Rachael Maves: Hi everyone, you're listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. Today, we get the pleasure of speaking with Max Silverman. Max is the executive director of the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership, where he focuses on helping school systems become more inclusive, supportive, and human- centered. He started his journey in education as a. High school teacher and principal, eventually serving as executive director of high schools in Highland Public School. Max continues to stay connected to his community as a founding board member at Reneer Prep, and he's lives in Seattle with his wife, Sue, and can usually be found on the basketball court most Saturday mornings, which I love.

Max, that's right. Thank you for joining. Me today. I'm super excited about this conversation and to catch up with you.

Max Silverman: Yeah, thanks, Rachael. It's really a pleasure to be here and to have a chance to talk with you.

Rachael Maves: So tell me a little bit about why you chose your career in education. Why that pathway for you?

Max Silverman: Yeah, I think education might have chosen me more than I chose it. I got. I actually. Got into education not late in my career, but I spent my 20s, most of them in San Francisco getting a master's degree in history, and I just assumed I would be a professor or go to law school and that was my path. But I sort of got lucky and I started coaching a fifth grade basketball team at for St. Parish.

St. Peter's Parish, down at 24th in Alabama in the Mission District. Oh wow.

Rachael Maves: And I fell in love with coaching and I had some opportunities in grad school to do a little teaching and I realized I really liked teaching and I liked coaching.

Max Silverman: And my wife Sue who wasn't my wife then was up here in. Seattle and I figured I'll move to Seattle and get a teaching certificate. And I moved here July 1st, 1992. And on July 2nd, I started like helping out the Franklin High School boys basketball team. And I got to stu student teach with a legendary teacher, Rick Nagel, who founded probably the nation's best mock trial program. And I sort of just fell into this work and.

Loved it. And you know, I had a moment when I was probably still in graduate school thinking I want to do social justice work. And I think I realized like being a high school teacher was the best way to work towards change. Yeah. So I agree. I got in, I got into it to work towards change and teaching was a real, really fun way.

To do that. Yeah. I love that.

Rachael Maves: So tell me a little bit then about how your progression from the classroom and then into the center for educational leadership. Yeah.

Max Silverman: So I taught high school here in Seattle. I was a high school you know history, AP, government law and society teacher and I was a basketball coach. I really, to be honest, quickly got. Frustrated by just the level of variability from classroom to classroom. Yeah. And you know that frustration.

I could immediately see like schools could be better. So, I went and got my principal certificate and I moved down to the Highline School District and was an assistant principal of Tai High School, which was just a fabulous place for me to learn and grow. And two years into that, I was offered the principal ship. And I pretty quickly learned that as a leader, I was really pretty good at getting people behind like a mission, a vision. I could get people excited about working differently for kids. I could even help people see that, you know, we as adults are the problem.

The kids are fine. We need to. Change. But I pretty quickly realized I knew very little about instructional leadership. I knew very I could motivate people, but when they say like, well, I got a bunch of kids who read at the fifth grade level and you're telling me that they can do all this, you know, wonderful things with their brain. Help me figure out how to do that teaching.

And I didn't. I didn't know how to help. Other teachers. So thankfully, our district contracted with the center for educational leadership. This is around 2003 and I sort of became hooked on becoming an instructional leader and I was a client of cells for a number of years and then, after my principal ship, I was director of high schools for the Highline school district and still worked with cell, and in 2009, Mike Copelan and Meredith Honig put. Out the first central office transformation research, right?

Yeah. And I realized, wow, this is what we've been trying to do. And CEL offered me a position to come work with Mike and Meredith to see what we could build out around central office. And so I went there in 2009 and I've been there 16 years. Oh my gosh.

Rachael Maves: Wow. Well, I remember when you and I first. Met, it was. I was at the county office of education for Sonoma and we were looking at the work that Cell was doing and I felt like this, like light bulb went off for me of you, take and create this pathway for people to enter into those best instructional practices, but in such a positive way. Max, like I,. Asked.

That really for me was what set CEL apart of the creating, the look fors, and then, within that path, once you do your observations within the classroom based on those quality instructional practices, what is the one like next step that they take? And that for me that was like a oh like. If we can find. That place. That's just like that zone of proximal development Like we talk about, Exactly. Yes.

Right there. If they just did this one thing, it would be the next win, and it really shifted how I thought about being able to provide feedback and coaching support and what that looks like. Yeah. I, you know, part of what I love about my job is I get to work with educators and leaders like.

Max Silverman: You. And I remember, you know, all of our conversations about different tools and frameworks and, you know, you really were trying to also think systematically about. It's one thing to change a teacher's practice or a group of teachers practice, but I remember you really trying to think about, well, what is it? What will it take to change teaching at scale and leadership at? Scale? And that's that's the fun stuff for us is, like, can you scale?

Having a strength-based approach? Yes. Like, how do you make that a way of being that, of course, we're just in each other's classrooms. That's how we practice, and we do so in ways where we're pushing on performance and just trying to focus on people's, you know, zone of proximal development. Like what's their next step. And that's the fun part is thinking about how do you systematize that?

And I just always appreciated your brain immediately went there.

Rachael Maves: Yeah.

Max Silverman: Yeah. I Yeah. Better or worse, the systems part is spirit. It's me, you know. And I don't know if one of the other things I really appreciated about that time Max and then we'll, we'll transition to that.

Rachael Maves: Other question is: you hear people talk about a strength-based approach. But when we went around in partnership with our districts that were doing this with us at the county office and went through the classrooms and then we sat with the teacher afterwards and gave them the feedback, you could visibly see the teachers go, you know, like almost. This huge. Like you could tell they were anxious, they were nervous, they had all these people that were doing observations, but it was done in such a way that, like you could just watch their body language and the that affective filter dropped and it made the feedback accessible and they were like, yeah, I could, like I can do this. It was just I don't, it was just really powerful. I.

Appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Yeah, thanks.

Max Silverman: I always it's sort of o. Now it's taken me 16 years to sort of, you know, make it more internal to how I am and it really is. I think for the leaders also it becomes a way of being that just feels more right. And you know one of the. Initial misconceptions is strength-based approaches about being nice. Oh yeah.

Rachael Maves: And it's really more like that Brené Brown clearest kind and helping people like you're.

Max Silverman: I mean, you're depicting it perfectly. It's about what can they do next. And people feel like if you're not like digging into somebody's deficit, you're not helping them get better. And I see it with leaders all the time. Like they also like having conversations that. Feel productive and generative and move people.

So that's, that's part of the fun, part of the part of the work. Yeah.

Rachael Maves: Well, Max, I'd love to move into our second question, which is really around what keeps you up at night. And I know you have this unique perspective in coming from Cell because you have partners all across the country and you're so ingrained within the. Instructional practices that are happening at each layer of the system. I'd love to hear just a little bit about, like, what you're seeing and what weighs on you heavy during that time. Yeah, it's funny.

Max Silverman: It's hard for me not to think about this with like an intersection of our political context, because one of the things that keeps me up at night is how quickly everybody. Retreats to their own beliefs or camp politically. And so I you know, during COVID we got to work in red states and blue states and I think you know, it's really a shame that we didn't spend the time to really learn what worked in different contexts. Yeah. That everybody as quickly as they could, that gravitational pull both to. The status quo of how schools run, as both, as well as that gravitational pull as to here's how I think, or here's how you know my part of the country thinks, and I was amazed, like coming from going from Seattle to Louisiana, you know, right when travel started up again to see school, to come from Seattle, where schools were still closed.

Yeah, kids were still on Zoom. And then to visit a part of the country where schools were open and people were rolling up their sleeves to figure out what to do. Yeah. I also saw in some of those communities, you know, for lack of a better term, maybe a disregard for the health and well-being of people, whereas up here in Seattle, we really did pay attention to the health and well-being of people. But in that there was a disregard, I think, for you know, students need to be together to learn together. So I think what keeps me up at night is, as a field, people have really reified their own thinking and so there's not a lot of good discourse going on.

You know, we're back to the, basically the same. Education model. Yeah. That didn't serve all students well and that COVID exacerbated it. And I also I'm amazed there were moments during co where people tried things you know, whether it was hub schools or different things online and we sort of have lost that sort of innovation. And I've worked with a superintendent who called me early in COVID and said,: "What does instructional leadership look like when.

Students are on Zoom?". And it was so cool. Like we did these wild walkthroughs into virtual classroom. Oh, interesting.

Rachael Maves: And there was sort of that just willingness to think differently and everybody's busy trying to put that old system back together.

Max Silverman: Yeah. Yeah. How much of that do you feel like is a fear of the unknown versus the exhaustion that the field had from COVID?

Rachael Maves: Where it was, just so we don't want to think or try to anything new anymore. We just want to like get back to like trying to exist and give ourselves breaks like, or just an uncertainty of what could even be like. Where do you see that kind of barrier or gap? Yeah, I, you know, I think that exhaustion.

Max Silverman: Is real. I know hearing from principals. The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Principals Association has a wonderful survey of principals and they've done it now three years in a row and still the top issues that principals are dealing with I think one and two are student and adult mental health and I think you know the systems are really. Drained, you know, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and So I, you know, I think you're, you know it was your. You were asking a question, but I think you were also making a point about what you're seeing in terms of just the toll of exhaustion, and people are willing to do less. It's hard to find teachers to lead extracurriculars.

Or to coach because they are exhausted. And you know, I'm sure you know, the amount of time that leaders and teachers spend just tending to student mental health and behavioral needs, you know, I think statistically and anecdotally has increased, which is also exhausting. I don't see a lot of sense of efficacy. Yeah. Out there, that sort of breeds excitement and innovation. It.

Feels like a lot of survival in a lot of places. Yeah, I agree.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, I hear that often of still in that feeling of recovery almost. And then you layer on the gaps that we have that were exacerbated, like you said earlier, from the pandemic, and it's like, okay, we got through this time, but it's still not. Done. Now it's actually the harder part is: how do we close these gaps and what does that mean and look like, and to do it quickly and, like you said, what we've done in the past doesn't actually work. So, like, how do we think differently about it? But it's, it's almost like squeezing blood from a stone, I feel.

Right now. Yeah. It and it's.

Max Silverman: You know, I travel a fair amount for work and I've also noticed, like education's not the only sector that hasn't come back to life. Yeah. I see it in the hospitality industry. I see it in the retail industry. I think we see it in healthcare. You know, something happened during COVID that we haven't all figured out yet.

Yeah. It would be kind of fun if education was taking the lead and trying to really unpack and understand what we all experienced and what it looks like to come back to life, for lack of a better term. Yeah. Well, as you think about all of these pieces, Max, and I don't want to lose what you.

Rachael Maves: Brought forward originally, which is, you know, this lack of discourse and being able to have conversations, people going into their own camps. What do you see as two ways that we could move forward? Yeah.

Max Silverman: You know, I think there's. I'll start on the smaller scale. I think people are craving a sense of humanness and. Humanity. I mean, I'm amazed that we're we're good at creating space. We've brought students into our work a lot more, and when students are in the work, things look and feel different for adults and where we just create space for people to have meaningful conversation.

And so you, I lead a project with the University of Minnesota. We now have we've had 11, we've done two. Networks of cabinet and principals together, and one network had six districts, the other had, And we sort of teach them, we're really teaching the central office leaders how to like actually behave in the ways that their policies dictate they should. So if you have a policy and inclusion, what does it actually mean to behave in ways that? People feel included? Yeah.

It's not something you're implementing, it's a way of being. So we do like I do a lot of work with central office leaders, doing empathy interviews with principals, and we talk about, like go talk with a principal, two questions. What's a good day as a principal and what's a bad day? And do that with a principal who either has. Less status or agency or belonging in your system, or who is close to kids who have less status, agency and belonging. And that one act of an empathy interview and then like really helping people analyze the data as a team really unlocks, like when a cabinet and principals bring back, when you talk to principals what's a good day?

The first thing they say is when I'm in. Classrooms with teachers and kids. Yeah. And so we can then design, like create some design challenges for district teams to solve for themselves. What would it take so that principals can be in classrooms more, which is a place that research says they can make an impact. So we look at, you know, it's kind of fun to actually like both look at some.

Research on what an in this case what an effective leader does, and then have a system on their own, hold up a mirror around what's the state of the principal ship in relation to that research and then have the humans in the system do smallcale changes. And you know, we talked about like moving at the speed of trust. Yeah. And. Getting stuff done. Yeah.

Yeah. I love the and in that because it's really important, right? So, so, like that's like one thing I think to move forward is creating like intelligent spaces. Yeah. For people to solve real problems together and trusting that they'll. If you use research and data, they'll pick good problems to solve or worthy problems to solve.

Yeah. And then I. Think you know, at the policy level, I would love for there to be some real like change in. I mean, I would love to see like state policy that really incentivizes building cultures of collective efficacy. Interesting. That really like allows teachers and leaders to work together to solve the actual problems of learning and well-being that their students have.

Yeah. In measurable ways. And, like your, you know, your team has measures on student well-being and student Yeah, that's right. Engagement, right? There's plenty of data on student learning and I think that I think that is there is ways to build policy around that. Yeah, that's an interesting concept, Max.

Rachael Maves: I hadn't thought about the brain and the policy piece. Can you give an example? What like just as you think about what could be within that space? Yeah, it's, I mean it's.

Max Silverman: I don't fully get policy, but I know like in the past people tried incentive pay for individual teachers and I think for the most part they realized I think the Vanderbilt in you know where they had descent, really studying it realized that the results of it, you know, were either. Negligible or negative depending on content area. And but I think this idea of I think there's ways to incentivize schools and teams through pay. Yeah. That might be a way to get it started. It could be incentivizing different forms of professional learning that really brings forth cultures of collective efficacy.

So I don't know fully what it looks. Like. I'm not a payfor-p performance person per se. Yeah. But I do think there could be ways to really, from a state level, put a stake in the ground, like we actually know what helps schools move forward. And one of those is cultures of collective efficacy, and we're going to create a policy and funding environment that supports that.

And there's probably people much smarter. Than me that would understand the nuance of the actual policy. Yeah. I love I just hadn't thought about that before, Max, of the ways in which we might be able to leverage policy to reinforce that type of best practice.

Rachael Maves: I mean, I have to think about that one. Yeah.

Max Silverman: I mean, what does it? What does? It make you think? Like, does it seem kind of goofy or No, it doesn't seem goofy at all.

Rachael Maves: [speaker uncertain] It more just kind of got my brain churning of, because usually when I think about policy, I'm I'm more thinking about systemic structures or things that are a little bit more tangible, like curriculum or something like, but this idea of how do we reinforce a best practice around you. Know exactly what you said, that collective efficacy part, I mean. Maybe it could push into systems and structures around, just like what do highquality PLC's look like and How do you create these? And is there a way to even potentially attach funding to that best practice? Or, you know, I don't know. I'd have to think about it, but I hadn't.

I just hadn't connected those two. Before. Yeah. And I'm always assuming people are doing smart work on curriculum and other systems.

Max Silverman: Like I would not dismantle that. I you mentioned in their intro that I'm on the board of Rainineer Prep, which is a single school, 5 through eight middle school, and it's one of the highest performing middle schools in Washington state. It beats any predict, you know if. You were to look at student demographics, it beats any predictors. The school outperforms, you know, most middle, definitely comparable middle schools and outperforms most middle schools in the state. And like that school has no money.

Like the principal doesn't even have an office, and that's where I learned about culture of collective efocacy was watching the teachers at that school and they don't have a lot of professional. Development dollars, but they really spend a lot of time talking about individual students and groups of students and they don't give up until each student has mastered whatever they need to master and they really scratch their head like problem solvers because they don't have, they can't buy a solution. Yeah. So they really work together and they play with the school schedule. They team teach as need be. They pull.

Small groups of kids. But they're always in that mode of problem solving, collaborating, and getting better on behalf of kids. And I learned from that, like it doesn't cost them anything to do that. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and it sounds like there's this mentality to a.

Rachael Maves: There's an answer like the: this isn't a problem that can't be solved. There is an answer here and we. Just haven't found the right answer yet. Yes.

Max Silverman: And that's our job is to keep looking for that answer. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Rachael Maves: Yeah. So, final question, Max, as we wrap up our time together. What question in education are we not asking? That's just not on people's radar, that we really shouldn't be? Yeah.

Max Silverman: I think you know, and this is I don't know if it's the. Question, but I think it's kind of funny that a human- centered school or human- centered school system is an oxymoron. And I just went to the in February, the national AASA conference. So the biggest conference for school administrators, and it was like an AI pulooa. Yeah. And I love, I'm actually, I'm really intrigued by what AI offers.

Us. Yeah. But all of a sudden, all these leaders across the country are glomming on to thank God there's now. There's a technology out there that's going to solve our problems, and they forget there was a. There was other solutions that looked as good as AI in the past. Yeah.

And so I think one of the questions we need to be asking is: like: what does it actually mean to be a? Human- centered system that's effective? Yeah. Because I also get concerned when people think the work is just to be human- centered. Like doing lots of focus groups and including everybody in every decision. I don't think we'll get there.

But having a belief that people can solve problems. Yeah. And centering people who are experiencing those problems as experts around the problems that they're experiencing, right? And. Including them truly, inclusively, and respectfully in designing solutions. I think we'll find there's more smallcale solutions out there than we know.

And I then think the studying of those smallcale solutions could help us understand better, a way forward. And again, that's not to negate those other really important questions, particularly around the use of technology, because I. I do think AI has a lot to offer. Yeah, I'm.

Rachael Maves: I think that you're bringing up this really important point of that nexus between the technology and the human side of things. And this is just my lens and but I think it resonates with you too, Max, just knowing you a little bit. The for me, I feel like if we can find those places in AI that can,. Truly address. The time sucks, that a teacher never gets to or a principal never gets. But AI could actually take care of that problem.

Then it allows for oh, hold on that space and time for the teacher to like be present with the student. Yeah. A different way. And that, to me, that's the place where, gosh, if we. Can. If we can nail that, then I would see how it really could have just such a phenomenal impact.

Yeah. I've seen one of my colleagues, Dr.

Max Silverman: 's son at the in UW College of Education, has a. You know she's a national leader on AI. For you know its use in classrooms and for leaders. Yeah. And, to be honest, like when leaders type in their observation into a good bot and they generate really good questions for feedback. And same like things that would allow teachers to spend more time with students who need it.

Yes. There's AI that will allow leaders to spend time with students and families. And you know, there's processes like you're saying that are really time. Intensive. Yeah. That I'm really curious about.

And just the direct, you know, instruction and tutoring that students can get really. We're on the verge of something big. Yeah, that's right.

Rachael Maves: I agree. Yeah. And without the human side of it, I think it's interesting when people like do student surveys and now they feed the results into like chat, GPT or something for the trends.

Max Silverman: If the that's very different than actually either doing focus groups or having students analyze those results and telling people what they see, and when leaders hear students say, "Oh, this is what we see." I think that will instigate more change in behavior than when the analysis is far away. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the.

Rachael Maves: That's the perfect note, Max, to wrap up. Our conversation on. Thank you so much for your time today. It was so good to reconnect with you and have this conversation. Yeah, thanks, Rachael.

Max Silverman: I've been looking forward to this. A friendly reminder that Parsec Education's early bird sale is live until May 31st.

Rachael Maves: Get 50% off tickets for the 2026 Measure What We Value Summit happening February 4th through 5th in Fresno, California. Don't miss this limited time offer and the opportunity to experience our incredible MC Brandon Lee, season 15 winner of America's Got Talent. Secure your tickets at parsecsummit.com.

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This transcript was created from the episode's captions and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors; please refer to the audio for exact wording.