Transcript
Kevin: For years, parents and community leaders relied on standardized test scores and socioeconomic status to determine the quality of a school. But parents and teachers in the classrooms have long known that those limited factors only tell part of the story. With an increasing number of school options and data available to families across the U.S., parents are faced with a seemingly endless amount of information when it comes to evaluating what could be right for their child. What should parents look for when weighing education options for their students? How can community leaders use that data to replicate success? And how can we understand which school options are going to help all children succeed?
This is "What I Want to Know." And today, I'm talking to Jon Deane to find out.
Jon: We believe there's really great things happening everywhere and educators are trying very hard to support kids, and we just want to celebrate that, but in the context of helping parents figure out where they're going to have that best opportunity with their kids.
Kevin: For years, parents and community leaders relied on standardized test scores and socioeconomic status to determine the quality of a school. But parents and teachers in the classrooms have long known that those limited factors only tell part of the story. With an increasing number of school options and data available to families across the U.S., parents are faced with a seemingly endless amount of information when it comes to evaluating what could be right for their child. What should parents look for when weighing education options for their students? How can community leaders use that data to replicate success? And how can we understand which school options are going to help all children succeed?
This is "What I Want to Know." And today, I'm talking to Jon Deane to find out.
Jon Deane is CEO at greatschools.org, a non-profit web platform that provides high-quality information for parents who are looking for a good school for their child. Jon has nearly two decades of experience in K through 12 education, previously serving as a director on the education team at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he worked with schools, districts, states, researchers, and a range of organizations in support of personalized learning. He has also held leadership roles with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Summit Public Schools, and was the founding Executive Director of Everest Public High School. Jon, welcome to "What I Want to Know."
Jon: Thanks for having me, Kevin,
Kevin: Jon, your work is so important, and I really want to get to more detailed conversations around how parents should pick the right school, what's quality, all those things, and the good work that GreatSchools does. But first and foremost, I want to talk a little bit about your journey because, as I understand it, you were a math teacher. Isn't that right?
Jon: I was. There's nothing more fun than teaching middle school math.
Kevin: Yeah. And, you know, I needed you as my math teacher when I was in middle school, because all math teachers tell me the same thing, that you just can't skip steps. And if you don't get those steps early on, everything else is like a house of the cards. And I, unfortunately, had a math teacher, like many American school-age children, who wasn't certified to teach math. And in second grade, she kept telling me, "You know, math is hard, and not everyone can get it." And that was ingrained in me.
And, Jon, I grew up in a household where my father ended up being a pharmacist, majored in chemistry. My siblings all had . . . One sister is an accountant. One brother won the state science fair. So I was the one who could talk, and that's what saved me at the end of the day.
But how did you get from being a math teacher to a school leader? Because I don't want to engage in stereotypes, but a lot of math teachers sort of like they like drilling down in their work. They love the . . . But there aren't a whole lot that just go straight into school leadership, and you ended up doing that.
Jon: Yeah, and, you know, I didn't start my career as a math teacher. I did start as an accountant, so I've got to give props to your sibling who did that.
Kevin: Yeah.
Jon: But I just loved teaching. I loved teaching. I loved being with kids. I loved working in schools and just the joy of watching kids kind of make that discovery. And I tried everything possible, different kids in different ways to get them to stick with things. And so that was such a . . . It was such a great opportunity. And then I worked in a network of schools that was expanding, and we had a chance to continue to grow. And it was just another great opportunity to find ways to serve more kids and families. And so I took that opportunity.
Kevin: And you then went from that experience, being a school leader, to work a little bit in the policy world and sort of the what I would call the future of education space, because you worked for the Zuckerberg Initiative and Melinda and Bill Gates. I mean, they engaged in a lot of big-picture thinking. Talk about those experiences and how that added to sort of your depth and knowledge of the education world.
Jon: Yeah. So I didn't come from a policy background, but I really explored both those roles from the lens of, you know, what are the different elements that make up this system, that produce the chance for a kid to get a great opportunity. What is it that comes together for a school to exist, for it to be able to offer great challenges for kids, for parents to find it, and to access those opportunities? And so I wanted to really explore that from different angles. And both working at the Gates Foundation and at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative had those opportunities, organizations with really big ideas and incredible people who are just looking to find ways to support kids and families better.
Kevin: Let me ask you this, because I want you to also to unpack what led you to GreatSchools. But I'm always interested in people when they enter the education space, where and how they enter, and then where they end up. You entered, you know, you were an accountant, you became a math teacher, and now you're where you are. What has your experience told you about the education world?
Jon: Yeah. It's not a journey that I hear from too many other people. And I think sometimes I think, "Well, it's been incredible." I've just been aligned and around some really amazing people who've seen big-picture ideas and said, "Let's not just assume there's one right way. Let's kind of look at different paths." And I think one of the things I've seen in my journey has been it's a really complex space that it takes to get a kid in a seat with a really great teacher or a kid out in the world learning, a parent engaged in what they're doing, right? It requires a lot of people to have access to information and to be transparent about what's going on, and a lot of people to be trained and committed. And just when we really align about what's best for kids, I think we get there. And that's what I've seen in a lot of different ways.
So I continue to try to sort of circle around the best ways to do that. And in this role, I've aligned on trying to support parents in their role because parents are the primary and largest advocates for our kids. And so how can we support them best?
Kevin: Yeah. And I do want to talk about how you got there, but I couldn't agree with you more. I really love that answer because a lot of people on the outside of the education space, they think that they can break it down in simple terms, like, "Well, all you have to do is this and it should work." And even a lot of well-intentioned business leaders, who got involved in education, maybe in helping with a school district in a philanthropy kind of way, or, you know, got involved with the charter school movement, they tend to think, "Well, we can apply these practices, you know, put these metrics in place, data, action, outcome, and make it all work." But I think you're absolutely right. You almost have to have a certain level of experience at the depth and breadth of this world, the education world to really appreciate how complicated it is and how you have to pick your spots to be successful. Would you agree with that?
Jon: I couldn't agree with that more. And I will say I think, like all of us in the work, sometimes we pick the right spots and we have great success, and sometimes we pick a spot and say, "Oh, that didn't work. What did we learn from it? Let's try to continue going." But if we kind of continue to hold, like I'm trying to find the best opportunities for kids, I'm trying to think about how we put kids first and really focus on what they're learning and what they're doing and what their experiences are, sort of that becomes the North Star, right?
Kevin: So why GreatSchools and Jon Deane? How did that happen?
Jon: Yeah. I think we have an opportunity, right? We've got a huge audience of parents. Hopefully, many of them will listen to you and are here. But there are parents who are asking, you know, "How do I support my kid? What do I do?" Right? "How do I find a school for my child? How do I advocate in the school when I'm at home? What can I do to support my child?" And it's a pretty complex world as we just talked about. And so we try to break that down for parents and give them an opportunity to find the resources they might need to help their kids in different ways.
And I think it was a part of that ecosystem around schools that I hadn't really taken a deep dive into in my past experiences. So it was a great space to do that. But it also, for me, was an opportunity to look at what are we saying about schools and how we decide what quality looks like, and how do parents make choices, and how can we recognize that every individual parent, every kid might be a little bit different, and what people want may be a little different, and that we can provide information in different ways to better meet their needs than we have been in the past. And that just seemed like a challenge and also an incredible opportunity to come to an organization that had such a long track record of being successful with so many parents.
Kevin: Yeah. Interestingly, you hit on two areas I really want to probe into, and that is the issue of quality. Who defines quality? Because quality can be so subjective. And in the past, you know, people focused on test scores. I know GreatSchools has ratings, and so much of what we do in today's world is about how many ratings and reviews you have. But this idea of quality can be so subjective, and it leads to that second point I was going to ask you about, and that is fit because one school may work for one child and it be a great experience, but it won't work for another child. In fact, even if you have more than one child in the same family, the same household, you oftentimes see that one school that works for one won't work for the other. So how do you disaggregate that, even as you go about your mission of defining what's a great school and trying to help parents match when you know that it can be a mismatch on occasion?
Jon: Yeah. I mean I think the first thing to know is we continually are getting better at this work. And we know that that idea of helping parents find that fit for each kid, it's a process that we've got to keep pushing on. We continually . . . You know, we started early with some information in the early 2000s, and we've continued to evolve what we're able to provide as policy landscapes change. I think as research comes out and we learn more and more about, you know, as you said, this notion of quality, how schools are really serving kids well.
But that notion of fit really comes down to, how does a parent define and understand where their kid is going to succeed? Like, what do they know about their child? What is it that they might be interested in? What are they passionate for in their values for their kid? And how can we find a place where they can see that and understand, "Hey, this is where my kid is going to be great"? And so we want to be able to help provide that information to them in as many ways as we can.
Kevin: You know, I was introduced to GreatSchools, it must have been about 15 years ago, and I was real active in the parental choice movement, traveling around the country. And I had relatives who, because they knew about my work, and I've been pretty public on many national programs, they would call me, you know, relatives from South Carolina, from Indianapolis, where I grew up, from other places around the country, my wife's folks in California. And they would always ask a question, "Hey, you know, I've got a kid that's about to start school. Where should they go? You have any ideas? You know anyone out here?" And outside of the charter network that, you know, I knew a lot of people in the charter school network, I was introduced to GreatSchools. And I did find, in fairness, that there were pretty accurate descriptions.
Describe the process that GreatSchools go through in order to describe or define a school for a parent that logs onto the website, because that's complicated in any kind of equation you want to come up with. But I did find, as I said in fairness, and have found over the years, as you've gotten better, that the process you use makes sense.
Jon: It's a complex set of information we try to provide, and we try to make it as simple as possible. So, you know, we start on a profile of a school. We have a summary rating, which is broken down of a number of ratings of what's important we believe in describing that school from sort of that top-line perspective, if you will. So we focus on the growth measures within the school, student progress, if you will. And again, you know this, but every state has that a little different. So we take what we get in each state and we try to find commonalities to create a measure there.
For us, it's really critical to identify an equity measure for each school. We believe that a great school serves all kids really well. And so we're looking at, how is that school doing, serving different groups of students. And I think that's one of the things we added in the last few years, that's been really powerful for us to start conversations with parents and communities about what's really going on within that school or district. So those are things we focus on college readiness at the high school level.
And then across the profile, we've really tried to build out an awareness of what's going on within that school that actually matters to parents. So we talk to a lot of parents. We do a lot of user research to understand: What are parents looking at? What are they asking about when they come to search for a school? What kinds of things do they want to know?
And so we find they ask for things like, "Tell me about rigorous programs. I want to know if my child is going to get access to . . ." Again, "rigor" is a word they hear. We hear "challenge." They say, "Is my child going to get critical thinking?" You know, questions like that.
And so we're trying to find ways to describe that. So what's going on in the school that might help them see these things that are happening. So we've added a section on courses and programs where we've partnered with some large national organizations that provide programs across the country that may help parents identify where those things are happening. Those are some of the things that we've been building out just to narrow in on what the parents are asking for as they're coming to find a school.
Kevin: So how reliable is the information? And this is, obviously, a pointed question, but I'm putting myself in the shoes of a parent that picks up the phone after looking at your site or they put something in the chat box. But how reliable, how much can parents count on the information that you provide school by school?
Jon: That's a pretty broad question. I think I would . . . You know, what I'd ask is, for that parent, that information is going to give them a really good starting place for understanding some of the facts about that school, right? And that's our intent is to say, "How quickly can we help you put this in context relative to other schools, relative to what you're looking for, and how quickly can we help you ask and answer the questions that you want to know?" Right? "Is it something about your particular child? And do we have information that helps you figure that out?"
So we hope you can rely on the information that we've got, and that we are getting better and better at providing that information so that the question you're asking, you'll say, "Oh, I can see what information will help me with that." But as we kind of started at the beginning of this, right, what's right for you might not be right for me. So it's going to be dependent a little bit on what you're looking for and whether what we can tell you about the school is the thing that you needed to understand.
Kevin: Yeah. And I have seen where you can kind of feel if a school is a good school when you walk in the door, you know, and you spend 10, 15 minutes. And there's generally a good match. I mean, I've tested your site quite a bit over the years, and it's generally a good match. But the one concern that I know you've heard ad nauseam is, you know, over half the kids in America's schools are at or near the poverty line, and you've got a lot of working-class families, and they may not have the same level of sophistication. Many may not even have access to the internet that other families do. How are you able to provide the same level of access to information about schools when you have a lot of kids and families in need who aren't readily available to take advantage of the information you have on your website?
Jon: Again, a nice big question. I appreciate that. I think that we design everything on our site to be as accessible as possible. So we should start with the kind of core design we have is to say, "The information we present, let's make it as simple as possible," which, again, is a subjective thing, but that's what our intent to do, "and to make it as accessible to as many people as possible." So we publish everything in English and Spanish as a start. We try to make sure that when you see information, it's easy to understand where it came from and what it's actually telling you. We try to make sure that our information gets to as many channels of people as possible. We can look at the people using our site across the country, and we can kind of get a sense of representative, how folks are doing, you know, how we're doing reaching all different folks.
And then we do things like try to do outreach to increase the percentage of people writing reviews and completing reviews. One of the components of what we share, you know, when you're asking how a parent can figure out if the school is right for them is, like, we want a parent to see information on the profile that would help them understand an experience of someone like their child. And so reviews are a great way to do that. We get parents to talk about the school from a previous experience. And so we try to look at what kinds of reviews are people writing, and are they describing an experience that might be available or accessible to all students? And then we try to ensure that we're getting a wide range of parents leaving reviews. And so we look at all of that to try to, as best as possible, make that experience open to all different parents.
Kevin: Yeah. As you know, as I said, I've been a big advocate for parent choice and parental choice, and because of the pandemic, in part, the parent power movement has exploded. And so you do have more educated consumers among parents looking for information about their kid's school or the school they're considering to send their child to. Because of this parent explosion, it seems like you would have more, you know, probing questions from parents. And also, are they looking for more information? Because on one hand, you say you want to make it as simple and understandable and user-friendly as possible, but it seems that one of the byproducts of this parent power explosion in education is that you're going to find parents who say, "I want to know about the curriculum. I want to know about this. I want to know about safety." And they may be asking for things that go beyond what your general sort of framework is. And I don't know if that's the case or not, but I was interested in getting your thoughts.
Jon: I think, as many things as you can think to ask about, there's someone who wants to know. We can start with that right? And if we try to tell everybody everything in that way, we'd end up with a mess. And so I think it's a balance that we do constantly, is to look at how much information are people looking for and how can we best provide it. There's a body of information or something parents really want to understand. We ask how might we show that information to parents at some kind of a scale so they can understand and then how we can understand how it would impact their choices. So we'll find a location where we might be able to gather some data from an available source, and we'll test it out and kind of get a sense of, "All right, how did parents interact with that information?"
So we've got smaller datasets in certain locations where we might have found it available in one state, and we're taking a look at how are parents interacting with that, to get a sense of whether that's something that we're going to scale more broadly. So we do things like that a lot.
But you're right. I think in this space where parents are really wanting to understand, "Hey, what's going on here," we're finding they come to us, they look at the information we've got, but also we hear all the other ways that parents are seeking out that information. And I think it's one of the things we always say is, "We're one step in the process. We think we're a really important step for someone to get context." And as you've said, it matches over time pretty well with what you've seen. But still, individual parents may go on their own journey to understand, "Hey, for my kid, how is this going to fit?"
So we're one step in that process. And I think we know there are a lot of ways parents are going in and doing that, and I don't think we're ever going back to a place where parents are less empowered. So it just becomes more and more important for us to continue to reach parents that way.
Kevin: One thing that I was going to ask you is about what the schools' expectations are with respect to the information you give, because some schools may or may not feel that you're accurately depicting them. So talk about that process and interacting with schools and their expectations.
Jon: What we know is there's so much going on in schools around the country, that's excellent for kids, that doesn't get captured in the data that we have access to, the data that gets reported to the state or the federal government, that schools want parents to know, right? We know that there's a lot happening, and we want to be able to capture that as well. We have opportunities on all of our profiles for schools to what we call claim a profile. Right at the top of the frame, there's a little button. Someone at the school can go click on that, and there's an opportunity for them to add information about the school, because we want the school to be able to communicate to parents directly as well.
But we also know that the data that we use is continually evolving, right, as the landscape changes and as research changes, as I said. And so we hear from schools all the time, "Hey, have you thought about this? Hey, have you considered this other assessment or this other methodology?" And so we're always listening and trying to make sure that we are giving parents the best information possible based on all that we kind of hear and see. And so, you know, we definitely invite schools to talk to us about that and to claim their profiles and share information with us that way.
Kevin: What I love about what you just said regarding your relationship with schools, it doesn't feel like I gotcha kind of relationship, which we see in today's world. You know, there are people who are always sort of looking for where the stumbles are. But if it's interactive, if it's engaging, and if it's sort of even-handed, then it really is more of a value-add for parents and their perspective
Jon: I think that's exactly right. We believe there's really great things happening everywhere and educators are trying very hard to support kids, and we just want to celebrate that, but in the context of helping parents figure out where they're going to have that best opportunity with their kids.
Kevin: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Jon, I have one last question. This is what I really want to know. And that is, for parents who are listening, you've emphasized a couple of times that, you know, going to the greatschools.org site is one step in the process. If you were giving advice to a family member who said, "I want to find out about a school or find the right school for my child," what are some of the other steps that you think parents should consider, that extend beyond just looking at your site? Some people have shared that, you know, parents need to internally be clear about who their child is and what motivates the child. But I would like to get your thoughts for the folks who are listening.
Jon: I think that's the most important thing, is to kind of get a sense of your child and what it is that you value, kind of what you're expecting out of school. I think different parents have different experiences that way. If you can, visit the school, talk to other parents who are there. Read the reviews that we have. There are a vibrant set of experiences from other parents. I think those are important things.
And then I think there's a lot of things that are important to understand. How does a school teach reading if you're in elementary school, right? We're learning a lot more about that and understanding kind of the variety of ways kids are learning, and those are things not always captured in data. So try to get a sense of that. What are the other experiences that you want for your kid? I know at the . . . I could find a school that I personally valued schools that were a little noisier and a little louder. And that's kind of what I love because that's sort of how I loved the classroom, and I find parents who really like calm, quiet places. And you find those in different ways, by talking to people and by visiting the school. And I think that's just an important thing to understand.
Kevin: Well, and come on, Jon. I mean, how they teach math, I mean, that's important too, right?
Jon: I mean, I don't want to default to math as the most important, Kevin, but you and I both know. No, I just . . . If you had had a different experience, Kevin, maybe, you know, maybe we'd be talking about it right now.
Kevin: We'd be colleagues about . . . And who knows? I would give Einstein the shakes, I guess was . . . That theory of relativity would be changed. But this is all very helpful, and I will commend you for what you're doing. I think that, going forward, it is clear that more is going to be expected of you and your team than less. But in the meantime, I appreciate all that you're doing, Jon, and thank you for joining us on "What I Want to Know."
Jon: Great. Thanks for having me, Kevin.
Kevin: Thanks for listening to "What I Want to Know." Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education. And write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That's #WIWTK.
For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I'm your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining "What I Want to Know."
Meet Jon
Jon Deane is chief executive officer at GreatSchools.org, a nonprofit web platform providing high-quality information for parents looking for a good school for their children.
Jon has nearly two decades of experience in K through 12 education, previously serving as a director on the Education Team at The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he worked with schools, districts, states, researchers, and a range of organizations to support personalized learning.
He has also held leadership roles with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Summit Public Schools.
Jon was the founding executive director of Everest Public High School and has served as a school administrator and high school math teacher.
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What I Want to Know
In this podcast, you will hear from leaders in education as we talk through learning solutions for homeschool, online school, education pathways, and topics tailored specifically to online students and parents.
