least at that point, thinking this was going to be weeks and not months and maybe into the next school year, but there's some obvious things that took place. Um, a lot of stress, uh, educators, uh, that you're interacting with wherever you are in this globe are under tremendous amounts of stress and strain. They've had nothing but constant change all while they're trying to do what we frankly, all we're not doing very well, which is an educating kids at the way. We expect them to be educated. There's some obvious things under that bucket. There's some not so obvious things, the learning loss. And we don't know what that data really says, social, emotional issues. We don't know what that really is. Um, there were gaps that existed before the pandemic. If you lived in poverty, if you were an English language learner, um, all kinds of race issues, um, there were already gaps. This has done nothing except magnify those tremendously. And so if you had challenges before you've got even bigger challenges, there's also a bucket of what pardon me, rich. If I say this about a pandemic, some advantages one, the world would that be Dan? We have wiped away. So many obstacles that there had been to innovation, like seat time, paying schools for kids being in a chair, whether they're learning or not. We wipe that away and said, well, there's different ways to pay you a school for engaging your kids. Testing has changed. That's been a controversial thing, but it's changed. Delivery systems have changed. These are all opportunities to do more individualized instruction to understanding things that we probably just didn't take the time to do before. So there's obvious impact than that. A lot of negatives there, some not so obvious ones that we just don't know yet and are concerned about. And there's these possibilities for the future.

Speaker 2 9:19

I might be doing studies longitudinally so that when we look back from some point in the future where we can quantify the impact as anybody taken up that responsibility yet,

Speaker 3 9:33

Uh, I, you know, it's been hard to digest everything that's out there. So the answer is yes, uh, Michigan state universities, uh, uh, Epic center, education innovation, uh, policy center is part of a national grant, was several other universities. And I know they've done some studying, um, organizations like the Thomas B Fordham foundation. Um, uh, I'm going to forget, and that list, all the other think tanks that are looking out there. Uh, so yeah, on a long-term basis, I think we're gonna, we're going to have information what's hard to do is to say, Hey, we learned this last spring, let's make a change and do something this fall that was just too hard to do. So the answer is a yes and probably not so well yet rich

Speaker 2 10:16

To your point about the disparities in education. We know today that schools are much more than places for education and, and in some of the more economically disadvantaged areas that may be the only safe place that a child can access. It may be the place they go for nutrition. And we've seen school systems respond with drop-off and pick up food to cover that. But we're also making a lot of discoveries that the online video attendance isn't good. And it seems to follow economic lines. I know that there are school systems that literally cannot find the children. They've done everything they can, but they're not coming to online school. They may not have access to wifi. And I know one school system, Wayne Westland used school buses with hotspots and did provide devices, but that still doesn't step in for creating a place for that child to work in their home or relieve them, perhaps a responsibility to watch younger siblings. And so, given that there's obvious downsides to that loss of education, what pressures are there on school systems to close and remain close?

Speaker 3 11:33

Yeah. Um, boy, so many things in what you just said rich, to try to unpack. One of them is just the lens. You want to look at this wrong. Here's what I mean by that. The, the very essence of charter schools is it's it's parent student focused. They choose the school they're involved in its creation or its existence, rather system, uh, point of view. So most of the charter schools in Michigan worked very hard throughout the spring summer and into the fall serving parents and, um, staff and community about, um, what their needs were because just because you're running a charter school in the city of Detroit on the East side, doesn't mean those families that are served by a charter school on the West side wants the same thing. So there's, there's one point, what do people need that you're serving? And it may be different, uh, culturally different. It may be different if you're serving homeless children than if you're serving kids in East grand Rapids. Um, that's one thing, the other thing is for some of the things you were talking about are absolutely true. The gaps in technology, poverty, et cetera, but you know what, so that existed before we just didn't know it so clearly. Um, and yet if a charter school, uh, there were, there are several, again, I'm most familiar with them. There were traditional districts that probably did this too, but, uh, we had a couple of schools that a year ago because of the polar vortex said, you know what? We're never going to experience this again. We're getting one-to-one technology. We're going to have hotspots for families because when we miss 20 days of school, because of snow, we've gotta be able to make that up, guess what they were really ready for this pandemic. And it didn't matter if those kids were living in poverty or not. Those schools had already equipped, uh, their students and staff to be able to do that. Um, other cases, you know, uh, yeah, the economic disparity meant. Um, and, and maybe even in a rural area, some places you just can't get even a hotspot to work. Um, it makes a whole bit of difference. Um, I hate to keep just rambling, but rich, there's also this thing of boys. So many kids, all of us just living on the screen on the computer screen, other schools that were adept at this change that I've observed are things like Montessori schools. Dan, why is that? They're all about hands-on learning and project-based learning. Guess what? They did it really well. And not only saying, Hey, here's the technology, but here's a project. We want you to go in your backyard and do this, and we'll do that. And here's some fun things you can do to, uh, educate, to be educated away from the computer screen. Um, they did it in school before. They're just doing it at home. Now. That's all, so lots of things in what you said and the yeah. School, I guess the key there for me I'd want people to focus on the schools were there was a difference in how prepared they were to respond to them.

Speaker 2 14:31

And I think we are just beginning to understand the impacts on the social development and to your point, we, we knew there were education disparities, and I think we now know the magnitude of that so much greater. And that is something that we do need to make a national priority. We've seen issues, motivation when children are online, seen differences in ages. But now as the data comes in, we had one of the authors of the great Barrington declaration, Dr. Martin colder, relating that in Sweden, where they never closed the schools, 18 million school children had no deaths and minor illness issues as of December 1st, 87 Americans under the age of 14 have died from COVID 19. And of course every single death from COVID is tragic. And every single death of a child is infinitely more tragic as a public health matter, many more children under 14 die of flu or in car accidents on their way to, and from school every year. And now we're beginning to understand that children rarely spread COVID-19. And that means that teachers and administrators are highly unlikely to get it while in school. And so the science is now beginning to center up saying that schools are safe and the children are nearly immune to the Corona virus, and they're almost incapable of transmitting it. And when you look at that rowing body of evidence, is it time to open the schools and get back into the classroom?

Speaker 3 16:11

Yeah. Um, certainly the need is there. And, uh, I I'll give credit, uh, Dr. V with the Detroit public school district to the superintendent of the state of Michigan, uh, lots of others continue to push hard. The governor frankly, worked hard to try to continue to allow face-to-face instruction throughout all of this. Um, here's some of the challenges that don't come up, obviously in that either, or kind of a comparison that, you know, it's it's necessary, but, but it's important to dig deeper. Um, most of the school charter schools in Michigan ended up doing a little bit of both. You had folks that, uh, parents, uh, staff of that were very concerned and, or had health underlying health issues, and they want it to be remote others. It was the opposite. I have work issues. I want to be face-to-face. I can't do this at home. And so schools were offering both simultaneously. Okay, that's fine. They started to build a routine out. As the cases started to increase in late October through November, here's something that happened. The disruption of the protocols of quarantining, a teacher, a was exposed over the weekend at some event random event or a grocery store or something. And, uh, now she's gotta be down for two weeks. How do we find a, uh, a substitute? We don't have enough of them. It starts to run short. So rich I'll shorten that to say how well schools were able to implement health protocols with face-to-face instruction would minimize disruption of just even all this exposure protocol and trying to maintain health and safety, um, uh, um, issues, you know, so that things weren't being exposed because you're right, you know, the data was right. And there's a, a statewide website that shows week by week, uh, schools have to report the number of cases that are related to the school has just not showing up, uh, in big ways. It's the disruption from exposures outside of school. That means kids don't show up. So a classes down teachers are having to stay home. So you can't find enough substitutes. And all of a sudden you can't run your face-to-face instruction anymore. Um, that's where people have gotten into, uh, having to kind of say, you know what, Dan, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we're just going remote because we can't keep it going.

Speaker 2 18:39

I also know, understand a teacher saying that, look, I didn't sign up to be a frontline worker like a doctor or a nurse in the middle of a pandemic. And yet I could also see it being difficult for them to convince themselves they're going to go into a classroom of 25 or 30 children all coming from different homes and interacting for many hours in a day. Despite the things that we've seen happen with certain schools. I know personally some very positive experiences where the social distancing is maintained within classroom. There are mask enforcements to protect the adults. There are staggered arrival and departure times. There is one way traffic in the hallways and many schools have been very, very successful. Is it time now, given what we know to open the schools and even Dr. Anthony Fowchee said over the weekend, quote, the default position to try as best as possible to keep the schools open. You've got to take a look at what's going on in the particular location where you're at, but we should be trying to keep the children in school as safely as we possibly can do what you can do to keep school children and the teachers safe, but try as best as possible to keep the schools open. So is now the time to open it?

Speaker 3 20:05

Um, the answer, I, I would agree, um, w with the clarification allowing for schools to be open, and then in Michigan right now, K eight is still open. Um, the governor's order a few weeks ago was, uh, closing high schools down because there they saw, um, increased numbers there. So I think what you're saying is around the country or on the globe, there's people who are not doing that. Um, I have seen this whole, this will probably contradict some political view, but the governor's worked really hard at trying to keep K12 open, um, for probably some of the reasons you're saying. And I would agree with that, what we were talking to schools about the maps, uh, sharing information with the 300 public charter schools in Michigan, from the spring throughout the summer and fall as you're allowed. And we have been allowed in Michigan to have face-to-face instruction, put those protocols in place, figure out how you're going to do that. And then number two, you have to stay in constant contact and communication with your stakeholders. Um, because the reality is, and these are rough numbers. Again, the science just isn't there yet, but a half, you know, it fluctuates depending where you are in the state and the community you're at, but half the parents are afraid to have their kids out. Don't want to send their kids to school the other half absolutely do and want to. And it's probably the same with staff. You have some health and underlying health concerns. Other times, you know, teachers are like, no, I'm ready to go. I want to be face-to-face and are making all that happen. Um, if you said Dan, what's the numbers today, I'd have a hard time telling you that accurately. They changed some throughout November as the case numbers went up, there's more remote learning going on, but there still is face to face instruction going on. As we speak,

Speaker 2 21:55

I've done some research in anticipation of our chat today. And I can't find cases of COVID spread in private schools or public schools that have opened. I'm sure they're out there today. 11 States, the district of Columbia and Puerto Rico have state ordered full or partial orders to open schools and effect. And four States, Arkansas, Iowa, Texas, and Florida have ordered their schools to open at least five days a week. And I just can imagine that would be very, very difficult on those parents and families that don't feel comfortable because of a situation that they might have at home. And when we look to Europe, Germany, France, Ireland, and other countries, uh, either reopened or some never did close their schools. Although there are reports out of Israel that attributed rising case counts to schools and the European center for disease prevention and control, they believed that about 5% of all coronavirus cases that reported in the European union in Britain, that's 27 countries. And this is as of this past August, that only 5% of the cases in that broad population was about school. So other than the families and such, are there any groups that are opposed to opening at all? And if there are, what do they have to say?

Speaker 3 23:21

You've tended to hear the most from the teacher's unions? Um, not, not that, uh, I I'm an expert in history here, but, uh, teacher unions generally were created on worker safety, the safety of laborers in manufacturing or whatever the industry might be. This is in their DNA to say, Hey, wait a second. It's not for teachers to be in school. And they've made really loud case for, um, we need to stay remote. Uh, again, I'm most familiar with the charter school data in Michigan than I am with, with understanding the data, um, traditional public schools in Michigan. But you do still have face-to-face instruction going on around the state, um, because it's allowed and because schools have figured that out. And for all the reasons you're saying rich have families needed, um, uh, depending on their work schedules, depending on even even a middle or upper income family, um, living in a suburban area, you still got internet allocation problems. If you've got three or four kids at home and two adults that are trying to work from home, um, that can just be chaotic. Uh, so, uh, yeah, face-to-face instruction has been in dependent in demand. That's the point I'm trying to make there. Second is absolutely it's necessary. We will never be in a situation where, uh, educational be completely virtual. Uh, people want in kids need, and it's just the way education works is to have some face-to-face component. Um, so those things are going to continue to happen. We'll have to see how the numbers play out. My, my look into the crystal ball and the fog of the future in the next few months is that once we get past the holidays, um, vaccine may be available. Maybe you get it out to teachers, um, calming things down. I talked earlier about the disruption of just in and out and people being exposed and having to stay home. If we can get that to smooth out, I think we can finish out the school year, uh, while schools are offering appropriately, both remote to those that need it or require it, uh face-to-face for those that need and require it.

Speaker 2 25:36

I think that would be a great policy. And I would also extend that to teachers that for whatever reason, don't feel comfortable coming into the building that perhaps some type of leave program or they're allocated to the online portion of instruction, because I think it's a more than fair point that they were not entering the profession to be in a frontline role against illnesses and outbreaks like doctors and nurses kind of assume. So maybe that's the policy solution is a mix of both in-person and virtual education, leaving it up to families as much as possible, and also doing the same thing for the teachers in my experience that the dedication that they, they show.

Speaker 3 26:24

And I want to, if Richard, if it's okay, I'd like to make a really important, really important point here because there's certainly this, uh, a world we're all experiencing. It started back in March and continues probably well throughout the school year, but it'd be a mistake not to think about the long-term or even look back farther than March. We had a talent, a teacher, talent educator, talent problem in Michigan, fewer and fewer graduates, more stress and strain in the education space, no matter what you think, or whether you agree with some of this stuff, um, you would survey, uh, educators in their buildings and you heard the word demoralized. This was pre pandemic. Now they're in this situation where, again, regardless of what the politics are saying, they're under a tremendous amount of stress and strain. So number one, if you're a teacher out there, an educator or a building leader, you are a frontline hero. We do, we do not give you enough appreciation for what you're doing right now. Second is, uh, anyone you talk to in education is concerned about that talent pipeline and it what's going to happen with it. Dan, we don't know there hasn't been a lot of change right now because it's just not an environment for people to change, but there's a lot of concern that once things free up, uh, will teachers leave the profession? Boy, we can't afford that. Um, are we going to attract people back into education? How do we make this, uh, a really interesting and important, uh, profession again, for folks that feel rewarded, this is more than compensation. It's got to be something that it's a mission for most teachers. And so it's a, the talent issue is a big issue right now, not only living through this circumstance, but what we're going to do going

Speaker 2 28:06

Well, I would concur. The teachers are dedicated. It's a calling, it's a passion. They take their work home with them because they really care about the students and think about how complex their job has become because they've got certain parents and family situations that cannot or will not supervise the homeschooling. And at the same time, they have other parents that are hovering and interfering with the instruction, right at the end, think about trying to run five virtual classes in a day and not knowing which of your students are going to show up on your zoom screen, which one have support at home and whose parent's face might jump into the middle and disagree with you. We are seeing in some of the schools, I'm familiar with the failure rates and decrease in grade point averages. I spoke with a high school senior today, clearly suffering isolation was never a real enthusiastic student, but he wants to get back to in person. And so I hope that there will be a survey of the school children I've talked to a number of people and it kind of reached the conclusion that all these zoom meetings are led by adults. They're very, very structured. There's none of that necessary peer-to-peer meeting and informal interactions. If we can think back to the time perhaps we were in high school or middle school, and you wanted to catch up with a friend, or maybe it was someone you thought was kind of cute in class and talk to them in the hall, all of that is gone and that's going to become part of the educational mission, figuring out how to re-engage that social part.

Speaker 3 29:50

Absolutely. And, um, it is an important component. And again, I would take a lens of, uh, how prepared were, was a school to do the things that are necessary to make, uh, the circumstances that we're in, where virtual or remote learning might be necessary, meaning, um, uh, there's certain schools that frankly empower their kids, even lower elementary students to be relatively responsible for their own learning. Um, I know what my plan is. I know what the day is. Like, I know how to run myself in my classroom to some degree, right? If you're talking about a first grader, a second grader, but if you did that well in school, then you're doing it in helping them structure their home school, remote learning experience, again, as it's necessary. And then yeah, getting people back face to face as fast as possible. Um, here's another aspect of something we both don't know and maybe, uh, is certainly gonna create changes. What's P what are parents going to do to respond to this? Uh, we don't yet know data, but it's probably out there coming within days, um, of this broadcast where the student count data that was taken in October is going to come out. The preliminary information we've seen about the charter public schools in Michigan is that enrollment held pretty steady. You saw growth in schools that were already cyber or high hybrid type schools. I think parents moved there because Hey, these folks know how to do this well, and this is what I want. So they saw enrollment increases. It'll be interesting to see if that holds true, or if there's been a big drop-off in some districts around the state. And if so, what happened to those parents? And then what are they going to do when we do go back to clinical, whatever normal is going to be, um, a lot of discussion about pod schools or people, uh, home schooling on a more permanent basis. Uh, parents have both had the advantage of seeing education upfront and personal. And so, yeah, I, I can't do this. I have so much more emulation for my teacher. I'm a second yellow. Maybe I don't like what I saw. Um, I'm going to make some changes. I'm taking this into my own hands. I'm going to do something different. Uh, we don't know yet what that's going to be, what the impact is going to be long.

Speaker 2 32:09

Indeed, we are somewhat empowering or fueling homeschooling as an option as parents are digging in and also in my spot checks. So this is not data-driven, but some faith-based schools have waiting lists. They have never gone to anything besides full in-person education. And they've informed the families that if they don't want to do that, that there's a waiting list for their child's space. I was made aware today of a couple of young men, cousins, actually one went to very wealthy public school district, the other, a small private faith-based school. Uh, they had identical act test scores, but the young man that went to the private school was held to a higher standard of more difficult grading scale and oversight for turning in his work. He succeeded at college and the fellow from the public school was suspended for college for, for academic performance. And again, that young man that didn't do so well, probably suffered in losing much of his senior year to being absent from the in-person learning. So Dan, as we wrap up today, what didn't we cover today that perhaps we should have discussed?

Speaker 3 33:27

Yeah. Great question. Rich. And I would throw this out, um, with, with the things that we hear constantly about our current pandemic situation across globally. We don't know, um, the, this is unprecedented. What we do know is education wasn't working before we came into this. I mean, these are startling numbers that allow people didn't maybe didn't pay attention to, but if you look at Michigan in public education or education, generally we, no matter how you measure it. And there's always arguments about measurements. We were in the bottom third, the bottom third, if you compared us to other States in this country, in the bottom third, if you compared us to, uh, develop co uh, countries around the world. Um, and, and frankly, some people out there in your audience rich may be saying, well, yeah, but that Dan that's probably kids in poverty or English. No, it wasn't. If you eliminate them and do that comparison, suburban kids, we actually drop in the rankings. You just look at the college remediation rates or the college completion rates, and you're not going to be happy with that. So the point I'm making is really worried about all the things we're experiencing during this pandemic. The point is, if all we do is go back to what we were doing before, it'll be a huge mistake. Uh, we have an opportunity to take anything that we're learning in terms of innovation throughout this process, and do our best to equip the educators who are professionals who want to be innovative and allow them an opportunity to figure out a better way to deliver education in the state and in this country

Speaker 2 34:59

That really distresses me to hear about the rankings within Michigan, because for so many decades, Michigan was one of the leading places for education. And I know our colleges and universities continue to rank up there. So hopefully this will be a stimulus for everyone involved in education, K through 12 public private charter. What have you to step up their game, support the students and support the administrations and the teaching staff then actions or actions that you'd recommend people take today, or perhaps from a policy perspective, what would be some of the best policy approaches

Speaker 3 35:38

To making sure that education works for everyone? And I heard you loud and clear, we can't go back to what we've been doing. Yep, absolutely. Great question. Rich. And, and, uh, we think some of the things we've learned with charter public schools or the last 27 years are part of that answer, which is a student first focus, uh, educator second, right? And not systems and bureaucracies and institutions, but let's make sure students are well-served and educators have the opportunity to deliver something. That means something to the kids they're serving. That's a really important lens, uh, funding student-based weighted funding. So if your kid is living in poverty or an English language learner, or a special needs, they get a little bit more than somebody else, but it's based on a per student basis and you don't count seats or time as nothing to do with education. Um, some kids learn faster than others. And what we're doing in this pandemic is learning that you can pay schools based on something other than seat time. We should hang on to that. And then, yeah, as much as we're talking about the importance of face-to-face instruction, there are some things we're learning by the use of technology. For one thing, teachers are seeing firsthand what's happening in students' homes, and we've always known that home life has so much to do with what kids are going to learn and how well they're going to learn, guess what? You can partner more closely with parents. We've just figured that out. And people will. I think teachers again are professionals. They're just remarkable. They'll come away with this when they get a chance to breathe and say, you know what? I really liked the way I could do this, or I could do that with the online learning now that I'm remote or a backend with face-to-face, uh, we can, we can combine some things here. I'm really hoping. We'll see some new strategies, some what I would call innovation and delivery. That's really student focused individualized instruction makes teachers feel enthused again about their jobs. That's what we hope for. And that's what we ought to be looking for. I think we could all agree with that. There are any closing thoughts as we wrap up this episode. Thank you for the opportunity. And uh, yeah. Uh, it's, it's another piece of this pandemic puzzle is, uh, a light has been shined again on the importance of education, some of its weaknesses and some of its strengths. So we appreciate the chance to have a discussion with your audience. Well, thank you for guesting with us. We've been talking today with Dan Quesenberry and we've been learning about talking about the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on schools and school children, the policy responses and where we might go from here. This is rich. Helpy signing off on the comments.

Speaker 4 38:26

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