Public Education's Netflix Moment: Adapting to a Competitive Future
Join CT as he explores the evolving landscape of public education with Dr. Frank Redmon. In this episode, they discuss public education’s “Netflix moment” and the growing need for schools to embrace marketing, transparency, and innovation. Dr. Redmon shares how real-time data, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) are driving inclusivity and improving outcomes. Discover practical leadership strategies for building trust, fostering collaboration, and navigating the challenges of today’s competitive educational environment.
Key Takeaways:
The "Netflix Moment" in Education: Public schools face increasing competition from charter and for-profit institutions, requiring them to market their value and success stories effectively to maintain trust and relevance.
Breaking the Stigma of Marketing: Public education can use marketing as a tool for transparency, community engagement, and trust-building—not as propaganda but as a way to highlight real accomplishments.
Data-Driven Leadership: Leveraging both formative and summative assessments ensures schools can dynamically adapt to students' needs, improve outcomes, and communicate successes clearly.
Innovative Approaches: Initiatives like Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) promote inclusivity by meeting the diverse needs of students and fostering equitable learning environments.
Leadership Lessons: Effective leadership involves adaptability, clear communication, and a commitment to serving students and communities over personal accolades.
Building Trust Through Transparency: Open and honest communication bridges gaps between community expectations and school performance, reshaping public perceptions of education.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Meet Dr. Frank
04:00 Marketing Challenges
08:36 Understanding Skepticism
12:16 Simplifying Public Education
17:09 Frank's Leadership Journey
28:34 Key Initiatives
39:12 Conclusion
Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk
Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung
Connect with Dr. Frank Redmon: linkedin.com/in/francis-redmon-01841522
Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda
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Transcript
Frank x CT
CT: [:CT: again to the engaging leadership show, where we talk about how to grow leaders and drive impact for your people. I'm your host for today, Cheetung or CT. And today we're going to be talking about how do we market ourselves better. better in public education is coming to what I've noticing to be what I call a Netflix moment.
CT: And right on the ballot this year is a number of states thinking about increasing school choice. And with that, as an economist, I've been thinking about how increased choice generally. leads to improvements in quality, improvements in welfare, and improvements in utility across the board, and more competitive environments.
then do we market ourselves [:CT: Welcome to the show.
Frank: It's a pleasure and an honor to be with you today.
CT: Frank, you've just taken over as a superintendent at Keystone Central, and one of the things that we were chatting about before coming in was really this idea of, sometimes we sell ourselves short in public education. We do a lot of good work, but we're not really telling or not very good at telling people about it.
CT: How have you seen that play out in your experience.
system was seen as the [:Frank: And we didn't really have to market because everyone went to their public schools, except for, again, a few of those folks that went to the faith based options that have been out there forever. The environment now is very different. We see a lot of the for profit organizations or the other charter schools that are connected to the public school system are finding ways to tell a story about education that is attractive.
Frank: to a significant portion of our students and families. And the public education system, those of us who, especially those of us who have been doing this for a while, don't understand, first of all, that we need to, or maybe more importantly, how to get into this business of telling the story of the great things that are happening in public schools.
t. And through the pandemic, [:CT: Like, how have you And seen this trend over time and what are some of the tools that are available to public educators today to be able to tell the story better.
Frank: I do think that the need for us to tell our story in a in a more broad and deep way simultaneously has really accelerated, as you're saying, since the pandemic. I can speculate about some of the reasoning why, but it seems like a lot of the rhetoric in the community has been anti public education.
ing on in the public schools.[:Frank: And we're not really sure what to do about that. And I think that there's a, let me see if I can figure out a way to say this properly, along with that increased volume of advertisement for alternatives to public education, because the public education system isn't doing the same level of marketing.
Frank: I think there's a lot of folks who are filling in their own information because the public schools aren't providing it. So if you don't know what's going on in the public school, you may hear something from someone else suggesting significant issues with learning or significant issues with bullying or teacher quality or any of those things.
Frank: And because we're not doing a very good job of advertising all of the positive things that we're doing to ameliorate, Some of the issues they do see with bullying and all of the cyber issues that are coming up with kids people are making up their own stories, right? They're creating a narrative based on their own mental structures and ideas about how the world works.
Frank: So I think [:Frank: It's a little bit of marketing, a little bit of advertising, but it's basically telling our story based on the realities of and the everyday experiences of our kids and our teachers. Yeah. Because we're not doing that, people are creating their own version of the story. And that, I think, goes to make it seem like, in the public narrative, that things aren't going very well in public schools.
pace and with at least in my [:CT: And if public schools are not proactive about telling their story about showcasing good work that's being done. What tends to happen is any communication that comes after. Becomes tinted with this sense of defensiveness and that just
Frank: That's right.
CT: perpetuates the spiral.
ve stance that schools often [:Frank: And yeah. They exacerbate it they find little flaws in what is stated, or they find the gaps in the factual information and backfill that with their own information that furthers their agenda about disrupting the really positive things that are going on in public
CT: Yeah. And one of the things that I think public education struggles with also is there's a lot of negativity sometimes around the idea of marketing where, it's snake oil salesmen out there, like telling you some fake story about some fake product that they're selling to you to get some fake results.
CT: And I think because of that stigma there's this, I would, at least in the educators that I've spoken with there's a certain amount of skepticism about using marketing tools which are agnostic to who uses them, but using marketing tools to be able to communicate better with the public.
ncounter that at all in your [:Frank: You're making me think about the ways that I learned about marketing and advertising way back when I was a student in public schools, and that was how propaganda was used to convince people of something. And, propaganda has a negative connotation just in the very word. And so if for the folks who are involved in in leading schools and working in schools, grew up with this idea that marketing and advertising was propagandistic, then they're going to have kind of a negative view of that and be more reluctant to engage in it.
Frank: And any tools that might support those also carry with it, that sort of negative connotation, not intentionally necessarily, but I think that's the The schema that has been built up with us, at least it was for me, as I'm learning into this role over the course of the last 10 or 12 years that I've been working as a superintendent, that schema of advertising is to lead people away from what they would naturally think, right?
s built into it. And I guess [:CT: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I wonder to what extent. It is also just a field of marketing that has been I guess moving so quickly because if I look at even just the private sector and the business world I'm in technology. So when we, when you look at digital marketing and how it's evolved just over the past 10 years, It is insane.
CT: You started out with just 10, 15 years ago. The way to game Google and to appear at the top of Google listings was just to have a white background on your page and just spam a lot of the keywords that you wanted to rank for on the back of the page and have Google pick that up.
years, the algorithm has [:CT: And I, Seth Godin is one of the gurus in marketing. And I think the way that he talks about this, It is really sophisticated and I think, but at the same time also really simple and it just struck me as in this conversation that is some paradigm that could really be useful for public education is like how in your experience like leading up to becoming superintendent and being superintendent multiple districts.
CT: Have you ever had. to go through like a marketing course. Yeah,
I don't know it's been a few [:Frank: There were some components of it how you communicate and how you make sure that your parents in the community are aware. Of what's going on, but that's a little bit different than making sure that people understand the positive things that are going on and having that kind of push towards the positive, right?
Frank: It it's always been a make sure you're properly disseminating information, which is a very different sort of context then make sure that people see the amazing things that are going on in school so they can feel good about sending their kids to
CT: absolutely. And I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit and say, one of the things that you learn in marketing is that your message tends to have to be extremely simple. And extremely clear. The clarity comes from the simplicity and you normally would anchor it on a few key points of value.
would ask you like right now [:Frank: So this is a really tough thing. And actually I talk about that with my team all the time. One of the things that I started saying through the pandemic was nuance does not carry in the public discourse. And it's to that point that schools are really complicated, nuanced systems and to convey the things that are happening are multi layered and multifaceted.
nd being responsible citizen [:Frank: And even keeping it as simple as that has opened up lots of doors for wondering about what that means, right? It's hard to come down with definitive terms that are unassailable and stand alone when you're dealing with education, in my opinion. And it may be that I'm just not smart enough to figure out what are the things that we should say, but I think all of us are educating in those kind of domains that I just mentioned, right?
Frank: About being responsible, about being a problem solver, about being a good citizen and a great communicator. But how do we convey that in a way of what does that mean for the experience of my kindergarten student or my seventh grader or my senior, like that, going from what we want to do to what the experience is, can be a big
extent nowadays it's really [:CT: They're experiencing your marketing at the beginning and all the way through, they somehow blend into your product and then they're experiencing your product, but that's part of your marketing too. And so the only way that you can deliver good marketing is to have a good product. But, and do you find that to be true as well in public education?
Frank: but that's an interesting idea. As you were saying that, I was thinking, so what's our hook, right? What is the thing that draws, what is our marketing hook that draws people in so they can start experiencing because once they start experiencing, then that reinforces the marketing that we're doing.
least get people to ask the [:Frank: So what does that mean? And we say, great. I'm glad you asked that question. Let me talk about all the programs that we have here at our current technical education center. And through that, we're able to draw some students back from the traditional K 12 public education system alternatives back to us.
CT: I love that. Yeah, sorry, keep
Frank: that idea yeah, that, that idea of the marketing leads to experience, which reinforces the marketing, getting that loop set up for 80 percent of people. That are in our community that are strongly behind our public schools and what we're doing. That's already established. I think there's a component of what we're talking about the need for marketing and all that sort of thing that ultimately isn't the majority.
n rural Pennsylvania at this [:Frank: That's the situation here. It may be different in urban centers or in different states, but this is what I've seen here and in Washington and in the rural district where I was working before. It becomes more about how do we look at the difference between the expectations of that 20 percent and what their experiences were, and then looking at that larger group, that 80 percent or so and making sure that their experiences are meeting their expectations.
CT: Yeah, and in the course of this conversation, one of the things that strike me is that it's quite unusual the way that you're thinking about this. Even the tagline skills to pay the bills. I really like that. And it's very pithy. It's very memorable. And I'm going to switch gears a little bit to talk about your personal leadership journey that got you here because it.
about your path to becoming [:Frank: I never imagined when I was a young person that I would end up in the role that I am right now as I went through high school, I was certain that I was going to be. And then as the, as I went through high school and reality set in about the cost of education and the amount of time and effort that I had put into high school to set myself up to be successful in those areas, just wasn't there.
Frank: And so I had to shift gears and make some decisions about what I was going to do with my future. That wasn't in line with what I had dreamed my future to be. And so I went into the military in the United States Navy and learned a lot about leadership. Some of those things very positive, some of those things that I would never do as a leader, but learning lessons nonetheless.
a reinforcement loop. Around [:Frank: And I think that was the sort of mental reinforcement for me to say, Hey, maybe this leadership thing might be something for me. So I left from the military knowing that I wanted to be an education. The part that I did leave high school with was I wanted to be an educator. Mostly because of the experiences I had.
choed in the students that I [:Frank: I wanted to be a teacher because I didn't want anyone to end up in the same place where I was with that huge difference of, I want to do this, but there's no way I can get there. So I went to school and became a teacher. In a small school in Wisconsin I thought originally that I was going to work in public speaking and theater, but found out pretty quickly there's no jobs in teaching just public speaking and theater.
Frank: So I took a little bit of a different path and. I ended up teaching physics which was what I did in the Navy. I was an operator in a nuclear, in the nuclear power plants in the Navy. The physics thing was okay too. But through that I saw myself as a leader, as a teacher, but leading students.
scinating exercise for me to [:Frank: And it was never going to be vitally important for them to understand the intricacies of calculus or the things that I was trying to teach them in physics and I learned somewhere in that first year that it was more about teaching them about problem solving, how to take some sort of really complex issue, break it down into constituent parts that were relatively easy to solve and reassembling that to come up with a solution.
Frank: And again, I was thinking about that in terms of leadership, not necessarily that I was Conveying that information to students, but helping to lead them down a path so they would build those kind of skills, right? The problem solving skills to get through whatever it was, whether it was how hard a bug was impacting their windshield or how to work out their home budget as they're deciding what groceries to buy and kind of everything in between.
where we couldn't support it [:Frank: He said he told me something about the way I communicated, the way I understood people, the way I saw our role as being service oriented and not necessarily disseminators of information. He said, I think that's going to serve you all and the students that you serve well in a leadership capacity.
Frank: I went and we moved to California. I worked in the power plants a little bit more, but knew that I needed to get back into education. Went back to school, got my principal certification. And my first position in leadership and education was an assistant principal in a district just south of Seattle.
s who were just coming in as [:Frank: Everything, it just ran the gamut across the social and political spectrum of America. I thought it was a fascinating school for me to learn about, first of all, that how to change my thinking from the melting pot idea to the salad bowl in terms of how different groups of people integrate and work together to create a system and then help others to think similarly.
Frank: We're not trying to amalgamate everyone into a consistent version of what an American is, but how we can look at the mix of people being the important thing. And how does that manifest itself in schools, right? How do we work with kids who are not like us? How do we help kids work with others that are not like them in a way that furthers the goal of education, right?
d interesting and constantly [:Frank: And so that was a great learning experience for me in terms of that idea of how do we lead. And work in a school system that isn't about, again, that amalgamation and changing everybody into a consistent. Maybe consistent is the right way, isn't the right way to say it. We're not trying to create a bunch of folks that come out looking the same or behaving the same or thinking the same or speaking the same.
Frank: But how do we accentuate who they are and help them grow into their passions and fit the needs of their particular communities?
CT: Got it. And I [:CT: Go beyond disseminating information, the sense that you had that you were leading students as a teacher using physics as a medium of instruction rather than of like content. to be delivered. And it sounds like that was the core of your leadership style from then. And it seems to resonate today.
changed? In your leadership [:Frank: I hope I'm constantly changing, quite honestly, and not a huge dichotomous changing, right? I'm not looking for a paradigm shift every day or anything like that. What I'm looking for is an evolution to be able to better serve. Where I am and the people that are here. That's one of the things that was when I moved into that district north of Seattle, one of the things the superintendent told me at the time was, this is more like an athletic coach in that you were hired to do a job.
leadership needs to grow and [:Frank: And because everywhere is just a little bit different, that necessarily means that my leadership needs to evolve to fit the context. And I've been really fortunate, as you pointed out, to be in a lot of different contexts and learn lots of different ways of thinking about people and leadership and how that the variability of people necessitates a variability in my leadership style dependent on the individual needs. So I think that, to be really specific to your question, I've seen my leadership grow in that recognition and embracing of variability. It's always been there, as you pointed out, right? That was the core, is I recognize that everybody needs something a little bit different. I've learned a little bit more about what those differences are and systems [00:27:00] and structures that help reinforce support of variability.
CT: Yeah, that's a very nuanced point. And I think you make it really well because it speaks a lot to be able to transition from educator to, like nuclear power plant leader and back into education. And then even within education shifting from. All the way in, in near Seattle to where you are now in Pennsylvania you've had to constantly be adapting, constantly find yourself in different contexts to, to adapt your leadership style.
CT: And would you say that you've gotten more adaptable and resilient with. With all these changes, or do you feel like this is just part and parcel of your journey from the beginning?
d the idea of existentialism [:Frank: And it's maybe from that kernel that everything else has grown, right? The idea of if I can adapt my leadership to fit the context so that I can support the people where they are. And help them reach the goals that we agree on together, then it helps the system out. It helps the students out, ultimately, which is the whole purpose of the work that I do.
CT: And I'd love to talk a little bit more about that within Keystone Central. What would you say are some of the initiatives that you put in place and, that you're working on today that you feel is taking all of this experience that you've had And applying it in a positive way to impact the staff, the community, and the students.
I get to that. First of all, [:Frank: There have been people who have them. I've been working in the schools here for as long as there's been a commonwealth of Pennsylvania and even before that. And so there's a reason that the systems exist in the structure and the interrelationships as they do now. And so I think it's pretty important for me as a leader or anyone coming into this leadership role to sit back and watch and learn and try to figure out why things are like they are.
don't understand the context [:Frank: All of the things, all of the aspects of school district, I guess that's one of the things that I enjoy about my work is it's not just the learning and teaching part, but it's also what's going on with our buses. What are we thinking about in terms of our cafeterias and our custodians and all of those kinds of things together?
the district and helping the [:Frank: My predecessor was masterful in setting up systems to start moving the district in a direction that is improving the condition for learning for kids and is supportive of the staff and the community to help build the pride of what's going on in public school systems, but also in the day to day teaching and learning things that are happening in classes.
Frank: So I was really fortunate to walk into a really good system where most of my role is. More around the nuance and margins rather than is trying to take the ship in a different direction. Is multi tiered systems of supports.
aching structures that, that [:Frank: And that's called tier two of the multi tiered system of supports. They need a little bit of extra things. And then there's another 5 percent that needs even more intense supports and services. That's the tier three in order for the multi tiered system of supports construct to work the tier one, that fundamental thing that all. experience has to be really strong, right? It's the foundation on which tier two and tier three are sitting. And what I noticed was there was, it was solid, but needed some extra support. And what was, I think this is the part of the, Frank Redman style or my experiences coming in is what I've seen is.
called universal design for [:Frank: And so the corollary in education is this universal design for learning, something that in the district, not many people had heard about. And so that's something that I learned about, got really deep in, in Washington. And I'm bringing here is this idea of how do we embrace variability? How do we plan for all of the learners that come into our classroom in a way that's different than differentiation, which was a popular word that's been thrown out for a long time in education, but universal design is a little bit different than that. Basically making all of those different ways of accessing or accessing learning or expressing your learning or engaging in that learning. In differentiation, you say, for UCT, it's going to be [00:34:00] this set of things. And for you, Frank, it's going to be this set of things. And for you, other person, it's going to be this set of things.
Frank: That's the idea of differentiation. With universal design for learning, we're saying, here's all the options. I'm going to help you, CT, learn about which one of those options is the best for you so that you can engage and self regulate your own learning as we go through these tasks that we're all going to accomplish together.
Frank: Setting up that kind of tier one really gets at ensuring that we're recognizing and honoring all of the different narratives that our students bring when they come into schools. All of the different ways that, that students are able to pay attention and engage in learning all of the different passions and ideas and ways of being that our students bring with them can be incorporated with that way of thinking around education.
system at all of the levels [:CT: I really like that. It sounds like you've stepped into a district that was already humming and running quite well. And then this is the next level that you're pushing towards to take it to. And when I think about the multi tiered support system one of the things that immediately came to mind for me is you would need almost extremely granular data and.
with the standard approach, [:CT: Right off the bat, which part of the population is 80 percent is, and so you got to keep adapting and figuring it out. Like, how do you what kind of systems have you put in place or are you currently using?
Frank: And I think there's another dimension to what you're saying there. That 80%. There, there's generally three buckets that we look at, maybe buckets is a weird way to put it, but we look at the learning and teaching 80 percent and we look at the social emotional learning 80 percent and we look at the behavioral 80 percent and those 80 percent are not necessarily lined up right different students may fall in a different need area, depending on which of those three things we're looking at.
capture all the things that [:Frank: So one of the things that I think my predecessor did really is to start to set up these data collection systems, and so we're continuing to try to implement those both collection and monitoring and analysis systems so that we can look at the things like state testing, which is important because it's a standard to which we are held by the federal and state governments, but also much more granular data about how is a student engaging and engaging.
rticular lesson, or how is a [:Frank: That's those things that give us data about how a student is progressing along the pathway of learning and the summative assessments, which tell us how did the student do? Or I think more importantly, how did the teacher do in helping the students learn? Whatever thing it
Frank: It requires lots of systems, lots of maintenance, and lots of continual work on what data do we have, how are we using that data?
Frank: And what is it telling
at and the learning that the [:CT: And these are the initiatives that aren't doing so well. And that's why we're stopping them, right? Even though they might be popular. Okay. And and I think this kind of really rounds out like this whole idea of you're running a modern school district that has its communications down pat.
coming a leader in education.[:CT: How would you advise them to think about that step?
Frank: This role is one of the most rewarding service roles that I've ever been in, in my life. And I wouldn't give it up for much of anything. That being said, it takes an incredible time and effort and dedication to things that are not about me or my family. So my recommendation to young leaders is understand what the commitment is or should be in order to be able to have a school district or lead a school district and be in service of a school district that's doing the right things in the right way over time never stop learning and be vulnerable and understand that there are important aspects of transparency and communication that have limits.
ool district, but as we were [:Frank: How do you prioritize those things to be the most effective leader that you can? Not. And I'm not a leader for my sake because it's, that's, if you're in it for your sake, if you're your own sake, then you're barking up the wrong tree and you're going to be pretty frustrated. But how do you prioritize those things so at the end of the school year, when you're shaking hands with the graduates after they've picked up your diploma, you can feel really good about the work that your system has done.
nd the output is The success [:CT: But, it's been so wonderful having you on the show. Thank you for joining us. And for all of you listening, thank you for listening. If you want the show notes for this show, head over to www dot engaging leadership show dot com, where you'll find write ups of this show and many others. It's a whole repository of all the different episodes that we've had.
CT: And I welcome you to join that any time my name is C. T. Thank you for joining us on the engaging leadership show.
