S3 EP2 Real-World Learning: Corey Mohn’s Vision for Modern Education

PODCAST Season 3 EPISODE 2

Corey Mohn

Quote of the Podcast: 

"Be excellent, not perfect."

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Corey is the President and Executive Director of CAPS Network, empowering high school students to fast-forward into their future through real-world business projects and the development of professional skills. Prior to CAPS, Corey served as Director of Statewide Programs for the Kansas Center for Entrepreneurship. In July 2015, CAPS launched CAPS Network, a consortium of school programs committed to this model of profession-based education. CAPS Network has grown to include 114 affiliate programs, including over 180 school districts across 23 states and four countries.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators

•  30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• Profession Based Learning
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?

Podcast/book shoutouts

"The Network" podcast by CAPS Network - https://yourcapsnetwork.org/podcast/

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to education perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education.

Liza Holland [00:00:28]:
Corey is the president and executive director of CAPS network, empowering high school students to fast forward into their future through real world business projects and development of professional skills. Prior to CAPS, Corey served as director of statewide programs for the Kansas Center For Entrepreneurship. In July 2015, CAPS launched CAPS Network, a consortium of school programs committed to this model of profession based education. CAPS network has grown to include a 114 affiliate programs, including over a 180 school districts across 23 states and 4 countries. Well, welcome, Corey, to Education Perspectives. We're delighted to have you.

Corey Mohn [00:01:10]:
Thank you for having me. Yeah. Excited to be with you.

Corey Mohn [00:01:13]:
Absolutely. You've got lots of exciting things going on. So I wanna kick you off with our 30,000 foot view question. Why do you think that we as a society invest in education?

Corey Mohn [00:01:24]:
Wow. Yeah. That's a deep question for, we're recording this in the morning. So, yeah, this will be a good test to make sure that I'm alert and with it with you. We invest so much in education, both financially and I think just kind of deep within our ourselves, kind of what we care about, what we want to see, because it really is an indication of our broader society. It's what we want to see in our world. You know, oftentimes people talk about future. Right? We're we're gonna make sure that things are set for the future, or we'll tell a student, you know, hey.

Corey Mohn [00:02:00]:
You're the future. And as much as I appreciate that, and I definitely believe in the investment in our the good of our community. I also believe that these students are the present. They're not just the future. They can do things now. And but I think that we talk about that because we have hope. You know, we are a people that know we know that there are issues out in the world, that there are there are things that we haven't solved yet. There are places where we've made mistakes.

Corey Mohn [00:02:31]:
Oh, by the way, everyone makes mistakes. We shouldn't be afraid of failure. There's also hope when you know that things aren't perfect, that there are ways to continually get better. There's actually a a line, a saying, a a quote, whatever you wanna call it, that I keep in front of my desk, which basically says, be excellent, not perfect. Right? There's a difference between excellence and perfection. And I think perfection is a it's something you're never gonna you're gonna chase it. You're never gonna catch it. And but if we can be okay with excellence, that matters.

Corey Mohn [00:03:07]:
And because we care about that, we want things to be excellent. We we do care about things like education because it means we're taking care of our our entire people. I mean, obviously, young people, but also, you know, those of us that are out and realize that the world is not a straight line, and we make changes in our thinking, and we discover things that we love or that we're good at later in life, and we wanna pursue that. And so this whole idea of Kay de Grey, lifelong learning is important too.

Corey Mohn [00:03:38]:
I hadn't heard the Kay de Grey. I love that one.

Corey Mohn [00:03:41]:
Yeah.

Corey Mohn [00:03:41]:
And, you know, for our society right now, that's what we need to build is those lifelong learners. Right? The pace of change has just gone crazy, and we need people who can learn, unlearn, and relearn at at a good pace. So that's an excellent answer. So tell me, you're doing some kinda unique stuff. What drew you to education in the first place?

Corey Mohn [00:04:03]:
Yeah. So that's an interesting story. Also, not a straight line story. Although, if you zoomed out or went back in time and understood where I come from in terms of, you know, my parents and what they decided to do with their lives, you'd think, oh, this makes perfect sense. So my parents were both educators. My father was a math teacher and a coach at the high school and then got into administration and became, associate superintendent and then retired from there and helped do some teaching at the graduate level for those that were wanting to become administrators, teachers that wanted to, you know, kind of take on the next step. My mom was a 1st grade teacher and then became a early childhood educator, worked in the parents to teachers program. So there's educator in my blood, but my path was always kind of centered around public policy.

Corey Mohn [00:05:00]:
You know, I was interested in in things that related to political science. I ended up with an economics degree in college, Loved math as a subject, just academically. When growing up, I loved every math class and wanted to take them all. But I didn't have any kind of program that helped me explore what I truly enjoyed and how I could apply it in a real way. Just at the time that I was growing up, it didn't exist. And we really didn't have a lot of opportunities to leave the school to see what was happening in the community. I only remember one instance where I left the school for something other than, you know, a tennis match or a basketball game or a debate tournament. It there was nothing during the school day that let me explore what was happening in the community.

Corey Mohn [00:05:44]:
And so, you know, I I went in and the extent of my I always tell the students here working with the CAPS program, you know, the extent of my CAPS experience was a 20 minute conversation with my counselor, where we reviewed my assessment scores and the determination was made that I was really good at math, and I enjoyed math classes, so I should become an actuary. And and I had no idea what an actuary was, and I said that and was presented with a trifold black and white brochure that explained what it meant to become an actuary. And so I was like, oh, interesting. Looks like it makes decent money and it uses math. Sign me up. And so I went to college thinking that's what I should do, but, I quickly found out that that didn't make sense for me, and then I was lost. So the speeding up the story here, what ended up happening is I went to went to college, got the economics degree, got a political science degree, started a business when I was 24, in city planning and economic development. Enjoyed that.

Corey Mohn [00:06:45]:
Didn't exactly know why I enjoyed it at the time, but really did. And it wasn't until later that I realized it wasn't that I was working in that industry. It was that I was helping small communities activate around something that was gonna help that community. And that led me back to the Kansas City area where I grew up after selling my share of my business, and I got involved in supporting other entrepreneurs, other startups, other businesses, find the resources they needed to be successful. Again, when I started that, I didn't know why I was enjoying it. But I finally figured out that it was this was a purpose. Right? There was something deeper to this work. And the thing that was the through line between the the jobs that I enjoyed and wasn't there and the jobs that I didn't enjoy, and I, oh, by the way, I had those too along the way, was the through line was any place where I was able to help other people make connections that allowed them to activate on their dreams was my dream, my purpose.

Corey Mohn [00:07:44]:
And that's what led me in a roundabout way to this program called CAPS, the Center For Advanced Professional Studies that started here in Kansas City. While I had no intention of going into education, and I told my parents so many times, guys, forget it. I'm not gonna be a teacher. I'm not gonna be in education. You know, they always said told me you wouldn't you're gonna end up in education. You're gonna be a teacher. You're meant to do it. And I kept saying, no.

Corey Mohn [00:08:07]:
No. No. No. No. And then, you know, the higher powers above decided to play a practical joke on me and put the most amazing opportunity in front of me that involved connecting people. It involved being entrepreneurial and innovative, and they were willing to hire someone who wasn't an educator. And so I the joke was on me. My parents got to have the last laugh, and I've been doing this for the last 10 years.

Corey Mohn [00:08:31]:
I love that story. That was very, very worth it. And, it, but it certainly seems like you have landed in kind of your happy place. I love that, that piece of all the experience that you had leading up to it has got to be a a super anchor for what you're doing there at at CAPS. Tell us a little bit more about the whole concept behind CAPS because I do think that it is it's kind of like CTE on steroids, if you will. I love this whole concept of really deeply getting that career connection going. So tell us about tell us about how it started and tell us about where you are with it now.

Corey Mohn [00:09:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I I appreciate your reflection. I definitely feel like I'm in the happy place, and and it's it's been fun to be in a place that allows for a lot of innovative thinking, a lot of adjusting and pivoting and so forth. And that's really a great intro and a segue into what CAPS is. So I'll start with kind of the punch line and the quick way to understand CAPS, and then I'll back up and give a little bit of a deeper dive on what this is. And the short way to to answer the question is envision and imagine high school students activated as consultants to the business and nonprofit community around the school. I mean, at least to start, and then it expands beyond that into some virtual interactions that can happen with businesses and nonprofits in other places.

Corey Mohn [00:10:04]:
But, you know, we've lived our own school experiences. I just shared some of mine where I didn't feel like I really knew what was happening outside of the school. I didn't really know what was available in my own community, what careers were available to me, what it felt like to be in the different cultures of those businesses. And I also, because of that, didn't really have a good sense of who I was. Like, the self discovery piece was hindered by the fact that I couldn't explore. And the CAPS model is really built around 5 core values, but the one that is really at the center in the beginning and why like, the deeper reason why we do this work is self discovery and exploration. We want every student before they leave high school to have a chance. I mean, they they can opt in or out, but to at least have the option to have time in a space where they are encouraged and provided support to really understand their strengths and their interest and what are the big, hairy, audacious challenges out in the world that they care to put their energy to.

Corey Mohn [00:11:05]:
Alright? Where do you wanna pour in? Where do you wanna make the world better? And it starts in introspectively with what they know about themselves, but then it changes and morphs and grows and goes deeper and more is revealed when they're able to go out and explore. Because you learn. Right? If I were if I would have had an opportunity to shadow an actuary or to work a project for an actuary, I probably would have discovered at a much younger age before I ever left high school that, oh, gosh. Well, I really like the math class, but I I really this doesn't seem right to me. This isn't what I wanna do. And I would have had a chance to make other discoveries before I left and declared a math major in college and then had to kind of pivot out of it and figure things out on the fly, which creates a lot of anxiety. The goal here is let's do that in a safe environment. Yes.

Corey Mohn [00:11:57]:
It's gonna push students to the edge of their comfort zones. Yes. It could create some healthy stress, but it's not going to be distress. Right? It's not gonna be overly anxiety driving, and it's going to reveal and help students rule things out, which makes it a little easier to navigate PAS going forward. From a practical standpoint, this is a model that started in a public school system. Our we have affiliates now as part of a nonprofit that helps to expand this work. We work in a 114 different locations now. Most of those are in the United States across 23 states.

Corey Mohn [00:12:32]:
We do have, 3 international programs as well. But most of those programs are building the framework of CAPS, this idea of students being able to work projects for industry and taking that we always say, let's ask for the 10th thing on the to do list of the professional. Everyone has a 10th thing on their list. You never get to it. It's not mission critical, but there's a reason you haven't completely eliminated it off your list. There's some kernel of possibility there. Why not hand that off to students and let them do that work as part of their class, right, as part of their learning? And it gives the students a chance to flex into being professionals to to develop those durable skills, professional durable skills that are so important that our employers are telling us is why it's what they're looking for. It's what they hire for.

Corey Mohn [00:13:21]:
It allows them to have that self discovery path. They develop an entrepreneurial mindset while they're doing that, and that's all encompassed in what we call profession based learning. So finding ways to work with industry partners and different ways to work with them to allow the students to really get a sense of what that is. Often, we talk about fast forwarding students past high school and even college, and we're essentially fast forwarding them into their 1st career. And that's where they get to try it out and potentially rule it out. Or they try it out and they love it, and they now have validation of the end in mind. And now they can really drive hard and fast towards getting there. So that that's caps.

Corey Mohn [00:13:59]:
It's kind of the opposite of all of our experiences in high school, to be honest, and, it's highly empowered. Right? You've gotta trust the students. The teachers have to trust the students. The teachers are becoming coaches and managers of teams of students as opposed to the expert in the front of the room. That takes a shift, but when it happens, it becomes magical. Right? Because everyone is really engaged in the work they're doing. They're they're charting their own path. And, yeah, that's why I enjoy my job.

Corey Mohn [00:14:31]:
That's fantastic. That's a lot of a a a power shift, right, with the students and empowering them. But if they can be in charge of their own learning, wow, what what they can possibly do.

Corey Mohn [00:14:44]:
Yep.

Corey Mohn [00:14:44]:
So I know that educators in general, I mean, they go through a their own career path that's extremely siloed. You know? A lot of the problems when when we were in school was teachers don't know what they don't know as far as the breadth and depth of careers that are out there. We they were probably leaning on some test to get come up with actuary for you. So what do you do as far as this this is also a mindset shift for companies in a in a real way. What do you talk to companies about when you're approaching them about being involved in a caps type situation?

Corey Mohn [00:15:22]:
Yeah. So you're exactly right. It is a mindset shift for both sides of the equation, education and business. On the educator side, I'm just gonna expand on your point. Most educators have never in their life left the school system. And I've said that to folks before, and it's a little surprising to me that people haven't picked up on that. But it's if you think about it, it's true. Right? Like, you're a student in high school, and then you're a student in postsecondary, and then you go out and you you shadow a teacher or you do student teaching in a school, and then you're hired by a school, and then you work in a school.

Corey Mohn [00:16:00]:
And so it's it does feel a bit awkward, and there is fear, actually, of educators reaching out to industry because they just don't understand that culture. They've never been in it, beyond being a customer in a store or, you know, somewhere else. But they've never been behind, you know, in a corporate office behind the scenes kinda seeing how these things work. And so it is it can be intimidating, and there's a shift that's needed. To your question about industry, the same in in many ways exists for industry. A lot of folks that have gone into industry professions, whether it's medicine or or engineering or digital design, creative media, you know, a bioscience lab, whatever the case may be. For a lot of professionals, it's been a hot minute since they've been in high school. And and while they have their own experience to reflect on, that's their reflection.

Corey Mohn [00:16:53]:
Right? It's set in time. It's a snapshot from when they were there. And it's hard to kind of recall back to when you were that age to really think through what were you capable of at that age. And often what happens is industry partners are left, you know, somewhat without an answer when it comes to, like, what could we even give these students to work on? Like, we don't know what their capabilities are. We don't understand how the school operates. And so there's just a there's just a chasm there. So how do you close that gap? Well, we work really hard in our model with our framework and coaching our affiliate partners to understand what are some best practices, what are some small steps you can take. We want our folks to know, like, there are things that we've already been discovered in lots of different pockets of the country that you can follow a little bit of a guide or a playbook to understand how to get these things started.

Corey Mohn [00:17:48]:
And the frameworks are very adaptive, adaptable to different, geographies, to different situations. So it's not a, here's step 1, here's step 2, here's step 3, and you better follow the order. But it is a framework and a a bit of a initial structure to at least get started in thinking what the possibilities could be and how you can overcome these feelings to make that outreach. So a couple of things we've done, one, we've created a series of playbooks that are open source. We have them posted on our website at your capsnetwork.org. There's a resources tab, and you can click on that at the bottom right of the front page of the website, and it pulls up these playbooks. One is about growing and developing community partnerships, which is that outreach piece that we're speaking of. Another one is diving into profession based learning, which really gets into the heart of, like, how do you create a client connected project? What how do you how do you manage the process? How do you, you know, help the team come together? And and how do you structure it and make sure that you're having good communication with the industry partner to kinda tease out what that project is? How do you evaluate it? Right? How do you set up those shark tanks with those industry partners to actually have the deliverables presented back to them? So all of that is you know, there's a lot of information, and we wanted to make sure that people had that accessible to them.

Corey Mohn [00:19:13]:
The other thing I would mention, this is something that is is brand new, is we're working with with CAPS network. We're working with an organization called American Student Assistance or ASA. They are in Boston, and they have been doing a lot of work investing in career connected learning across the country. And we have launched a platform. It's in its infancy. So this is one of those things you're gonna wanna sign up and get email updates and check back frequently. But there's a platform called experience dot work. And the whole idea of this is how do we make it easier for professionals to understand how they can engage with high school students or or even younger students.

Corey Mohn [00:19:54]:
Like, what are stories that others are telling from industry? What are examples of projects or interactions that have happened? And it's gonna take both there's gonna be video there are videos. There are going to be, quick guides that are currently being developed now. There'll also be articles that have been written by industry partners about how they've engaged, and there'll be kind of 2 ends to this. There's obviously the primary target of the industry partner, but there's also a lane for the educator who's trying to do this in their community and how do they go communicate with their industry partners. So how can they actually get it started? So we're gonna have some voice and some guides for the educators to kind of get things started as well. And that'll that'll be there'll be a lot of open source free resources on that page. People can sign up now to get updates. So that's it's an easy website too.

Corey Mohn [00:20:43]:
It's just experience dot work.

Corey Mohn [00:20:45]:
That's fantastic. I'm gonna put that in the show notes for listeners if you want to. I'll put links to, to both the experience dot org and also to, I'd already put the information about the wonderful podcast that you have, the network in there, but we'll put all that stuff in the show notes. That's amazing. And that's, you know, that's the beauty of nonprofit work, to be able to offer this kind of thing open source for so many schools are struggling right now to be able to, you know, even just keep afloat. And so offering that type of an opportunity is is a a big contribution to community. So thank you so much.

Corey Mohn [00:21:20]:
Absolutely.

Corey Mohn [00:21:21]:
Appreciate that. Speaking of that podcast, the network, I just I have not had a chance to listen to all of them because there's a lot of them. But, boy, the one with, the most recent one with your student that was doing audio engineering and whatnot, was just really powerful. And I'm like, this is the story I want every student to be able to tell in their own version coming out of school. I mean, that just that's a really amazing, amazing connection. Kudos to you. I will be listening to lots more of that.

Corey Mohn [00:21:54]:
Appreciate that. And the network as a podcast, really the idea is we just wanna communicate examples.

Corey Mohn [00:22:00]:
Mhmm.

Corey Mohn [00:22:01]:
And so what you'll see for anyone that goes to to kind of check that out, and there are a lot of episodes. We try to publish every 2 weeks, during the school year. And obviously, a primary audience for us are our own affiliate programs so they can learn about each other. We found it was a great way to do kind of learning that didn't have to be synchronous, for our own members to learn about what was happening in other pockets of our network. But it also serves as a place for people that are just trying to get inspired to understand how this can work. So there are students that are interviewed. Those are, you know, obviously, my favorites are always sweet. I get to talk with students because, man, it's powerful.

Corey Mohn [00:22:38]:
But we also talk to educators. We talk to industry partners. We talk to ecosystem leaders. So we've had, you know, last this last season, we had Joel Vargas, VP at Jobs For the Future. We've talked to Yaro Kramer, who's the founder of Hatch, which is a global community of entrepreneurs and community members that are trying to do good in the world, and, you know, he's got just amazing insights on what he does. So folks like that as well. We're always just looking for inspiration and examples. And so whether you have listened to them all, that would take you a while, or you just find it to speak to you.

Corey Mohn [00:23:14]:
Yes.

Corey Mohn [00:23:15]:
A few of my favorite you know, doctor Chris Unger from Northeastern, I've had him on a few times. And if you're just looking to laugh, that's a good one. It's great, great information. We talked a lot about AI in our last episode, but people have reflected on that episode as it just sounds like a couple of people sitting on the couch, you know, having a good time, but talking about real things. You know? It's just like like a hangout almost. So there's there's something for everyone there, And, we hope that people will take advantage of that and enjoy those stories because we sure enjoy convening the conversations because they're they're a lot of fun, and we learn a lot.

Corey Mohn [00:23:49]:
Absolutely. And I think that providing that context and the inspiration is a real valuable piece of the puzzle. We were talking earlier about how it can be intimidating for educators. It can also be intimidating for business people to try to think about how to work with students. And nobody likes to feel stupid. Right? You know? I mean, you need to find some sort of of common vocabulary to be able to start these things. But I know that we did. This is a real shift in how we do education, and change is always challenging in the best way.

Corey Mohn [00:24:26]:
But tell us about some of the biggest challenges that you've had and maybe about a little bit about, you know, you've got a a district that wants to become part of the CAPS network. What kinds of challenges have you had to overcome and maybe some examples of how you've managed to do that?

Corey Mohn [00:24:42]:
Yeah. It's a great question. The system has been around for so long. And for the most part, when I say the system, k twelve education, the way that it's been structured, if you look at the kind of the bigger picture, it really hasn't changed that much. Obviously, we've seen an influx of technology that that's, you know, made some changes. But when you get down to it, kind of the the the core essence and the structure of schools, the way schools are scheduled, there there isn't a lot that's changed there. And so I think one of the biggest challenges that you see more broadly for a school or a, school district to get involved in this is, yes, there's mindset shifting to allow the students to have more of a say, more of the control to work authentically. But when you start getting into that, a lot of people will say, that makes sense to me.

Corey Mohn [00:25:38]:
Right? They'll see it. They'll come and tour. I'm standing right now in the original CAPS program in Overland Park, Kansas. They'll come here. They'll walk around school. The students will be out doing their work and their projects. They'll it'll feel like a big co workspace here. Right? And people are just in awe of it.

Corey Mohn [00:25:55]:
They're they find it magical to talk to the students, and they say, this makes perfect sense. This is what we all should be doing. And then reality sets in that there are a lot of pieces that will be seen as barriers. Right? That are they're set up to not intentionally to do this, but they're set up in a way that actually prohibits a lot of what happens here. So, you know, how do you find enough time in the schedule to allow the students to do this kind of work? You know, having a 45 minute period is not going to be very conducive to this. So time, finding enough time in the schedule to allow this to happen. And then if you're gonna find enough time for the students to do this, can you figure out a way to, as what I would call it, reverse engineer back to the standards, back to the credits that are necessary for graduation to make this more seamless for the students? That becomes tricky. Right? And so there are a lot of pieces behind the scenes that make this feel challenging up front.

Corey Mohn [00:26:56]:
The good news is I think we've made incredible progress over the 15 years that CAPS has existed and the 8 to I don't know, 8 or 9 years that we've had kind of the the beginnings of this network, this that we call Caps network. So we've had that, momentum going, but and so I think that has helped with the why. Right? Why would you wanna do this? I think most people have have gotten there. We're we've gotten into the heart of the bell curve, the adoption curve related to why. And that's helpful because it keeps people in the conversation. But when we're working with districts and schools and even those that have already said, hey. We wanna do this. We've got a plan to do this, and they sign up.

Corey Mohn [00:27:34]:
Then they get into the mix of, okay. What is this gonna mean? And you start to feel that tension again. It's like, oh, gosh. What have we gotten ourselves into? And how in the world can we possibly do this? You know, we just had our summer conference. We call it the summer huddle, and it's really it's a lot about networking and getting people together that have the spirit that are trying to do this work or are doing this work. We obviously have some sessions as well to help people kind of see the resources that are out there for them. But you watch over the course of the 3 days, newer programs, newer districts to this, and you can see them go from, like, incredibly excited and curious to, like, the depths of despair that, like, we can't do this. And then they come out the other end towards the end of the event.

Corey Mohn [00:28:17]:
Like, they're back to being excited, and they actually feel like they have a few resources and connections of people that have already lived this to figure out their way and knowing that they can build their own version of this. Right? Our affiliates, when we affiliate a district to run the CAPS model, we hold them true to these core values, self discovery for students, entrepreneurial mindset building, you know, being responsive to their community. Obviously, the self discovery and exploration process has to be there and doing it all through this profession based learning lens. But beyond that, they can create whatever flavor of this they want, and what makes sense for them. And so that that becomes empowering over time. But I would the other thing I would say, which is getting beyond the individual district level, I think one of the biggest barriers we see in the ecosystem at large to get more schools doing this work is we've gotta figure out how to get out of our own way as brands that want to see this work perpetuate and become more available to students, the style of learning. And we have to have this recognition that no one program or brand is going to do it all. And then that's where when the nonprofit space starts to feel competitive, we're doing a disservice.

Corey Mohn [00:29:32]:
Yes.

Corey Mohn [00:29:33]:
And so and I'm I'm not excluding us from this. Like, I'm indicting all of us. We have to find more ways to partner in the nonprofit space and in the education space when schools are creating innovative models. We've gotta be okay releasing some of that work and actually referring people and championing others that are doing good work because it's gonna take all of us marching together around shared purpose to truly flip the system of k twelve education to something that's more experiential, more meaningful to students. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna be talking more about this over the next few years at least because I believe strongly that we've gotta keep talking about this. We've gotta find ways to work together. We've gotta find ways to leverage each other. We've got to create referral networks when we're working with the school and they need something and we don't we aren't the best at it and someone else is.

Corey Mohn [00:30:28]:
We need to figure out how to make those connections, and we've just gotta cheerlead each other. Like, this is hard work. Right? We can't be we've gotta be competing against the status quo, not competing against each other because we share too much in common, and we're doing a disservice to students if we don't find ways to to help make that happen. So I'll get off my soapbox on that, but that's something else I think we need to be thinking about.

Corey Mohn [00:30:52]:
Well, I'll tell you what. You've given me chills just sitting here listening to it because you are so right. This is a huge boat to turn. Huge. And it's gonna take all of us rowing the boat in the same direction to really make it happen. I do have another quick question before my last one because you'd mentioned your early interest in policy. And so so much of what this change means is going to impact policy. It's hard.

Corey Mohn [00:31:23]:
You know what I mean? Everybody's trying to do the best fiduciary thing and the best best use of their tax dollars, so they've come up with all these standards, and they've done all this kinda thing. And but the reality is we now have content in our pockets. You know? Is it is it something that we need to keep thinking about the standards as much as how we process the standards and new information? Because things are changing every day. I mean, look at AI. It didn't exist in the form that it is right now just a couple of years ago. And so we're trying to prepare students for this type of a world. I just love your thoughts on, you know, because I I realize the challenges with assessment and all that kind of thing, but I wonder if you could just kinda speak to that dichotomy of that we're gonna need to, on a public policy level, make some changes as well.

Corey Mohn [00:32:14]:
For sure. Yeah. And I certainly do not consider myself a policy expert at this point despite my early interest in policy and certainly not education policy. But you're right. I've thought a lot about and I've had some friends of mine who've also shared these thoughts, and it's helped to kind of solidify some of my thinking around this. And I'll I'll back up just for a second to talk about you know, when CAPS started as a model, you know, it was never intended to scale beyond Blue Valley School District where it started here in Overland Park, Kansas in the Kansas City area. It was it was meant to be an innovative model for a school district. Right? It was something that the school district thought made sense.

Corey Mohn [00:32:53]:
It was meant to push the envelope in a place where, you know, it's a school district that sends most of its students to postsecondary has performed very well. You know, there was a joke that a former superintendent made that Blue Valley School District won no child left behind, and that that maybe wasn't the best thing in the world because it was so one dimensional and wasn't taking into account the whole child and self discovery and all the things that we believe in with caps. But the reason I bring that up is it when it did start to expand, when the decision was made that it was in our best interest here in the local area in in Overland Park and Kansas City, for this to actually expand because we could make connections with others that also were doing innovative things, and that could pull value back, it was also serving the students better for because if they had interests that were beyond this geographic area, we had the ability to make warm connections for them that we couldn't have made before. That was the whole dynamic of building a network and building a very entrepreneurial network that was gonna drive value. But because of that, in a way that it started to kind of grow was very organic. It was very grassroots. And to this day, CAPS as a model still is very much grassroots. It's there's very little of it that comes from top down resource or top down policy.

Corey Mohn [00:34:11]:
That said, there's power in both directions. And and the kind of visual that has stuck with me is this idea of your it's almost like you need to make a really good sandwich. Right? You've gotta have the grassroots energy. You've gotta have the the bread and the toppings that go on top of that piece of bread when you start building the sandwich, and that's powerful. But to close it out and to really have something that you can take with you that is the fulfilling meal, so to speak, you've gotta have support from the top down as well. And in what order that happens, I think it probably varies. I I like the idea that that this model started from a grassroots standpoint because it's created a lot of power that lives locally in these communities. But I think that creates the opportunity along with others in the ecosystem to now go to policymakers and say, can we incentivize this to scale? Can we look and see if there are barriers that are created, whether they're real or implied or perception? Can we look at those things at the state level and figure out ways to remove those barriers or shift them so they make more sense for this kind of learning.

Corey Mohn [00:35:23]:
And I do think that that window is opening now for us to have more of those conversations. The other thing I would say is and this gets back to we've gotta play nice in the sandbox. There and I'll give some credit where credit's due, and this does not currently involve caps, but I do believe it will involve caps here soon. There's a coalition of folks, and this is just one example. There's a coalition of organizations, intermediaries that work in this space that have been working at the federal level to try and take some of the resources that are available, particularly with workforce development dollars, and make them more flexible to use at the state level so that the governors and their chambers of not their chambers, but, like, their departments of commerce or their departments of labor or their departments of education have a little more flexibility in how they use those funds and to make them less cumbersome to use to allow and incentivize more work based learning, more profession based learning. And so it's groups like NAF Academies, NFFTY, which is, the network for teaching entrepreneurship, which is a global organization, BUILD, which is another entrepreneurial education model. You know, these groups going together to Capitol Hill and and working together to educate legislators around this kind of thing. And we just had a conversation at CAPS last week about joining that coalition and thinking of ways that we can partner together to say, look.

Corey Mohn [00:36:50]:
This is good for everybody. Like, you know, this isn't a CAPS thing. This isn't a nifty thing or a NAF thing or a, you know, you insert your own brand here thing. This is something that's good for all, and it's gonna allow all of us to just kinda step into the work that we do. So there are opportunities. I think that we're gonna also see opportunities as we continue to scale in certain regions or geographies to take those models up and move them over and to say to other regions, look what's happened in this region. Here's what it took. Here's the investment level.

Corey Mohn [00:37:21]:
Here's the policy climate. Now we know how to do it. If you're willing to invest in this, we could do it here too. And the one example I'd point to there with CAPS is we're currently lifting up a rural initiative across the state of Kansas that was actually funded initially by the US Department of Education. We have a liaison coach that is going

Corey Mohn [00:37:39]:
around and working with these communities across

Corey Mohn [00:37:39]:
the state of coach that is going around and working with these communities across the state of Kansas. We're affiliating districts that never thought they could do this. We're helping them. We're coaching them. We're giving them resources. We'll have 7 programs that will start something related to CAPS this school year coming up. We hope over 3 years to have closer to 25 districts across the state, all in small communities doing this work. And if that happens, we now have a statewide model that we can use in other places.

Corey Mohn [00:38:08]:
So there's a lot of opportunity. It's gonna take intentionality, and we've gotta know who to leverage. You know? And I say this as someone who, again, I don't understand all of the that policy world, so I need to find the people that do and leverage them. Our team needs to do that, and that's that's our intention is we'll jump in where we can help, but we're gonna need other people to help us figure it out too. And then they can leverage us if we're helpful to them. But I do think that'll it's necessary, and I think it is going to we're gonna start seeing some progress on that next few

Corey Mohn [00:38:40]:
years. That's exciting. And to some extent, you may have answered my last question. What would you like decision makers to know? And you can define what decision makers are.

Corey Mohn [00:38:49]:
I would love for and there are lots of decision makers, and I don't know that I need to make it more specific. I would love for people in seats of authority that have levels of authority to make change happen, to have that have levers to pull. I would just love for them to be a part of what's happening, to see it, to feel it, the energy of what's happening in these places. You know, right or wrong, schools have been developed around, and I'd say there's definitely right in this. And I don't know that I'd call it wrong necessarily, but I think it's there's it's been a little prohibitive. Schools have been developed around the idea of protection and safety and order. Right? The default is keep people who aren't working in the school or students in the school out of the school. And the process is to get into a school, you know, there's and there again, I'm not saying there shouldn't be a process, but it is defaulted to, you know, protection, and let's keep so what I would love is for people that are in seats where they feel like they have a way to make an impact, a way to help for them to actually be able to live in these spaces where these students are doing these amazing things, where they're transforming into young professionals before our eyes, their energy is is like no other.

Corey Mohn [00:40:10]:
I mean, for someone who hasn't been around a school since they've been in school, to see a young person who is absolutely on fire about their learning that have been working a real project or they've created their own product, and they're so excited to tell you about it. Like, they're fighting over the other students to, like, be the one that says, I wanna tell you about my project. Like, that's what I want. I want those decision makers to see it, to feel it, to smell it, just live in the aura of the environment and the magic of what it is. Because once you've felt that, it is transformative and you want more of it. It's intoxicating, quite honestly. I mean, it would be really hard during a school year to tell me, well, you can't office in caps anymore. Like, you've gotta go off and work out of a, you know, out of a cubicle or in your house and not be around this.

Corey Mohn [00:40:59]:
I'll be kicking and screaming. Right? Like, that's not okay because I feed off of it. And we've had entrepreneurs that have worked with CAPS students and programs that have come to us and said, hey. Would it be okay if I co worked with you on Friday? Because I just wanna be around the energy. Like, it's good for me. That's what I want. I want everyone to see this, and I know in some places, it doesn't seem like there's a maybe the welcome mat is out for you to be around to see this. But anyone who's out there who wants to see it, like, just reach out to me, and I will connect you to one of our programs or to some to another program that's doing really cool work and get you in so you can see what's possible.

Corey Mohn [00:41:35]:
Because if you see what's possible and you you feel that intoxication and you're just like, man, this is something else, then you start thinking about how can I be helpful to this? How can I make more of this happen? And that's what'll really get the snowball going down the hill. So that that's what I want. That's my dream.

Corey Mohn [00:41:52]:
That is a perfect way to end this conversation. Thank you so very much for being here. I'm so excited about the work that you're doing and looking forward to digging in on, on more details.

Corey Mohn [00:42:04]:
Well, thank you so much for having me, and appreciate all the important, information that you're getting out to your listeners. And, yeah, thank you for being in this conversation.

Liza Holland [00:42:16]:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which education perspectives you would like to hear or share. Please subscribe and share with your friends.