Rachael Maves: Hi, I'm Rachael Maves and you're listening to the Getting Naked with leaders and education podcast, where we strip away the layers and get to the raw, unfiltered stories behind the leaders shaping the future of Education. My guest today is Emily Freitag, CEO and co-founder of Instruction Partners. Partners is a nonprofit organization dedicated to excellent instruction for all students, with a focus on students and poverty, students with disabilities and students learning English and students of color. Emily, thank you for joining me today on the Getting Naked with educational leaders. Podcast.

Emily Freitag: I'm happy to be here, Rachael. Thanks for having.

Rachael Maves: It's always good to see you, and I love the red lipstick for all the listeners out right. So tell me a little bit about why you chose a career in education. What Drew you to this field?

Emily Freitag: Sure, I studied history in college and I was always most interested in civil rights history. In our country and in others, but in the story of our country in particular. I took a course called blacks in the law. That was a pretty seminal course for me, and the professor basically had the mission of making sure that none of us became lawyers and that we instead engaged in the practices required for social justice and, in particular, he pretty eloquently helped us see how far the law had gone, particularly in Connecticut, the state where he was on the Supreme Court and where we were in school. Connecticut and the Sheff v. O'Neill case had declared inequitable education.

Unconstitutional and really nothing had changed since that decision was made, and so he really lit a fire around the importance of changing practice and that made me very clearly want to go into the work of Education and I started my career as a seventh grade math teacher and I deeply fell in love with the profession.

Rachael Maves: I fell in love with the aha moment you could see on a kid's face, especially in math, I think, like when the concept clicks, their whole face lights up and I thought that was really cool and I got hooked fast. I love that and that. Okay, you have to tell me why Middle School? I mean this is and everyone says that. I mean I was a former High School teacher and so Elementary teachers are always like: why high school? But Middle School is a whole different beast in and of itself.

Emily Freitag: So why Middle School? It sure is, I don't know, maybe masochism. I needed to relive Middle School trauma, I don't know.

Rachael Maves: I was intrigued with the age group and there was clearly in need there, so just jumped in. I love that. I love that. So tell me a little bit as you think about your career pathway and what your journey in education has been, because I mean it's it's been varied. You've kind of done a lot of different things within the education space, including being a chief at the Tennessee Department of Education and overseeing curriculum and instruction there, and then now leading your own nonprofit.

Emily Freitag: When you think about our current state, what are the things in education that really keep you up at? Yeah, I think that they are largely questions of how do we scale change through Human Services. Education is such a human act and supporting Educators is such a human act, and this is a large scale delivery system and I think that it's very hard to find an education interventions that scale through the complexity of the innate people work that takes, and so an instruction partner. Sometimes I say like we're just a group of people helping a group of people, help a group of people, help a group of people and in ways that you know, reinforces that the value chain here is about relationships and about people. But I think it also points to just the massive challenge that change in a human services sector that is so large scale, you know, creates. So I think there are.

I'm sure we'll get into this, but I think there are ways that we can pay attention to the role that certain people play and with more Focus, that could make a big difference. But I think for any Innovation, any piece of technology, any piece of curriculum, any. Routine. It all delivers value through people, and so I'm up at night thinking about you know what does it look like to help people do really hard work in slightly different ways that get slightly better outcomes. And I think especially now, at the end of not at the end, I don't know where we are in time in so many ways, but on the heels at least of these four years of intensity, with. Covid.

Rachael Maves: I think that it is such exhausting work and we ask so much of teachers and of leaders, and so I think part of the equation of getting better outcomes has to be making the work easier, and I don't know that we think about those questions as deeply as we think about the questions of sort of how do we help people do the hard things even more, but I think it h we have to find ways to make the work easier. So not everybody that listens to the podcast is coming from the education sector, and when you talk about like ski, like having that change at scale, like and the barriers that and the complexities that come within the current structures that we have and I love that this, what you say Instruction Partners of were in relationship with people to help people, to help people to help people, can you just kind of unpack that a little bit?

Emily Freitag: Like, what are those tangible like structures that exist that are complex, that potentially you don't see in every, in other organizations or in other fields, like you do within? Education, sure, yeah. Well, let's start with teachers, because we know that teachers matter so much to kids and every parent knows that their child's experience in school has so much to do with their connection with and their experience of their teacher. We know that teachers have such impact on student learning. One thing that I find pretty interesting: The Economist, Dr. Hanushek, did a bunch of research on different aspects of teacher quality, and one of the things that he found is that there is greater variation in teacher quality within a school than between.

Schools and that sort of tracks. I think with our own like, if you think back on your own education, chances are you're like: well, I had some good teachers, I had some teachers that weren't as much of a connection. But I think, for whatever reason whether it's school grades or the way schools are talked about it can be very tempting to think about the American Education challenges, like there's some good schools and some less good schools and we just need more good schools. But what that research really lifts for me is that we have a variation in consistency. Problem, and that's true across schools and the way American education is governed is highly local. So school systems, the sort of district and their school boards, have rights over a large number of really important decisions that impact what happens in those school systems.

So curriculum, for example, is selected by a district. There's certain things that the state and the FEDS might require in terms of annual assessments, but a lot of big decisions are made at the school system and then, I think, a lot of the most. Impactful conditions for teachers and the things that impact that sense of consistency and also so that we know impact teachers experience are really controlled at the school level. They might have gripes or, you know, enthusiasm about various District policies, but a lot about of what matters to them that's right is the support they are getting at the school level. So in ways, changing something like the consistency and quality of instruction. Requires lining up this like Federated system of actors, so that the school system is making certain decisions, the school is supporting the conditions, the teachers are supported and able to deliver instruction well and kids receive it in a way that is across the different teachers within a school.

And so I don't know if that totally answers your question, but I think it is a complex set of systems that have to sort of line up in education. But they're all.

Rachael Maves: They're all people based, so they're they're all subject to politics, they're all subject to the power of relationships. And so that creates a lot of challenge in the idea of making any kind of change in a big way. And you know, I do feel like we probably don't give enough err to this topic, even just as when we're talking about foundational issues within education and maybe not issues, but I mean things to be explored of how and the what, because what you're saying, Emily, is so key, of this need for consistency. And then also when you're dealing with humans, which our end user in education is a lot of tiny little humans, the variability even of every class that comes in and where they're at and what their needs are and what the demographics are. I mean it every class looks a little bit different, and so where are those places where it's tight and loose, where are the places where it's like? No, we all have to be dialed in this, whether that is looking at data on a regular basis to inform our instructional practices or ensuring that the things that we're teaching are the things that are like, the right, things that are core to their learning and knowledge base as they're going to go through their grade progressions.

And then the loose things, where it's like, and now we have the space to be able to show variation and meet needs in these places.

Emily Freitag: But I it feels like we haven't quite figured out what that makeup is yet. Or we have In Pockets, yeah, but not in a way that really is scalable, like what? Saying yeah. I mean I think in I've never been to a school where I haven't seen some examples of extraordinary instruction and teaching and I do think there are whole schools that have managed to sort of create conditions to support that. But it's very rare to see whole systems that have states are blunt at the end of the day. But I started Instruction Partners because I had this repeat, repeated series of experiences when I was the assistant commissioner for curriculum and instruction in Tennessee where I would go to a school or I would give a talk and afterwards leaders would pull me aside and they would say I know I should know the answer to this question, but and then they would ask me question.

That was often this deeply emotional question: like my teachers are fighting over how to best teach reading intervention and like all of them want different programs. And I was a high school science teacher and I'm Googling like you know which Intervention Program is best and I can't even make sense of what Google is telling me because I'm getting so many different answers from that and I just had this incredible empathy for the range and challenge of topics that leaders in education really have to have some proficiency and expertise around and how little support they really have as they try to navigate those hard questions. And I just kept meeting leaders that so clearly were dying to do right by their students and their teachers and felt very lonely in the questions and I didn't have the answers but I felt like gosh. You know they shouldn't be alone in these critical. Questions, and so I think there is. There's all the actors that have to line up, there's all the challenges that are faced, there's the scope questions like the number of things leaders have to be good at and need to think about, and there's a huge amount of pressure on education.

It feels like the political pressure has only grown over the last years to be so many things for so many different stakeholders, so it is a genuinely. Hard Bas, to track change, but my experience in Tennessee also showed me that change is deeply possible and we' we were the fastest improving state in the country on the NAEP assessment. We were doing so many things.

Rachael Maves: It's hard to explain what drove those outcomes specifically, but I think that generally we were seeing that a combination of clearer and higher expectations with more support action did lead to changed outcomes. So I think we have to be hopeful, even as we recognize the complexity.

Emily Freitag: So, as you think about some of these things and it sounds like that Instruction Partners is really trying to tackle as well, when we talk about scaling change Within These systems what are two really practical ways to move this work? Forward. Well, I would say betting on the impact of school leaders is one very practical way to move the work forward. So I think school, if there's change that's going to happen in a school, the school leader is going to be behind that change and giving them support for whatever the thing is. If you're trying to improve reading outcomes, making sure leaders know how to do that. If you're trying to improve attendance, making sure leaders are really clear on what they need to do, I think that is always a good bet and it is unfortunately,.

That we act on that as the sort of focus area. Often it's like: well, what do we have to do to support teachers? And then that's you know where the conversation ends. I think you know. The other thing that we've found is that there are some ways to make the equation simpler and, interestingly, one of those ways I would point to is adopting curriculum and using it, and using it well. Like making curriculum a common play and a common language for the school and then organizing your professional learning around it, making sure that leaders are looking at it before they go observe.

Like filtering your scheduling considerations around it, thinking about, like: what data do we get from this? What else do we need? And like narrowing your assessment so that you can understand. Like having something that can organize the rest of the conversation.

Rachael Maves: I don't think. Curriculum on its own leads to better teaching, but I think it gives the system kind of a backbone that you can organize all of the support around and that can make a really big difference in creating a stronger set of support. Yeah, I love that I want to come back to because you hit on two really key things for me. One of them is this principal Gap. I mean we have so much research that actually shows the importance and significance of the principal leader and yet when I look at the ways in which we provide support to our schools and districts, it is often, just as you said, at the teacher level and so much is geared towards that, but I see this massive vacuum in really supporting strong principal leadership. There's only a handful of even conferences, Co cohorts that I've seen developed that really get into the weeds of what is your role.

What does that look like? Because it is different. I mean it really is different. Change management is very different when you're holding an entire school or a district compared to when you're in your classroom with your kiddos.

Emily Freitag: So you know, I'd love to hear a little bit about how you guys are thinking about that, with principal support and any advice that you have to people that are listening, and how do you continue to lean into that really? Role. Yeah, it is such a critical role and even if you look at sort of major federal policy initiatives, very few of them sort of anchor support around the role that leaders are going to play as a make or break influence over whatever change is intended. I do think I mean you spoke to what is your role, and I think that is a question that is missing from many conversations. There's like sort of high level, 60,000 foot altitude agreement on some of the things that leaders should be doing. They should you know, they should generally be.

First of all, everybody knows that they're supposed to be instructional leaders, and so we actually did a set of interviews recently on this question and you know, to an interview. It's like, of course I'm an instructional leader, but what that actually means in practice is so completely varied, and I think getting really granular about what that means is a step that is necessary, because it's very hard to support or train principals to do anything if you're not really clear on what you expect them to do. So what does that mean? When it comes to observation and feedback? There's the evaluative side, but beyond that, what else is expected? What does that mean when it comes to the role in professional learning and supporting?

Preparation. When we talk about using data to drive instruction, what does that really mean? Like, what data do we care about? Looking at what data and what decisions are we making from that? Is that, what are those conclusions intended by the assessments that we're giving? I mean, there's a million questions there, but I think role Clarity is a big place for more.

Specificity. I think the other thing that learned is that while sort of pull out cohort-based training for professional, for principals has probably some place, so much of the growth is going to come from embedded support like this is. I don't think this is about a different set of Master's courses, although we can have that conversation. I don't even think this is about like, do we put our principals through cohorts at the system level in a different way.

Rachael Maves: I think it's about how do we get more support onto campuses and into schools with principals, walk alongside them and the work that they have to do and helping them in that context, take different action. I just think it is a more, ultimately, it's a more efficient way to actually see the change. Yeah, I agree completely and I mean we're even seeing that shift a little bit with the teacher conversation right, like how does it not just be such a sit and get in the classroom, but how do we give them the opportunity to really learn alongside another Master teacher? And seems, I mean, the right way and makes a lot of sense, even as we think about that principal role, especially for the new ones coming in. Yeah, I love that. The other piece that you hit on that I just want to touch on quickly, that resonates deeply with me, I think, especially as the conversations that we're having at parek is almost this piece of like the how do you make the equation simpler, you said, and really sticking to and having like our Core curriculum.

Having really clear understanding of what assessments are we giving and why and how do we use them. And what does an integrated assessment system look like, whether that's formative assessments, inter Rhythm assessments or District benchmarks or end of year annual assessment, and having it all to be like how do we see it in one place? Because we have all these disperate places that people are trying to go and often it's not aligned and I think, as I'm listening to you talk, Emily, that piece around, how do we even just create a very simple structure that everyone knows, understands and is utilizing?

Emily Freitag: Within those core pieces of that are necessary for instruction? Can you speak a little bit to like what is some of the work that Instruction Partners is doing? That yeah. So I mean I totally agree that we have this pattern in education of sort of layering things on top of, and then we also have another pattern, which is material in this space, where we use the same words to describe lots of different things. So I'll I'll pick on my favorite example here, which is the PLC. So we love to talk in education about professional learning communities and PLCs, and we talk about it in so many instances as if it is this like clear, fixed thing, like well, of course, like you know, we'll use our PLCs for this, or like our PLCs are doing really well and I just have never.

Encountered a place where, like, the vision of PLCs is like really clear and aligned across all the different stakeholder groups, like everyone's just using it as a Christmas tree and layering on new ornaments onto that tree and so I think those two patterns. So what we try to do is with our school and our school system Partners is just help them look at all of this and how is this adding up to serve teachers and students and what should change? And mostly we do that through these short Cycles where we kind of come in and do observations and do focus groups and sort of understand the context and mirror that back to school systems and then help them create a clear action plan for, okay, like what's one thing we want to change here, to try to bring more Co to this, and let's make that change and six weeks later let's see: did it work? Like you know, what impact is it having? So I certainly think that sort of continuous Improvement cycle Drive is a big part of just how to work through some of this. We've also recently been doing more work with states to help States look at the ways that they either contribute to or can help rationalize some of these layers because through no fault of their own often, you know, inspired by competing federal policy or competing silos within their own legislation or competing silos in their own research communities states can often send guidance to districts.

That also feels really additive and layering, and so we've found in a number of states where we've done this coherence work that, like one of the things we do is a audit of all of their guidance documents and we look at the glossies and we look at what words are they using the same across the different glossies and what words are being used differently and just you know what, where is their subtle tension in the vision of what school should be doing that's coming through this and where are is it all additive in places where it could be more coherent. So where schools required to have an XYZ team in order to drive ABC initiative, I think the I think we've found in one state there are 18 required teams for different things. So I do think states have a role they can play in helping to create more of that Clarity. But I also think for districts like what is the focus and how do they pair back and really help support that Focus?

Rachael Maves: I think there's a lot of energy around doing this right now. After four years of doing a lot of different things in the name of supporting students in recovery, and there is just a lot of fatigue on sort of all the things that are adding up, and what does it look like for us to really be focused? Yeah, I H. I just have to say this one thing and then we'll go to the last question that I have for you. But you'll appreciate this. We were talking about PLCs, or professional learning communities, here at Parsec, because we're building out a platform called Academy and really it's meant to.

Emily Freitag: [speaker uncertain] Identify where those places within PLCs that are just a Time suck that we can utilize technology to accelerate so that teachers can really spend their time talking about their instruction with one another and collabora, rating on what's working and what's not working. And as we're we're building this out, we were talking about it has to be embedded within a PLC model, and the immediate question was: if we use the word p C, everyone's going to have a different definition of this and what it means to be effective, and we almost started thinking: do we really need to come up with even a different like term that we're using so that we're making that break from it like whatever background information or knowledge you're bringing to? It's not that.

Rachael Maves: So and we haven't figured out it is a corrupted term. It really is.

Emily Freitag: It really is so overused, so okay. So my final question to you, Emily, that I always find interesting hear from my guest on the podcast, is: what question in education are we not asking that we really should be? I'll give you two. My primary thought here is: what does it look like to really support School leaders to do the work that only they can do? And we've covered that ground, I think, in this conversation. I will offer a second.

Question. I think that when Co schooling there was a lot of reporting on the math outcomes and how math outcomes dipped and there are lots of explanations for why this is. Math instruction is generally thought to be more instructionally sensitive, so and it's like sort of only taught in school. It's not taught at home in the same way that reading might be, but I think it's interesting that reading didn't dip more.

Rachael Maves: Because I worry that might mean that kids are not getting very much from the reading instruction they get in school otherwise we would have seen more a and so I don't know really what to do with that question, because there's so much energy going into trying to teach reading better. But I feel like we need to be asking questions about what didn't change and why, and I think we more so are asking questions about you know, what did change and how do we recover from it, which are important. I have not heard that. I love that you're. You're leaving me with something now that I'm going to have to go spend some time thinking about. So thank you, Emily.

My guest today was Emily Freitag, CEO and co-founder of Instruction Partners.

Emily Freitag: Thank you, Emily, for joining me today on the Getting Naked with leaders in education. Podcast. Thanks for having me, Rachael.

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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.