145: The Concept of Powerful Learning with Jean-Claude Brizard, CEO and President of Digital Promise

Holly Owens (00:00.901)
Hello everyone and welcome to another fantastic episode of EdUp L &D. My name is Holly Owens.

DaNadia Johnson (00:09.578)
And my name is Nadia Johnson and we're your hosts.

Holly Owens (00:14.073)
And we're super excited today because we have a very special guest with us. have Jean -Claude Broussard, who is the CEO and president of Digital Promise on the show. J .C., welcome on

Jean-Claude Brizard (00:27.317)
Great to see both of you, Nadia and Holly. Happy to be

DaNadia Johnson (00:27.362)
Welcome.

Holly Owens (00:30.789)
We're really excited to have you. This is definitely one of the episodes that Nadia and myself have both been looking forward to. But before we get into all things Digital Promise, we want to know more about you. So tell us your story. How did you get here? How did you become the president and CEO of Digital Promise?

Jean-Claude Brizard (00:52.503)
I'll give you the short version of the story because it's been over 30 years in this business. So I came to the US as an 11 year old from Haiti. was born in Haiti, moved to New York City. Make a long story short, became a classroom teacher in New York City teaching physics and chemistry. Became a high school principal in New York City, became an area superintendent in New York City, head of the high school division in New York.

Holly Owens (00:56.833)
Yeah!

Jean-Claude Brizard (01:22.443)
me and my way through Rochester, New York, led the Chicago Public School System, did a stand at the College Board, almost four years at the Gates Foundation as a funder, and then joined Digital Promise a little over three years

Holly Owens (01:40.677)
That was a very short version. I'm sure there's a lot more in there. teach, so one of the things you said you taught in New York City Public School. So I teach instructional design courses at Toro University. So I got a lot of New York City public school teachers in my classes. So there's a connection there. Wow. I would love to hear actually interwoven it more throughout the episode, but that definitely was an abbreviated version of 30 years. I don't think I can do that.

Jean-Claude Brizard (01:42.273)
There's a lot of nuance.

DaNadia Johnson (01:43.916)
Hahaha!

Jean-Claude Brizard (02:05.783)
show.

DaNadia Johnson (02:09.033)
Hahaha!

Holly Owens (02:09.615)
I don't think I could do that.

Jean-Claude Brizard (02:12.405)
I know TORL, it's well known in New York City.

Holly Owens (02:16.333)
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I won't go off too much on a tangent there. So, you know, as you're I do have a question about like just working in through education and different different spots in education. We have a lot of educators who listen to the show. And I think one of the things that is happening right now is that educators are leaving the profession. Like we're seeing a shortage of teachers and

people are looking, Nadia and myself get lots of pings on LinkedIn about teachers wanting to transition into roles that we do like instructional design, instructional technology. So what is some advice maybe that you have in your experience for teachers who are struggling right now to stay in the classroom? I would love to hear your perspective on that. I'm getting right into it. I'm getting right into it. I wanna know your advice.

Jean-Claude Brizard (03:07.979)
No, no, that's

DaNadia Johnson (03:11.104)
especially from a former teacher.

Jean-Claude Brizard (03:11.553)
Holly, let me just say that frankly. Yes, yes.

Holly Owens (03:14.455)
Yeah, from, Nottie and myself are both former teachers as well.

DaNadia Johnson (03:17.836)
Yeah.

Jean-Claude Brizard (03:19.029)
Yes, I come from a family of teachers as well, two of my parents were teachers. You know, what's happening now, I always tell people has a long tail. This is not, yes, it has been accelerated because of during the pandemic and after the pandemic, because the job frankly became undoable. There's so much coming out teachers these days. But the challenges go back many, many years. Becky Pringle, who leads the ADA, talks about this all the time. know, back in the,

60s and before that, you know, most teachers were women or African American because the job market frankly wasn't open to a lot of these folks. That's changed over time. Yet the profession really hasn't changed. So what young people today want in the profession is agency. They want a career ladder. I mean, we talk about pay, which is again part of issue, but frankly, I think we care much more

career ladders and they're watching their friends who are lawyers or other things, other professions who are students are moving up in the career ladder. And for us, unless you become an assistant principal, principal, there really isn't that much of a career ladder in education. So that's been a challenge for a very long time, as well as the job not being respected the way it to be respected. I come from, I was born in Haiti, my teachers were revered. In most, again, foreign countries, that is a fact, not so much in America.

But you know, when you look at the pandemic and what was thrown at teachers during the pandemic made the job even more unsustainable. And you begin to see a fast exit of folks. Again, when you have options, right, you can do that. So when I was in the teachers and thinking about my advice, what I did as a teacher was that the idea of a teacher staying in the classroom teaching the same thing for 30 years, that is gone. So I was hired as a chemistry teacher. taught physics, I taught math,

So every year, every few years, I would talk to my assistant principal or my principal about finding ways of keeping the work really exciting for me as a teacher and keep growing in the profession. That was always really important for me. And that's the advice I would give the teachers. Look for ways to, one, the professional development, professional learning, ways of growing in the profession. But the big advice to me really goes to, for example, like people who run schools or run school systems.

Jean-Claude Brizard (05:39.751)
to making sure that they're creating the kinds of talent management that supports the most important product, protagonist in education, the folks in the classrooms. They're the ones who are underground doing the work. So there's a lot of folks who are working on this. Arizona State University and others are working on a new mental model for teaching because we know the job is unsustainable. So there's a role for teachers in making the job more exciting and finding ways of renewing themselves.

but think we have bigger job for the school leader and for the system

DaNadia Johnson (06:11.262)
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. think it's a system problem and I think there's a lot of things. I was that teacher that was like seeing all, and I wanted growth, like I craved growth and couldn't get that within the teaching field. So I'm ready to like dig into digital promise. I don't know about you, Holly, but I worked in Ed Tech. Yes, no,

Holly Owens (06:35.819)
I am. I wanted to hear the advice first.

Jean-Claude Brizard (06:41.015)
Before you go, just quickly, I'll give you an example of what I did as a superintendent. I would walk into classrooms, visit classrooms, and leave a note for the teacher. I tell me how I can make your life and your job easier. That in itself, it's amazing. It was amazing. It was amazing to do. Yes, yes. I'm sorry. Please go ahead about digital promise.

DaNadia Johnson (06:54.55)
And that's what they need. That's what they need.

Holly Owens (06:54.596)
empathy.

DaNadia Johnson (06:59.916)
That's what they need, like support. No, I think that's the biggest thing is like the admin, the system, like teachers need support. And I think that's what, I think if we had plenty of admin that did that, we would see at least a little bit of a different case than just everybody feeling like, you know, I've got to leave.

Holly Owens (07:01.753)
no,

Jean-Claude Brizard (07:20.15)
Yes.

DaNadia Johnson (07:25.464)
So I work in K -12 education. I've worked in ed tech and educational publishing, and I'm very familiar with digital promise. So I would love to know a little bit more about digital promise and like what you offer for educational institutions. So yeah, just give us a little, our viewers, our listeners and viewers now, cause this is, we're on video. So just tell us a little bit.

Holly Owens (07:49.635)
Yep.

Jean-Claude Brizard (07:50.39)
Yes.

DaNadia Johnson (07:51.458)
So just tell us a little bit about digital promise and what you do for educators and educational institutions.

Jean-Claude Brizard (07:59.639)
Not yet to understand what we do is to also understand a bit of our origin story. Most people don't know that we were created out of an act of Congress back in 2008 under George W. Bush and then launched by President Obama in 2011. So our board, the original board of this organization was very bipartisan, appointed by both sides of the aisle in Congress, which really allowed us to remain non -partisan, if that makes sense, right?

We were created as a national center to help with research, to talk about technology innovation and media, et cetera. So a lot of our work leans on three different major areas, learning sciences research, technology innovation, and practice. So much of what we do centers the practitioner, meaning that we work with teachers, principals, mostly superintendents of schools or system leaders.

And we support a better understanding of the kinds of tools required and necessary to really change practice, to support teachers, to support innovation in curriculum, to support innovation in technology, to support how we think about kids who are mostly excluded from full participation. So this idea of leaning on historically marginalized people is a big part of our work. So what we offer very deliberately

is looking at, again, innovations in learning sciences. So science of reading, how math is taught and understood, how kids learn mathematics. We lean on science, that happens as well too. We are big on computational thinking. Again, when you think about that kind of a skill, it transcends technology. We don't advocate for, for example, teaching a computer science class for some kids, but when you look at computational thinking, you can embed that in the entire core curriculum. Everybody benefits.

So we work in early learning innovation. We work at the intersection of high school and post -secondary. We work in looking at post -secondary course completion to innovate there to get better completion. And we work to look at workforce innovation. So we know the workforce development. We do, for example, digital credentialing, micro -credentialing for teachers, for students. We look at the journey of a learner in reaching economic mobility. So we work from early learning.

Jean-Claude Brizard (10:23.699)
all the way to work for us. So Peter Gray is where we actually support all with the goal of making sure that young people have access to a skill that provides them with access to economic mobility, agency, and well -being.

Holly Owens (10:41.379)
Wow, that, and I didn't realize, cause I was doing a little bit of research before this, that this was, like you said, this was instituted back in the early 2000s. And that this is something that's, I know I did a little bit of, I did do a little bit of research. I try not to do too much. I want an authentic reaction, but I was like, I was, I'm surprised by that. And then like, you know, I was thinking about the No Child Left Behind Act also

DaNadia Johnson (10:50.722)
Yeah, I didn't know that either.

DaNadia Johnson (11:06.903)
Okay.

Holly Owens (11:07.525)
was instituted around that time as well. And we're still at this point in 2024, we're still experiencing these challenges in our education systems. And a lot of people say, our education K to 12 or higher and whatever ecosystem you're talking about, it's broken. It's definitely something that needs to have a revision or needs a makeover.

But J .C., what I want to know from you is, is the education system broken? that the terminology we need to be using when we're talking about it? And also, if it is broken, how do we fix things? And I know Digital Promises is trying to do that, how do, from your perspective, how do we fix it? I don't like saying it's broken. It feels very negative. It's just like to me, it needs a makeover.

DaNadia Johnson (11:43.022)
That's a good question.

Jean-Claude Brizard (11:51.787)
Yes.

Jean-Claude Brizard (11:57.312)
He does.

DaNadia Johnson (11:58.294)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Claude Brizard (12:00.247)
It does. And it's not broken. I mean, I don't like that expression either, because what it does is sort of really negates all the hard work being done by teachers and principals, et cetera, across the world, across the US for that matter. I think the system is doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is, some kids are successful, some are not. So I think where the challenge frankly is,

is in serving the needs of all kids, especially those who are poor, black, brown, no diverse, et cetera. That we don't always do very well. Because again, when you look at the history of education in America, for that matter, the world, it was always designed to the needs of a few. And it was designed to stratify. So it is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Those of us who are in the battle to improve education really lean on this idea.

of making sure it is in the service of all children. And that can show up in multiple different ways. When you look at the kids who are not reading a proficiency level, they're not the more affluent kids in the more affluent communities. They're the poor black and brown kids in communities. When you're at those who not getting access to the economic engines of certain parts of our country, right, they're not the well -to -do or the kids who are graduating from university.

So when you look at the disparities in the system and society, our schools mimic that, they respond to it the way it was designed. But the job for me that we have in that makeover, to your points, Nadia and Hallie, is to really make sure that we reorienting the system in the ways that do that. To an example of something I obsess over, Maybe a few things I obsess over. But one is this idea of digital equity.

We talk about that, but often folks don't understand why that's important, right? So the idea of making sure, the pig work, the pandemic showed that in black and white, right? Very simply said that we had kids who had no access to technology, right? We never closed the homework gap, as the FCC chairwoman often talks about. They had computers at school, not at home, right? In some cases, I actually watched young people get a PC computer and sent home in communities that had no broadband access.

Jean-Claude Brizard (14:16.629)
So the lockup became a pivot weight, right? It couldn't do anything. So we talk about this idea of understanding why that's important, right? It is about making sure that the learning access that some kids have, all kids should have. And that means access to broadband, to the internet, access to information, access to an ubiquitous way of getting access to learning. And we have districts like Lindsay in California who've done this.

Holly Owens (14:16.877)
Yeah. Right.

DaNadia Johnson (14:20.792)
Right.

Jean-Claude Brizard (14:45.591)
We had places like Talladega County in Alabama who have done this where there's ubiquitous access to broadband. When you look at what Verizon has supported us to do across the country in more than 630 schools where kids and teachers have access to a device, four years of broadband and full support in doing that for free. Verizon pays for it. That leads you to a particular place where you can

education accessible at home, at school, everywhere. frankly, ways in which we actually recognize the learning that happens outside of school is part of making sure we have a digital equity infrastructure. I mean, the Biden administration has done this with the infrastructure bill. Verizon has been doing this in a big way. That is how you begin to change the narrative around what schools can do for all people.

Holly Owens (15:38.595)
Yeah, you know what, I hate to say this, but I'm really glad that the pandemic happened, particularly for the reason of this, to expose some of the things that we are, that us as educators or us as support staff are constantly saying we need better internet, we need more reliable devices, kids need to have access in school and at home. Like people, could just, it's just like we're constantly to a red in the face telling people about these things, but

but COVID hit and then it's like, yeah, we really do need this. It's kind of like, we've been telling you this for years. Yes, we do.

Jean-Claude Brizard (16:14.603)
Yeah, but we have a short memory. That's my worry, Holly. So I completely agree. You've heard the expression, it crashes is terrible thing to waste. But the challenge there, frankly, is that people will quickly forget what happened and don't prepare for, frankly, what could again happen in the future. Whether it climate change, whether it be something else that creates a challenge for us in education.

Holly Owens (16:42.905)
Yeah.

Jean-Claude Brizard (16:44.373)
So that's my worry that we're going to forget very quickly.

Holly Owens (16:48.117)
I didn't forget, and I certainly did forget some of those articles that came out about emergency remote teaching and how we can do things online when there's a distinct difference between emergency remote teaching and online education. So, all right, I'm gonna get off of that soap box. Yeah. So what I wanna know is like, and how do you really see, so a lot of people, there's a resistance to

Jean-Claude Brizard (17:05.729)
Yes.

Holly Owens (17:16.805)
It's always been there. People in the classroom don't necessarily like, it's the bright new shiny thing. I hear a lot of my students say that they got access to blank technology. They got getting training on it. They didn't understand why it was being implemented or they didn't get a chance to give any input. So how do you see technology transforming the K to 12 space? And then can you possibly give us like some examples of successful integration?

in the classrooms and how does that all enhance learning experiences? I mean, we know, but how for you in doing what you do at Digital Promise, how does that all look?

Jean-Claude Brizard (17:56.373)
I think great question. Thank you. I mean, I am a big believer in technology really transforming education. And I'll give you a personal example in a second. I published and we published a paper, I think last year on digital transformation. And that was really the whole piece. And the headline was, let's use the pandemic to our earlier conversation as practice for could happen to our disruption. But it is so much more than that. When you think about tech enabled education,

Again, it is still about teaching and learning, even with the obsession over the shiny object we call AI. And we've been doing AI work for years. know, GPT was not a revolution for digital promise. We have experts on staff who've been at this for a long time. So we did about digital transformation, though there are multiple facets of it. At the foundational level, is digital equity, making sure that the technology is accessible to all. It also means you start with the teacher,

First of all, there's gotta be a vision around technology in the district. But you start with a teacher, make them comfortable and understand the use of technology in their particular lesson planning and lesson work and pedagogical practice. Because the kids are visual natives, right? They're gonna adapt very quickly. But we get the adults to be very comfortable. They know what it means, how to leverage it in their classroom. Then you get the kinds of ubiquitous and organic integration into the work. I want to come back to your question on that in a second. But when you think

digital transformation, again, making sure that is, that that transmission can create coherence at the system level, meaning that when you look at the student information systems, when you look at the HR system, the financial system, the technology can help create a picture of a district and where the challenges are in the system. When you look right now, for example, at things like chronic absenteeism, which is pervasive across the US.

The challenge is massive right now with kids who not coming to school or missing 10 plus days of school a year. Many districts, many systems don't really understand why. Yet the data may exist within their countries, within their walls, making sense of it by connecting different data systems to tell what's going on, to know how to intervene, there, biodiversity. But to get more granular, I'll you an example, maybe start with my personal example. I taught physics.

Jean-Claude Brizard (20:20.929)
physics can be an amorphous and difficult subject to teach. I found technology, or you know what?

Holly Owens (20:25.877)
I don't like physics. In college it was, cause I didn't have you as a teacher. That's why.

Jean-Claude Brizard (20:31.839)
I was going to say that you didn't have the right teachers. I had an amazing high school chemistry and physics teacher that changed, particularly my oral orientation around this. But my high school teacher was mostly at George Westinghouse High School in Brooklyn, New York. The school was nicknamed Hip Hop High. By the way, Jay -Z, Buster, Ryan, Lil Kim all went to Westinghouse High School. I won't say more. Yeah. But again,

DaNadia Johnson (20:52.812)
wow. That's cool.

Holly Owens (20:53.227)
It sounded familiar. was like, I've heard of that before.

Jean-Claude Brizard (20:59.541)
which meant very simply, we're not getting, the kids are coming out of the most affluent homes in Brooklyn, right? I these were regular Brooklyn kids, right? I loved them dearly. So when I taught physics, we had this amazing software from Vernier and I completely changed the laboratory experience. If you remember your days in high school, you're chemistry, biology, or physics lab, you had a cookbook, basically procedure you followed and you are done and you have no idea what you did, right?

But when you look at changing it, what we did very simply was the experimentation lasted one minute or 30 seconds. The conversation and discussion was a half an hour. So if you're looking at, for example, moving a cart down a ramp, and a motion probe is measuring the distance versus time, and a computer showing it to you, you do that, it takes you 10 seconds, and then you can engage a group of kids as to what happened, what did you see in a real organic inquiry -based conversation, right?

When you think about, for example, when tell a teacher differentiate and they have 34 kids in the classroom, they can't do that, right? Technology can really help them understand what we call the learner variable needs of every single student and be able to plan lessons for each child. And AI could actually help with that as well too. So you think about getting personal, you think about really changing what we do. And I'll give you one more. mean, some of us in this audience are old enough to remember the magic.

School bus? I remember that. Yes. Yeah, I taught earth science in New York City for a while. One of the most difficult things to do, we didn't have resources, I in Bushwick, didn't have a lot of resources, right? But we can use technology to bring kids to and see plate tectonics in action to see how earth actually happens to come and see different, so I can take kids to Fiji.

Holly Owens (22:26.959)
yeah, bringing the nostalgia out, nostalgia, me too.

DaNadia Johnson (22:27.874)
love the magic school. Miss Frizzle.

Jean-Claude Brizard (22:54.679)
Right using technology and we can go visit and see so this idea of making the curriculum come alive We looked at groups like brain power for example what they do with technology They give you an entry to the curriculum that may not be there complex issues around diversity equity and belonging can easily be brought to conversation Using what my daughter loved she's 23, but she remember Moby and she loved it, right?

My point is that technology can be an amazing enabler, an amazing support, and really bring curriculum and pedagogy alive. Which for me, especially for poly resource communities, can be an amazing thing for kids.

DaNadia Johnson (23:38.018)
love that. I could literally have this conversation forever because I just love talking K -12 education and research and all of this. But I do have a quick question. I wanna know, and you may have touched on this with your last question because I feel like this might be going into that. But I wanna know a little bit more about this idea that Digital Promise talks about, powerful learning.

Like, what does that mean to digital promise? And like, how does that, how do you foster that in classrooms with K -12 students?

Jean-Claude Brizard (24:17.045)
Yes, it's a great question. So many of us in the audience have heard of deeper learning and those kinds of things around learning. What powerful learning for us is a layer above that. It encompasses deeper learning, standards -based learning, whatever terminology you want to use. But what it does is layer on technology as well. So we talk about powerful learning enabled by powerful technology, right? So

For us, it includes everything, but it also includes agency. We think about the learning, a child's ownership of their learning. So we can't say this is a powerful learning experience, but a learner can say that, right? This was a powerful learning experience. So it is about making sure that, yes, is focused on deeper learning. It is focused on standards. It is focused on the learner's experience in the process.

DaNadia Johnson (24:58.315)
Absolutely.

Jean-Claude Brizard (25:11.147)
but also involves the idea of powerful technology, really enabling the kind of learning experiences that we want every child to actually have, right? That for us is in a concept of the definition of powerful learning.

Holly Owens (25:27.525)
I mean, I'm still traumatized by organ trail and dysteria, dying of dysteria. I mean, that created a core memory for me. And we still talk about it. Even today, like people refer to it in different types of means and it's become a part of our culture to talk about organ trail. That's technology that was introduced and I'm aging myself. But anyways, I feel

Jean-Claude Brizard (25:31.221)
Ha ha ha!

Holly Owens (25:52.899)
When you create, and I'm referencing inside out, you create those core memories with people in education. That's what you're talking about. Those are the things that

DaNadia Johnson (25:59.)
Yeah, that stick, that are powerful to the learner.

Jean-Claude Brizard (26:03.387)
But Holly, it's also what we talked about in the... Yes. I mean, you remember, for example, no, it's okay, you remember the expressions around enduring understanding. But I want to get to where you go, and you brought up this idea of non -academic development. You didn't use those words, but that's exactly what you're talking about. Some people call them doable skills. It's some called power skills. But when you think about...

DaNadia Johnson (26:07.63)
I'm sorry.

Holly Owens (26:20.185)
Yep.

Jean-Claude Brizard (26:31.859)
So much of our efforts in education has focused on math and reading proficiency. I have kids, right? For my kids, that's a means to an end. And for many people, that's a means to an end. In too many places in our world, that's the north star. If you get kids proficiency, you're done. Meanwhile, you go to more affluent communities, or even in the middle class communities, or professional parents, we expect math and reading proficiency to come.

What we really want to see, frankly, is a focus on lifelong learning, on tenacity, on leadership, right? So when you look at these core memories or these core experiences, we say those kinds of non -academic competencies beget the academic competencies. And by the way, things like executive function is an academic skill, right? And we tend to, special educators, by the way, and early learners, early learning educators understand this really well. The rest of us in education, have struggled to understand what that really means.

But when you look at adults who are successful, I bet if I were to ask you, name three things that are instrumental to your success. You would not list your GPA from MIT or Harvard or whatever top two university you went to, right? You talk about other things like leadership, tenacity, perseverance, right? This is what navigational skills, those are the kinds of skills that young people need. We need to teach and can be taught. Quickly, now I'm talking about grit, which I don't love that expression

Grit is, half of grit is not teachable. It's not malleable. When you think about all these other skills are so critical for learning and critical for lifelong success. That is what we have to think about with the cost of education. Again, I'm not saying that math and reading profession is unimportant. It is, but there's our means to one end. They're not the end means.

Holly Owens (28:21.541)
Yeah, 100%. And how'd you know I was thinking about grit? Like you read my mind. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And I feel like is that the part, I'm gonna, Nadya, I'm gonna extend this episode because I just have so many questions.

Jean-Claude Brizard (28:26.199)
Most people do.

DaNadia Johnson (28:34.38)
but to say we're gonna have to do a Where Are They Now episode because I still have other questions.

Holly Owens (28:38.933)
Yes, I know. I know. And I was thinking about grit and the like, yeah, go ahead.

Jean-Claude Brizard (28:39.83)
Yes.

DaNadia Johnson (28:46.439)
no, go ahead.

Holly Owens (28:48.749)
I was thinking about grit and like maybe the the intrinsic motivation. Like that's not you can't teach that. That's innate, in my opinion.

Jean-Claude Brizard (28:54.805)
Yes, yes. No, it is. So mean, greed is made of two skills, right? By the way, I'm married to a cognitive scientist who's an educator. he taught me a lot about this. Right? should have her. Yes, yes. So I mean, it's two skills. One is it leans on interest, the other one on perseverance, right? You can teach someone to persevere and to have a growth mindset to keep trying, right?

Holly Owens (29:00.931)
No, that explains... Why is she on the show too?

DaNadia Johnson (29:01.174)
ooooh, wow!

DaNadia Johnson (29:07.678)
Right, we need to talk to her.

Jean-Claude Brizard (29:23.627)
But you cannot teach someone to be interested in something. You can expose them to it, but you can't force them to be interested in something. And that's part of challenge of it. So one is malleable, one is not. So in itself, it's a good nugget to tell to Torah people, but it is not baked in a way that you can teach it to everybody. Perseverance, growth mindset, those things are critical. You can expose people to different things, but you cannot make them be interested in something.

DaNadia Johnson (29:26.882)
Yeah. Right.

DaNadia Johnson (29:54.572)
Yeah, absolutely. But that's why we have all the research that Digital Promise does to help us with creating those spaces and those learning environments for students. So that's absolutely amazing. Well, we're coming up on the end of the episode. This is such an amazing episode. I'm so excited for our listeners to hear it and hear all of this wonderful knowledge. But just a quick question, is there anything that we missed? Anything else you want to share about Digital Promise, your initiatives?

Jean-Claude Brizard (30:01.131)
Yes. Yes.

DaNadia Johnson (30:22.958)
Anything else that you want to share with our audience before we close this episode?

Jean-Claude Brizard (30:30.199)
Yeah, mean, what I would say is like, our website. We're working more and more on dissemination and making sure folks have access to information. But one of our goals is to make sure that 75 % of those adults who are supporting kids who are historically marginalized, excluded, have access to tools they need to create the conditions for success. And frankly, what I'm saying very simply is like, look at our website, sign up, be part of our conversation. We over -index on practitioners.

what are your teacher or principals, join us. We'll love your sleeves and join us in this collective effort of making sure education works for all kids.

Holly Owens (31:12.207)
Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Jean -Claude. We really appreciate your time and can't wait to drop this like Nadia said for our audience.

DaNadia Johnson (31:15.032)
Well, thanks so much. Yeah.

Thank you.

Jean-Claude Brizard (31:19.497)
It's a pleasure. Thank

DaNadia Johnson (31:25.205)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jean-Claude Brizard (31:26.103)
Thank you. Thank