Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Florida Commissioner of Education, Dr. Henry Mack

Transcript

Florida Commissioner of Education, Dr. Henry Mack · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do this. It's the third hour of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the radio program known as the Morning Show with Preston Scott.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I try to call it Common Sense Amplified, and we
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: try to live up to that the best we can.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And it's going to be fun. This is going to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: be a fun hour. We've been working at this for
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a little while. He is the relatively new Commissioner of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Education for the Sunshine State. Dr. Henry Mack joins me
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in studio. How are you doing?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I'm doing well, thanks.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Good morning. Yeah, this is going to be fun. you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: said you'd be happy to take some calls, so let
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: me point out. And call screeners up. Once we get
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the call screener up, the phone lines are going to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: be open, 850-205-WFLA. If you'd like to ask a question,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you up front, I'm going to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: be the dictator of this time. I will not surrender
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a bunch of it because there are a lot of
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: things I want to talk with Dr. Mack about. He
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is Florida's Commissioner of Education, and it is a very
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: difficult job. And I remember when we first had you
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: on the show, I asked you because we've had your
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: predecessors on, but not many have stayed very long. And
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I asked you up front, you want to be the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: commissioner of education or do you want to be the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: president of a college or university in Florida? And you
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: were very clear.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a hundred percent. We're in it to win it.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: We need stability. We need leadership. We need vision. And
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: certainly as a faculty member myself and an educator first,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I know that that matters for the sake of the
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: wellbeing of the students that we're trying to uplift.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Continuity.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So continuity, both at the agency level for the 2000
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: plus employees that are here in Tallahassee and across the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: state serving the great state of Florida, but also for
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the nearly 4 million K-12 students and then the higher
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: ed students on top of that, the continuity, the leadership,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the vision, and the care to attend to the whole
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: person that is the student at the end of the day,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: that matters and that can't happen if you don't have
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: stability at the top. So yes, we're in it to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: win it. You and I just stepped into an elevator.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: We got about 20 floors. And I ask you, tell me,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: how did you come to become the Commissioner of Education?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: What's your background?
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so background, born and raised in South Florida, low-income,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: middle-income household. Dad and mom worked paycheck to paycheck. My
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: dad was an electrician. Mom was a secretary. My dad
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: was laid off, pivoted, upskilled, reskilled. It was a great life,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a great life. They sacrificed everything for me to go
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to private school in South Florida, Catholic education, Catholic high school,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Catholic college. And then through that experience, fell in love, frankly,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: with philosophy and the wonder that is the intellectual life.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: And in growing up Catholic, as well as entrenching myself
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: in the Western canon and the great philosophical texts, of
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: human history, fell in love with, again, the idea that
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I could do this for a living, that the idea
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that I could read, write, teach, and sort of cultivate
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: curiosity and wonder out of others, the fact that I
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: could do that for a living by way of teaching
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: is what excited me the most. And so I did that,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: fell into a faculty position, started teaching, quickly then realized
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: that I had a passion also for helping individuals find jobs,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: that It wasn't just about cultivating wonder and happiness and
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the well-lived life, but that can't happen if people don't
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: have the means to be free, the means to, again,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: self-determine for themselves the future and the families that they want.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: And that all hinges upon a high-wage or potentially high-wage career.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And so I found myself in the community college system
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: here in the state of Florida trying to bridge the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: gap between education and employment for many of our students
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: across the college system. And through that, then sort of
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: rose up through the ranks and became a state agency official.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, here we are. But there was
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: another stop.
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  Speaker 1: Where? After? Yes.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So there were a few stops along the way. Because
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: you're back in Florida. Yeah, there were a few stops
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: along the way. So grew up in South Florida, became
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: a faculty member in South Florida, higher ed administrator at
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Broward College, came to the agency to lead workforce education
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: and training for the state of Florida back in 2019
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: when the governor got elected. left the agency after four years,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: went to Washington, D.C. to become U.S. Secretary, Assistant Secretary
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: of Labor, overseeing all unemployment, reemployment, training systems, and all
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: that stuff. And now I'm back.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And that experience in labor absolutely informs... a macro view
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of the educational world. Absolutely.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Education, yes. We need to bridge the gap between employment
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and education. We need to drive economic outcomes, and that
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  Speaker 2: can't happen if we're not cultivating and educating well-informed citizenry,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: but also the knowledge, skills, and abilities that, you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: matters for the sake of our economy.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: What have you determined so far that is needed to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: not just make Florida's educational system, public ed system, better,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: but to be the best in the country, if not
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: the world?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question. Back to my prior point,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the coupling between economic need and employer need and industry
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: need and what the education system is doing, that could
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: be better. We need to drive industry at the table
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: or have them at the table with students and with faculty,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: with teachers, so that we are understanding what the jobs
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of the current economy require, but also certainly the jobs
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of the future. And again, what is education if we're
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: not preparing students both for a well-lived life to cultivate wonder,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: to cultivate curiosity, but also that can't happen on its
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: own or in a vacuum or apart from the skills
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: needed to get them a paycheck. And I think we
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: need to do better by way of coupling the two.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Second thing, we need to expand choice. Parental option, parental rights,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: and the kind of investments we are making, I think
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: we need to double down on it. Competition drives quality. Agreed. Right?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So the more money that we could give in the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: pocket of the parent to drive the kind of decisions
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: that they think is best for their kids, the better.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That improves outcomes across the public schools. It improves outcomes
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: across the private schools, the public charters, the public choice,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the non-public choice, everything. Everything is getting better as a
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: result of the competition. And again, the kind of model
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: that we have here in Florida, which is a free
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: model of one that assumes that choice is good in
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: this context, it's driving quality. So I think we need to, again,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: refine it, invest more, and figure out innovative ways to
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: drive industry to the table with educators.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: One of the talking points that the opponents of school
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: choice frequently march out, I think oftentimes at the best
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of the teachers' unions, is that, well, it's an unfair
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: playing field. we in the public school system have, I
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: want to give you a chance to address this though,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: because the talking point is we at the public schools
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: have to achieve a certain level and they're not the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: same set of standards in the schools that people are
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: choosing to go to. It's apples and oranges. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: So I think that criticism is unfounded precisely principally because, well, one,
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  Speaker 2: it's not true. We know that standards are consistent across
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: both public and private. There are assessments, there are mechanisms
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: to assess learning on the private side. In the same
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: way that there is on the public side, we have
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the data, the schools report the data. We know what
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: kids are doing at St. David Catholic School, my elementary
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: school back down in South Florida, as compared to Griffin Elementary,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: which was my public elementary school. So the idea that
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: we're not able to have insight into teaching, learning, and
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: quality in a choice world is just patently untrue.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Do the private schools have a set of baseline standards
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  Speaker 1: they have to hit?
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  Speaker 2: Baseline standards meaning in terms of achievement or learning?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: In order to do what?
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  Speaker 1: Get the diploma, move on to the next grade, whatever
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  Speaker 1: it might be.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, sure. In many respects, many of the private institutions
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  Speaker 2: and schools themselves are accredited by the same accrediting bodies
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: that our public schools are. So it's not like it's
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: an entirely unregulated, unaccountable market.
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  Speaker 1: But that's one of the talking points. It's the Wild
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: West out there with private schools. No, it's not.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And what better mechanism, Preston, to ensure for quality... than
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: to give money to the parents so as to allow
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: them to self-select. Sure. Right? That's the accountability measure. That's
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: the accountability standard. That's where quality comes with parents deciding
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: what schools are best for their kids. And the schools
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: that are crappy, they'll close. Well, we hope they would close. Right?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: We're seeing that they don't always close, but I get
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: your point.
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  Speaker 2: It's just the point. The point is, is get the
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: bureaucracy out of the education business to begin with and
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: restore autonomy to the parents.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: 21 minutes past the hour. It is the Morning Show
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: with Preston Scott. Dr. Henry Mack, Superintendent of Education for Florida,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: is with me in studio. What have you learned so
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: far in the first three months, or what have you observed,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: what have you found out about the disparity between kids
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that are being promoted and graduating, but maybe not necessarily
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: at the level they should be educationally? Are we seeing
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: social promotions? Is there another issue that might be driving that?
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Because we have kids that are, I mean, it's evidenced
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: by what's happening in higher ed. You've got more remedial
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: classes going on because kids are graduating high school without
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the requisite knowledge that's supposed to come with a high
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  Speaker 1: school diploma.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fascinating claim. I don't know if the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: data necessarily bears that out or if that's true in
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the way that you've described it. What have I learned?
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I've learned that our teachers, public, private, and everyone in
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the education system and enterprise is so committed, so committed,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: so enthusiastic. to help students succeed. And what have I learned?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I'm learning that the measures that we've implemented over the
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: past eight years are working. Our reading attainment rates are up.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Math attainment rates are up. Over 150,000 kids over the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: past two years are reading at or above level at
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: historic rates. So we're trending in the right direction. We
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: are moving the needle. Highest graduation rate, I think in
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Florida's history or nearly in modern history at 92%. Highest
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: post-secondary attainment rate, employment rates, industry certifications, embedded industry workforce
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: ready credentials. Students are getting them at a rate or
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: rather at a level not ever witnessed before. So these
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: are work ready certifications in CompTIA, in IT, in nursing,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: in healthcare, LPNs, et cetera.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: You name it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: They're walking away with in-demand credentials that are mapped to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: a job. And so I don't necessarily think it's a
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: true claim to say that we're graduating students at high
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: rates that they then themselves are unable to exceed in post-secondary.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: For the most part, they do. I'm not denying that
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: there is remediation occurring at the post-secondary level, but it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: a whole new world at a college or university. And yeah,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: there are summer slides, there are things, there are gaps,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: there are issues that happen with particular subsets of students
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: that the colleges and the universities gratefully take on and fix.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: What's the bar? What would be a fair way for
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a parent, even a grandparent here in Florida, to know
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that their kid is being measured against what standard? In
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: other words, what is the metric that you think needs
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to exist? so that when a child graduates from kindergarten,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: middle school, high school, these various benchmarks, that they have
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: not just some benchmark that is at a standard that
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: might be considered great compared to before, but not to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the standard that we need to be achieving at to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: be the best in the United States or best in
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, I would invite the parent to talk
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: to the principal about, and ask about progress monitoring and
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the best standards. So many years.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Ago- Explain what the best standards are for people that
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is those necessary conditions of learning that
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: students must demonstrate as having in order to matriculate or
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: advance through grade level. And it is, those standards are
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: embedded both in English language arts and learning, civics, science,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: and math. And so teachers, students, must demonstrate knowledge against
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: those standards or benchmarks in order to graduate from kindergarten
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: into first, first to second, second to third, et cetera.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: And so that mastery is scaffolded over the life of
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the student, and we assess them multiple times during the year,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: to understand where Henry or Preston is relative to where
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Henry or Preston must be at the end of the
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: school year. And the good news is, again, the majority
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: of students are demonstrating great progress. Fun fact for your listeners,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I just got the data in from Progress Monitoring 1.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: We take a snapshot of where Preston is back in September,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and we measure Preston, that is to say what he
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: knows compared to what he needs to know in May
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: in order to graduate from the fourth grade.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: So it's called progress monitoring. Again, these are snapshots, non-high
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: stake tests that come in. The data says that 42%
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: of students scored on or above grade level in English,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: up three percentage points from last fall. Math progress monitoring
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: is at 17%, up 1% from last fall. This means
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: that kids are coming in knowing at higher rates what
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: they need to know at the end of the academic term.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And these assessments, again, back to your original question, Informed
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: teaching and learning, it allows teachers to calibrate and to
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: characterize learning so that they meet Preston where Preston is
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: at compared to where Preston needs to be. But parents
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: need to know this. They need to know that we
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: are engaging their students in things relative to where they
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: need to end up and then remediate them, teach them
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: across the life of the semester or academic year.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: We were talking in the break a little bit about
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: technology and artificial intelligence and all that. I'm curious. I've
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: been on this since a study came out in 2014, Dr. Mack,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that kids that don't handwrite notes fall behind. They don't
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: retain as much information. And now we're seeing Chromebooks and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: laptops and everything being the way to teach kids these days.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's working out very well. I appreciate
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the value of AI and all of that, but the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: bottom line is Is there any discussion on saying, no,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: you're going to take notes by hand?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some discussion. Certainly, we know the value of
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: AI to enhance or to supplement learning, to remediate kids
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: when they need it in the appropriate way.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: It works.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: It clearly works, especially at the early grade levels in
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: terms of reading proficiency and math acquisition and achievement. However, again,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: it is no replacement for the human-to-human connection. And yes,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: there is evidence on cursive. There is evidence on oral
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: examination and in-class writing assignments that are handwritten, in-class examinations.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: At the higher ed level, what I experienced was blue books.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know if many of your listeners know, but again,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it is a formal examination booklet that the professor hands
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: out and you handwrite your responses live in front of
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the professor and as an exam. And that has cognitive benefits,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: even at the higher ed level, that we're witnessing that
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: result in greater academic achievement.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Well, note-taking, just simply taking notes. Correct, correct, correct, correct.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So it's a both-and proposition. Back to the first point
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: when we began talking, my passion and love of philosophy
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: and the cultivation of wonder and curiosity, that cannot happen
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: if we're technologically mindless or dependent on There is, again,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: something really, really worthwhile about picking up a book, about
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: writing an essay, about, again, yes, hand-taking notes and sort
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: of what that does to the mind. So it's not
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: just a philosophical assertion we're making here. There is a
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: strong correlation between academic success and those kinds of pedagogical interventions.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: So I would encourage it. I would encourage it. Is
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: it something that the state needs to go beyond encouraging?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: That's a great question. It's a great policy question, something
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I'll leave for the policymakers of the world. But, you know,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: as again, as a philosopher myself, I doubt the overemphasis
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: on technology and what that is doing to the minds
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: of the learners. So we do not want to live
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: in the world where my son or my daughters are
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: stuck in front of a screen. for six hours a
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: day at school. And again, we've done that in Florida.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: We've banned cell phones, right? We set AI rules in
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: K-12 back at the state board meeting in September, now
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: requiring school districts and colleges to establish the appropriate guard rails. Again,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: we're not banning it. We don't want to ban it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I think it would be mistaken to go the way
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: of New York and some of these other states who
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: are just afraid of technology in the classroom. But we
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: don't want to be overly dependent on it either.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I suspect we'll have more time like this. I told
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you you're welcome anytime you want.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Count me in anytime. Would love to riff on all
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: things workforce education training, our great college system, our technical colleges,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: but also I think, Preston, we've got to philosophize a bit.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: We've got to talk about Augustine. We've got to talk
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: about Aquinas. We've got to talk about Aristotle. We've got to, again,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: talk about cultivation of wonder and curiosity and sort of
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: what life is really.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: About, right? I'll come back for that. Anytime we could
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: go that route. That would be fun. We talked Marcus
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Aurelius just yesterday. I'll have you know. You mentioned apprenticeships,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that people don't fully grasp how apprenticeships work or operate
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: or maybe how they should.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I believe there is an immediate thing that pops into
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: people's mind when they hear registered apprenticeships. I feel like
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: most parents or most education enterprise individuals think of a
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: plumber or a construction worker or some sort of rigid
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: earn and learn model. That's not true. It was true,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: but it's not true anymore. The federal government, the president
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of the United States, as well as this governor, have
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: gone all in on supporting registered apprenticeships. And registered apprenticeships
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: are not just construction trades anymore. They're not skilled trades anymore.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: They are emerging technologies. They are healthcare. They are manufacturing
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: trade and logistics related occupations that you or me or
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: my son can enter into a job full time, get
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: a guaranteed wage, but earn or rather learn while he's earning.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the place of work becomes the place of learning. So
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: if you enter into a registered apprenticeship, you're not in
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: a college, you're not in a university, you're not in
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: a technical college. You are paired.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: You're in the workplace.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You are in the workplace, you are paired with a mentor,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: and you are receiving knowledge and related technical instruction while
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: you are doing your job. And it is a phenomenal
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: way to get a post-secondary credential at the end of
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the registered apprenticeship, you get a credential. And that credential
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: can be transferred- can be parlayed into credit at one
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of our colleges or universities or not. But not only
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: are you earning a wage, there is a guaranteed wage
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: progression that each registered apprenticeship has to meet. So at
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the end, you were earning more than where you began.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And the state of Florida has a phenomenal, phenomenal office
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: in my department, the Department of Education, the state apprenticeship
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: office that runs all of the registered apprenticeships in the
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: state of Florida. We have about 25,000 active registered apprentices now.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah, it's great.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Up, I don't know how many percent it is from 2018,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: but it's up by at least 10,000. And it's just, again,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I think an unattended to, not really talked about model
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of education that we have in our toolkit.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's not for everyone, but I would argue- And when
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you say not for everyone, are you referring to not
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: for every business, not for every industry?
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: I would argue it's for every business. This is a
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: great way to cultivate and grow your own. It reduces
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: your expenditures. It allows you to hire the individuals and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the employees that you want and train them in the
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: way that you want. And you get state money in
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: order to do it. And the individual can also get
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: non-loan-based aid, both from the state of Florida and the
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: federal government, in order to make it work. When I
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: say it's not for everyone... I mean, I recognize that
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: many people want to go to university. Many people want
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: to go to a state college. But there are fewer.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: True, true. There are more and more that are open
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to the idea of not carrying the debt.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: With the millions amount of people in the state of Florida,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I got to believe that we would want more than 25,000
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: registered apprentices. The kind of occupations and the jobs that
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: we have, there is just missed opportunity here. So we
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: need more employers calling the Department of Ed. We need
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: more individuals contacting the Department of Ed and ask, how
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: can I get paid?
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Final moment. And I've got a page of questions here,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: but I'm curious, a year from now, how will you
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: decide how things went this first year? That's a great question.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: How are you going to measure it?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how we're going to measure it, we need to
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: measure it by way of certainly the traditional measures of
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: student achievement. More kids need to be reading at or
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: above grade level by the end of this academic year.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: We also need to measure it by the amount of graduates,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: so more students need to be graduating at a higher
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: rate at the end of this academic year. We also
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: need to measure the industry certifications or the work-ready credentials
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that we're conferring, and that better be up at year's
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: end as compared to last year. The number of active
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: apprentices better be up. as compared to last year. That
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: is a growth in the number of students or residents
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: that are availing themselves of these great earn and learn
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: models of training. And certainly too, you know, broadly speaking,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I would like more citizens in the state of Florida
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: to understand what it means to philosophize, what it means
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: to cultivate curiosity, pick up a great book, read a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: great book, understand the Western canon, understand the principles of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: our democracy and sort of what it means to be
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: an American citizen in this great free country of ours.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And that can't happen if students are not exposed to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the classics. And so I would argue, I think maybe
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: at the end of the year, if I can get
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: kids reading more with their parents, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, everyone,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: the better. And I mean, honestly, that's my goal. Thanks
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: for the time today. Yeah, no, thank you for having me.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Looking forward to coming back.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Dr. Henry Mack, Commissioner of Education. Take him up on
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the offers he's making businesses. It's The Morning Show with
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Preston Scott. President.