Sari Factor | Imagine Learning - Transcript
Jeremy Singer: [00:00:00] I’m Jeremy Singer, president of College Board, and this is the Education Equation. I’ve spent my career grappling with what truly drives student success. On this podcast, I’ll talk with people who are researching, building, and scaling solutions that matter. Every episode will go beyond the hype and focus on data and evidence to see what’s actually working.
Let’s stop guessing, and let’s figure out what works.
My guest today is Sari Factor, vice chairman and chief strategy officer at Imagine Learning. Sari started her career as a math teacher and has spent more than 40 years as an educational leader, including at Kaplan, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin.
We talk about why schools, as people systems, are so hard to change, how rethinking K−12 curriculum can improve student outcomes, and the promise [00:01:00] of AI in classrooms. It’s a candid conversation about what it really takes to make change stick. Let’s dive in.
I am thrilled to introduce today's guest, Sari Factor. There are few people in education with greater depth and breadth of experience than Sari. She’s a former colleague, a current friend, as well as a longtime Wheaten terrier lover.
Sari, thank you for the time.
Sari Factor: Glad to be with you, Jeremy.
Jeremy Singer: We’ve often commiserated over the years on how hard it is to change some of the systemic issues that limit student success. I think we’ve been having this conversation for 20 years now. NAEP (The National Assessment of Education Progress), informally considered the nation’s report card, came out earlier this year.
The results were quite sobering. Reading scores were down both for fourth and eighth graders. And while there was a slight improvement for fourth-grade math, this was driven by large gains in the highest-performing students. In both math and reading, the gap [00:02:00] in performance widened. You posted on Forbes in March about these results and what as a nation we need to do to improve educational outcomes.
In your piece, you wrote that we need to “rethink K−12 curricula as well as consider other broad changes to truly imagine student outcomes.” What needs to change around curriculum, and how is Imagine Learning thinking about this?
Sari Factor: You started with how we’ve commiserated on how hard it is to make change in schools, and I think it’s probably worth having a conversation first about that because schools are inherently difficult places to change. Because it’s people. These are systems of people. We’re messy. We’re all different. We have varied backgrounds and motivations and emotions and different rates of growth. I think about even our own organization, any organization I’ve been a part of. Look how hard it is to change organizations, and we’re paying people to do that.
Jeremy: Very true.
Sari: So, it really requires strong vision and leadership and a plan [00:03:00] with accountability and a way to measure progress. It’s hard in schools because of the short tenure of school leaders [and] school superintendents, and huge rates of teacher turnover, especially in the last decade.
But I think there’s recognition, and some of the bright spots in the NAEP show when districts or states take a leadership role and say, “This is what we’re going to do, folks. Let’s all get on board and do it.” And there have been a lot of policy discussions about it. Science of Reading is a great example of that.
Things can change. So, the glimmers of hope, like the Mississippi Miracle in Reading and the Louisiana Progress and Tennessee Progress, with their, focus on high-quality instructional materials. We can point to positive changes in the school district of Philadelphia and Los Angeles Unified, both of them customers of ours who implemented our high-quality instructional materials and are seeing the results in NAEP.
It takes time. [00:04:00] Change does not happen overnight. It often takes 3−5 years to see the results of those efforts. And we’re impatient about wanting to see results faster.
Jeremy Singer: No question. These are very hard things to move. Your points about uh, these being people systems, and that we need to be patient with change. All very fair. It takes a certain level of leadership and continuity that often is not there, but I’m glad you called out some of those successes. But can we talk a little bit about knowledge-based literacy programs and problem-based math curriculums? Can you help our listeners understand what those are?
Sari Factor: Sure. Both knowledge-building literacy and problem-based mathematics stem from the evidence that people learn by making connections to what we already know. We live in a context. We’re making connections all the time. That’s how our brains work. And both pedagogies emphasize students actively constructing understanding through [00:05:00] collaborative inquiry and authentic real-world problem-solving rather than being a passive receptor of information.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Sari Factor: Students become active inquirers and engage in ongoing reflection and assessment as part of the learning process. It’s really critical to the success of these kinds of new, and maybe the not so new, pedagogies.
Jeremy Singer: Can you talk … there’s a broad classification of these programs, and then there’s what you all provide.
You mentioned a couple, LAUSD and a few others, that are using your curriculum. Can you talk more about how that’s worked and what’s the evidence of success, even if it’s initial?
Sari Factor: Sure. We have curricula in lots of subject areas. Imagine IM, which uses Illustrative Mathematics as its core, is our K−12 math offering.
We have a K−8 Twig Science program that uses the same kind of idea, and Traverse social studies program follows a similar philosophy for social studies [00:06:00]. We’re working on a new ELA program, a brand new K−5, which I’ll be able to talk about later in the fall. I’ll give Philadelphia as an example.
A new superintendent came in. Dr. Tony Watlington. He decided, “We really have a problem in Philadelphia. Our kids can’t read. They’re really struggling.” He decided “We need new curriculum across the board.” And so, he did an RFP for everything. Now, that’s a bold and ambitious idea, but he had the support of the community and the families.
And he laid down the gauntlet. He adopted our Illustrative Mathematics program, K−12. They had been doing some work prior to the adoption to get teachers ready, which is advice I would give to any district. Think about that year zero implementation.
How are you thinking about preparing teachers, preparing your community for the change? Really smart way to implement. [00:07:00] They implemented K−12 math two years ago, and then last fall, the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, implemented our EL education product. We have been working side by side with them from the beginning.
Every teacher got days and days of training and preparation on the product, and we follow Heather Hill’s approach. You know, meta-analysis that she’s done about really grounding the professional learning in the curriculum so that the teachers can try it, see it, reflect on it, and come back and ask questions. And that has been effective.
Jeremy Singer: Have you … is it too early to see gains, student achievement gains. What are the scores?
Sari Factor: Now that they are beginning, they have shown gains on the Pennsylvania test, but also they feel like their NAEP scores are a vindication of the direction that they’re moving.
But it’s very early days.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. That’s great. And you mentioned [00:08:00] the work that you all do in the implementation. But another topic that we've been going back and forth on again or commiserating over for probably 20 years has been the challenge of getting pedagogically designed, rigorous programs implemented successfully in schools.
Too often what is manifested in the school is not true to the program design and the research behind it. So, you hold onto Philadelphia as a success so far. Can you help us understand … when that doesn’t happen, what are the barriers?
What are the things that prevent the high-fidelity implementation?
Sari Factor: Yeah, so part of it is helping educators understand the why behind the what. Why is the curriculum designed this way? What will enable you to be successful in the classroom, delivering the curriculum? I mean, these curricula are basically, packaged activities that are based in, [00:09:00] grounded in the learning science. Many of our educators don’t have the same background. They don’t all bring the same background to the classroom.
So anytime you’re trying to learn a new system or process like that, it can be overwhelming. I think about when I bought my first electric car. I had to rewire my brain to use it properly. So, it can be especially difficult for seasoned educators because we’re asking them to change their practice, and they might be resistant to that change.
They don’t understand the change. I mean, one district leader, who was implementing our literacy program, and having to put in the new Science of Reading practices, told me she had to help her teachers go through a grieving process. Like “I was doing it wrong all these years?”
Jeremy Singer: Right. Right. So it’s a real change management. It’s trying to get the teachers and the leaders to understand the why behind the program. And as you point out at times that could be different from how they’ve been always going about their business. So, that’s hard. [00:10:00] I assume it’s a matter of devoting enough time, you know, and what about, you know, I’ve heard about programs, and I don’t think your program is necessarily like this, but where there’s a degree of concern around academic freedom. Like the teachers don’t want to have too much prescription.
Sari Factor: Yeah, that certainly is the case at times.
You know, again, this goes back to leadership and having strong vision and alignment all up and down a system. So, from a superintendent or associate superintendent for curriculum to building leadership because for building leadership, there's an instructional coaching staff who are the ones that really help support the educators in the practice.
But there has been resistance, and you will find that all over. I mean, I think the decade that proceeded this one was a period of a particular DIY curriculum development as every teacher then had access to the internet and Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers. That really drove, [00:11:00] I think, some of the problems we’re seeing now in student achievement and proficiency because there was incoherence of curriculum.
You might meet all the standards, you might not. This classroom might, this classroom might not. And as students progress from grade three to four to five, they get a different experience as opposed to something that is coherent, especially in a subject like mathematics that builds on, you know, one topic builds on the next.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. And so, I mean, if you were saying where Imagine Learning has had less success. Is it safe to say the main reason is there isn't the level of buy-in and understanding across the board. Is that, you know, the biggest cause of …?
Sari Factor: Yes, I would agree with that.
Jeremy Singer: Okay. And then let me ask you, because, you know, many people, including myself, see at times that a lot of things in education act like a pendulum, right? And we go to one extreme, and then it goes to the other. And then, and so, we could argue that with all the tools [00:12:00], the DIY tools that were available to teachers, there’s a real growth with the internet.
And so that may have led a lot more teachers to all design their own programs, and great teachers are able to do that. But you know, teachers have so much on their plate. It’s a very … it’s almost an impossible job. So is your sort of thesis that hopefully the pendulum is coming back to acknowledge … Hey, teachers can’t do everything and they’re acknowledging, hey, there are these very in-depth research-developed programs, and you’re seeing more of that in the market or more acceptance of that.
Sari Factor: I think that that is definitely happening in the market today. I think that district leaders also have to consider each teacher as an individual. You know, we talk about personalizing learning for students. I think we have to do the same for teachers because you should know when this teacher, who's a very experienced teacher who’s been on track and we've watched her classroom, and she can handle making changes to the curriculum.
Others. Newer teachers, Emergency [00:13:00] certified teachers … We have a lot of teachers that are emergency credentialed and so on because of the huge shortage we’ve had over the last decade. They may not have the experience. I was talking with a bunch of educators earlier this week about mathematics, and you know, the truth is, in elementary school, many of the teachers don’t understand the math content well enough.
They’ve had maybe one math methods course, if any. You know, went through emergency certification. They’re very underprepared to deliver the kind of instruction we’re needing our kids to have.
Jeremy Singer: I had never thought of that parallel. I really like it.
But you know, the idea that, just like individual student learners, there’s a level of individualization you need to do to meet them where they are. And the same way, the thesis is, you know, with teachers, it’s also equally important to understand that there's different levels of experience.
A little bit of duh. That I’m not realizing. But I guess a question is … It’s hard. We know it’s very hard for teachers to do that level [00:14:00]. They are already managing a large classroom and have to try to individualize instruction. Sounds good. Very hard to pull off. What are good instructional leaders at the district level to school level?
How do they pull the levers for the students? How does that work with your program? What levels of flexibility do you give to the experienced teacher who they clearly see as making progress, and what are the extra supports and frameworks that they provide to the new teacher or the emergency certified teacher?
Sari Factor: One of the things I think about is the first year of an implementation of a new curriculum versus subsequent years, right? The first year often what I see the district leaders saying is: “Look. Do your best to follow the curriculum to the letter.”
Jeremy Singer: Yep.
Sari Factor: “And then you will, as you learn the curriculum, you’ll get more comfortable with it, and you’ll know where you can modify or what modifications make the most sense for this group of students or that group of students.”
And you know, we’re doing the same thing to our curriculum all the time. I mean, our heritage [00:15:00] as a digital company, digital-first curriculum provider, means we are always looking at improving the curriculum year in, year out, as opposed to, you know, when I was in the textbook world, where you would publish something, and it would be the same thing for the next 10 years until the district decided to buy something new.
This is a, you know …. we think about it as a living curriculum. It’s changing and evolving based upon where we see teachers have difficulty and where we think things could be much more straightforward, right? Which then makes it easier for the teachers to use it, but they customize. I mean, the best building leaders and instructional coaches are talking with the teachers about their own buy-in, right?
“What practice would you like to really focus on this week? Is there an instructional practice?” Getting their buy-in to try it. You know: “Try something new, try this instructional approach, and then let's talk about it.”
[00:16:00] Professional learning communities have come a long way as a technique for getting teachers, all the third grade teachers who are teaching the same lessons in math, the unpacked lessons together and share expertise.
So, you might have more experienced teachers guiding the newer teachers, the more novice teachers in the building, which has been very effective.
Jeremy Singer: So, I’m going to do an optimistic scenario and then a more pessimistic scenario. So, the optimistic scenario is one you've laid out, which is, and you didn't quite say it this way, but I think your argument would be the rigor of which curricular programs, development of programs, has improved over time. We’re getting better and better. Organizations are developing better research programs, curriculum programs that are based on actual situations and can mold to different environments and all this stuff.
So, you know, 30 years ago the curriculum programs may have been less sophisticated, less advanced, less tailored. So that’s the good news. [00:17:00] And then we had a wave where people were moving away from those programs, because of the DYI and other things. But now there may be more acceptance of the value of that within the profession.
And so, we have better programs, and there’s a greater acceptance. So that’s like, hey, we’re in a good place.
The pessimistic scenario is: We’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ve been doing this for a long time, and we've seen little gains. A lot of the scores have been stagnant or falling, and the gaps have grown in many cases.
And there are people now, we’ll get to AI in a minute, but even independent of AI, there are people who say, “Hey, we could do all great curriculum and so forth. That’s not enough. Like more fundamentally, the whole K−12 system has to be rethought. How students learn the role of teachers, you know.” What’s your reaction to that?
Sari Factor: Well, actually I think it’s a “both-and.” We do need to change the structure of schools and rethink what is the purpose of schooling. [00:18:00] I think some of the things we are teaching today are going to become irrelevant. As AI displaces parts of the workforce, the way we are thinking about what we’re teaching, has to be shrunk in some ways and broadened in other ways. Right?
I’m thinking about the skills that students really need to be able to demonstrate, resilience and communication skills, in ways that we haven’t even begun to think about. Because we’re communicating now, not only with humans, but with machines too, right? How do we write a great prompt?
How do we teach kids to write a great prompt is a new skill that they haven't really had to think about. But it is critical thinking, right? And so, I don’t think we’ve made those skills visible in products and in programs, and we haven’t really helped tune the kids to thinking about developing their skills, their “how I learn best” skills.
Some teachers are very good at that, but it’s not practiced generally, as what we think of as content knowledge …
Jeremy Singer: [00:19:00] So, you identify two things if I listened well. One is just what’s being taught, and we’ve seen some change, like computer science being taught in a lot of schools.
I think statistics is much more frequent in schools than it was 30 years ago. So. there’s some change. The average school. You know, my view is depressing. It hasn’t changed fast enough. What’s being taught, and why, over time, not just now. So. I want to believe there’s a will to more radical change, but I think there’s just such inertia.
But we could debate that. And the second thing you said, I don’t disagree. I just worry about the pace. The second piece is what is termed durable skills, right? It’s skills that aren't subject specific, but your ability to communicate, as you mentioned, your ability to problem-solve, et cetera, et cetera, and more helping students understand the importance of those skills.
Can you teach those skills? Can you assess those skills and so forth? So those feel like two separate things. [00:20:00] What you didn’t hit on, which was interesting to me, was how the teaching is happening. Do we need more of a revolution in what the day looks like, what the teacher’s role is? I mean, this is a hard question for you in your role, but I’d love to hear how you think about that.
Sari Factor: Yeah. Well, I actually think the programs that we have are a bridge to that because they do require much more student-centered approaches, student inquiry into real-world problems in science and mathematics and so on. You know, once you possess the foundational skills, the academic knowledge, you can really start driving that.
I think where we’re going to see that kind of change, and we are seeing that kind of change the fastest, is in high schools. High schools feel extremely irrelevant to me. Especially as we frame this as pre-K to forever learning, right? People often say pre-K through 16, pre-K through 20, whatever it is.
[00:21:00] But it’s really for a lifetime. And how do we equip students with the skills to bob and weave throughout their careers as we know they will have to. I worry right now that workforce readiness …. that topic is so constrained to CTE, and we’re thinking about it through today’s lens of I need more welders or I need people who are doing new skills like robotics and cybersecurity.
We need those professions absolutely. But we also need kids to be able to move from one to another because we live in such a dynamic world. So, there are new schools coming to be. I believe this school choice movement can unleash some of that innovation. But it’s very difficult to get new schools up and running with a different approach.
You need a dynamic leader, and that doesn’t scale well or easily.
Jeremy Singer: Right, right, right. A hundred percent at College Board, we feel the same way. That [00:22:00] there’s a lack of relevance with learners today. And that if you’re not interested or curious or engaged, the game’s over, right?
So we have to figure that. And I like what you're saying. I mean, what your curriculum does is try to attach it, the learning to things that will be hopefully of more interest and more relevant. So, I think that’s part of the puzzle. I like your view of, you know, we need more models.
I get the way that your curriculum works. Is the teacher role different? Are you asking teachers to engage with the students differently? Other than the topic areas, what else is different from how a teacher would teach your curriculum versus another?
Sari Factor: One of the things that is different is that the teachers are really expected to be more facilitators and modelers than delivering, you know, it’s not the stand and deliver instruction. Yeah. It’s facilitating classroom experiences where a lot of the [00:23:00] learning happens between the kids, you know, among the kids and the kids sharing out how they solve the problem.
There’s too often the theory that you have one answer to a problem. NO. There can be many answers or many ways to answer a problem. I think one of the challenges we face is this notion of the procedures to do math, as an example, versus how she did solve it and how this other student solved it. And getting some rich discussion going about why it worked in both of those ways.
Jeremy Singer: That’s great. Let me shift gears a little bit. One thing that I think the two of us also see completely eye to eye on is the importance of evidence, on whether something’s working or not.
And we talked a little bit about the Philadelphia example for your curriculum, but I think one thing that you do that I really admire is doing joint research with your users. Can you describe how that works and what the role is and how that’s helped?
Sari Factor: Yeah. I mean, [00:24:00] we do seek opportunities to work with districts to do efficacy studies. You know, we want to know what they’re interested in learning. About what’s working, what’s not. We want that direct feedback for when things aren’t working, how can we improve it. So, it goes back into our product development.
I mean, we’ve worked with countless districts. You can read all the evidence reports on our website.
Jeremy Singer: And we’ll link to them. Yes.
Sari Factor: Yeah. It’s really interesting to see. I mean one of our products, our Edgenuity courseware product, which is for student self-directed learning, and virtual schools, can be used for credit recovery, unit recovery, and I’m amazed at the different ways the districts have implemented it.
So, we always start with what problem they are trying to solve with any of our solutions. What is their hypothesis and how can we support them as they look at that research? [00:25:00] So, we jointly engage around research topics that are important to us and important to districts.
Jeremy Singer: No, that's great. And how do you, you know, the model’s fantastic. You’re working with the district, you’re seeing what their results are. If it’s not what everyone hoped, you’re learning from that and saying, “How do we change our approach?” And because it’s digital, it’s much easier and more adaptable, and you’re constantly ideally improving, how much is the success from district to district or school to school?
The factors of the school. That’s the challenge. This situation may work here, but then do you change your program overall or not?
Sari Factor: Yeah, I mean, this is a constant question we ask ourselves, right? Because no two school environments are identical. It’s back to the top. It’s messy.
People are messy. Districts are a reflection of district leaderships. Buildings are a reflection. You can walk into a building, and you know right away if there’s a strong leader in place and what that leader believes in [00:26:00] versus if there’s not. Right? It is a matter of, you know, can we help move the needle in as many situations as possible?
I can’t say that we’ve ever walked away from an opportunity because we thought that chances of success were not good. But I would love to be able to say that, right? This is probably not the right program for you because it will require your teachers to change tremendously. I don’t think we’ve ever said that.
Most businesses haven’t, but it is probably a reality.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. I want to go back to the teacher role conversation. With Edgenuity, your point is there’s this self-directed learning.
There are other examples where they’re purely self-directed where the students on their own and they’re learning, and there's more and more models now where the student is learning the core content through self-directed or on their own.
And then it really does change the teacher role. And, you know, the flipped classroom is not a new concept. That was around 30 years ago [00:27:00] where the teacher is going through problems explaining, but I’m seeing even more radical things where the teacher’s less about learning and more about motivation and things.
How do you see all that happening and, and are you seeing that in your programs or in the schools you serve?
Sari Factor: We do, and I actually think, and I'll bring AI into this because I think there are things that AI can do for teachers to take some of the burden away. Some of the very time-consuming work the teachers do. One example, and we’ve done this in our edX product, is that we do the first-round grading of short writing. That was the first AI application we put in, and teachers have given us great feedback to it. Now that short writing review is for the teacher, not for the student.
Right. I’ll make that very, very clear. Right, we want the teacher in control. We want the teacher to say either A: “That’s what I would’ve said. Push the button and go.” [00:28:00] B: “I don’t like any of that. I’m going to rewrite it.” Or C: “I know this kid, and I’ve seen her writing before, and I want to make this particular point about this particular assignment.”
We’ve seen all three. All three. As humans, we always take the easy path. So, more of them are saying, “Oh, I like what the computer wrote more than anything. Right. But I think if we can take some of the burden of time and give teachers more time to create those meaningful relationships, really know the students, ensure that they’re inspiring them and motivating them, that’s a win.
That’s a real win.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. I mean, you gave an example. There’s a myriad of examples within AI already we’re seeing in a lot of schools using it for classroom management things and so forth. So, a lot of tasks that were fairly time-consuming for teachers get freed up.
And so, the idea is just to give, I mean, is it really then it allows them, you say, to get closer to their students and better understand students? Is it [00:29:00] really to drive more individualized instruction?
Sari Factor: That could be one. That could be one outcome.
Jeremy Singer: Yep.
Sari Factor: We have solicited from teachers what they think the most valuable things that they do, and the things that, you know, they would love to have the computer do for them. You know, letters to families, letters to parents. Yeah. You know, it’s natural language, so it’s perfect for a GPT kind of application And so, you know, we are drafting those things where, again, we draft them, we take the data in from the student performance, populate it, write the summaries as we all do with AI now. The teacher can choose to send it mass or individually. It’s great. But yes, you know, if you think about the number one thing that teachers do, we all remember that one teacher that really resonated with us and first turned us onto learning.
Those of us who spent a lifetime in careers like this, who had somebody who really lit a fire for us, it wasn't because of what she taught us. We can’t even remember what she taught us. [00:30:00] It was about her. Yeah. And it was about the relationship.
Jeremy Singer: Who was your teacher?
Sari Factor: I had a great teacher in third grade, and she was very musically inclined.
She put a lot of stuff to music, and Ms. Bradley was phenomenal. I was in a new school, and she welcomed me with open arms and played her guitar, and I was hooked. That’s awesome. Yeah, I was hooked.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. Tom Cataldo was my first- and second-grade teacher. And it was a diverse school. He was phenomenal and inspiring.
He taught us all how to play chess in first grade, and we’d go in early to build a kiln. Like things probably you can’t do in schools today. But we did it back then.
So back to AI because I’m glad we started to get into it. So, you’re clearly building some tools to help scaffold and support teachers, which is great.
You also pointed out earlier this importance of, now that AI’s available, what you need to be able to do is different for a learner, for a student, or for [00:31:00] navigating society in general just like, before we had GPS, you had to read a map and no directions, and you can get by with much more directionally challenged. Maybe that’s a terrible analogy. But anyway, have you started to think in your curriculum about some of those skills, and how are you thinking about building it into the Imagine Learning?
Sari Factor: We have and we’re not actually working on that with AI yet, but we are thinking about how we make visible those durable skills and the durable skills acquisition. It’s a progression, it’s a learning progression like any other learning progression. We partnered with an organization, Battelle for Kids, that has now been acquired into AASA that has Portrait of a Graduate.
But this concept, Portrait of a Graduate, Portrait of a Learner, learning profiles that we see in about 22 states now, has really taken hold. You know, asking in a community-based way, asking your community what you want kids who are graduates of our [00:32:00] high schools to be able to do and know.
Jeremy Singer: Those are things like problem-solving, communication, and working groups.
Sari Factor: Yeah, but also self-regulation and resilience, grit. Some people call it grit, you know? So, we are kind of looking at that movement. These are difficult things to implement. They’re amorphous ideas to implement, and what we see in the districts and states who have implemented them, there’s real lack of fidelity across the states or districts that have done it because there’s nothing to tie it to.
So, we think that tying it into curriculum could be a real lever. I’ve been writing about that and talking. We’ve been doing some research jointly with Battelle for Kids around that as to what would move the needle for districts or states that are trying to implement them a curriculum product.
Jeremy Singer: It’s already making some progress, even the posters and the six things about these [00:33:00] durable skills, even just naming them and making the teachers and the students aware that these are important things for success. That’s a good step in its own. Obviously, you want them to then say, “Okay, how do I improve on these things? How do I learn about myself so I know the type of learner I am?” And so forth.
So, I think you’re already making progress. From our standpoint at College Board, it’s very hard to assess those things. We’re obviously with many others trying to figure out that part of it.
But I think it’s already a win, just the 22 states that are already using these, that they're up on the walls that they’re talking about. It’s in a conversation that this generation of students are going to be more aware of these than past generations.
So, we’ve talked a lot about Imagine Learning. As I mentioned in the opening, you’ve had a really successful career before Imagine: Kaplan, McGraw Hill. Mifflin, Everyday Learning. You’ve done a lot. And you know that the goal of this whole podcast is to surface things that really work. Again, the challenge [00:34:00] of so many things in education, and you pointed this out earlier, work because of an individual or because of certain circumstance, but are almost impossible to scale or replicate.
And so, looking back earlier in your career, what would be one or two things where you’d say, “Hey, super-proud of a program that had an impact, that had research and data to support success.”
Sari Factor: I look back at my time at McGraw Hill. It was a time of big growth for me. I was in one part of the organization. They asked me to come and lead a different part of the organization. And this group was I would say particularly downtrodden. There was another part of the organization that was given the funding and was really riding high at the time. And it was almost like a turnaround inside the company.
Jeremy Singer: What’d you do to get that? Just kidding.
Sari Factor: Always, yeah, I mean, these are the things that turn me on. The turnaround and fast-growth kind of situations. And I’ve got to say, you know, we set to work on a new reading program, and [00:35:00] there were high expectations for it. So, this is, you know … I didn’t know what I was getting myself into in a way.
There were really high expectations on a new reading program. And I had to go to management, Terry McGraw and the CFO, and say, “We’re not ready. We’re not going to be able to launch. We are not getting the right feedback. I don’t feel right about this. We’re going to need another year.” You know, here’s this person that says to them, “Nope, we can’t do it.”
Jeremy Singer: It was probably Bob A. who was there at the time.
Sari Factor: Exactly. Okay. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jeremy Singer: I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.
Sari Factor: Yeah. So, I said to them, “Look, there’s no way we can be ready and have a successful program, so let me finish this in the right way.” And they did. And I will tell you that the company still, how many years later, 20 years later, is still reaping benefits from that decision.
Jeremy Singer: Wow.
Sari Factor: Because the basis of the reading program that we then launched, that became number one in the market, has had a run of 20 years. [00:36:00] But it took courage. This is the challenge, right? It’s when as a leader do you feel like you can step out and say this is a bad decision. This is a wrong decision.
I’ve got to change tack. I’m looking at what’s happening in the market. I’m not getting the right signals about this product. You know, I haven’t always done that. There’s one other time I should have done it and didn't do it.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah.
Sari Factor: But you know, you got to have courage.
Jeremy Singer: No, that’s great. And you clearly must have credibility because those figures were not easy to push a program back a year.
I’m sure there were financial projections and so forth. So, it shows how you were seen in your credibility.
Alright, so I'm going to ask each guest a set of rapid-fire questions to get to know you a little better. So, we're testing these out here. Great. Okay. So there’s just four.
It’s going to be quick. Don’t overthink these. First is: What’s one education buzzword you wish we could retire?
Sari Factor: EdTech I guess. EdTech is too much about the tech and [00:37:00] not enough about the ed.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. And it’s so broad. Here’s a good one: Your favorite book about education or one that deeply shaped your thinking.
It doesn’t even have to be an education book, but something that helped you gain a perspective on education.
Sari Factor: I’d have to say Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen and Michael B. Horn.
Jeremy Singer: I really love that you mentioned Disrupting Class by Clay Christensen. I bet a lot of listeners are well aware of that book. Maybe also say it’s one of their favorites. Clay’s original claim to fame probably is his most known book, The Innovator's Dilemma, which described how even well-run successful companies fail to adapt to disruptive innovation.
What probably our listeners don't realize is 20 years ago when we were at McGraw Hill, they had an educational publishing division, and they published Clay’s book Disrupting Class, which was “How do you apply Innovator’s Dilemma to education?” I was relatively new to McGraw Hill. I had been part of a startup that they acquired and [00:38:00] frankly was still a bit of a shit stirrer.
And Clay came. We invited Clay to speak to the top 30 or what have you people at McGraw Hill Education right as the book was being published. And we wanted to learn why it is so hard for leading education companies to adapt to the internet, to digital learning, et cetera, et cetera. And so, toward the end, I think you’ll remember I raised my hand, and I asked Clay what percent he gave us at McGraw Hill of successfully adapting and succeeding.
And when he replied, zero, I can still see some of the scowls I got from my colleagues. So, great book. Uncomfortable memory.
Alright. Name one thing that makes you bullish for future learners. And we’ve talked about a bunch, but what’s one thing that makes you optimistic about the future?
Sari Factor: I like this Portrait of a Learner, Portrait of a Graduate idea. I think it’s where we need to be going.
Jeremy Singer: And last, the class that [00:39:00] you wish all high school students had to take.
Sari Factor: Study skills. Oh no. Does that sound horribly boring?
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. That does sound bad.
Sari Factor: It sounds horribly boring.
Jeremy Singer: All my younger listeners are going to think …
Sari Factor: AI literacy might be the one right now because, boy, we really need a lot of work to do to understand what kids need to know about AI.
That’s a big one now.
Jeremy Singer: Yeah. And then we’re all still figuring it out. So, I want to end where we started, improving educational outcomes. I really thought the Forbes piece, in response to the NAEP results, that you wrote was great. So, let’s imagine you and I are talking, you know, three, five years from now reflecting on a positive change.
What would you be most proud of or encouraged by in this, future scenario?
Sari Factor: So, how I’d like it to change or …
Jeremy Singer: How ... let’s be optimistic here. I mean, you’ve been generally optimistic. I think. I feel like I’m the pessimist on this discussion today.
Sari Factor: Alright, so here’s what I would say.
I think coming out of the pandemic, you know, there’s a downside and upside to everything. Parents are engaged. [00:40:00] Now we all know that different parents are engaged in different ways, but I am hopeful that parents will be engaged for good. It is a great new book out right now called The Disengaged Teen.
If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. By Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson. It’s talking about what every one of us can do as a parent to improve their students’ learning because everyone can. I’m hopeful that school choice drives real innovation. There are positive experiments. We’re not just, you know, doing the same old, same old. I am hopeful that AI enables us to free up teachers to focus on meaningful relationships with learners, and that then they can be more creative. I think we think about AI as an efficiency play primarily, and I think we got to get beyond that into broader, you know, uses of AI to bring out the creativity in teachers. I want them to feel more [00:41:00] successful and fulfilled, which I hope will decrease teacher turnover. They'll stay in the profession longer because the longer they stay in the profession, generally, the better it is for kids. I hope that AI enables us to get beyond what I still consider NCLB style assessments.
We are still, you know, because of the costs of grading assessments, we’ve still boiled it down to a lot of stuff that isn’t really meaningful to what a kid’s life, what they’ll need to be able to do throughout their lives. So that we have ways to evaluate student growth and durable skills.
Jeremy Singer: That is great. That is great list of aspirations that I hope we are discussing.
Sari Factor: That’s not going to happen in three years, but we can …
Jeremy Singer: We’ll see, we’ll see. Let’s think big. So, thank you so much for joining today. I really appreciate your time. Good luck to all your ventures.
Sari Factor: All right. Thank you so much, Jeremy.
Jeremy Singer: Thanks for tuning in today. Join the conversation by following the Education Equation wherever you listen to podcasts.