Transforming Education Through Policy and Practice with Jannelle Kubinec

Jannelle Kubinec: [00:00:00] The secret sauce of learning is joy and it’s actually really contagious. So when you have a classroom and kids are feeling the joy, it’s often because their teacher’s feeling the joy. And where does that come from? It comes from interaction. It comes with dialogue. I’m guessing in that classroom where you were feeling the joy.

Kids interacted with each other and you as a teacher felt more of the facilitator than the leader of the room. And I think that’s the classroom. It’s about dialogue. It’s about interaction. It’s about generative ideas that people didn’t know they had until they started working together. And that’s the stuff that when we script to a point where it’s about going through the activity, as the output opposed to going through the experience, we miss some of those elements of joy.

Justin Hewett: Hey everybody, welcome to the ML chat podcast. My name is Justin Hewett. I’ll be your host today. I’ve got my co host over here, Mandi Morris. Mandi, What did [00:01:00] you think of that man? What a great conversation 

Mandi Morris: awesome conversation a real different perspective from what we’ve heard before Talked a lot about policy And just felt invigorated after that conversation with Jannelle.

Justin Hewett: So our guest today is Jannelle Kubinec. She is the ceo of west ed And there is no doubt why she is the ceo of west ed. Oh my gosh. She was so impressive And she knew her stuff in such a way that it was just fun to hear her talk about policy, but then talk about where policy ends and culture begins, right?

And best strategies begin. And it’s not the conversation I would have thought we would have heard from somebody who is so into the weeds and such a big part of Developing and driving and crafting the policy that is informing a lot of the work being done in education today. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, very well said. I really appreciated her creative [00:02:00] and novel approach to thinking about policy and the advice that she gives to school districts and how to think about policy.

Justin Hewett: Yeah. I think part of the reason that she’s so creative with that is because she was a NASA scientist. Gosh, this is the first person we’ve had on the ML chat podcast that we know of that worked at NASA and she just felt like she wanted to be a part of impacting people more. And anyways, it’s just really neat to see how she has approached using policy and kind of being a part of serving school districts and working with the government to figure out the best way to impact students.

One of my favorites was how she talked about time. And how a lot of times we’re using time to determine the amount of services that an English learner is receiving. And really she turned it on his head a little bit and talked about how she’ll say it better than I will here. That ultimately it’s not about the minutes, it’s about what you do with the minutes.

And that minute, those minutes of instruction or [00:03:00] service. And so anyways, I think you are going to absolutely love this conversation. You’re going to learn a lot. Bring a pad, paper and some pencil. Cause you’re going to get a lot of takeaways from this conversation with Jannelle Kubinec. Jannelle Kubinec has over 24 years of experience transforming outcomes for children, youth, and their families through research, policy, and technical assistance.

For the past 13 years, she has served in numerous leadership roles at WestEd, including leading major federally funded centers, driving major policy changes related to early learning and K 12 funding and accountability systems, and building and strengthening operational systems at WestEd. She is currently serving as the CEO of WestEd.

She is nationally recognized for her work related to school finance and effective resource allocation. She guided California through a major redesign of its K 12 funding formula and accountability system, and led the team that crafted the California master plan for early learning and care. That plan has guided historic [00:04:00] increases in funding, improved support for the workforce, and expansion plans to include all four year old children in transitional kindergarten, or TK.

Jannelle, we are so thrilled to have you on our ML chat podcast. Welcome. 

Jannelle Kubinec: Thanks, Justin. It’s great to be here with you. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah, it’s a, it’s not every day we get to have a CEO on here and especially one from such an amazing organization like WestEd, maybe the first thing to do, I’m sure a lot of our listeners are really familiar with WestEd, but for those that aren’t, maybe give us a little bit of background if you don’t mind, tell us a little bit about WestEd and the work that you’re engaged in.

Jannelle Kubinec: We are a non profit that does work nationally. Our genesis is out of a federally funded research education lab. So we’re one of the original research education labs. And from there, we really have centered on how does research make a difference in the way that we think about schooling and the way that we think about early [00:05:00] learning and the way that we support the workforce.

So we sit at this intersect between research policy and practice where How do we use inquiry and thinking about what should happen in the world and questions that need to be answered to the translation of what does that mean for classroom practice? And what does that mean for how we support policies that really make a difference from everything from children at birth to where they, we end up in adulthood and success with career.

So we’re working on things directly in schools with classrooms to research studies that are looking at early math. Learning to where and how we use data to think about economic development. So really proud to be part of an organization that is about making a difference in the way the world experiences learning and how that leads to really positive life outcomes.

Justin Hewett: That is fantastic. And it’s amazing to think of the breadth of what you are doing at WestEd, to really be in the classroom, but then also be consulting and working on policy and the crafting of policy. [00:06:00] That is pretty significant to be able to allow the classroom experiences to inform how policy is being made and being driven.

Now, I know that we said it in the bio, we talked a little bit about how you led the team that crafted the California Master Plan for Early Learning and Care. How does that come together? I would love to understand. Obviously you got to put together a team and then you’re putting together your goals, but walk us through, what does that experience look like and how does a project that scope come to be?

Jannelle Kubinec: That’s a great question and one that I’m going to have to put right into saying it was going to be complicated because we were starting this project and I think 2018 and had a lot of stakeholders identified of who we need to bring in and that included families and child care providers and various state agencies.

And then we started, and the pandemic hit. And so we, in that process, had to wrestle with engagement around a variety of [00:07:00] stakeholders for whom we needed to think through how to do that in the midst of a pandemic, but at the same time, realizing that there was an essential workforce, an essential system that needed to be stood up and thought about.

So in the process of working on a master plan for early learning care, we worked on an immediate problem, which was how to keep things going. And it was really a great, I think, Moment to be part of thinking of how do you support getting supplies and standing up child care programs for essential workers and beyond, and then realizing the essential nature of having robust early learning systems for children, their families, and And then being able to come out of a pandemic period and be, being able to see some of the reforms in terms of increased funding, the formation of a union for early childhood, and finding the pathways to engagement that really involved a lot of virtual meetings and connections and experiences.

So I think the inspiration for the Early Childhood Master Plan was the Higher Ed [00:08:00] Master Plan, which was from the 60s and still continues today to define how California approaches. College and where our university system is. So my hope is that in creating this master plan that came to life in 2020 is that we see three, four decades from now, it’s still defining how we approach early learning and care, which is to make sure that we have access opportunity and high quality reflecting the essential nature of early learning opportunities, including how we think about not only children that are speaking English from their starts, but also where multilingual language supports sit in the early childhood experience.

Justin Hewett: It is so cool to think about working on a project like that, that’s going to have such extensive impact. And it makes me think about just the policy in general. Most people don’t really think about, Oh, when I grow up, I want to go impact policy. I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to, and yet. Here, you sit at this intersection of research, policy, and practice, and you’re able to guide policy.

What [00:09:00] was it in your career or in your life that led you to this point where you ended up realizing that policy was the way to really drive change? 

Jannelle Kubinec: So I actually started out in the sciences and worked at NASA and biotech companies and realized that I loved the scientific process of solving problems, but didn’t quite like what I felt was the lack of a human connection.

And I think what got me into policy area was the ability to solve problems that have a dramatic impact on human connection. And that’s why I focused on education policy. And I think that what for me over the years having both worked at the, you know, working on state and federal policy and looking at school districts and all that they have to hold with regard to local policy.

It’s always striking to me how when we look at a law that’s been created, let’s say by a state. And the sense of, at the local level, how it’s like, we want to follow this law [00:10:00] without any understanding of how much they can inform it. They can inform it through what that practice is they bring forward. And it’s not just how do I translate, but it’s actually how do I reflect?

How do I reflect practice? So I always tell school districts that this is what the law says. Now, how do you use it? How do you translate that into your practice? Because the, State really needs to know how it works so they can better refine and support local practice. And it’s always interesting to see this funny look from people that go, really?

I thought the state figured this out. They were just making us do this new system. And you can look at this for multi language learners and say, the way that we think about assessment and the way we think about exit or reclassification, there’s a sense that, oh, States know this stuff. So the things that they’ve stood up with regard to assessments or curriculum, it must be because it’s right.

And I think that what we have to remember in the field is we only think that’s right because we have some research, we have some [00:11:00] experience, and we really need to be thinking about ourselves in the practice. of supporting learners as informing what then needs to be the policy to truly support success.

And I just think we often think about this as going in one direction when really it needs to go in both directions. So that’s what makes me most excited about being in education policy and a place that can support practice is that reminder that they go together and it’s not just coming from on high.

But that it actually needs to be moving from what we know from the ground. 

Mandi Morris: Jannelle, you spoke about policy and reclassification, and I think that’s a topic that makes a lot of ears perk in the world of language learning, language education, because every state has their different policy around reclassification and it can be interpreted in different ways.

I know firsthand that teachers often feel that they don’t have a way to [00:12:00] inform that conversation. What would you say to teachers who have, observational data, they have anecdotal evidence, they have their own research that they’d want to share to be able to better inform policy. How can teachers get connected and feel like their voices are empowered in that?

Jannelle Kubinec: So that’s a great question. And one that I place that I always refer teachers and principals is to their associations. There is great voice through, call it the teacher’s unions or call it the administrator associations or call it your school boards, to have a sense of what’s the data and what’s the story, what’s the experience that we’re having in our classrooms that help us start to build for not just individual experience, but the themes of what we need to be looking at.

And I think you’re absolutely right. The notion reclassification has a lot of feelings that go with it, and I think it’s because we look at them as there’s somehow a rule there. And I, and for me, what I go to is, well, what’s the intent? The intent is we’re providing for [00:13:00] linguistic accommodation to students.

And so therefore it can translate and look like special programs. It can look like extra programs. It can look like different supports. And underlining all that is how do we best support learning? And it’s easy to forget that when you start to go, there’s this program and this time requirement and this curriculum, but ultimately what are we doing?

We’re providing an accommodation for. Language and literacy. And I think, but we get bound up with what’s the curriculum. What’s the time, what’s the program. And I think remembering that is then what’s going to inform what should be the law or the regulation for time program and requirements. It’s well, it should be what’s the experience.

Is it working? Are we seeing the needs of students in that? And we know there’s all sorts of noisy challenges with that that come up that we have to constantly be confronting and thinking about and adapting to, particularly as practice hits the classroom. 

Mandi Morris: When we think about minutes, Everyone in the ELD space thought, we’re [00:14:00] like, yes, the minutes, required minutes and what that has to look like.

And I’ve worked in environments where you have somebody who takes the walls of the box down and says, we can rethink this. Minutes don’t have to fit inside of this little box that they have, that we’ve said they’ve had to fit inside for so long. It’s a paradigm shift for the way that we approach education for multilingual learners.

I would love to hear your perspective. How would you. Coach or recommend that leaders in their school district think about approaching that paradigm shift within their own school district to rethink minutes to rethink what ELD education might look like specifically in the secondary space. So I think we are in the 

Jannelle Kubinec: most part in education.

We have leaders and professionals that are here because we actually are pretty compliant human beings. We like rules, we follow them. Well, we went to school, we enjoyed that structure. And so we take very literally a requirement for minutes. We take very [00:15:00] literally a scope and sweet sequence and pacing guide.

Oh, we have to do this, and here’s the key to unlocking all that is just ask yourself why. I think there are so many things that work would work in a different way in education. If we asked why are we doing that and treat it more as the spec. Then the requirement of this is what you need to do and make your own playbooks around it.

So I think what you talk about with minutes, they are truly just a specification to achieving an outcome that is we think time is a factor in terms of leading to an outcome of language fluency. So flip that and say, what is really required for language fluency and how do I use time? Not time as the outcome in itself, right?

Time is just going to be an input to that. And I think you can flip this on many things like how we look at class sizes. I think when we look at class size reduction as a strategy, it’s fine. But if it’s just treated as an input, that is how many kids sit in the classroom, We aren’t [00:16:00] necessarily oriented to the outcome, which I would say, what can you do when you have fewer kids in a classroom?

How does your curriculum design change? How does your learning opportunity change? And so when you just treat it as I have to only hold the class this big, we miss the why. Why is around personalization? Why is around engagement? And I think that’s the same thing for a lot of the structures we see emerging for English language learners is a lot of it gets stuck in the rule says.

Opposed to the walk. 

Justin Hewett: That really resonates with me, especially as I think about, I had an experience one time working with a colleague of mine and she asked me where our long term English learners come from. And I sat with it for a second and I was trying to think, I thought I was going to be just really smart and get the answer right.

And I wanted to say Mexico, but then I said, I think they come, like a lot of them are born here. And she says, yeah, they actually, our long term English learners come from our school districts. They come from our school systems, and ultimately, what you’re saying as far as we’re missing the mark, we’re focusing [00:17:00] on time rather than making sure that we’re making the most of that time.

And we’re focusing on making sure that we’re delivering a certain number of minutes of instruction rather than how do we make that instruction maybe the most effective as possible, right? And most impactful for that individual student. And like you said, it’s just a small tweak. It’s just a small shift in perception, but yet it feels like that can have a dramatic impact.

Jannelle Kubinec: Yeah. And I think that it comes down to that old saying that which gets measured, gets done. So what are the things that we’re measuring? We’re measuring time. We’re measuring that you’ve followed the checklist, that you’re on track with standards and pacing guide. And I truly think one of the most powerful questions you can ask that should be measured is, what So are our students engaged?

Like how much are they interacting and talking? Do they like school? Do teachers like school? I think that some of our challenge with the workforce is we’ve taken some personal agency out when you just make it about the structures and structures of what it means to be a teacher. [00:18:00] And I think that is, again, really powerful to say we all, y’all matter, right?

We have school because we have students. We have instruction being delivered because we have teachers. So what does that look like when we optimize around the who and the why, not just the what and the how? 

Mandi Morris: When I think of my favorite year of teaching, I think of the relationship I had with my students and how much fun we had.

And it was a teaching environment where I had a lot of autonomy to do what I wanted with the curriculum and to get creative. And I was at a place in my career that I was ready for it. I really appreciated it and I really enjoyed it. I wonder for you when you think about a learning space that you’ve been in where like, man, these teachers are engaged.

They’re happy to be here. These students are engaged and happy to be here. Could you give us an example of what you’ve seen that you think this is what learning should look like? 

Jannelle Kubinec: Yeah, [00:19:00] I’d say I, so you just captured a word that I think We have to ask ourselves, how do we create? Cause it’s the secret sauce of learning, which is joy.

And it’s actually really contagious. So when you have a classroom and kids are feeling the joy. It’s often because they’re teachers feeling the joy, you know? And where does that come from? It comes from interaction. It comes with dialogue. I’m guessing in that classroom where you were feeling the joy, kids interacted with each other and you as a teacher felt more of the facilitator than the leader of the room.

And I think that’s the classroom, right? That’s the classroom where it’s about dialogue. It’s about interaction. It’s about generative ideas that people didn’t know they had until they started working together. And that’s the stuff that when we script to a point where it’s about going through the activity.

As the output opposed to going through the experience, we miss some of those elements of joy. And I also think it’s the expectation piece. Like it’s not hard to find [00:20:00] moments where you’re just surprised at how sophisticated a child can be in their learning. And you’re like, wow I didn’t know you could thought that.

And it’s because we have to give a space for the thinking and the sharing and the exploring that can somehow sometimes get Camp down, but let’s get through this standard and get through the curriculum today. 

Mandi Morris: I think teachers feel a lot of pressure to get through the curriculum. Exactly what you were, that’s, I hear that from teachers where it’s, we have this many units and we have to get through it.

And I remember as an educator, that pressure from admin of, you have to get through these units, even if your students aren’t meeting proficiency. And there was that. push and pull of how can I justify plowing through to the next unit when it builds on the unit we just did and half of my class is still showing proficiency or not trying to get to the place of proficiency.

Do you have any thoughts about or advice that you would give teachers when they’re in that push and pull, which I think is a real thing [00:21:00] teachers are experiencing? 

Jannelle Kubinec: Yeah, I think this is and again, it’s born out of good intent, which is we’re going to measure at the end of the school year through a standardized test, how much a student has learned around a particular set of standards there is.

And I do think that some of this is getting, I’d say, beyond the technical understanding of standards. To really just, what are we going at? What’s a successful learner look like at the midpoint end of school year? And how do I have that in mind so that I feel confident and comfortable making those adaptations and those trade offs, what do I need to introduce in my class so that students are going to be able to do that?

So what you just mentioned is some of it is yes, foundational knowledge, but what is true foundational knowledge? And what might be, I can think about other ways of accessing that learning, right? And I think that some of this is we position teachers where we feel like you have to have the answer to [00:22:00] your classroom, when in fact it’s a learning process, right?

And the adaptation needs of being in teaching is, requires both a presence, but it also, it’s good to have some validation. Yeah, that’s happening. And either for good or for improvement, like we’re going to learn through this. So I think some of it is the permission granting that we give to say, okay, are you seeing the success factors being met and what’s going to help us get there?

Because the curriculum is there to be a good guide. to what it looks like to cover everything. It’s a good guide to know if we’re going to be building the skills, but ultimately, how do we make sure that we’re building for some curiosity and that sense of joy that drives what makes school exciting place for students and for teachers.

Justin Hewett: That really resonates with me, especially if I go back to what you had said earlier, where We have to get feedback as we’re developing policy. If we push that out and we get feedback from teachers, like we’ve got to be willing to adjust, we’ve got to make adjustments as we go. [00:23:00] But I love that idea of creating space for serendipity, creating space for joy.

And it’s fun to hear about that classroom, Andy, where you had the most fun. And where you probably have the greatest growth in your students. So let’s go about this then. Jannelle, how do we put more policy in place to drive joy? What, like, how do we do that? Let’s go create some new public policy. And how do we do it in a way that is going to spark more joy?

Jannelle Kubinec: So, we have some avenues for this, right? We’re talking about school climate, we’re talking about student engagement, we’re talking about teachers, parents being engaged, and I actually think there’s a question that we could be centering around engagement that really just is about one thing, which is, why do you like going to school?

This is for students, this is teachers, I’d say for parents. How do you know when your kid wants to go to school? Our challenges with chronic absenteeism, which I actually think are pervasive not only in it’s every [00:24:00] state and we’re seeing it and it’s a pandemic loss of sorts, but it’s also saying something about how we see school as a resource, as a value.

And I think asking what makes you want to go to school, one of the key factors of going to school is relational. And it’s also success. And what you’ll hear from students that are either disengaged, either because of boredom, or because they feel behind, or they feel like they aren’t successful. And I think what we should be centering on as we think about what then should we support in policy, what should we support in practice, is what makes for success.

that success of a student. That they look and go, I’m so excited because this is keeping me feeling successful. This is keeping me engaged. This is keeping me feeling the joy. And I think it would really be a a factor for teachers. People leave the classroom because they’re not feeling successful.

And it’s because what do we need to do to support feeling successful? And some of it is just [00:25:00] permission to enjoy your job, permission to bring joy to your practice. And I think we could be designing a whole different way of thinking about what schooling looks like for children and the adults and when confronting is time the model, right?

Right now we have in particularly at the secondary level, we are centered on seat time as the accrual of a unit. For which, you know, and we know for our English learners, that’s a factor because we’re putting so much time into that we’ve squeezed out electives. And so how do we start to really envision what keeps the student engaged and where the learning needs occur and what kind of settings and approaches that allow for that sense of, I like going to school today.

I 

Justin Hewett: love that. I love that. That is fantastic. You already are building the teams to go build this into policy. I love it. 

Mandi Morris: And something we see in secondary students is that when they show up for school and they choose to show up for school, it’s often those elective classes that drive their [00:26:00] engagement. And when those elective classes are replaced by a standalone ELD block, I think those are.

Real questions that admin and the people responsible for building schedules have to sit with and I love that Just going back to the simple. Why? How what are our intended outcomes? How are we going to keep students here and excited about school? I wonder From your perspective, how much of that should be driven by policy and how much of it should be driven more locally by the culture of a school district?

Jannelle Kubinec: Yeah, I think a lot of this is policy alone can’t make things. They give you some parameters, right? They don’t create what ultimately is going to carry this as culture. And for that, leaders matter. For that, our teacher core resources matter. The culture is what makes it possible to have the relationships, to have that attention to how a student is feeling and [00:27:00] what the context is.

of their coming to school means in terms of outside supports and how they’re showing up in school that day. So I think that you cannot legislate. I was told by somebody as we were working on some things around school accountability and we were getting to, oh, the perfect school plan would look like this or the perfect district plan would look like that.

And we got through all these What I consider really cool reflection questions, and the person who is a user interface design expert said, Jannelle, forms are for people to get a C at the assignment. You cannot, on the form alone, provide that inspiration or the spark or the reflection that you’re trying to suggest can happen by doing this process.

Because you can ensure that they’ll comply with the process by doing the form, but you can’t provide real inspiration. And I think that’s where the culture piece comes, right? So I think we have to be careful to look at the way that we create the rules and structures and the forms and functions. They don’t get you [00:28:00] very far.

They can be enabling factors. But they’re not going to be that, that inspiring and that sense of, Oh, this really matters. And it matters to me that really comes from people. 

Mandi Morris: One of my very best friends is a long time first grade teacher. And I’ve, talked with her so extensively about her classroom and her teaching experience.

During COVID, we were in the same school district together. And the year after COVID and schools opening back up. And then I moved. back to Florida. And this year I just saw her recently and we were catching up about her school year and she said, this school year I ended the year feeling energized.

I felt more excitement from admin. I felt more unity amongst the students. It felt like there was finally this shift. Everybody was taking a collective breath. Okay. COVID’s over. The stressors after COVID’s over. Those initial classes that we had coming up through kindergarten, who had been at home with parents [00:29:00] trying to work from home during COVID, all that stress.

Are you seeing that elsewhere? Are you seeing some of that? Okay. We’re really past that. this now. That’s a yes 

Jannelle Kubinec: and no. I think that there, there’s some, we’re just too tired of it to indulge it any further. So we’re just gonna be what we are and move on. I think there’s still some residual trauma that you can see in students and you can also see in teachers that are like, God, that was, but I think you’re right.

The glimmer of, this is what it feels like to, to be a teacher. not be so worried and not be on guard or not to feel like the pressures of the world are upon us to take care of everything. I do see, and I think that’s why in this moment we have to sneeze on, like, how do you enjoy being at school? How do we really embrace what is learning?

It shouldn’t be learning as homework. Learning is an experience. Learning is in creating those critical thinking and curiosity and characteristics of what we want to be able to go through life engaging with, not just like having told to us or wrote knowledge and memory. [00:30:00] 

Justin Hewett: I love that. And I think that what you’re saying is well about around culture, I think is just so beautiful because that’s ultimately the culture that we create in a classroom, the culture that we create in our school as a principal.

I’ll never forget walking into as when I was early in my career and working at Imagine Learning, I’d walk into a building and I could tell pretty quickly how well that. Building was ran and what kind of a culture they had. And it’s just amazing how much a principal impacts that, right? Where the culture in a district.

And so it’s interesting to me because we found. What you mentioned as far as why do people, why are students coming to school, or why does anybody come to school relationships, relational, and then also success, and it makes me think with Flashlight, that’s one of the things that we’re really trying to do is build the relationship between the teacher and the student.

By giving the teacher a mechanism to be able to listen to the student more and be able to sit with it and then give feedback. And when that happens, that feedback loop [00:31:00] that builds the relationship and the student feels like somebody cares about them more. And I just love that. I think a focus on assets as well as what we’re talking about here, if we’re focused on the assets that our students bring.

That’s creating an environment where they feel successful, where they can be successful, right? Because it’s about what they have, what they can bring to this work. And that just really resonates with me. I think that focus on culture is something that I love hearing from you is knowing what an impact you have on policy and in driving this thinking, it means a lot to me that you’re thinking, yes, policy is really important and we’re going to do our best to get that right.

However, it’s not going to take the place of having a great culture and using great resources and tools that really resonated with me. 

Jannelle Kubinec: There’s a lot of strong body research that says noticing assets in kids or being able to call those out and building as a means to build relationships is a tremendous factor in their engagement and success in learning.

And you can’t [00:32:00] really legislate that, right? You can help support that through the ways that we create professional development or the data that we might be able to collect and share, but you really can’t legislate. Culture, right? I think, and sometimes we see that the ways that people see policies in terms of what are the rules around English learner classification and they say, Oh, that’s making it impossible for us to have the time or it’s making it impossible for us to get to know students the way we need to.

And I think that’s looking at the structures as the barrier to owning what we control, which is our, how we want to appear, how we want to show up for each other. And I think that. It’s hard to find the time and space to do that kind of thinking and planning and teaming That makes for really positive culture and being able to focus on assets I think a lot of times I see where we get really down on what’s happening Is because we’re unable to find the time or space to feel positive about what we’re seeing and it just feels like [00:33:00] everything’s So hard.

And I think you can flip that from the adults in the system to asking yourselves, how are kids seeing themselves? Are they seeing this as a hard experience? Are they seeing this as like a learning worthwhile experience and they can get validation and be recognized for their assets? 

Justin Hewett: And that’s one thing that we’ve really tried to focus on.

There’s this concept called the gap in the game and where the gap is where you are compared to where you want to be, right? Like where you are today versus where your ideal is. Sorry. Where a student needs to be to exit or that’s the gap, right? Is from where we are to where we want to be is the gap, but how do you measure success?

You measure success by looking backwards. You measure success by looking back to where you started and look how far you’ve come. And that the idea is that’s the game. And so for our English learner specifically. It’s so important that they’re able to see their game, that they’re able to see where they’re being successful and see that growth, because otherwise, if we’re just looking at this exit [00:34:00] criteria, that doesn’t really resonate with them.

It’s always, they’re always going to be in the gap and the teachers are in the gap and we’re looking at what the student can’t do and what’s holding them back. And I just, I love that idea of teaching a framework that helps people recognize that success and create that environment of success. That’s really fun.

Mandi Morris: I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about what is something that’s really exciting you right now in your work, whether it’s policy or research, what is something that is really bringing joy to your work right now? 

Jannelle Kubinec: Oh, where to start? I think of it as we are able to partner with some incredible states and districts And I think seeing this both the tremendous urgency that we face as we look and say, how do we make sure that we’re accelerating learning that where you have a workforce that there’s actually [00:35:00] so many positive.

Bright spots that we’re involved in. And I actually would say evidence that what we are getting a better handle on what works and how to bring that forward. So for instance, just came from a big convening that we held in Portland around multi language learn multi language learning. Learners and bringing together great research and practice.

And it was so exciting to think about the role of language development as a means of wherever it’s going to occur in the engagement of students into supporting their learning and whether it’s in the home language or whether it’s in English, but all together. It’s just the expectations for students being high leading to results.

In their learning, and that just came through loud and clear as we look at the evidence from new interventions that we’ve tried and seen the results of allowing kids to be real agents and [00:36:00] guides in their learning, and this includes around language development, and then also hearing at that conference from international perspectives.

Of the role of oracy, the role of being able to speak with others and interact. And again, I think that’s an interesting way to think about language development, which is through the communication of it, not just through the writing or the reading, but it’s like the ability to engage. So I just came from a trip overseas where I was in Japan and got to walk, visit a junior high.

Where all of these kind of, these things were being, the joy in the class was very palatable and it was kids talking to each other and they were working on English skills and, but they were doing it where they were working on gestures and they were working on just like concepts of what to say with very little interaction with their teacher and I think ported with this conference that we just held with national experts as well as school district leaders talking about how do you [00:37:00] engage learning? And I think that’s what I’m really excited about and see a lot of joy is centering on learners. And our very best work here at WestEd is work that’s centered on learners. And we are doing a whole lot that I think is making a difference and looking forward to how we, through our partnerships with districts and states and others, really make that apply in the world and have an impact.

Mandi Morris: Was that by any chance with Aida Walke? It 

Jannelle Kubinec: was with Aida 

Mandi Morris: Walke and our 

Jannelle Kubinec: National Center for Secondary Learners. 

Mandi Morris: So since we have you here, I have to ask. I really wanted to go to that workshop this year. I saw her at Naveh. She was telling me about it and something that struck me about that was there was time for teams to learn and then come back and unpack and strategize together as teams.

How did that end up going? Dr. Walke had said it was the first time you guys were trying this model and will you do it [00:38:00] again next year in case any of our listeners are like, I want to be there next year. Me. 

Jannelle Kubinec: We had 150 people at this conference and it included classroom teachers to district administrators to program officers at foundations and U.

S. Department of Ed and states etc. So it was the, it was like putting together a jigsaw. So what the sessions were done is everyone got assigned to various sessions and you came together at the group of five or six people to jigsaw what you learned. And then to come to action plans, and it was incredible.

And then this is an example, I think, of modeling. And this is what I said to Aida, is you’ve just modeled what you want to see in classroom learning, which is not that everyone gets the same thing, but everyone might be seeing a different part of this. And when they’re engaged together, where do they come to?

And what that provided for was, You know, we all went to different sessions. We all came back into these groups. We had to share with each other, which meant we had [00:39:00] to practice our ORC skills. We had to practice our listening skills. We had to practice our inquiry skills, and we then had to think through what does this come together at in a way that was generative and.

bus making some agreements and so really collaborative. And I think that is exactly the kind of modeling that how often do you get to do that in our day to day work. And those are the kinds of practices we want to see really present in, in a, an engaging, robust learning environment. So I think that was what was, it did.

Go well. And I think it carried forward in terms of, you just kept talking with people in all your breaks because you were having such an interesting interaction with people that you don’t normally interact with. And I think that’s a good thinking about how we group and what, you know, where’s the heterogeneous homogenous groupings and how do they work within our, uh, education systems.

We can learn a lot from each other. Right. And I think that was a real example of that [00:40:00] through this conference format. 

Justin Hewett: How cool. It sounds like Mandi is lobbying to get out to that conference now. I am 

Jannelle Kubinec: here. There will be one in the fall, Mandi. So we’ll make sure that you get an invitation because yeah, I expect it.

So I think this is one of the things that is particularly exciting about. Our work at WASDAT is, we’re doing what, we’re living into what we want to see the world to be. And so you’re going to get a model of practice, and I think the National Research and Development Center to improve English for secondary English learners was a real example of how we are very intentional about the construction of what we bring.

And we want to be able to both share information, but really truly share experiences. 

Justin Hewett: And not only that, but I can tell that you just, you have, you’ve loved it. Like you, you love the work you’re doing. Like you have almost like a perma smile as you are talking and talking through things as Mandi asked you that question, what are you enjoying the most?

It was so fun to see a smile just [00:41:00] come to your face so much. And I think that’s because you are doing such great work and you have an amazing team at WestEd that is really. Impacting learners and in our education environment and system really across the nation. I know that there are specific states that you work with at WestEd, but then I also know that you partner with districts.

How should we think about someone wants to do a partnership with you or work with you and get, what does that look like for a district or for a school or for a state and how should they go about thinking of approaching WestEd? 

Jannelle Kubinec: We’re in 50 states and all the territories right now through our various projects.

So that includes some federally funded technical assistance centers that serve all states and all territories to projects that we have around the country directly with districts or state education agencies. So I think I’d like to say we’re not just WestEd because we’re west coast, but we’re western hemisphere right now in terms of the reach that we have and the way that we’re working.

In terms of working with us, [00:42:00] we. Do provide some partnerships through our regional education labs, which we have several of those and are always looking for district research partners So that we can think about research to practice. So that’s the Northwest regional education lab as well as the West regional education lab where we are served as a primary manager.

So That’s one avenue. The other is we are offering training. So we have right now summer institutes going around various parts of the country. I was just talking to a team down the hall. It’s headed to North Carolina to do a training for 200 folks on our English learner supports through our QTEL program, which Mandi sounds like you’re familiar with.

And so we have trainings, but we also, if you go to our website, you’ll see a lot of things that we have as free resources from our research areas that we’re doing some policy work on and areas of ways to connect with us, with our subject matter experts, our work only for us. We really aim to be trusted advisors.

We aim to be good partners. We want to be a resource to the field and really [00:43:00] look. To we’re doing that right now through a thousand active projects and 1400 staff around the country, but our work only makes sense when it makes a difference in what’s happening for early childhood to workforce development.

And for that, we rely on partnerships and people that have needs and questions. And that’s really driving. What we do and why we do it. 

Justin Hewett: That’s fantastic. And you mentioned your website, your website is just a wealth of resources. You really have, like you have your leading voices podcast series. There’s a lot of really good things in there and there’s a number of recorded webinars.

So if anybody listening is interested in learning more, I would definitely recommend it. Go check out the website, wested. org. You can jump in, dive in and learn a bunch more. Jannelle, as you think about different projects that you’re working on, that you’re involved in knowing that there’s a thousand projects going on throughout WestEd, as the CEO now, you’ve been with WestEd for [00:44:00] 13 years and just recently became CEO within the last year or so, where do you find yourself investing your time?

What kind of projects draw your attention now? 

Jannelle Kubinec: Oh, that’s a great question. This is one of the things that I tell new staff that come to WestEd. You’re at risk of being overwhelmed by the magnitude of just interesting projects for which you can easily constantly be going, oh my gosh, I didn’t know that.

I want to know more about that. So I will answer this in saying, I think there are some things that are just truly Of what’s gotten us to this point that I look at and go, gosh, the legacy we hold and the impact we have made and can continue to make, there’s a body of work that includes our regional education labs and includes things like our migrant education work in California.

We have been a partner to the California Department of Ed for over 30 years, looking at what makes someone eligible for migrant education. And then how do you best support. Migrant ed students for which from that you can think about a lot of things [00:45:00] you can learn about students that are in transition, whether they’re homeless or foster youth.

And how do you think about programs and knowing and supporting? So we have work like that, that I think is just part of been the bread and butter of WestEd, including some early childhood work, looking at parent, infant, toddler, caregivers, and the importance of Early as you can supporting children in the relationship building, but also in exposure to learning and reading and songs and, and communication, I think, as I look at where we’re headed, we’re living in a complicated place.

We’re seeing issues with regard to student engagement, whether it be how we look at chronic apathetism, how we look at the needs and challenges of accelerated learning, how we look at what do you do with a workforce that’s Been exhausted from a pandemic. And how do you we’ve been challenged before the pandemic around how to recruit teachers and support a robust workforce.

So as I look at our work, I think about as we have this great body of [00:46:00] research, and we have this great body of support. And what we need to think about for what’s next is what is really the future structures. What’s the future form? What’s the future of how we best bring learning to communities? Thank you And I think that’s going to take some rethinking about the shapes and forms and is it a first career or second career for people?

Is it the way that we approach language acquisition development? I really think it’s a positive as we look at that as an asset around bi literacy and bi cultural. And so how do we start to build that? build schools around that, which is the acid base that we really have some opportunities with as we come out of the pandemic and think about, but I think we’re going to have some different workforce challenges and needs.

I think we’re going to have some AI on the scene and how does that affect what you think about in terms of classroom instruction and who’s going to be writing versus who’s going to be prompting. All of those are things that I’m just excited about in terms of [00:47:00] What we can be doing and thinking to guide and support the field as it’s evolving.

Mandi Morris: I think that what you’re landing on there at the end is staying curious, staying open and finding the joy in the changes. Change can be uncomfortable, it can be messy, but staying curious can help you to be open and find the joy and excitement, the opportunity in the change. As we wrap up, Jannelle, I would love to hear from you.

Who is someone who’s really impacted you, influenced you, whether in the past, current, that you feel like, man, this is work, a podcast, a book, an article other people need to know about and I want to share. 

Jannelle Kubinec: I’m going to make this real personal and I’d say it’s my grandfather. And it’s interesting. I just was at an event a couple of weeks ago celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lao v.

Nichols, which was around our English language learners and providing equitable access to learning. And this event was in San Francisco, which is [00:48:00] where my grandfather grew up, who grew up in Chinatown. And there are pictures of what really drove the Lao lawsuit, which were, uh, inequitable opportunities that look like closets where kids were sitting on boxes and crammed into spaces and then being told you only could speak English in those spaces.

And so the lawsuit was really brought in an interest to bring more equitable learning opportunities. And it was the first time that I sat there and I had heard my grandfather’s stories about Going to school in Chinatown and he dropped out at 13 and I’ve always thought oh, he just wasn’t interested in school He wasn’t an engaged learner and I’m sitting at this event.

I’m seeing these pictures and went. Oh my god He dropped out because school was horrible. And I it was like a moment for me where I just had to think Wow, how far have we come but how far do we have to go? And so I think in just a very personal way that we got to ask ourselves like You What do we do to make schools [00:49:00] great?

And we have made progress because we’ve worked at it. So getting to that next level and getting to that next place is going to be working at it and eliminating what I’ll call casualties. From education that just opt out because they go, this isn’t really helping me and it’s really hard. And I would just offer, I mean, for me, that’s what gets me up in the morning is like, how do we take what we have in terms of the resources and the opportunities to make school the best possible place and one that leads to thriving adults and success for all learners.

Justin Hewett: So good. So good. That’s fantastic. Thanks for sharing that personal note on your grandpa. I know it’s time for us to wrap up, but I want to just ask this one last question about for our teachers or educators that are listening, and if they want to get more involved in helping shape policy or influence it.

You mentioned earlier that hey, go work with your union or your association or something along those lines, and you can impact it that way. [00:50:00] What if they want to get more involved? Do you have a recommendation or some advice that maybe you could share with those individuals? 

Jannelle Kubinec: Yeah, run for office, run for school board.

And I say that not joking. I think we have one, a board member on the WestEd board that’s recently a teacher of the year. And he’s decided to run for the state board of education. And I think put yourself out there as to what it means to lead. So whether that be, Hey, I’m on site council, or whether that be, I want to be in my district advisory council or my EL advisory, those are all vehicles to get voice and I think being able to engage and to support that is one very localized way.

And then to the point of saying, Hey, I’m going to put myself out there and start to think about who are the public officials, whether it be me or someone else for which I give them some perspective. I also know another example of another teacher of the year in a neighboring state to California that just started to write articles for the newspaper about the perspective of a teacher.

And I think that’s so powerful. And what it was [00:51:00] doing for her students was modeling, like how to bring voice And use your words and use your skills to share a story of what’s going on in a classroom. So I think there’s like tremendous ways that we have not quite tapped into that go beyond become a public official to where’s your voice hitting?

How do you make sure that’s heard? But at the same time, don’t underestimate the power of your experience. from the classroom. The power of that experience is what indicates whether we’re on the right track, off the track, needing to make some changes, and being able to be constructive around, here’s some solutions to what I see as the challenge, I think is well received, and there’s many avenues to bring that voice.

Justin Hewett: Oh, what great advice. Gosh, Jannelle, what a wonderful conversation today. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing, introducing us all to WestEd and teaching us about policy and some of these types of things. But I think this is a, this was a really special conversation for us. We’re really grateful you were here.[00:52:00] 

Thanks for being here, Jannelle. 

Jannelle Kubinec: I appreciate the opportunity, Mandi and Justin. This really was a fun conversation to have and I’m really glad that you’re out there doing work in the world that’s making a difference. 

Justin Hewett: Yeah, thank you for leading the way over there at WestEd. 

Mandi Morris: Thank you for being here. This was such a great conversation today.

Justin Hewett: Thanks, Jannelle. Thanks for being here on the ML Chat podcast. Thanks for listening everybody. We’ll talk to you soon.