AmpED to 11

How can state education leaders create consistent standards without limiting local innovation? Brett Roer and Rebecca Bultsma welcome Dewayne McClary, Deputy State Superintendent at the Virginia Department of Education, to explore the policies, partnerships and practical decisions shaping the future of learning across the commonwealth. Dewayne traces his path from teaching at the rural South Carol...

When a superintendent told Babak Mostaghimi, “I think we’re Blockbuster Video, and Netflix is coming,” it became a warning, and an invitation, to rethink education before the future arrived. In this episode, Babak joins Brett Roer and Rebecca Bultsma to explore why improving the existing school system is no longer enough. He breaks down LearnerStudio’s three horizons of education, from the industr...

What does a baby's face tell us about children and screens? More than any statistic on AI use. Dr. Donna Housman, clinical psychologist and founder of Housman Learning, has spent over 35 years studying what children need to grow, learn, and thrive. Her answer starts long before any device enters the room. Emotional intelligence isn't downloadable. It has to be built first, or AI risks becoming a s...

What if the best way to teach students about AI is to hand them the keys and let them learn to drive? Mike Taubman has spent two decades at North Star Academy Washington Park High School in Newark, New Jersey, where he now serves as teacher, program director, and AI innovation lead at Uncommon Schools. He joined North Star in 2005 as a founding English teacher, and a sabbatical years later spent a...

AI can help school leaders save time. But saved time is only valuable if leaders know where to spend it. This week on AmpED to 11, Brett is joined by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, founder and dean of the Leverage Leadership Institute and author of Leverage Leadership 3.0 . Paul has spent twenty-five years studying the habits, systems, and leadership moves that help schools improve, and his answer keeps r...

Rebecca hosts solo this week for a timely conversation with David Bowman, cybersecurity director for one of Utah’s largest K-12 districts, a member of the State of Utah Cyber Commission, and chair of the Statewide K-12 Cybersecurity Council. David brings a clear, practical view of what student data privacy really means inside schools, beginning with a classroom exercise where he showed students ju...

What are today's superintendents actually facing, and why AI alone won't fix it. Brett Roer sits down with Amy Dujon, VP of Education Brands at ARC Network, who sees patterns across hundreds of districts. With 27 years in education, from classroom teacher to principal to district leadership, Amy brings a rare vantage point on the unprecedented challenges school leaders are navigating right now. Ke...

What does it mean to prepare students for a world where the tools keep changing? Bill Bass has been wrestling with that question for over two decades. As Innovation Coordinator for Parkway School District, serving 18,000 students across 29 communities, and former president of ISTE, he's seen every wave of edtech come and go. And he's still here, still asking the hard questions. In this episode of...

A student called his school's AI policy "consistently inconsistent", different every period, different every classroom. That phrase is the reason this episode exists. Brett Roer travels to Briarcliff Manor, NY for a live in-person crossover with Dr. James Kaishian, Superintendent of Briarcliff Manor Schools and host of Superkast . Around the table: English teacher Karen McCarthy, Computer Science...

What does it look like when an educator refuses to stop growing? For Rachelle Dené Poth, it meant going to law school while teaching full-time, not to escape the classroom, but to understand it more deeply. Today she's a Spanish and STEAM teacher, practicing attorney, author of 10 books, and an AI grant coach guiding 12 schools across the country through one of education's most transformative mome...

What if school districts stopped buying AI tools and started building them? In this episode, we talk with Daniel Friedman (Director of Technology, Hicksville Public Schools) and Dr. Patrick Fogarty (Assistant Superintendent, Hewlett Woodmere Public Schools & Founder of NYSAIC) about how educators are moving beyond vendor-dependent solutions to create their own local AI infrastructure. They dis...

Parents discover their teenagers are using AI in school, but they're learning about it after decisions are already made. Jason B. Allen, National Director of Partnerships at the National Parents Union, isn't interested in fixing a communication gap. He's here to close a partnership gap. Jason brings 21 years in education as a certified teacher, special educator, and former school and district lead...

What if the data that matters most isn't grades or test scores, but the messy, beautiful process of how students actually learn? Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU, joins Brett and Rebecca for a timely conversation on National AI Literacy Day 2026. Erin founded the EdSafe AI Alliance and leads a network of educational partnerships touching thousands of school districts nationwide. Her background spans...

What does it mean when policy disconnects from the classroom, and AI is forcing us to finally pay attention? Julia Fallon is the Executive Director of SETDA (State Educational Technology Directors Association) and has spent three decades navigating the intersection of education, technology, and policy. She calls it "the unglamorous middle", the space where good ideas either fail quietly or become...

Can you really love something if you're not fighting to make it better? Harl Roehm, a 28-year veteran CTE teacher from Collierville, Tennessee, has spent his career proving that the answer is no. Raised on a fifth-generation farm in Mississippi, Harl's journey into education started with a $25 yard-sale computer, a Saturday afternoon, and enough courage to tear it apart and put it back together. T...

Two big truths can coexist: AI is powerful, and schools can absolutely make a mess of it. In this episode of AmpED to 11 , Brett Roer and Rebecca Bultsma sit down with Joseph South (Chief Innovation Officer) and Jessica Garner (Managing Director of Innovative Learning) at ISTE ASCD to talk about what it looks like to do AI properly in K-12 without turning it into a culture war. They get into: Why...

What happens when a K–6 school district designs learning spaces that look more like Stanford than Sesame Street—and asks students to lead the future of work? In this AmpED to 11 episode, we're joined by the bold and visionary superintendent of Del Mar Union School District, Marisa Janicek, whose leadership journey rewrites what’s possible in public education. From building student-designed AI rubr...

What if AI could actually make your classroom more human? In this episode of AmpED to 11, we sit down with Jessica Paulsen, President of Innovation and Impact at LEAP Innovations, and Roberto Vargas, Managing Director of IT and Data Systems at Distinctive Schools, to unpack a provocative question: If AI can already do many of the tasks we’ve traditionally assigned in school, what new kinds of lear...

What happens when a heart-to-heart gets a digital co-pilot? In this bold, boundary-pushing episode of AmpED to 11, Rebecca and Brett dive deep into the tangled intersection of AI and human connection with three trailblazers from the Rithm Project—a visionary effort aiming to preserve humanity in the age of artificial intelligence. Michelle Culver (Rithm Project founder and former Reinvention Lab l...

Who says AI doesn’t belong at the holiday table? In this festive, future-forward “11 Days of Xmas” special episode of AmpED to 11, hosts Brett Roer and Rebecca Bultsma are joined by Amplify & Elevate Innovation insiders Serena Reynolds and Versha Munshi-South for an unfiltered round of rapid-fire AI questions—plus some unexpected hot takes, tech confessions, and painfully relatable truths from...

What if the future of education isn’t just about AI, but what it means to be fully, unrelentingly human alongside it? In this off-the-rails, laugh-out-loud, surprisingly profound episode, Brett and Rebecca sit down with the inimitable Jenn Womble—Chair of the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) and District Administration—and within minutes, they’re talking creatine, hormone-balancing...

What if every teacher had a superpower—not to replace them, but to help them thrive? In this episode of AmpED to 11, we turn up the volume on one of the most practical and pressing questions in the AI-in-education space: How can AI actually empower teachers—in real classrooms, under real pressure—to reclaim their time, elevate their craft, and bring the joy of learning back? Meet our dynamic duo o...

What if the solution to the education crisis isn’t another new tool—but a radically different way of thinking? In this episode of AmpED to 11, Brett and Rebecca sit down with Sabba Quidwai—futurist, researcher, and founder of Designing Schools—for a conversation that’s equal parts AI-infused optimism and bold truth-telling. Sabba doesn’t hold back. From calling out the systemic failures that led t...

Is AI going to transform education—or compound the gaps we already have? On this episode of AmpED to 11, we sit down with Aaron Cuny , co-founder of AI for Equity and former school leader, who's working at the front lines of this very question. From his 18 years inside classrooms and school systems to founding a nonprofit helping districts navigate AI with vision and ethics, Aaron brings grounded...

What if your fear of AI is louder than your love for your students? In this episode of AmpED to 11, we go deep with two bold trailblazers reshaping what it means to lead in education right now: Tia Morris, Executive Director of Teach for America New York, and Eldridge Gilbert III, SVP at SEO Scholars + Co-Founder of Legit Leader. Grounded in decades of experience and driven by fierce urgency, both...