451: Meredith Olson—Better Education Now

Mike Rowe here.

It's the way I heard it with an episode called Better Education Now.

Now, Mike, now.

Now, come on.

How?

Bring it on.

How long do we have to wait for better education?

I don't know, but it's already past now and we don't have it.

But we're gonna.

Yes.

Hey, my guest is Meredith Olson, a really interesting woman who I met years ago at Stand Together.

And Stand Together, of course, is a

oh, I guess let's call it a celebration of bottom-up solutions.

They've been sponsoring People You Should Know.

Yes.

Over on my YouTube page.

Anyway, Meredith sort of morphed through that organization and wound up running an education, I guess, let's call them an educational entity.

Sure, yeah.

Vela, V-E-L-A.

There are only about 10 people in this nonprofit, and they oversee 4,200 schools that are somewhere between private schools and public schools with a dash of homeschooling thrown into it.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Right.

So long story short, there's a video on my Facebook page right now that's generating lots of questions from people who are super interested in exploring these schools.

You have to think of them like like community schools.

Some of them are in buildings that look like it could be an elementary school building, but very rarely.

Most of them look like a dentist's office.

These are intensely local schools, and they're run by founders who are also teachers and effectively principals.

And also, some of them look like farms or

a petting zoo.

That's right.

They could be anywhere in the country.

They're in every state, 4,200 of these things.

They've served over 5 million kids.

Point is, I spent a day visiting a couple of these schools and was blown away.

I was initially skeptical because I just didn't understand how something with so little structure could yield such great results.

But the results are in, and the evidence does demand a verdict, and 5 million satisfied learners

can't be denied.

So I wanted to talk to Meredith and ask her some of the questions that are popping up in the comment section of the video, which I invite you to look at over on my

YouTube channel.

I normally don't do this kind of thing, but it just feels like everything's kind of lining up at the same time.

And I, look, our education system, she's way more charitable than I am.

I think our public education system is in terrible trouble.

I really do.

And I'm just looking at the results as they compare to other school systems around the world.

I've talked to so many school teachers who are frustrated.

with the mechanism that's in place right now and a lot of parents who frankly feel betrayed, you know, and after the lockdowns.

And

look, public education is a marvelous invention and it certainly served us well.

Yeah.

But times are evolving and changing and alternative methods are beginning to rise and Vela, V-E-L-A,

is definitely one of them.

And look, I can't speak for anybody but me, but I'm pretty sure.

millions and millions and millions of voters and taxpayers are hoping and praying for better education when?

Now.

That's what I'm saying, Charlie.

I think you're going to like Meredith.

She's smart, and she's on to something big, and we'll prove it right after this.

You don't need to be a CFO to benefit from downloading and reading the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning.

It's free.

It's fascinating.

And it's really essential for anybody who's trying to understand the impact of AI on business today.

You can download it for free at netsuite.com slash mic.

And the reason you should is simple.

We're living in an age where the experts do not agree with each other on anything, it seems.

Interest rates, inflation, the stock market, tariffs, a manufacturing renaissance that may or may not be on the horizon.

Nobody knows.

Nobody's got a crystal ball.

But one thing's for sure, AI is going to impact all of that, along with the way your business operates, which is why 42,000 companies have already future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle.

This is the number one cloud ERP out there.

NetSuite brings together everything: your accounting, your financial management, inventory, HR, all of it goes onto one fluid platform, which means you close the books in days instead of weeks and spend a lot less time looking backwards and more time looking forward to whatever's next.

Learn more at netsuite.com/slash mic.

And while you're there, download download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning.

It's an eye-opener and it's free.

Netsuite.com slash Mike.

That's netsuite.com slash Mike.

That's netsuite.com.

Netsweet.com.

Netsuite.

Yes, NetSuite.

I said NetSuite.com.

You said NetSuite.com

So Meredith, you were a what kind of engineer?

Mechanical.

And where did you study?

Virginia Tech.

And you grew up in, what, Richmond?

Richmond, Virginia.

Yeah.

Born and raised.

So did you know you were going to be an engineer when you grew up?

When I grew up, no, you know, I never really thought about what I wanted to be growing up.

I mean, I think I was good at math.

I liked reading.

I loved art.

And at the time, so this would have been, I was a child of the 80s.

And

when you're trying to think about what's next in your career or at college and career, you think about, well, how am I going to get a job?

What am I going to do?

Right.

And so at the time, this was late 80s, early 90s, there was a huge opportunity for women to go into engineering.

And I thought, you know what?

I love math.

Did it feel like

I love design?

Did it feel like a reverse commute of sorts at that time?

Like, were you going in some direction that made your family go,

uh-oh, is this dangerous or something?

Yeah, no, not at all.

My mom and dad were both very open-minded about whatever career I might choose.

I was a child of divorced parents.

They were divorced when I was an infant, but they both loved me very much and supported whatever I wanted to do.

So, I had single parents growing up.

I went to my neighborhood public school.

I had great teachers.

My education was good.

Like, it wasn't great, but it was good.

And it wasn't the like highly selective best public school in town, but it was a good school.

And so, you know, I thought, okay, I like math and I enjoy design and art.

And so it felt like if I studied engineering, I could design things.

So I guess the point of just the personal probing is that you are the product of a fairly traditional education, a public school, and then a decent university, and then, you know, the encouragement to try new things and so forth and so on.

And

can somebody still do that today?

Can you still get that kind of...

Yeah, no, I think you can.

I think you can, but it was a little bit easier, I think, when I was a kid.

And so you didn't have all of the technology influences.

You didn't have an overly scheduled life.

I mean, I grew up at a time where I would come home from school and there was no one around.

My parents were working.

And so the kids all ran.

Did they call them Latchkey kids?

Yeah, they called them that, but we never really thought about it that way.

It was more,

think like, think about the movies of the time.

Think about E.T.

or the Goonies, right?

Where were the parents?

Right.

Right?

Where were they?

No, I mean, like, the kids were getting into trouble after school.

They were, this was their free time.

This was their creative time.

So you went to school all day and then you came home and you explored, right?

And so that was the childhood that I experienced.

So I loved school, but then I loved being at home just exploring and like this whole thrill of discovery.

But like, is that what happens today?

That's the question

I was getting at.

You know, it's like when I talk about the product of a traditional education, that's exactly what I meant to say.

Because if you are, then you're also the product of a certain time.

That's right.

And that time came with a certain permission.

In fact, you'll remember field trips and permission slips.

That's right.

And very, you know, simple things that, you know, parents, you have to sign it and you guys are going maybe wandering out of the safe space a little bit to see what can be learned out in the world

yeah so think about your time you had your structured permission time during the day you had compliance at school it was like a conformity exercise there's bells and there's class periods and you have homework assignments that are due and your parents are signing things but then when you come home from school nights and weekends and after school, that's your unstructured time.

Yeah.

Right?

That was your free time.

The world was your canvas canvas, and you were just like having at it.

That's what I want to jump right into: this weird line between structured time and unstructured time, and how once upon a time it seemed to have been drawn pretty brightly and pretty straight.

What you're doing at Vela in a lot of ways is just blurring that line all over the place.

That's right.

I think in a great way.

I mentioned in the preamble, there's a video up now that you and I shot back in, was it October?

So many questions.

People are really super interested in what's happened here.

And I guess I should really jump in by saying that I think the last time I saw you, you guys had 3,500 of these schools.

That's right.

Where are you now?

So now we're at, as of today, so I have to check every day because we're adding new founders to our network.

But as of today, we're at 4,276.

I mean, it's almost 700 new founders just this year in 2025.

And was I correct also also in the preamble when I talked about the space you guys are occupying feels, to me, like somewhere between a traditional homeschooling approach and a traditional public school.

There are elements of both.

But man, it seems like the headlines have caught up with your mission.

And a lot of people, a lot of parents, concerned parents who might not be comfortable assuming the burden of educating their kid hard stop are gravitating to these

non-traditional approaches.

That's right.

I mean it's a whole, I would say there's definitely been a paradigm shift.

It's sort of a almost like a lifestyle shift where you're seeing increasingly whether you're a family, a parent, a kid, an educator, where there's a desire to own your own education, if that makes sense.

It's hard to get those words out.

But like rather than passively receiving an education that's given to you, you're owning it and driving it and you feel the right and the responsibility to go pursue the education of your dreams.

And so that's a different, that's a different thing.

Well, are you talking from the perspective of the student or from the parent?

Both.

What most informs Vela?

And after you tell me that, tell me what Vela means.

Okay, so what most informs Vela is this idea that good people are talented.

And they should be able to have the dignity to make decisions about their own lives, right?

And that includes the ability to make decisions about their own education.

And so when we see people who are talented and motivated and they're self-determined, amazing things happen.

So we see them learning from each other, we see them seeing problems out in the world, and then coming up with solutions to solve those problems.

And before you tell me what Vela is, and I spoiler alert, I know the answer and I love it.

But when you talk about this kind of network and connectivity, you're talking about the relationship with your founders.

And when you're talking about founders, you're basically talking about the teachers in these small micro schools

who basically function as a principal as well, right?

They're this amalgam of all the authority figures I've ever known, but just weirdly without all of the weight that comes with, oh no, I'm in the principal's office or uh-oh, you know, the teacher wants to have a word.

All of that got blurred too.

It does get blurred.

So you have people, so many people go into teaching for all the right reasons.

they do because they love children they love education they care about holistic human development they care about making sure that kids are on the right path in life right and so they deeply are connected to that idea but for whatever reason they might feel in a traditional environment that they're constrained that they're not able to like express their craft the way that that they would in an ideal setting.

And so many of those teachers now are saying, you know what, I can do this.

I don't need to be stuck in a big institution.

I can go and start my own thing.

I can deliver education the way I think kids best learn.

Wow, this is, okay.

It's going to get a little personal.

We'll circle back to what Vela means.

Now it's become a tease.

And don't let me forget to ask you.

But

let me talk a little bit more then about,

like before we really get into why this thing is moving the needle,

I want to better understand what's broken and how it got broken.

Because the people you just described were my mom and dad.

They both taught public school.

My sister-in-law is the principal in a public school.

My nieces teach in a public school.

They all feel called to varying degrees to do this thing.

And they're all wonderful people.

Now, when I look at the union, that oversees public education, and when I look at local municipalities and local state governments and all of the battle for money and funding and throw in a little PTA and all of the drama and so forth.

I mean, my God.

I don't want to speak for anybody specifically, but I've seen great teachers' will

break.

And I just wonder how many of those people listening right now would be interested in this.

Because we always kind of default to the parents and the kids, but it's the teachers themselves that I think are also grappling.

Anyway, long way of asking you what's busted.

Yeah, so let me ask you, do you think it's broken?

Because I'm not sure that it is.

Well,

I know that in Baltimore, a vast majority of high school graduates are reading at a seventh grade level.

I know that in my hometown as well, math proficiencies are even worse.

So if we're comparing ourselves to the rest of the world and if we're looking at that kind of data, it ain't great,

is it?

Yeah, no, I mean, so here's how I think about traditional education.

I think that it's delivering exactly what it's been designed to deliver, right?

And I think it does it pretty well.

So, traditional education is reliable, it's efficient, it's familiar.

We know what it is.

It's designed, if you go back to the 1890s and the Committee of Ten that originally designed secondary education, their goal, and I'm going to mess mess up the committee.

So it was a committee of university administrators, university presidents, led by, I believe the gentleman's name from Harvard was Charles Elliott.

Okay, so he convenes this committee.

And at the time, consider that our society was industrializing.

And so we still had in the United States largely an agrarian economy, but it was beginning to industrialize.

And so the ideal for education was a very egalitarian concept, this concept of common schooling or public schooling.

The idea was every student should be taught every subject in the same way and to the same extent, regardless of their ultimate destination.

So that was one of the quotes that came out of the report, right?

And so the idea was if you are destined for the farm, the factory, or for some form of higher education, you would have the same common foundation.

That would be your baseline.

Right.

And so the reason that we take the scope and sequence that we take now in secondary education, the reason that you take biology and then chemistry and then physics and in that order dates back to the 1890s because they prescribe that sequence.

And so I think that was well conceived, it was well planned, it had great goals, right?

What's happened over time, we then had the whole period of industrialization, scientific management, sorting and ranking and measuring everything.

That led to the advent of standardized assessment, you know, the bubble test that we're all familiar with, right?

And so then we started to design education and deliver it in order to identify the talented 10, the top 10%, the people who are going to be our future leaders

in society.

The gifted and talented.

Right, exactly.

As opposed to the cursed and backward.

Right, and so you've got to design these instruments that help with talent identification.

Right?

And we've all taken these tests.

And so again, I think public education does a really good service in offering education broadly that follows a common standard to as many students as possible.

And I believe today about 83% of all students in America, all school-aged children, are receiving some form of public education.

And so I don't know that that's a problem.

I actually think public education works really, really well for a great number of people.

And in fact, I would say that public education sets the standard.

What Velas, Vela partners, Vela founders that we support are doing, they're not setting the standard, they're setting you apart.

So they're doing something different.

So it might be better, it might be worse, but it's different and better for the students who are pursuing that path, right?

Well,

Todd Rose is on your board.

He is.

Is he?

Yeah, he's been with us since the beginning.

So we first started exploring the concepts of what became Vela about a decade ago.

And

he was a thought partner with a small band of thinkers and intellectuals, and we were trying to think about what's next in education.

So there's a very good possibility that the meat in your local grocery store that's labeled product of the USA actually came from Namibia or Mexico or someplace in South America.

It's a scandal.

It's been going on for years thanks to a loophole.

in the law, which happily has been closed.

The USDA has finally passed a law that forbids this, but the law doesn't go into effect until 2026.

That's the main reason I switched to Good Ranchers.

Every ounce of Good Ranchers' meat delivered to my door is guaranteed to be raised on a local farm here in these United States, and the quality is incredible.

Honestly, I'm so glad I switched.

The benefits of subscribing are also pretty great.

In fact, you sign up today, you get $25 off every box, free shipping, and a free gift in every order for life.

By free gift, I mean free meat.

I've gotten their chicken thighs.

The bacon is amazing, super thick cut.

Italian sausage just came with my last order.

Delicious.

You can swap the gift each month if you want to try something new.

You can pause or cancel the service if you're going to be traveling.

Super simple.

Doesn't lock you into anything.

And at the risk of repeating myself, the quality is incredible.

Go to goodranchers.com, see what all the fuss is about, and start shopping American meat that you can trust.

Use code Mike, get $40 off plus free meat for life.

That's code Mike for $40 off plus free meat for life when you start a subscription at goodranchers.com.

If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch.

Get Good Ranchers now.

Hey haul!

Well, I only bring him up because he sat where you're sitting, and we've had a couple of really lively chats and he's,

oh, I don't know.

I mean, maybe a little less charitable in the way.

Look, you're very nice, and you're very kind.

And I think everything you've said is true.

But I also think that at base, when you talk about that industrial time,

so many of the tropes and the artifacts of a factory were brought into the school, from the ringing bell to the regimentation to the right I mean these things really ran in a top-down way

so we didn't have computers back then we didn't have all these machines and so we had to create the human machinery so what were we teaching kids at the time to do automatic tasks to do them quickly to do them at a high quality to do them well right many of the tasks that we were taught and the processes that we were taught were critically important during that time we now live in a creative economy we live in a in a different economy It's a high-tech economy, right?

And so, how are we preparing students for this current future, which is changing rapidly?

Well, isn't that the thing that's broken?

Isn't so much of the public school system clinging to an older economy?

And aren't we painting with a pretty broad brush?

I mean, if we're trying to inspire whatever the creative synapses are that can fire in a kid's brain,

is that happening by and large on the public school stage?

Yeah, I mean, I would say that the public school is, again, it's reliable and it's efficient and it's going to continue, right?

It's the big cruise ship, right?

The big ocean liner that's out there.

Will it change course over time?

Absolutely it will, right?

But it'll only change course if there are influences from the outside that come in that try new methods.

And speedboats and dinghies

flowing past the cruiser, going in different directions in uncharted waters.

That's right.

I think that public education will adapt and will continue to adapt over time, but it'll do so when there are people who are working in the unstructured, permissionless space who are showing the art of the possible.

And so that's the good news.

But I mean, consider too, you know, when we talk about large institutions, think about, I like to think about analogies.

a lot.

So what are some analogies that we could look at that help describe what's happening in education?

So one might be hoteling.

Okay,

so you stay at a hotel.

Let's say you go into a Marriott, and you go into a Marriott in New York City.

Am I Ambassador Gold at this point?

Or just a guy off the street?

Okay.

So I've got points, I've got status.

So, what are some of the features of the Marriott?

Oh, when I get into the Marriott, well, I'm going to get a free breakfast the next day.

I'm going to have access to the club level where the coffee is free and they might put out a cocktail in the evening.

And there might be some credit.

There might be some other credit, maybe, for the spa.

Right.

Something like that.

Okay, so is there a spa?

Well, I sure hope so.

You hope there's.

I've been on the road a long time, Meredith.

Okay.

Is there a restaurant?

Yes, there's a restaurant.

There's a restaurant.

Is there a swimming pool?

Yes, there's a swimming pool next to the spa.

Okay, and in your room.

What are some features of the room?

Well,

I would have hoped there would be

an amenity waiting for me.

Maybe some fruit.

Maybe some champagne, if they know my profile.

I don't know.

Maybe there would be a little mint by the pillow.

Right.

Perhaps.

But even more basic.

Shampoo, conditioner, and iron.

I would hope so.

Indoor plumbing, all that stuff.

Yeah, they got everything to Marriott.

Now imagine that you're at a Marriott in Singapore.

Okay.

Are the amenities the same or are they different?

Well, they're going to be different for sure.

Right, but a lot of the things that you saw in New York at the Marriott is in common with that hotel in Singapore, right?

Well, sure,

they have to have a standardized approach.

That's right.

They have to, but you know, McDonald's fries taste pretty much the same everywhere in the country, but to your point, they are different in Europe.

That's right.

Okay, but you're, and you know about what you're going to pay.

Yes.

You have a pretty good sense.

Yes.

Okay, now let's contrast this with, let's say, you go to New York and you decide to stay at an Airbnb.

Okay.

Do you have any any expectation of any of those amenities?

Well, I have hopes.

You know, I have dreams.

I have Yelp or I have whatever, you know, crowd funded or right.

I'm going to look for the stars.

I'm going to read the comments.

But no, my expectations is.

Do you expect a spa?

I do not.

How about a full-service restaurant?

No, I don't.

Yeah.

How about shampoo and conditioner?

Maybe?

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe.

But it's going to be different, right?

But you're thinking, I might get some local color.

I might stay in a neat neighborhood.

I'm getting a different sort of like boutique experience compared to the Marriott, right?

You might have a cool table.

That's right.

You might be in a part of town that isn't built up with a bunch of hotels.

And then now, how about if you stay at an Airbnb in Singapore?

Well,

is there such a thing?

I don't know.

Well, I can't answer that with any degree of certainty.

If I were in Singapore, I can tell you this.

I'm relatively adventurous.

I'm certainly curious.

But I'd be going to the Marriott before I'd be able to.

You'd be going to the Marriott.

In Singapore.

In Singapore.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay, so which is better?

Let's say you're going to New York, the Airbnb in New York or the Marriott in New York.

Which is better, objectively?

God, that's such a good question.

Well, it depends.

Am I on a walkabout with some friends or am I traveling for business?

Right.

If I'm traveling for business, it's the Marriott.

All the way.

It's just easy, right?

Yep.

Okay, so this is what's happening in education.

So when our founders who are generally operating very bespoke customized learning environments for the specific target market that they're serving, they're more like these little Airbnb locations, right?

These proprietors who are offering a highly customized experience.

And so the question of whether or not they're better than your traditional public school is almost moot.

Because it's offering something completely different.

So just as we wouldn't compare like a local Airbnb to a Marriott, they're both offering accommodation, but it's a completely different experience.

So interesting.

I thought you were going to take the bait.

I thought you were going to tell me, you know, Vela is the solution to a broken system

because that's been my experience.

And even going to Vela, I'm thinking of, oh,

Pam,

you introduced me to Pam.

a founder, teacher, principal, force of nature, this woman is.

She is.

Who's operating her school, which is called the Isidora.

Isadora Elaine Dean.

Yes.

And folks, if you were driving through this parking lot and you glanced up, you'd swear it was your old dentist's office.

I mean, it doesn't look like a school.

But to your point, you're going to make the Airbnb point.

Yeah, that's right.

And so, look, sometimes I'm on the road and I'm going to stay.

at a Marriott.

Other times, I'm going to pursue an Airbnb.

So it really depends on your unique circumstance, depends on your unique family situation, what your values and priorities are, and how you can best satisfy those.

So this is like a highly personal decision.

So what we're finding in this world today is that families are making that decision on their own.

They're looking, let's say you've got four kids, I have four kids.

Maybe one kid, one of my four kids, should be in a public school setting.

Maybe another one should be homeschooled.

one-on-one in the home.

Maybe another one should be in a small alternative environment.

That's That's the level of variation that we're seeing.

So we're seeing variation within families.

We're seeing tremendous variety within cities.

And then you're seeing this happening.

I mean, there's something in the water because it's happening all across the country.

Well, you know, we were talking about that offline, you know, anecdotally here at Microworks.

I haven't done anything different this year.

We've been at this for 17 years now.

We have 10 times the applicants today as we did a year ago today for these scholarships.

Why?

What is happening broadly to make

maybe it's the kids themselves, but I suspect it might be parents too who are saying, you know something?

I ought not affirmatively discourage my kid from learning a trade.

Maybe we should just put all of this on the table.

Is something like that happening within families?

I mean, I think you just kind of answered it, but you have a front row seat to it.

Yeah, I think it's definitely happening.

So I would say that families are becoming more self-reliant, more resilient, more independent, and they're looking to themselves to solve problems.

So we're seeing this culturally just writ large, right?

Does it surprise you that that would happen after COVID?

Yeah, you know,

this is really an interesting,

interesting conversation.

I know you mentioned that you'd been talking to Todd Rose, and this is something that Todd and I have talked about as well.

So when you have a situation like the pandemic, you could have a couple of different outcomes.

So you you could have almost like a flight to safety.

So in scary times where people flock to the relative comfort and safety of large institutions and experts and centralized authorities.

But you could also have people go the other way.

where during tough times that are uncertain and scary, then you go back to the core of like, what are your values and who is closest to you?

And you go back to, I mean, it's like going home and relying on self.

Well, I wonder, look, I appreciate that you don't want to just pile on to the status quo, but it sure seems like a lot of parents looking back at those mandatory closures and looking back at some of the arguments that were being made to keep those schools closed,

I mean, it sure feels to me like the message being sent was, there are a lot of important things here to consider, but your kid is nowhere near the top of the list.

Yeah, that's that's right.

Right?

And so that

really felt like, and I don't have four, I don't have any kids, but boy, everybody I know does.

And they all articulated some version of feeling like, wait a second, we can't count on some bureaucracy to make decisions that are in the best interest of Johnny or Sally.

Oh, look, COVID was the moment that changed everything, right?

I mean, the need for innovation in education was obvious.

What we were doing was not working, and it wasn't, systems were not flexible enough to adapt on a moment's notice to the changing conditions on the ground.

Yeah.

Right.

And so what happened in that moment?

Well, again, people saw problems, good people solved problems, and they started to, they just started to solve them.

And you saw this with private schools, you saw this with home education, you saw this with the emergence of a lot of new models that are out there, right?

And then some public schools adapted really, really well.

So they didn't all struggle, but too many did.

For sure.

In the same way that your familial experience might vary from the Smiths or the Joneses down the same street, Florida was a very different place than New York.

California was a very different place.

And so,

you know, it just keeps coming back to this idea that whatever it is we think we know broadly, be careful.

because that broad brush is going to get a lot of paint on things that really ought not be painted.

And so, I guess, I mean, when I left Katie's School, what was that called?

Green Gate?

Green Gate Children's School.

Green Gate, yeah.

I said to my business partner, Mary, I said, that

about better than anything I've ever seen proves definitively that a cookie-cutter approach is the real devil in all of this.

This episode is brought brought to you by PrizePicks, America's number one fantasy sports app.

Why?

Probably because football is back on TV and studies show that millions of fans who love, love, love to watch football also love, love, love to play PrizePicks.

Now, full disclosure, fantasy sports is not really my jam.

And if I'm being honest, I haven't watched a football game from start to finish since the Colts snuck out of Baltimore in the dead of night, March 28th, 1984.

I never really got over that one.

But not everybody carries a grudge like I do.

And today, millions of true fans who didn't get their hearts broken 40 years ago are winning real money by watching the game they love and answering one simple question, more or less.

That's how simple PrizePicks is.

All you do is build a lineup of two to six players.

Then you consider their projected stats for the game.

And then you pick more.

or less.

Pick right, you win money.

That's why Prize Picks is America's number one fantasy fantasy sports app.

The gameplay is simple, the payouts are big, and the withdrawals are quick and secure.

Bottom line, sports fans who really know the game are cashing in on their knowledge.

Download the app today.

Use code Mike at 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

That's code Mike to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5

lineup.

Colts, still miss you.

Keep your eyes on the prize at prizepix.com/slash Mike.

I met Katie in 2020, and we were still, I mean, this was right at the beginning of the pandemic, and she was having a tough time.

And I'll tell you why.

So, Katie had been a teacher, she'd also been a homeschooling mom, and she had been in a homeschooling, like a homeschooling group, right, with other families who were homeschooling.

And she had decided to bite the bullet, take the leap, and start her own school.

And so, right before the pandemic began in March of 2020, she had signed a lease where she rented a church.

And so this was a church that had expanded and had moved and they had the old building, right?

And so she signed this lease.

And then the other shoe drops.

COVID happens, shelter in place.

You know, how is she going to pay the rent?

She has families who, you know, what's going to happen?

Their kids aren't going to come to school, right?

And so she was terrified about what was going to happen.

So we met her at Vela.

Vela gave her a grant, and the grant enabled her to expand the outdoor play area.

So there was a small fence around that outdoor play area, but the grant enabled her to build a bigger fence to increase the size of that outdoor play area, which meant that she could open her doors during COVID, during shelter in place because the kids were outside.

Right?

And so that enabled her to actually grow her enrollment so that she could continue to survive during COVID.

So she not only did her, you know, she was worried that her business would go under, and it grew and it thrived and it continues to thrive.

And she's, I think you saw when you were there, she's now building additional buildings to satisfy all the additional demand from families.

So we were all told, you know, when we first started this thing called Vela, and I'll get back to your question in a minute about what the name means, but

we faced all kinds of questions from people.

The critics basically said this wasn't going to work.

I've spent so much time working with education reformers and people in the education establishment, and we would share our ideas.

I would share ideas about what could be possible if you allowed for more entrepreneurship and education.

And I generally received responses where they said, look, that's a fool's errand, Meredith.

What are you doing?

Don't go here.

Like, these operators are not legitimate.

This isn't going to work.

It's not going to last.

It's going to go south.

And so the critics came to us and they asked a bunch of different questions, right?

First, they said, well,

how are you going to find these people?

So we knew that creative types like Katie existed, but we had no idea how to find them.

And so they said, you know what?

This critic said, this is never going to amount to anything other than a small niche market for the wealthiest families, and it won't be sustainable over time.

Well, here's what we found.

We found people like Katie out there.

We've had more than 9,000 applications for support from founders of these new models.

It's not stopping, right?

And then, well, are these kids going to be wealthy kids only?

Is it a small niche market?

Well, we found that about 93% of all the founders we support are serving low and middle income families.

So this is remarkable, right?

People are investing their own time and their own money, and these are not wealthy people, in order to offer something better for their kids.

Well, I know there can't be a pat answer for this, but what does it cost to get your kid in a Vela school?

It's got to vary wildly.

It varies wildly.

I would say, so some numbers.

So here's some fast facts.

So the median learning environment in our network is charging about $450 per month per learner.

And so if you think about being in school for 10 months out of the year, it's about $4,500 a year per learner, which is a lot of money.

It's a lot less than your typical public school or typical private school, right?

So this is low-cost private education.

So that's normal.

In our network, also, we've tried to get a better handle on how large are these learning environments.

The typical one, the median size, is about 55 students in one of these learning environments.

So that gives you kind of a ballpark of what this looks like.

Are there larger ones?

For sure.

Are there smaller ones?

Yes.

More expensive ones, cheaper ones.

I mean, there's a wide degree of variation.

So

is there protocol?

Like, I mean,

Pam and Katie, as I recall, were very different people

in very different neighborhoods.

Is there any kind of top-down

thing involved here?

Or is it all bottom-up?

Right, good question.

I would say that what's animating this movement is a bottom-up approach, right?

And so people are,

you know, they're basically posting a shingle, they're advertising themselves for business, they're attracting customers, they're growing through word of mouth, and then they are delivering on the academic and personal growth goals that are demanded by families, right?

And to the extent that they're satisfying those families, they come back, they earn their trust, they earn their business.

And I mean, this is truly the power of the private sector at work.

We're just seeing it in education in a way that we're not used to it.

I love it.

But what are you hearing from local school boards?

And where does the criticism come from?

And how do you comply with a world that is still besotted?

and enthralled by standardized tests.

How do you, I mean, how do your graduates fit into that machine?

Yeah, great question.

And so the way we think about accountability, we do think accountability is critically important.

We think that the nexus of accountability happens between between the families and the founders.

So let's say you're Katie and you're leading one of these school environments, those families are holding her accountable for education delivery, right?

And it's up to her to come up with measures of assessment and then performance that satisfies their needs.

Now, how do they do that?

And we would say that there's a range of different ways.

So the way that you're going to assess performance at a Montessori school or like a Waldorf school or another, you know, sort of like self-directed learning community it's gonna look different than it would at a classical school or at a project-based learning school but every single one of these methods these educational methodologies has

a way to assess student progress and so those practitioners like those founders are delivering on those models for their families right okay so now how do they do it you ask that question we've asked our community we want to know how are you thinking about learner outcomes and we ask questions like do you have the students sit for the the state assessment assessment, the standardized tests?

What, you know, how are you doing this?

What we found is more than a third, it's about 36% of our operators are using some form of standardized assessment.

Now, this is really interesting because consider that they're not required to generally by state law.

And so they're voluntarily doing this.

These tests are not cheap.

They're expensive.

So they see value in purchasing the test in order to communicate those results to the families of the kids.

Importantly, they're administering the test not to comply with a bureaucratic requirement or a government requirement, but they're doing it in order to better communicate with families.

So, to the tune of more than a third of them.

Okay, so that's one category.

Then there's another category of what I'll call education technology that has embedded assessment.

So, there's this whole category, whether you think about Khan Academy or Zern or IXL, like all of these different software packages that are out there that offer embedded,

they're they're adaptive technologies that offer embedded assessment.

And so more than two-thirds of our operators use some form of adaptive ed tech that has ongoing assessment of student performance.

So they're utilizing methods, they just, and they're actually in many cases, they're utilizing the same methods that traditional public schools are using.

But does the outside world understand

what

success looks like vis-a-vis these

accreditations, if that's even the right word to use.

How do we know that a graduate from a Vela school, oh, Vela?

Oh, right?

Like,

I mean, and again, I'm only asking

as an outsider looking in, but if, in fact, your whole network of 4,200 schools is as bespoke as a bed and breakfast model,

then what's your brand?

Like, what brand emanates from that bullyabase of

unpredictability?

A boullabase?

A bouillabase.

I believe it's French for look at all the interesting things on my plate.

That's right.

So that's what this is.

There's all these interesting things.

So you asked, how does a kid take the next step?

Right?

Okay, well, they have a high school transcript.

They fill it out and complete it just like kids in a traditional school would.

There's tools for doing this for alternative education.

They take, they sit for and take the SAT or the ACT or the CLT.

I think that's the classical literacy exam.

And

they score.

They get benchmark scores.

Classical, a CLT is a thing?

I think that's what it's called.

Did you take that?

I did not take that.

Did you?

I did not.

Yeah.

But you know what?

My brother did.

My brother dropped out of college because he was bored to death.

And then he realized he, like you, wanted to be an engineer.

And he learned that you can actually sit for,

what do you call it, the board, the test, the...

Well, they have those CLEP exams as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He didn't go back to school.

He went to the library and in about two months read 2,000 pages on all of it

and just smoked it.

So all of these things are possible, right?

And so consider, I know you work all the time in, it's...

It's not called vocational education anymore, but

the trades.

Right, exactly.

The trades and career and technical education, there are dual enrollment programs all across this country.

Here's a little secret, homeschooling kids take those programs all the time, right?

So you might be having part of your studies at home or in a homeschooling group or in a hybrid homeschool environment, and part of your high school studies are taken at the local trade school down the street or at the local community college down the street.

You know, to circle back, part of what I think was a, I can't think of a more harebrained decision in the history of modern education than taking shop class out of high school along with Home Ec and whatever passes for financial literacy these days.

Like those basic things seem to have been deliberately and systematically removed in the 70s for the most part, early 80s, you know, when I was in high school.

And so that broad-based benchmark of all these different things that

that really became diminished.

And it happened so fast that people kind of forgot about it.

That's right.

So,

where do the trades, for lack of a better word, fall into the potential of Vela curriculum?

Oh, there's huge potential here, right?

So, at Vela, we don't have a standard curriculum.

We just have a collection of founders who are all doing things their own way.

And what we are seeing is a renewed emphasis on hands-on experiential learning activity, on practical arts.

Oh gosh, we have a founder we support that has what they call a common arts curriculum.

They learn how to black shoe horses, blacksmith horses.

Barriers.

Right?

Yes, exactly.

But they're learning, you find that many of these locations have a heavy emphasis on agriculture, on farming, on horticulture, on permaculture, right?

And so they're learning how things grow.

If you think about a typical education, you're spending, kids generally spend, you know, two to three hours a day in focused core academic instruction.

Now it's spaced all throughout the day with other

passing periods, enrichment classes,

lunchtime, right, homeroom.

And so your two and a half to three hours of really intense core instruction is spaced during the day.

Well, what if you reimagine the day?

So what if you focused on core in the morning?

And then in the afternoon, you had time to go on nature treks every day.

Or you had time to, you know, like engage in animal husbandry, right?

We are seeing this happening all over the place.

We're seeing an emphasis on more nature-based learning, on

more athletic activity, getting outside, going on a hike every day for three miles.

Skills USA is the number one workforce development organization for students in America.

They have over 440,000 members, and I'm working with them to double that number over the next five years.

Why?

Because Skills USA is awesome and our best hope of closing the skills gap in the next 10 years, which we simply must do.

Skills USA is in all 50 states.

You'll find them in middle schools, high schools, post-secondary institutions.

They don't just focus on technical skills, though.

They also focus on workplace and personal skills that employers are desperate to find.

Soft skills, in other words.

I've been to several of their national competitions.

I've seen with my own eyes how transformational this program is.

I've seen kids compete for the gold in two dozen separate vocations, and I've also seen them get hired right off the competition floor by some of the biggest employers in the country.

It's really extraordinary.

Here's the ask: Get involved, join the skilled trades movement by starting a chapter at your school, or partnering, or volunteering for Skills USA.

It's easy to do and important.

Get more information at skillsusa.org slash mike.

That's skillsusa.org slash mic.

I'm talking skills, US, skills, U.S.

skills, USA.

Well, one of the first things that struck me just at a glance was the relationship with risk.

Mm-hmm.

Climbing trees.

This fascinates me.

Those kids weren't just climbing trees.

They were 25 feet in the air in trees.

They were, we've got footage of these girls doing these crazy somersaults off of the swing set.

And it felt like when we first sat down and started talking, we were talking about that time in our youth.

So we had this unstructured playtime, right?

Yeah.

What if education could be like that all day long?

That's what we saw at Green Gate with the somersaults on the swings.

But it was more than that.

It wasn't just like, you know,

recess at the next level.

There was a geography class going on

while it looked like some sort of art class was happening.

The kids were drawing, and at the same time, they were technically, I guess, in a geography space.

And then over there, the same thing was sort of happening with math, but it was kinetic.

It was, I mean, there was

activity, it was cerebral and kinetic at the same time.

That's right.

So it turns out you can learn, you can make academic progress and acquire knowledge even as you're building skills of independence independence and resilience.

Wow.

Okay.

If I just bring this back to me for a moment.

Sometimes, Meredith, in the course of my work, I'm called upon to memorize large chunks of material.

I'm good at it, or facile anyway, if I can move.

Right?

So if you tell me to memorize three stanzas of a Robert Frost poem, I can do it pretty quick if I'm walking while I'm doing it.

And if I have to deliver it to a camera, then I need to be able to

block it out.

And so what happens for me, especially with memory exercises, is that the recall is linked really, really closely to the action.

And I know the same is true of actors.

You see them blocking a play, you know, and sometimes if you change the blocking, they'll just go.

they'll go blank.

So why in the world would we fill a classroom full of chairs and make everybody sit absolutely still as they attempt to somehow process massive amounts of information that are just being thrown at them?

It should not be a surprise that many young people struggle with this.

We see this frequently with young boys.

Like they need to be rambunctious.

They need to get out.

They need to play, right?

But they also need to learn.

And so I think you can accomplish both.

So the compliance environment of schools can and should change.

There's a young woman, I can remember going to a location, it was called Acton Buckhead.

It's located in a beautiful botanical garden outside of Atlanta.

Sounds like a great name for an action hero too, by the way.

Oh no, totally.

And the beauty of Acton School is every student is on their own hero's journey.

It's a self-directed learning facility.

This is like

Lord Acton, that guy?

Yes.

And these environments are really interesting.

I love all learning environments.

I love classical learning environments.

I love self-directed learning environments.

I think every single one of these is beautiful in its own way and can work for the right child.

In this particular learning environment, when we went to visit, we had a chance to

interview the kids.

And as we were interviewing the kids, there was a question that we raised to this young woman who I want to say she was 12 or 13, middle school age girl, right?

And we said, okay, if you were to meet the principal of a local high school,

what would you ask the principal?

And she said, I would ask, and I was just floored by her answer.

She said, I would ask, why is it that when you turn 18 and you're a senior in high school, you have to ask permission to go to the bathroom, and then the next day you're expected to be an adult, sign a lease, and pay all your own bills.

Why does that make any sense?

There was so much wisdom in what this young woman shared.

And I thought, well, gosh, why do we do that?

Because

well,

maybe because we're just trying to boil the ocean.

And while you're trying to teach basic algebra, you're also trying to teach

obedience or manners or permissions.

I mean, it's an awful lot to do at the same time, but I don't know.

I mean, like the basic dignity of being able to use the can when you need to use the can

should preclude.

that level of permission.

And I think that this works for a great number of kids.

What about the kids that want something different?

What if high school looked completely different?

I like to be told to go to the bathroom.

You do?

No matter what I have.

No matter what.

What if high school looked more like college?

What if you went three days a week and the other two days you were at home working on your studies?

Well, I mean.

And you had more control over your time.

But with that kind of independence comes responsibility, right?

Of course.

Because you've got to deliver.

And assumptions.

Let's assume you have a home where your studies are encouraged, right?

And now now certain people in a top-down world are going to look around and say, because that environment doesn't exist, we can't do that.

And because it would be unfair to only encourage that for the people who do have access to a home environment that would encourage studying, because that would be unfair, well, then no.

We're all going to come back and we're all going to do it this way.

And so we're in a very Temple Grandin way shoveled into the chutes.

I love Temple Grandin.

Well, to your point, you know, I mean, yes,

she was a different learner that's right for sure yeah and so she was able to become a different inventor because her perspective was completely different she saw the world in a different way

here's why I believe you and here's why I'm I like you I've always liked you and I want to talk about from whence you came because you know Charles Koch it's not a secret he was really helpful for Microworks and and I met you through stand together which evolved somewhat organically out of the seminar network program.

You were there early, early on, and now

you're running Vela.

You're running 4,200 schools with how many students, would you guess?

So Vela founders, so we don't actually run anything.

We have 10 employees at Vela, but what we do is we create a network, and we offer funding.

We offer a little bit of funding that helps build confidence in founders.

We connect them to knowledge, to tools, to resources, and to each other.

It's all self-service on demand.

We believe very strongly in voluntary exchange.

And so, what we found is that by inviting founders to participate in opportunities to get better, to learn from each other, to come together live, virtual, you name it, they're more likely to participate, more likely to engage, and they actually go further faster as a result.

And so, how many, you asked, how many do we have right now?

So, we have 4,276 founders collectively.

They've benefited more than 5,000 people in some way, kids, families, adults.

In actual learning environments, there are about 350,000 students who are in an environment led by a Vela founder.

It's remarkable.

Well, when do you become an existential threat to

whatever the

status quo is?

Yeah, well, you know, that's an interesting point.

I want to see more low-cost private education solutions.

Everything that sort of sits between home education and private education, because I think that's the engine of innovation.

But are you in a zero-sum game?

And again, I'm not asking you to beat up on the status quo, but there's a finite number of kids who need to be educated.

That's right.

They're either going to go here or there, or there, or there, or there, or there.

So when you get into this quasi-semi-private world, how competitive is it?

Because you don't want to get into the whole varsity blue

madness.

Like, how do you think about that?

I think it's a good question.

So what's interesting is that our founders aren't, they don't feel very competitive with the public system.

In fact, about half are former public school educators.

Right?

And so they love public education.

They just want to do something different.

Right?

And so it's, I think you're right.

There's a finite number of kids out there.

And realistically, we're seeing a shift away from public education.

Since the pandemic, more than a million students,

we've seen a decline in public enrollment by about a million students since the pandemic.

Where are the kids?

Where are they going?

Well, it sounds like 355,000 of them are very.

Okay, well about half of the shift is that these kids are receiving some form of private or home education and they weren't before.

Then there's demographic decline.

So there's just there's fewer kids coming into the system than there are graduating.

And that's just the demographic reality of birth rates and people waiting longer to have kids and having fewer of them.

Right?

Parents are older when they have their first child now, and so they don't have as many children.

And so, we're seeing a reduction, a decline in the number of kids.

We're also seeing this big shift where kids are moving increasingly into some form of private or home education.

And these are low-cost alternatives.

So, these are not like your traditional elite private schools.

Yeah.

The compliment that I was meaning to pay you a minute ago was that during the lockdowns, it was important to me to get to get dirty jobs back on the air because right you know a big essential working show and a lot of people were asking why don't you get out there and shoot it in the thick of this thing and I didn't have a good reason not to so one of the first places we went was South Dakota and there we are at Crazy Horse and talk about risk these guys

they let me rappel off the front of Crazy Horse's face and do some work on his nose, you know, and then I've got these giant drills and I'm working on on his.

If you haven't, folks, if you haven't seen what's being built, it's going to take another 50 years to finish.

But not far from Mount Rushmore is a monument to Crazy Horse.

It's probably four times the size and it's a private undertaking.

And it's a single family undertaking.

It's a single family.

Right.

So wild.

And they've been at it now for half a century and it's going to take another 50 years to finish it.

Didn't they have more kids so that they would have more people to carry on the project?

13 kids.

Yeah.

They basically sired his own workforce.

And when you read about the work ethic and when you read about the passion and the determination and the full-on hard-headed stubbornness that it took, Gustav, unpronounceable last name.

Taylor, you remember his last name?

Gustav, no.

Chuck, if only we had a small handheld device tapped into a large compendium of shared knowledge in some kind of cloud situation.

We'll get his last name because it's important.

I'd like to get it right.

Because the point is, in the midst of filming dirty jobs during a lockdown, in a fairly risky way, I looked up and saw you and your family.

It was so jarring for me because I've only ever seen you in like hotel ballrooms and in these,

right?

In these like

these stand-together functions, like that looks so much, but no, it can't be.

But it's like, you were literally there with your family on on a kind of field trip.

We were.

We were on the Great American Road Trip.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we were there wearing, you know, like sweatshirts and jeans with like our masks on because you had to do that.

I know.

Right?

I know.

And I was doing this.

I was wearing a mask because I was like drilling into granite and the whole thing was dirty and dangerous and beautiful and interesting as hell.

There you were.

There were some other people there too who who had ventured out.

Yeah, so they, at the end of every day, after the park closes,

they take a small group on a tour.

And so in exchange for a donation to the Crazy Horse Foundation.

So we thought, our family was there, when are we ever going to see Crazy Horse again?

So we made a donation to the foundation and we got on a van and did like a little van tour after the park closed.

And so we get to the top and they said, oh, by the way, Mike Rowe is here filming.

I'm going,

how is this happening?

He owes me money.

And

I told the gentleman who was conducting the tour for us, I said, wait a minute.

And I went over and said, Mike, what are you doing?

And honestly, my brain shut down for about five seconds.

I was just like,

what is going on?

What are you doing here?

Chuck, can you also find a picture of Crazy Horse just so people can see what we're talking about?

We were right by the face.

I believe I can.

His name is Korshak Zolkowski.

Zolkowski, yeah.

Yeah, I met one of his daughters.

who was technically, I think, in charge of the memorial at that point, but it is his family tree looks like a wolf.

Well, think about, okay, so like bringing it full circle, think about what it means to be an American and the American dream.

And that gentleman and his wife and their family, they had a vision of what that giant rock formation could be.

Yeah.

Right?

And then they just got after it.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Yeah, that's the vision of what it could be.

And that's where we are today.

They had a vision of what was possible and the future that they're imagining.

So all we're doing at Vela is investing in founders who are doing the very same thing in their own small way in their community.

I like analogies too

and metaphors.

You're chipping away.

You're chipping away at the rock,

waiting to see what's going to come.

Right, and it's not perfect.

You know how many, I mean, driving up to Crazy Horse, they had all that equipment that had failed on the side of the road, right?

And they had war stories that they were telling.

Just like that, every single one of these founders has those war stories.

Well, and just further testament to the way every single thing is connected, whether we know it or not.

Look at that thing.

That's exactly where I was.

It's unbelievable.

Well, they made a lot of progress since then.

Huge progress.

Yeah.

Don't let me forget, Chuck, we need to invite one of the Zwachowskis

on here.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Great idea.

I know they would come, and I just think this is, I mean, Meredith is right.

This is a great American story.

It's a family story, and it's an educational story, too.

I mean, what is the purpose of a monument, really, but for to remember,

stimulate curiosity, right?

Satisfy wonder, all of that stuff.

I mean, that's about the biggest statue you're going to find that does that.

And think about how much they've learned.

The technology they're using today.

I mean, they showed you about the diamond blades.

Today, but they were using like precision dynamite I mean the most targeted sort of blasting and those guys are like billy goats they just up and down that's right thousands of stairs a day carrying buckets filled with rock I mean it was so

Sisyphian

it quixotic even mm-hmm

I mean who today would take on a project whose completion was 100% guaranteed

if it happens to happen long after after you're dead.

That's right.

Who's got that kind of vision anymore?

It's tough, right?

Only somebody who loves to attack big, hairy, audacious problems.

They see complexity and they think, rather than saying, I can't do this, nobody could do this, they think, how do I break it into pieces?

And then start to attack it one bite at a time.

Right?

That's a talent.

What does Vela stand for?

What's it mean?

So Vela,

the etymology of the word, it means different things in different languages.

But generally, it means, so in many of the Latin languages, it means a candle or a light or a constellation.

There's actually a constellation in the southern hemisphere that's named Vela.

And so often it's used in sailing.

sailing languages, right?

So sailing, a light.

Sailing.

I thought you said sailing.

Yes.

Like a journey,

so like journey.

Like a drip.

Yeah.

So oftentimes like nautical companies are named Vela, right?

So it's like a journey and it's a light, it's a beacon.

And then in some languages in Africa, it means to appear.

Right?

And so it's to make known, to make aware.

So we selected the name Vela very intentionally because the idea was that we knew that these creative, innovative people are sailing to the frontier of education.

And our job at Vela was to help light the path and make this appear and known to the world.

According to your website, it's more than 355,000 learners.

In total?

You're looking at 5.3 million.

Yes.

So we have two types of founders we support.

So we have those who are operating what we call learning environments.

So that's a place where children learn.

And it could be one day a week, two days a week, three, four, five days a week, could be part-time, could be full-time.

There are about 350,000 who are in these physical learning environments.

Then we have another class of founders who are providing all of the tools, the supports, and the resources that make that kind of alternative education possible.

So they offer content, academic content and tools, curricular resources.

They might offer back-end operating tools and resources.

So it's now easier than ever to get access to

the business tools, the information tools, and the academic tools to start your own learning environment.

So these things are very sort of,

they go together, right?

So think about like if you're operating a hair salon.

So you have all the implements in the hair salon.

You've got the chairs, you've got the scissors, you've got the shampoo and the conditioner, and then you've got the hair salon itself, and you have the people and the relationships.

So for me, when I pick a hair salon, I've been going to the same stylist now for ever.

Well, clearly.

Right.

You're quaft and

it's amazing.

As many people do, because I want that relationship experience that's that's like bespoke.

I like my stylist.

I know all about her life.

She knows about my life, right?

But the tools that she uses, well, hell.

I mean, they're in salons all across the country, right?

And so we're investing in both the

both the people who are delivering something unique and highly customized, as well as the tools and resources that make this whole movement possible to scale.

I went to a salon in Zurich

about 15 months ago.

What was it called?

Sammy's Finest Barbers, right, Taylor?

Finest Barbers.

Finest Barbers, yeah.

I had a big meeting in Liechtenstein, and I got a glimpse of myself in a plate glass window, and I thought, man, I need a haircut.

So I went in, and I talked to the guy who ran the place, and just such a great entrepreneurial story.

He's got like six or seven shops all throughout Switzerland.

He speaks half a dozen languages.

Now, this is a guy at a glance you might dismiss as a haircutter, but he had a trade, right?

And he was really good at it.

And he had an entrepreneurial spirit, which was terrific.

And so I was a little uncomfortable because, like you, I go to the same person all the time just because we need certainty in our lives, right?

And while I was getting my haircut in the mirror, I noticed a guy.

who finished up his thing and then he went over and he sat in a special chair and

Sammy, was it Sammy who actually ran the joint?

Ingalls.

Ingalls, yeah.

He goes over to this pot and he takes off a lid and the steam comes out and he takes two q-tips and he sticks it in and he pulls it out and the ends of the q-tips are covered with black wax and it's hot and steam coming off of it.

And he kind of twirls it around and he walks over and the guy leans his head back

and this Ingalls guy sticks the toothpicks or the q-tips into his nostrils, right?

All the way in.

And then he pinches them and holds it there for about 30 seconds.

And then he yanks them out.

And the amount of hair stuck onto this wax, Meredith, right?

Now, I'd never seen anything like this.

I'd never been to Zurich before, and I don't know how they do it over there.

But the next thing I knew, I was there getting all the hair pulled out of my hair.

So you did this?

You bet I did.

You signed up for it.

You bet I did.

You're right.

Absolutely.

And this is a good place to land the plane, really, because to your earlier analogy, you know, sometimes it's a Marriott, sometimes it's a BNB, sometimes it's the salon you know, and sometimes you're flat on your back getting all your nose hair pulled out by a man who speaks six languages.

And sometimes you're

on the top of a giant Indian doing dangerous work, and you run into a woman who's running 4,200,

not running, but overseeing

4,200 semi-private schools.

How much weirder does the world get, really?

Yeah.

Yeah, so our goal now is just to, how do we connect more families to this work?

So the demand is there, the open-mindedness is there.

How do we make it easier for people to find these connections so that they can go do, like as you did,

get this scenario

pulled out of your nose?

Yeah.

I'll tell you, you, man, that Zurich air

in my newly hairless nostrils was so invigorating.

How bad did it hurt?

It wasn't pleasant, but it was over very quickly.

Right.

He counted me down from three, of course, and pulled it on two.

So it made my eyes water.

Was there like an after-balm?

Not really.

No.

I mean,

there were some schnapps down the road in a beer.

You serve that function.

Yeah.

So what do people, let's, I mean, as we wrap it up,

there are probably parents listening who are really curious to know if this would be a good fit for their kids.

And there are probably some teachers listening who are wondering if maybe this would make sense for them.

What's the next step for both?

Yeah, great question.

So,

by the way, it's the only kind of questions I ask, Meredith.

You only ask good ones?

I've tried a lot with disappointing ones.

Yeah.

It impacts listenership negatively.

So, okay, so to the first question, if you're a teacher and you're considering doing something new, the best thing you can do is just talk to your fellow teachers.

See who is doing something unique in your neck of the woods, because this activity is happening in every community nationwide.

If you want to find,

I recommend someone, one of our founders, I absolutely adore her.

Her name's Mackenzie Oliver.

She was Missouri State Teacher of the Year.

She ended up moving to Florida, where her husband's family was from.

She ended up becoming a public school teacher and became Florida Teacher of the Year.

Oh wow.

Started homeschooling her own children when they were young because she had an idea of what she wanted for her children, right?

That turned into lighthouse learning.

And she now has, she has 90 kids now, people who wanted her to be their teacher.

Next year she'll have 120 kids and she'll be K through 12 all the way through.

This year she was K through eight.

So she's adding high school.

She also, some of these people are just amazing, like supercharged entrepreneurs.

She has a podcast called Teacher, Let Your Light Shine.

And so on this podcast, she's trying to basically make this world known to traditional teachers and tell them that they can do it.

You've got it.

You've got what it takes to make this happen and McKinsey can show you how.

And so I would, I'm just shamelessly plugging McKinsey's podcast because she's so incredible.

That's, that's one place to go.

For parents, again, this movement is growing through word of mouth.

So talk to your friends, talk to your family members,

find other people in your community who are educating their children in a different way.

And then also stay tuned.

So Vela, as we continue to evolve, we've been at this now, we opened our doors in 2019, but we were in the planning stages well before that.

Just this year, we are getting ready to launch a new mobile app where for the first time we'll be connecting parents directly to our founder community.

So you'll be able to search based on where you live and find nearby founders who could be very interested in serving your children.

When do you expect that'll be?

So we expect by the end of the summer that will be up and running.

Great.

And that'll be free?

Yeah, that's right.

We are, Vela is a nonprofit organization and we exist to help support founders and families who want to own their education, who want to own their own path

with their educational journey of their kids.

So yeah, we're

download the app.

As you know, and as I've told you before, I'm, you know,

fundamentally an optimist, I think, but I'm also fundamentally skeptical.

And so

if this were,

when did this launch?

We launched in 2019.

Okay.

So if this were 2020, 2019, 2020, I'd probably be going, yeah,

it's crazy.

Sometimes a great notion, right?

Whatever.

But five million students served.

Yeah.

40, 42.

Are you in every state?

We're in all 50 states, rural, suburban, urban, you name it.

Consider this, and I know we started this conversation talking about public education.

Gallup conducts surveys on, you know, opinion surveys on the American public all the time.

On a recent survey this year, they asked for American satisfaction with public education.

Among many other attributes of American life, there's 24% satisfaction.

That was lower than almost every other attribute of American life.

It was lower even than paying taxes.

So consider that, right?

So the reason Vela has been so successful is because there are so many good people, whether they be families, educators, kids, who are craving something different.

So without bashing the status quo, can we at least agree that there's room for improvement?

Right?

You know,

I should, I know Chuck is dying for me to shut up now, but there is this one last little topic, and it goes back to Stand Together.

And

specifically with regard to the American Dream.

They seem to be interested every year in something similar, but something slightly different than the prior year.

I mean, right now I know they're really focused on the 250th anniversary of our country.

And right next to that,

was the American Dream?

Is it alive?

What does it mean?

And they invited me to...

to speak and I guess it was Palm Springs a year and a half ago about all of that.

I was happy to, but you mentioned Gallup, and it just made me think of a survey that I saw that I don't remember the specifics, but the percentage of Americans who believe the American dream is dead

is shocking.

It's very adjacent, I think, to the fact that in 19, I think it was 88,

80% of Americans defined themselves as very or extremely patriotic.

And today the number is like 38%.

And those two things somehow or another felt connected to me.

And education must surely be a part of that.

Oh, for sure.

Absolutely.

So we've seen this declining trust in institutions.

We're seeing people despairing.

Well, what better way to fix that than to roll up your shirt sleeves and do something about it?

And so that's what we're seeing.

This bottom-up approach is people exercising those muscles to do something different to live that American dream, right?

People want to be empowered.

And what Vela is doing, I mean, we're not the only organization doing this.

Many good organizations are doing that.

You mentioned Montessori.

That's right.

Is that similar?

I mean, it feels like it.

For sure.

I mean, Montessori is one of many different, you know, sort of education methodologies that exists, but it's definitely increasing in popularity now.

People love the spirit of discovery.

They love the self-reliance, the practical life skills that are imparted.

They love the creativity.

I mean, that is what is really animating, I think,

so much of this activity.

We're seeing the same kind of rise in classical education.

People are craving to go back to basics.

Yeah.

Right?

Like, what does it mean?

They talk about the good, the true, and the beautiful.

What does that mean?

In education.

Think about the rise of podcasts.

You know, my old boss, John Hendricks, who founded the Discovery Channel, built that whole empire on satisfying curiosity.

And he did it within the limitations of broadcast and cable.

Well, that ship has sailed.

There is no governor left.

We can talk about this as long as we want and on as many podcasts and in as many formats.

And you can, I mean, look at Rogan and look at some of these other, the vast curiosity of the human spirit is being satisfied today like never before.

And that's the optimistic part of it.

Absolutely, right?

So there's, I don't think there's reason to despair.

I think there's reason to be hopeful.

I mean, look at podcasting.

What is it?

It's a bottom-up way to enable human connection.

There it is.

Faster, quicker, better than having some very large

and wider too.

That's right.

That's right.

So the things that we try to do are fundamentally the same over time, but the methods that we use are constantly changing.

Last thought.

Are you haunted as I am

by the fact that if I have one of these things and I'm holding up an iPhone, if you're just listening.

You have some text messages that came out.

I do.

Oh, calls are coming in.

Oh.

Huh?

No, J.D.

Vance, not now.

Maybe later.

Maybe later.

You take that way.

The idea that when you and I, when you were in school in Virginia and me back in Maryland, we did not have immediate access to 98% of all of the information in the world.

We didn't have a liberal arts degree charging on our kitchen counter or in our back pocket 24-7.

We have it today.

And to what extent is that kind of access going to inform the future of AI?

Yeah, great question.

That's the only kind I ask, Meredith.

I know, we talked about that earlier.

They just get better.

They do get better.

So think about this.

What's the purpose of technology?

Is it meant to control you

or is it meant to enable you to do more?

and better than you ever imagined, right?

Because the risk in education is that we take technology and we utilize it and tailor it in order to turn humans into better robots rather than enabling technology, humans, teaching humans how to enable technology so that they can live far better lives.

Those are two very different paths that we could go.

Well,

they are certainly different.

It's kind of like one path would be marked efficiency and the other would be marked effectiveness.

Right.

And they both want to get you to the same place, but they are different.

When you conjure up robots, it's hard not to think of that famous Huxley quote.

He said, the greatest threat to freedom is total anarchy, but the second greatest threat is total efficiency.

So

in that march toward total efficiency,

vis-a-vis our relationship with technology, what will we lose in the bargain?

Yeah, so think think about something you've already lost because of that phone.

I can tell you, I can share something I've lost.

All right.

Okay, so when I was growing up, I graduated from college and I got dropped off in Europe.

I flew over there.

I went to Europe for six weeks.

I had no phone.

Didn't have a credit card.

You've probably done this, right?

Yeah, exactly.

No phone, no credit card.

I had a calling card, like an AT ⁇ T calling card, so I'd call home if needed.

And I had traveler's checks, right?

And then I had that book, Let's Go Europe, and you would tear off

it is let's go Europe right no totally and I haven't been very animated you know me I'm usually very animated I haven't been very animated on this on this discussion today but okay so after you finished a city you would tear off that section of the book and throw it away so that your bag was lighter right and then by the time you know months two months later you're flying home your book's gone okay we did not have a phone with Google Maps to tell us where to go.

So the first thing you had to do in any city

is figure figure it out.

You would get off the train and you would, you would find a map.

And then, and I mean, it wasn't a grid system for the roads in most of these cities.

I mean, it was confusing as hell.

You might not speak the language, but you had to navigate to wherever you were going.

Self-sufficient, self-reliant, figure it out, right?

Okay, when you go to a city, do you have any idea where you're going today?

I do not.

No, right.

I do not.

You key it into Google Maps, right?

We've lost our, those neurons in our brain that were helping us figure out navigation and sense of direction.

We've turned them off because our phone does it for them, for us, right?

So you've got to ask yourself, ask yourself this: well, wait, should we not be using that technology and instead training our brains?

Or have we freed up more space in our brains to do other things?

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I don't know, but I know this.

Good luck prying the calculators out of public education.

Good luck.

I mean, nobody would stand for that.

Now, has it made us

more reliant on a tool and less self-sufficient?

Yeah, maybe, but somewhere in there.

So how can you accomplish both?

Where you're increasing your self-sufficiency, right?

And your independence and your freedom while simultaneously using these technology tools to accomplish even more.

I wonder.

I don't know that you can have all of that in the same space all the time.

I think part of what tech does is it forces you into a new space that you have to homestead essentially and like figure out a new area.

You know, I joke with Chuck about this a lot.

You know,

the first time I came to LA, and you were out here long before me, the Thomas Guide was the Bible.

You can't make any sense of LA unless you have this phone book-sized pamphlet in your car and its grids and it's pages.

And

you know, I don't remember cursing it.

I remember being grateful for the fact that I had it.

I only think back negatively now when I realize all I can just pick up the phone and give it an address, and it tells me what to do.

And then, pretty soon, I'm not even going to have to drive the car, I'll just sit in the back seat and tell it where to go.

Get in the Waymo.

So,

good deal or bad deal?

Do we become more efficient efficient at the expense of something human?

Is it a fair trade?

What do you think?

I don't know, but I will say that that craving for meaning.

Then say it right on that microphone so people can hear you.

Yeah, so man's quest for meaning, meaning, what does it mean?

What is our talking Frankel?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, and I think I will say that

like we are seeing this inside our community at Vela.

We're seeing a massive growth in classical education.

Why?

Because they're searching for meaning.

We're We're seeing massive growth in Montessori education.

Why?

It's the same thing.

It's the quest for meaning.

It's so funny.

David Mammet just sat right there

talking about

all of this through the lens of writing and the elegance and the simplicity of communicating in a way that doesn't have any fat attached to it.

And

the talent, the skill, the...

what you have to do as a tradesperson to become that facile with the language and what potentially happens to all that art and all that intellect when the AI gets to the point where you can't tell the difference between American Buffalo and whatever you tell the machine to print.

But this is the onward progress of technology, right?

Throughout the history of mankind.

Wasn't it, I might have this wrong, but didn't Plato say something like, the act of writing things down makes you dumber, right?

Right.

But actually, that was the founder of Play-Doh who said that, and he was very upset about the impact of children's toys.

No, look, I mean,

there's a great line in Inherit the Wind at the end of the Scopes Monkey trial when the guy who's basically playing Clarence Darrow

talks about this.

And I haven't thought about it in years, but he's got the science book in one hand and he's got the Bible in the other.

And he basically puts them together.

But that comes at the end of a speech where

he's bemoaning the cost in the bargain we're talking about.

Like with telephones, he talks about the charm of distance.

And, okay, now we've just made the world a lot smaller and a lot closer and a lot less interesting.

and a lot less wondrous.

And the same thing with jet travel.

You've made it smaller.

Isn't that great?

You can see more.

But somewhere in there,

we did give something up.

And

I'm no Luddite, but I do admit to constantly worrying that

I should have taken the effective path.

And somehow or another, I paid my toll for, you know, the efficiency highway.

And here we go.

Yeah.

So I think we all have to do what makes the most sense to find that meaning, recapture relationships, and restore the wonder.

I'd love to chat more, but I need to check my messages now.

All right.

This has really been great.

Chuck, how long have we been talking?

An hour 21.

You were terrific.

Really?

Thank you so much.

I mean.

You know I'm terrified.

Hey, we're still recalling, so don't.

That's okay.

Okay.

Honestly, then, but why?

You are in a position right now that most people really dream of being in.

You've got 5 million people who have been impacted by a thing that you're running.

What scares you most?

I swear that's my last question.

What scares me the most about coming here and being terrified?

You just said you were terrified, and I don't know why.

Well, because I think,

oh, we all have different talents that we bring to the table, right?

And different traits.

And by nature, I'm more of an introverted person.

I draw strength from within rather than from without, like from other people.

So experiences like this are, I will do it, but they're taxing, right?

Whereas I bet you get energized by it.

Look, all I'll tell you is, if you have an opportunity to travel to a strange city and somebody wants to yank all the hair out of your nose.

That's right.

Let them do it.

Do it.

I will do it.

Let them do it.

Yeah, I'm always up for trying new things, but things like this are scary.

They're tough.

I'm an engineer.

We started there.

I'm an engineer.

I like to solve problems.

I like to take big, complex things and divide them into little pieces.

That's what I do.

And I like to work with amazing people who can make it all happen, right?

But being on like a talk interview, that's, oh, wow, that's terrifying.

Good.

I'm glad.

We should all do stuff that scares us.

Because in the end, I swear to God, I'm done after this.

That's all right.

I got one little fact check after you.

All right, well, go ahead and do yours first because I'm not going to give you the last word.

That's crazy.

That seems fair.

You're just a producer, for God's sakes.

It was according to Plato's Phaedrus that Socrates suggested that writing could negatively impact memory.

There we go.

I believe that relying on the written words might lead people to forget how to recall information from within themselves.

And this is why you should be terrified, because there's always a pedant in the Greek chorus ready to swoop in and tell you how you got it wrong.

That's right.

There's always a teacher's pet.

Always.

I'm not a teacher's pet.

I may be a pedant, but I'm not a teacher.

You're a teacher's pedant.

That I'll tell you.

Finally, we have a title for this episode.

No, my final, final point is that in 2019, I'd have been skeptical.

I really would have been.

But there's a terrific title of a book I quote a lot called

The Evidence Demands a Verdict.

I love that.

Well,

you've got the receipts now.

Vela has some evidence.

And folks, if you're thinking about what's best for your kid or what's best for you, or what would be good for your community, it's not an endorsement, kick the tires, but by by all means, go to Vela.org.org.

Yep.

That's V-E-L-A.

V-E-L-A.

And take a nautical journey into enlightenment.

That's not bad.

You can use it if you want.

I love it.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

This episode is over now.

I hope it was worthwhile.

Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile

Then share your satisfaction In the way that people do

Take some time

to go

review

I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge.

You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you've got to do is leave a quick

five-star

video.

Thank you.

Elite Basketball returns to the Elite Caribbean destination.

It's the 2025 Battle for Atlantis men's tournament happening November 26th to 28th.

Totemous hometown team St.

Mary's, along with Colorado State, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky, South Florida, VCU, and Wichita State, playing 12 games over three days.

It's basketball at its best, plus everything Atlantis has to offer.

Aqua Venture Water Park, White Sand Beaches, World-Class Dining, and more.

Get your tickets and accommodations at Battle4Atlantis.com.

Time.