Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host of VFE. And welcome to another episode within the fourth annual. Black Excellence Series to everybody out there, happy Black History Month, and then also celebrating Black Excellence on VFE.

Michael Conner: And today's guest, she definitely does exemplify black excellence. We were at the 53rd Annual NABSE Conference and we were just chopping it up. I mean, from research to Ed Tech. To found the founders to the core work. It was just an amazing, amazing couple days that we were just together talking, and then I said.

Michael Conner: Tauheedah, I gotta get you on my, [00:01:00] I gotta get you on my po, my podcast. You like what? I'm like, I gotta get you on my podcast. We started a whole conversation about that and today we are highlighting her work on the black Excellent series. We wanna welcome Dr. Tauheedah Baker-Jones out of the ATL. Yes. What's up Dr.

Michael Conner: Baker-Jones. So Dr. Baker-Jones is the Southeast Regional Director for the National Center on Educating Education, the economy. Did I say that correctly?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Education and the economy. Yes.

Michael Conner: And she also has her own company as well, where she's the co-founder of the Trinity Strategy Group. So we're gonna have a really, really in-depth conversation.

Michael Conner: But here, what? What y'all don't know about Dr. Baker-Jones. Everybody into my audience. She is Harvard graduate, got her doctorate. From there, we're gonna unpack some research threads and talk about the AC stage of education, which is after COVID-19. So let's give a warm welcome [00:02:00] VFE Black Excellence Series.

Michael Conner: Welcome to Dr. Tauheedah Baker-Jones. Dr. Baker-Jones. What's going on now? Listen, this is different from Chicago now.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: This is very different from Chicago. I'm so ATL now. I'm, I'm enjoying the warm, I'm enjoying the, the weather basking in it. The sun is glowing. It's a little cold, but for a Jersey girl, it's not as cold as I'm usually used to.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So, you know, I love being here in ATL, the south. Got something to say and I'm, I'm excited to represent it and, and say, and share, you know, the awesome work we're doing down here in Atlanta.

Michael Conner: So we'll wait. I tell you, Dr. Baker-Jones. It's cold in Rochester, right? It's, it's, it is cold. It is there. I I say it's the never ending snow.

Michael Conner: Everybody asks. I be like, yo, how you doing up there? I'm like, it's never-ary. And everybody like, what, what, what you talking about? I'm like, it just never ends. So never-ary. So good to see. I gotta get back down to the ATL. I'll be down there. Soon, man. [00:03:00] Ooh, we, I'll be cutting up in the ATL, but Dr. Baker-Jones, I cannot wait to highlight your work.

Michael Conner: I cannot wait to highlight everything that you're doing in the education ecosystem to impact it. But my first question, right? You have a variety of different roles within the ecosystem where you started out as a classroom teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District to now be in the. First, chief Equity and Social Justice Officer for the Atlanta Public Schools, but for people that don't know, Dr.

Michael Conner: Tauheedah Baker-Jones, what song defines your leadership signature in the AC stage of education?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Which song? Wow. Let's see. I would say Conquerors by Kirk Franklin.

Michael Conner: Ooh,

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: conquerors. The reason that I choose conquerors is that, you know, the song talks about tomorrow being a, a better day, and like every day you're, you're [00:04:00] conquering the battles that are put before you.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And as a, you know, urban school educator spending most of my career at urban centers, there a lot of challenges that our students face. And there are a lot of challenges and battles that we have to overcome so that we can make the promise of public education real for them. And so every day getting up with that mentality, that one God is with me.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: I'm a woman of faith, and so I firmly believe that education is my calling and it's the way that I put my faith into action in the world. And so getting up with that resolution that I'm doing God's work and I'm leaning into my purpose, gives me. Confidence and faith to tackle those challenges. Um, and then the song ends with saying not only are we conquerors, we're more than conquerors.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So it like puts a stamp on the fact that we are more than just that. Like there's so much in our school systems and our children and our staff and our educators and what we have to offer kids. And so it is more than [00:05:00] conquering is, is is something that is unseen. Be understood, but only those who see the invisible can do the impossible.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And it's, it seems like an impossible task, but with that belief and with that faith in ourselves and in our kids and, and for me and God, uh, we can do, we can more than conquer. So I would say that that's my song. Uh,

Michael Conner: Dr. Baker-Jones. Amen. Right, because one of the, one of the y your, your phrases that you highlight or sentiments that you highlighted was leaning in your purpose, right?

Michael Conner: Kirk Franklin, let's go back. Yes. Kirk Franklin. GP are you Whitney? Right? That's the old, that's oldie, but goody, but leaning. In your purpose, and when I think of the, the, the, the depth breadth of scope, the myriad of challenges or the problems of practice. That we face in education. You know, one could easily come to the conclusion that, to be able to, I like to [00:06:00] say, have these strategic course corrections might seem impossible because the challenges are interfaced and they're overlaid.

Michael Conner: But I really like how you, you structured it where. We have to be conquerors. We have to lean into our purpose in order to, I like to say, unpack and unwrap these interface challenges that sometimes seem impossible, but again, you know, having your face, standing on your face, standing on God. Leaning into your purpose.

Michael Conner: We know that nothing is impossible when we, when we have God by our side. And yeah, sometimes these, these battles, these challenges seem like they're, they're, they're just, they're, they're, they're, they're deep, right? They're deep and really, really just cut the complexity, brings a lot of nuances to it. But again, as you stated, you know, within our Urban Centers, challenges always presents opportunities.[00:07:00]

Michael Conner: You have a unique perspective where your dissertation focus from Harvard, right, was implemented into practice within the Atlanta public schools. That is, that is so compelling, Dr. Baker-Jones, but underscoring your research from Harvard. How can this be applied universally in the AC stage of education to close these nuanced access and opportunities gaps in this dichotomous world of education or the ecosystem?

Michael Conner: As you had alluded to the previous question before, but first before we even start. What was your focus, your research focus within your dissertation? How did it lead to this lineage into the Atlanta public schools and then universally applying specific best practices and strategies and recommendations from your research study?

Michael Conner: How can it, how can it impact the ecosystem today?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right. So I'll first just start with the way I approach my [00:08:00] leadership as a lead systems leader and how I lead into that. So my leadership approach is grounded in this, in a vision of systems coherence. I mentioned my faith. So moral clarity, having that moral clarity and also discipline execution.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So having served as a classroom teacher, as a principal, as a district, as systems leader, I learned very early that. Sustainable change doesn't come from isolated initiatives. It comes from redesigning the operating system of education. The system is designed to produce the results that it's producing, and when you understand that, you have to approach it with the systems redesign lens.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So I feel like. After COVID-19. 'cause you mentioned the COVID-19 stage of education. I feel like the fault lines in our education system became undeniable and people could literally see in their homes in real time the fragmented [00:09:00] instructional models, the brittle adult capacity that we have in some of our.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Schools, and most importantly, like the inequitable access to high quality learning that some students have. And so I enter Atlanta Public Schools during COVID-19 June, 2020. Walking into that space, but also working in, walking into a very volatile reckoning of racial unrest in our country. As I was driving from New Jersey to Atlanta, 'cause it was June, 2020 and we, that was the only way to get.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: To Atlanta. I stopped in Raleigh, North Carolina and while I was at the hotel checking in, I looked at the screen and on CNN I literally saw Atlanta burning, you know, the Atlanta public schools at this time where someone literally got killed by the police down street from one of our schools, and the person who was killed, his niece.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Was in one of our schools and we're trying to, I'm trying to think like, how am I gonna walk into this space? Like how [00:10:00] am I gonna lead racial equity change in a moment such as this in the south being a northerner coming from the north to the south to leave for racial equity? That wasn't lost on me. The historical context of that and.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: All that that entails. Um, and I realized I had to be intentional. And so one of the commitments that I made to myself, which informed my research was how do I design for outcomes, not intention. So like, how do I de, how do I ensure like every strategy can be traced back to. Student outcomes and what's best for students.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: How do I do this at capa at scale and build adult capacity to really do this work? And how do I keep the focus on like the main thing? So my. Because this was so much happening politically at that time, talking about CRT, anti CRT protests. My job literally became illegal while I was in the job. The ratio unrest, the fragmented education, all of these [00:11:00] things like how do I keep the focus on the main thing and sustain the work?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And so my doctoral research at Harvard focused on. One, how large system change or how to execute large system change during a controversial time? So how? How large systems execute. Basically, controversial change. That's what I focused on because it was very controversial leading for equity in Atlanta at that time, in the midst of mass political polarization unrest in our.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: In our nation in a time unlike any other, I walked in receiving death threats. Um, as soon as I got into the role, I had to have my phone call screened. So I'm like, how am I gonna execute this controversial change? So that's what I focused on, particularly when the work challenges longstanding. When it chant challenges power structures, and when it challenges comfort zones.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So what became clear through my research and from my practice is that [00:12:00] excellence gap persists not because systems lack good ideas, but because they lack discipline execution. When the work is hard, and so in Atlanta Public Schools, I had the opportunity to move this research from theory to practice, and the core insight was that when systems attempt to raise standards, when they attempt to redesign learning or.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Fundamentally change how adults work on behalf of children. Resistance is predictable. You know, the failure point is rarely, the vision is in change management and how you change that. And I used to tell my team, people don't fear change. They fear loss. So what we're really managing in our change management process is the, the perceived sense of loss that people feel, particularly when you're talking about equity work.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: People feel like equity is a zero sum game. And so the resistance is. A bit more heightened when you're trying to lead equity focused, changed init initiatives. So to address [00:13:00] that, I developed what I call the Amplify Impact Framework and Amplify Stood for Assess is the for Map, Plan, legitimize. Iterate, flex and inform.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And it was our disciplined way to approach leading complex, high stakes initiative in a highly polarized environment. And it started with that assessment, assessing who our allies were, who were. Our, what we call our party of no, and how do we engage that party of no early we mapped, which is the mm, amplified map out those stakeholders thinking about what is their, their what we call scarf threats.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So what is their status threats? What are, what are their relationship threats? What are their perceived fairness threats? How do we bring, you know, how do we then address each one of those threats that they may have and map that out and then plan to address it? How do we then get legitimacy in our work and then recognizing that work?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Is controversial. When you're leading controversial change, you have [00:14:00] to adapt an emergent strategy. So what is gonna be our approach to emergent strategy? How are we gonna iterate and flex throughout this change management process? And how do we keep both our stakeholders informed by how do we inform our practices based on what we're learning from the temperature, if you will, to the work that we are, that we are doing?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And so that's what the Amplify Framework stood for. And I talked. More about it in my book, triumph in the Trenches, but particularly taking that approach and working to engineer systems change at the first systems level, um, and redesigning how we worked in central office in terms of policy, talent management, communications, and culture.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: How do we. Change that first. That approach universally began to tweak every system regardless of the context. And it allowed us to do our work with more clarity and more discipline and more results. And so when we left Atlanta Public Schools, we had received record [00:15:00] high year after year graduation rates.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Um, in the history of the district, we actually surpassed the state graduation rate. For the first time in history, we saw significant student gains. In third grade through eighth grade Georgia Milestones, we had the highest scores in Algebra one and Georgia Milestones. Since 2015, we had the most schools on the leading leaders list, which means they had either closed their achievement gap or saw significant gains in literacy.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Um, in, in, at any point in the district, most of our elementary schools exited. Being in that status of achievement gap and being on that leading learners. List of Georgia, of the Georgia State, DOE, and we had the most significant gains in fourth grade reading and nap scores on the 2024, uh, out of any of our urban peers.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And so I feel like us walking, working cross-functionally with teaching and learning and other teams insist in central office and taking [00:16:00] that approach to keep the focus on equity in students allowed us to move the needle across the board in many areas, not just academics.

Michael Conner: Phenomenal distinct strategy lucid in the approach.

Michael Conner: Dr. Baker-Jones, you just essentially gave four minute Master's class around organizational change management. The one thing I want, I want to go back to, right, because I think that one of the misnomers, or, or I should say, implemented in practice, you highlighted. Two critical themes that I think is essential to achieve systems coherence.

Michael Conner: Uh, underscoring that with change management is clarity and discipline execution. When I think about discipline execution, that means that it is very adaptive, albeit it is, is strategic or strategy over time. I think one of the critical problems of practice or [00:17:00] problems of context within any learning organization or broad system, as you highlighted, is achieving systems coherence, moreover, achieving systems alignment and coherence.

Michael Conner: Within that. Can you unpack what does discipline execution means? In definition to change management and systems coherence, whether it be big or small district that are leaders that are part or leaders within my VFE audience might be leading.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right. So just once I mentioned, it's like keeping the main thing, the main thing.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: In order to achieve coherence, you first need to have a robust vision for what excellent instruction and teaching and learning should look like in your district. And then you need to unpack who has access to that vision and who's realizing that vision and who isn't realizing that vision. And then what are the systemic barriers that's stopping the execution of that vision coming to life.[00:18:00]

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And then once you have that. Then you have to articulate the strategy behind how you're going to move into that direction. What goals are you looking for? What are gonna be your me metrics of success? And I feel like articulating that into a solid theory of action is your main thing. That's the main thing where I've seen.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Things fall off is when you start with this theory of action that is undergirding your strategy for your work and you begin implementation and then you allow other initiatives and other. Things to sidetrack. The main thing, and as I mentioned, you know, through my experience, I learned that sustainable change doesn't come from these isolated initiatives, but actually bringing coherence and, and, and staying grounded in what.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: The theory of change is, and then giving yourself enough time to ma measure A ROI of the [00:19:00] initiative that you're launching initially before you add on or move on to the next thing. And it does require discipline because so many things are coming at you. So many things require your attention and diversion from what you're focused on.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And that's where the discipline comes in. Like how does this. Can we integrate this into what we're doing? Um, how does it relate and support the work that we're trying to do to move the main thing? Is it gonna take away, distract or amplify what we're trying to do? Like these are the types of questions that.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: You have to ask yourself to keep that discipline and keep that focus because everyone needs to be laser focused on the theory of action and what their role is to execute on that theory of action. And everybody should have some type of scorecard, some type of tracking mechanism, data dashboard, to track how their respective offices, their respective schools, their respective classrooms, are all [00:20:00] aligned to executing that robust theory of.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: That you have created and, and realizing that theory of what excellent teaching and learning looks like, and everybody should be steadfast on that mission and vision and that document that they created that says, this is what we are gonna do to operationalize that vision. Um, and you have to guard and you have to protect as things come up.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: If it is not aligned with that, that the work that's at the core and at the center, you have to be able to deflect, you have to be able to protect, you have to be able to tackle and guard. And so that's what it means for me, um, in my experience. And that's, you know, and that's how I would define that discipline, discipline, execution of your strategy is not a, a quick fix.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: It takes time. And you need to give yourself that time to do the work to see the results or not, right? Like I meant measure, academic return on investment, but it doesn't happen in a year. But you could take year yearly chunks to execute on each [00:21:00] part of the vision, and then you start to see incremental success that way.

Michael Conner: A true systems architect, you are Dr. Baker-Jones. And to my audience, this is definitely one of those answers that you wanna be able to rewind and play back because she gave a robust definition. A robust pathology, a robust pathology around organizational change management, and underscored various elements.

Michael Conner: Strategic performance management. Nothing can get accomplished without the vision. And I really love the fact of how you didn't jump right into strategies, goals, KPIs, project management sequences and workflows that are embedded within that because all of that becomes, I like to say work that is ad hoc, disjunction in the context of not really having that.

Michael Conner: Strategic coherence, that organizational coherence without the vision or the theory of change action to be able to [00:22:00] guide that work. But Dr. Baker-Jones, we know, and you used the word six times within your last answer, equity. Right. And I, I still, I'm, I'm still trying to unpack my personal dissonance with the word equity because.

Michael Conner: We all want our students, whether you're white, you're black, whether you're a Democrat or you're Republican, you want our kids to have equity. So as an example that I use is that if we have, let's say, a fourth grade teacher, A in fourth grade, teacher B, and we know by definition that quality of and and would define quality fourth grade teacher a.

Michael Conner: Providing that high quality instruction, those rigorous learning task and fourth grade, teacher B does not achieve those quality standards. That's it in equity and parents are gonna complain of, okay, we want to be [00:23:00] able to make sure or have, ensure that our kids are having high quality teachers with that level of efficacy defined by pedagogy.

Michael Conner: I don't know. And, and Dr. Baker-Jones, I don't know where equity became so polarized within politics, party politics, because I'm like, okay, we want to have good teachers. We want to have good leaders. If we know one school is excelling and one school is not excelling, by definition, that's an inequity. I, I, I, I, I, I just still don't know where all this come from, but again, you were the first ever, and I'm gonna highlight this.

Michael Conner: Champion Equity. Right. The equity, the Urban Schools District Equity Leader Award by the Council of the Great City Schools. Now, I, I congratulations because I, I wanted to ask this question to you as one of the equity leaders, and we're looking at organizational coherence systems level coherence. That's equity in a [00:24:00] cross-functional manner, but we won't get into the, the semantics of that.

Michael Conner: But from an AC 2035 educational lens, future-focused lens, I want you to define equity in this next phase where it is not politicized or polarized, where we're moving all students forward to truly being future driven in 22nd century global ready, right? Because. If we don't prepare generation alpha and generation beta, we're creating global inequities in the context of preparing them for this 22nd century.

Michael Conner: Economic demand that is fast is rapid and is unprecedented.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right. I've always struggled with the word equity because I, I don't know if it fully captures what we are trying to do to ensure that public education lives up to its promises for all kids. Because quite honestly, I struggle. Is it [00:25:00] equity or is it equality?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right. Is it is ensuring that every child has access, which is if you're ensuring every child has access, that's. That kind of leans towards equality in a bit, right? 'cause every child has access. And to be honest, we have it in our ability, in in education to ensure that every child has access to a high quality teacher.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Literally. It doesn't mean you mentioned like fourth grade class A fourth grade class B. Right? Equity doesn't mean you take the teacher for fourth grade class A and move them to B so that they can have a high quality teach that would be inequitable to the kids who are in fourth grade class A. Right? Um, equity means like what do we need to provide for classroom B?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right? What is it professional learning capacity building to that teacher? Is it more resources? Is it, you know, is it providing or maybe. Uh, peer-to-peer learning, like we have arc, the capacity in education to ensure that every child has a high quality leader, a high quality [00:26:00] teacher. We have professional learning matrices and frameworks, we have pipeline programs.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: We have access to quality instructional curriculum, materials. So what is happening? That it's not happening. That's the real question, right? I don't think it's not happening because we don't have the resources or the tools to make it happen. So we need to peel back the layer to figure out, well then what's the, what's the barrier?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: What's the root cause, right? And so for me, equity is best understood as like intentional design in service of universal excellence. That's always how I do, like I, I used to tell my team, we wanna ensure every kid in Atlanta public schools thrives, not by accident, but by design. So how do you have that intentional design and service of universal excellence?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: That can be learning design, system design, operational design, you name it. But at its core, I believe equity is not an ideology. It, as you mentioned it earlier, it's an engineering principle. It asks. [00:27:00] Whether our systems are intentionally designed to ensure that every learner has access to the conditions that they need, that require success regardless of their starting point.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So I used to tell people we equity, I. We, we were all born into these systems. None of us created these systems and structures. It. This is not about blaming, shaming, and guilting people. It's not about that because all of us inherited this history. We inherited these systems. None of us created them. So what is blaming, shaming, guilting gonna get us?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: I also am not always a fan of implicit bias training. In fact. You know, it was pulling teeth to get people to look beyond that as what equity was about. Because even if we didn't, implicit bias training, people are still gonna have biases. Like that's just we, I don't like vanilla ice cream. I like chocolate ice cream.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: I have a bias that's not changing. Right. And even if I try vanilla ice cream, I'm gonna to make my face look like, because I just had that bias. [00:28:00] Right. So at the end of the day. Does that really solve the problem? And the answer in my opinion is no. 'cause it's not about people. I would tell people we have to go harder on systems and softer on people.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: That's what this work is about. The system is designed to do what it's doing, and we are just products of that as people. So we have to give people grace to grow. And so when I say is a equity is a, is not an ideology. As an engineering principle, it asks whether our systems are intentionally designed to ensure that every learner has access to the conditions required re for success regardless of their start starting points.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So when you strip, when you. The political framing equity really si simply means high expectations for all learners, high expectations for all educators, high expectations for ourselves. I include educators in ourselves because I believe that it's sometimes left outta the equation. We look at high expectations for students, but how does that translate to educators and ourselves [00:29:00] is about intelligent differentiation in support of once again.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Students, educators, leaders, how are we differentiating learning, professional learning for teachers? 'cause teacher in fourth grade, class A may not need the professional learning that teacher in fourth grade, class B needs, right? It's about relentless focus on outcomes, both at the individual student level, but also at the organizational level.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So for me. In this next phase of education, I believe that equity needs to be reframed as excellence and that, and it needs to be reframed as future readiness for all learners. And quite honestly, that should have been the framing to begin with because in a highly digitized world where each one of our students has access to the world at their fingertips, they can communicate with a child from Japan, on each Snapchat, on Twitter, on, you know.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: TikTok, they're communicating all around the world with folks. They need a level of cultural competency. They need a level of social capital. [00:30:00] They need a level of digital citizenship and awareness. They need a level of all of the things that equity tries to teach students how to interact, how to, how to interact with others, how to, you know, we can't afford it.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: We wanna be competitive in this. New world to not keep a focus on, make sure all students have that capacity, but also that all students have the cultural, social capital they need to compete globally in a world that's becoming highly digitized and highly global. And so how are we preparing every children to thrive in a global, technologically driven economy?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: That requires innovation, that requires stepping out of our comfort zone, that requires making mistakes culturally and learning from those mistakes. 'cause a child posts something. On the internet and it goes live. It could destroy their whole future. Let's have them learn those skills. Productive struggle, you know, those types of, you know, making those types of dialogue, but what do you call it?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Constructive dialogue and critical dialogue. Let's teach those [00:31:00] things and, and how we agree and disagree respectfully, right? Let's teach that in school so that they're not making those mistakes. On a world stage, right? And so I feel like when equity is embedded into how we operate, not how we brand things, it becomes sustainable.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: It becomes unifying. It becomes scalable because I've never heard anyone say, no, I want my kid to know how to read and just my kid and no one else. Every, no, I've never heard anybody say that. So I fundamentally, I think everybody agrees with the premise of what equity is trying to do. I think the word is getting people hung up and, and unpacking that a bit, allows the humanity to come through and allows us to work together for all kids in a way that redesigns the systems and sh and, and allows us to leverage what we have to make it possible for all kids.

Michael Conner: Great explanation of defining equity, Dr. Baker-Jones, [00:32:00] because I always stated that we have to create or we have to design, and very intentional with your word. Really appreciate you using the word design hemo centric design. At that, we have to be able to design structure systems. So that it is equitable for students to have the highest quality of.

Michael Conner: Whether it be educational systems, whether it be teachers for instructions, I, I really love how you said it's intentional design for universal excellence and how we have to reframe the word equity so it's more undergirded with threads of excellence. And you, you highlighted a good point because another contention point in education is cultural competence.

Michael Conner: And I always like to contend with, whether it be educational stakeholders, policy makers. People at the hill [00:33:00] when we talk about cultural competence, I'm like, no, no, we're, we're, we're looking at it from this dynamic of generation alpha, generation beta, where now because of the access of disruptive technologies, artificial intelligence students are interacting with each other from different countries.

Michael Conner: Right. I, I, as an example, my son. He's playing Roblox with kids, you know, across the world. So it, it behooves us that we have to be intentional around ensuring our students are culturally competent because the globe is in their hand because of technology and the way that technology is changing every second, every minute of the day.

Michael Conner: We have to ensure that our students can be globally competitive. In order for them to be globally competitive, we have to be [00:34:00] able to ensure there's that readiness. Preparedness level of them being culturally competent, well stated. I love how you distinguish between equity and equality, and I knew that you were going to give a really succinct answer or definition, I should say on the word equity.

Michael Conner: Thank you for that. Design equity, reciprocity that has to be scaled and systematized. For intelligent differentiation. Wow. Dr. Baker-Jones, we might as well just end the episode right now. You, you, I, wow. Okay. I gotta go to your master's class or your doctoral class. Let's get to your work, right? So you're the Southeast Regional Director for the National Center on Educating the Economy and then also the co-founder of the Trinity Strategy Group.

Michael Conner: Now, can you unpack both roles and how you're level setting both to ensure that there's this policy transformation? Ecosystem so that we can be able to [00:35:00] have intentional differentiation, organizational coherence with the level of design that is rooted in equity without this polarization or politicization of the work.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Right. So in my work as the Southeast Regional Director at the National Center on Education and Economy, I oversee our work across 11 states in the Southeast, as far north as West Virginia, as far west as Louisiana, and the National Center on Education and Economy is the US leading researcher of high performing systems.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: We study what our global competitors are doing that are outperforming us primarily looking at like the PISA exam, like who's. Outperforming in the us, what are they doing? How can we take those lessons and apply them to a US context? We also study high performing systems in the United States, so in nationally, and what are they doing and how can we take those lessons and apply them in other contexts in our country?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Um, and we are the [00:36:00] leading US based researcher of that. And then we take that research and we apply that research to policy solutions for policy makers as well as technical assistance. And leadership development for district and, and school leaders as well and educators. And so I oversee those bo that body of work in the southeast region.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And then for Trinity Strategy Group, we work with system leaders to basically, as I mentioned, to intelligently intentionally design strategy around complex controversial change management issues, how to have that discipline implementation, how to roll out a change management strategy that would be sustainable, that would be, that will allow you to see the outcomes that you wish to.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Wish to see and how to develop you as well. Because I always say, you know, when I went to Harvard, they had a model that you have to change yourself to change the sector. And one of Ron Heitz, who's like the father of adaptive leadership, his thing is like change leadership from the inside out. So another thing we do [00:37:00] at Trinity strategy, which is also in our book, we have a, um.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Lead with grace framework and Grace leading with grace starts with oneself. So in order for you to change anything, you first have to look within and see are you the right person to even lead this change? You may be the leader by title, but that doesn't mean you have to be the leader of the change effort because in some instances.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: I might get in the way of the work in Atlanta public schools because of who I am and my identity. And I might not be the best voice or the best person to announce or to move whatever initiative that we need to move. So you have to have a keen awareness of yourself in order to. Change the sector or change the school district.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So Trinity strategy functions in those two buckets of leadership development for oneself in leading change. And then how do you lead sustainable change at your school, your school system, or at the systems level. So how do those two relate? So if I were designing. School system or district as an [00:38:00] education architect or engineer?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: You know, one of the things I would begin with is looking at how high performing systems around the world are doing what I'm trying to do. Learn, learn, taking those evidence-based practices that will allow or ensure success. So at the National Central Education in the economy. We focus on that and we have policy briefs, we have research, um, research, brief research documents.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And after COVID-19, we conducted focused research on systems across the globe that experienced minimal learning loss and, but continued to perform at high levels. And what we found. Not accidental. What we found was that those symptom systems were not simply, they were not only resilient, but they also were intentionally designing for adaptability.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: They were designing for coherence, they were designing for long-term relevance, and they had already begun to align their systems and align their schools to prepare students for this rapidly changing world. We [00:39:00] distilled that research in what we call our blueprint for designing systems that work, and I have the privilege of supporting NCEE and implementing that blueprint with fidelity across the southeast.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So drawing on that research, one thing I would do to answer your question is to look at how. The system is using its time, talent, and treasure to intentionally align to what we call now at NCE Long Life. 'cause what we've also learned in that research is that students is beyond a K through 16 continuum and this new world we're living in, people have to be ready for long life learning.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: 'cause technology is changing at rapid speeds. And so how are we preparing students for long life, future ready learning with the goal being that. Not just being about recovery or remediation, but thriving by design with generation, alpha and generation, even generation beta, right? So I would replace these rigid age-based progressions and, and 'cause that's what we learned in our research.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: High performing systems are [00:40:00] replacing that age-based progression with flexible learning pathways that prioritize mass. Three over seat time. They are looking at deep sustained investments in educator expertise. They're looking at the profession as a profession and they're professionalizing it and they're providing more time for collaboration, more time for study, more time for lesson design.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: We also learned that they would, uh, they're designing. Student-centered authentic assessment systems that value problem solving, communication, adaptability, not just recall of facts and data. And then they're also looking at technology enabled personalization and career connected learning. So those are the things that I would.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Prioritize based on the research that NCEE is doing around how we would, you know, achieve the vision that we're trying to achieve. And then with Trinity strategy steps in is that we help you think about, we sit at that gap, the intersection [00:41:00] behind strategy systems design, change management, and that discipline execution.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: So our work is grounded in the belief that policy level transformation is anchored in operational reality. So. We, we are, not we, we are, we we're. Our approach comes from practical wisdom, like we are experts at translating theory into prac practice. We are practitioners first. We've done it. We know what to do because we've already done it.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Like we worked in large school systems. We've led controversial change and large scale change, and we were successful at doing that. And so at Trinity Strategy Group, we. Have three aligned the missions for our systems change work. We look at strategic alignment across your ecosystem. We look at building system leadership and execution capacity within the leaders that are leading the change.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And we look at expanding organizational capacity as a whole and aligning and bringing alignment and coherence to that work. Um, and it starts at [00:42:00] that policy level because what is the ecosystem? What are the constraints? And what are they, the enablers in that policy ecosystem that can allow you to do your work.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: And so I would start with those evidence-based practices that NCE is known for, and then I would take that to build that coherent strategy, vision execution for what we need to do to see those things translate into, into the context that we're applying them to.

Michael Conner: Such a macro definition of organizational coherence.

Michael Conner: Really liked triangulation that you highlighted Dr. Baker-Jones, change management systems design and then discipline execution. You know, when I, as you were providing your answer, I I, I was going back and just reflecting over the years, over the times that I've seen. Educational stakeholders trying to lead change management.

Michael Conner: But when you think about it, right, you might have a change management component. You might [00:43:00] have the strategies articulated in a prototype for systems design, but the discipline execution where you're focusing. Poor work. The signals not what I like to say. Organizational noise is obsolete. Usually you might have, you know, leaders with one or two of those dimensions as opposed to that true triangulation.

Michael Conner: Um, really good systematic. I I just really appreciate the work that you're doing, Dr. Baker-Jones, specifically around the intentionality and the vitality. What design looks like and how you're unpacking it for my audience, but everything that you were just talking about, just I was just reflecting and I was extracting various indicators for my 22nd Century education model, a portrait of a system, and the 22nd century systems learner framework, and those specific indicators in how we need those shifts.

Michael Conner: Right. Those macro level shifts and with the [00:44:00] expectation that there will be paradoxes within the work because it's disciplined and you're, you're really changing, I like to say this fossilized model over time and unpacking or unlearning specific behaviors, organizational behaviors that we're so used to.

Michael Conner: In education. But last question, Dr. Baker-Jones, and I don't know if I can limit you to this, but I'm gonna try to limit you to three words. I don't wanna limit you to three words, but let's see if we can achieve this. But what three words do you want today's audience to leave our podcast with? With regards to defining your North Star for 2035, and this new paradigm of the AC stage of education?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Coherence being one. I talked a lot about coherence because fragmented systems fail students. I would say courage because transformation requires difficult values [00:45:00] driven decisions, and I always start with humanity. So I would say human centered because even in a AI, technologically enabled future learning.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Learning for students remains deeply relational, and we can't do any work without, like the whole purpose of technology is to make human-centered practice and human-centered relationships better. And so those are the three words that would guide how I lead, design, and serve in this next era of education

Michael Conner: Coherence.

Michael Conner: Courage and humanity. Well stated. Dr. Baker-Jones, thank you for coming on VFE and if any of my audience members, if they wanna reach out to you, because again, this was a master's level class, once is published. I'm actually gonna go back because there's some notes I really want to expand upon that you were talking about, but how would my audience be able to get in contact with you?

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Yeah, they [00:46:00] can follow me on Twitter @doctor_tbj. They can also email me at tbaker-jones@trinitystrategy.org or at tbakerjones, all one word @ncee.org, and they can also follow me on LinkedIn. I'm located on LinkedIn with Tauheedah Baker-Jones. You look me up and you'll find me.

Michael Conner: Tauheedah, thank you for coming on VFE.

Michael Conner: Good sister. I gotta get, we, we gotta, we gotta, we, we gotta have another meeting, just you and I because I really want to unpack various elements from this episode that I'm like, man, I can go deeper. I can look at what, how I could systemically align various indicators for my 22nd century education model.

Michael Conner: But more importantly, iron sharpens iron. Thank you for coming on VFE today.

Tauheedah Baker-Jones: Thank you. And thank you for having me.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And on that note, onward and upward. Everybody have a great [00:47:00] evening.