The Hangout with David Sciarretta
Conversations with interesting people.
The Hangout with David Sciarretta
#103: Trust Kids More: Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler
Dr. Michael Nagler, an award-winning school superintendent from New York, shares his vision for reimagining education in the digital age where content knowledge alone is no longer sufficient. Through his 17 years of leadership in the Mineola School District, Dr. Nagler has pioneered approaches that prioritize skills development and student agency. His stance on cell phones in schools (spoiler alert: he’s not in favor of the rush to ban them) is just one of many intriguing ideas we discuss in this episode.
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Welcome to the Hangout Podcast. I'm your host, david Shoretta. Come on in and hang out. In this episode, I was privileged to sit down with Dr Mike Nagler. Dr Nagler is an award-winning school superintendent from New York, an engaging speaker, leader and change agent. We cover a wide range of topics, including his idea that content is dead, and he talks about what that means in more detail. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Welcome, dr Nagler. Thank you so much for coming on the show and having this conversation today.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:I thought we could start with your origin story so folks get a chance to get to know who you are as a person, where you come from and what your journey's been like. That leads you to the present moment.
Speaker 2:Well, I go way back. I'm one of seven kids born and raised in Brooklyn, new York. I'm a product of the New York City public school system, state College, and I started my teaching career in Brooklyn as well. And along the way I got married and my wife convinced me that I should get a doctorate. And as soon as I got the doctorate she convinced me I really should expand my horizons. So I made a lateral move from the city to Mineola in 1999. And I've been here ever since. I climbed the ladder from assistant principal to high school principal, deputy sup, and I just started my 17th year as superintendent here.
Speaker 1:And now Mineola is. What about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a suburb of New York City. It's Long Island. Two of the boroughs are on Long Island, so it's Brooklyn, queens and then Nassau County, and that's where Mineola is located.
Speaker 1:And so you remember Brooklyn before it was a hipster place to be.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, very much so yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of years ago, my daughter said Dad, I'm going to go to I'm from, originally from New York, but she's from San Diego and she said I'm going to go to, I'm going to go to New York City with my friend. Great, they end up in Brooklyn and they were staying in an Airbnb. And she said have you ever been to this place? And I was kind of remembering what it was like when I was her age, which is a long, long time ago, and it was nothing like what it is today.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I grew up on the South side, so I grew up by the Verrazano Bridge.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I lived for a long time in Park Slope, which gentrified and is kind of I don't think that's hip anymore. I think Williamsburg is really where the action is.
Speaker 1:It's been, it's a whole. We could have a whole episode on the New York City area and what the changes have been like so 20 years in one school district. I'm sure you get this question all the time how does someone in successive leadership roles stay engaged, keep the passion, keep the burnout at bay? All of those things that we see in our line of work where the average superintendent, for example, is you know, the career in one place is like an NFL lineman, like three, four years out.
Speaker 2:I think it's. You know I'm very much a kid centered person and I find great parallels. My two are 21 and 19. And when they were, when they were going through I live in a neighboring district when they were going through the system and I saw all the things they didn't have but it wasn't in my purview to deliver those for them. I just turned around and delivered it for my miniola kids and it's a constant. I embrace change. I'm a big change person. It doesn't scare me and try new things. If they're not working for kids, we're obligated to make it work for them. And I think a lot of times leaders get into this mode where it's not broke, don't fix it, or they're making decisions based on the wrong reasons. And I feel very strongly that this generation of kids is very different than previous and we need to move our methodologies and our practices to match their needs. And it's tricky.
Speaker 1:I heard you in an interview when I was doing some research where you made a statement that content is dead and obviously there's more context that needs to be placed around that. Can you explain what you meant and mean by that and then tie that to the comments that you just made about this generation being different?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's going to be the title of my next book Content is Dead Redesigning School in the Age of AI. I think Gen X is very interesting and alpha as well, in that they're born into the internet. Information is ubiquitous. They can learn whatever they want to learn and we, as a system, we don't understand that. We keep forcing them to learn things they don't want to. We don't in some respects, we don't respect them as learners to be able to be passionate about a subject and learn more about it.
Speaker 2:But I think if we were designing school today and we asked the question what does it mean to be educated in 2025? It wouldn't be your content expert. You know, in 1987, when I started teaching, ED Hirsch came out with cultural literacy. You know it was like, all right, 5,000 things you need to know, and that means you're educated, and obviously that's for the internet. So those 5,000 things, I could pick up my phone and ask Siri and I'd get them all at once. So it's got to be more than this content acquisition. It's got gotta be how, what skills do I have that enable me to access information, triangulate sources, understand the problem and think of viable solutions for it? And those skills we don't teach you know.
Speaker 2:It amazes me sometimes how there's this expectation that kids know all these things that we never teach them, and it's like it's not osmosis, there's no like. Why would you expect kids to be great note takers if we never taught them how to take notes and and then um or plan uh appropriately, or keep a calendar or be able to all the executive functioning that we expect from our young adults, that we never teach them, and then we bemoan the fact that they don't have these skills, and I think there's a contradiction, I mean. The other question is the big question for me is what's the purpose of school? Is it to provide a workforce? Is it to provide a workforce? Is it to provide a, you know, a citizen of a democracy? Or because, if it's a workforce, content knowledge isn't required in the workforce. They want skills. They're going to teach you what they want you to know. They want specific skills, Most of them computers can't do, and that's where I think the AI piece comes in. We're not keeping AI at bay. Technology is gonna grow exponentially. How are we teaching human skills that will always be at the forefront in a tech world and stop doing things that machines do better. Now I can go all day.
Speaker 2:Homework is a great example. Why are we giving homework? Every kid goes home. They take their homework, they throw it in chat, GPT and they give it back. And then the teacher gets mad that the kid used the resource. They call them cheaters. I said no, I think you didn't give a good assignment. If you gave a good assignment, they wouldn't be able to just take it in two seconds. But what's the purpose of the assignment? Is really what this generation is pushing for?
Speaker 1:So how, as a leader who's been around a long time, so how, as a leader who's been around a long time? And obviously your teachers in your district are not of the same generation as the kids, right? So they were taught differently, they grew up differently. Even the young ones maybe the youngest teachers, like early 20s caught some of that wave, right? How do you lead the district? I heard you refer to yourself as the idea guy, the ideas guy, and then you help other people implement them. Some ideas stick, some don't. But what you just mentioned about fundamentally questioning the purpose of education, the purpose of homework, I mean those are deep tectonic shifts in a system and the system reacts, in my experience, as if a foreign body is coming in, as if our own bodies have a virus. And what do we do? We fight it off, we send all our immune system over there to get rid of it. How do you lead through that in your capacity and still be happy and still be fulfilled?
Speaker 2:I think there's two questions there, or, if not, I'm just going to give you two answers. My favorite quote is the only human that embraces change is a baby with a dirty diaper. And I think that's the first piece is people don't like change in the generality of how do we understand why we're reluctant to change, especially nostalgic institutions like schools, because the parents want, for some bizarre reason, they want the same experience for their kids as they had, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but it's a passion thing, it's not really an intellectual thing. And the second piece is you know, I'm always a teacher and I think a lot of my communication with my faculty and my community and parents is why do we need to do this?
Speaker 2:You know, when you speak about what does it mean to be educated? People have a hard time with that, with answering that, because it used to be very simple you knew knowledge or you knew trivia, or you had an expertise in a specific area. And they get it when you say, well, if the Internet's here, why is that still important? And eventually that leads to a great conversation about maybe it's not what you regurgitating facts, maybe it's one of the skills we need to do that.
Speaker 1:I'm not intimately familiar with what the New York state accountability measures are, but but all states have them and they typically be in big states like yours, like mine. They they don't focus particularly well on what you were just speaking about. Right, I heard on a previous podcast that you talked about in your classrooms, where the teachers have the students have a portfolio of learning and they sit with the teacher and they actually they argue in favor of what grade, what assessment they should receive. How does that approach and what you've just described jibe with or conflict with accountability measures that, like it or not, we all have to operate under as well?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's simultaneous. All of our work is standard based. We have New York State standards, we follow the standards and we do it with badges. We do proficiency scales, we have evidence binders. But the idea behind that is kids can articulate what they're learning and where they are in the learning.
Speaker 2:You know I'm less about a number for a kid and more about do you understand what's going on? Are you part of this process of teaching and learning? So we're both on the same page. I can help you in what you don't know and you can help me guide your learning plan moving forward. So we're rooted in that we still give exams. We still give standard, nwa and benchmark exams.
Speaker 2:I think the big shift is what do you do when you want to tackle a learning problem? What's your process in? I want to learn something and I'm curious about something. I'm passionate about something. How do I enact that curiosity and plan to move forward? I joke all the time about the things we want to do and the things we have to do, and those shouldn't be mutually exclusive. But in our world, for some reason, we want to do and the things we have to do, and those shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in our world. For some reason we tend to say it's got to be one or the other, and you know, part of my job is finding a landing spot for both.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:And I think I'm toying with this new concept of you know, parallel systems of change. If you picture a timeline of current reality and this utopia you want to go to, you can't jump to utopia because most people aren't going to follow you. You have to find the landing spot on that continuum that is incremental toward the big change and then it forms these parallel lines and in between those lines is this safe zone that you get to work and explore and tinker a sandbox if you will, to move the change forward. And if it's meaningful and it's meaningful to kids and it's meaningful to teachers the change is going to happen. It's when it's not meaningful that it dies on the vine and then we should just let it go.
Speaker 2:And I don't think there's a concept with startups called MVP minimal viable product called MVP Minimal Viable Product and an MVP is like the new back in the day when they put out the new OS on your phone and it was all this buggy. It was very buggy and I never downloaded it right away, but they did it on purpose, because they wanted instantaneous feedback on the biggest issues so they could fix it in the order in which the need met the consumer. We don't do that in education. We don't go out in research and development or an NDP or try something simultaneously, get feedback and kind of build it as we're doing it, and I think that's a much better way to initiate change, because you get more buy-in or not. You just let it go. If it's not going to work, you drop it.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that is? Why do you think there's such a disconnect between, let's say, a private enterprise and the public sector, especially in education? Is it the nostalgia thing? Is it that the drop to release beta tests of things would almost imply that we think it might not be guaranteed to be successful and we don't want to use public resources in that? Like what? Do you think that is? Because I'm part of that?
Speaker 2:I think it goes back to the lens. It goes back to well, what are we trying to accomplish If we're trying to shove kids, shove information in kids' heads and having regurgitate it?
Speaker 2:there's not a lot of ways, you know, not a lot of experimentation you need to do with that. If the, if the concept is more we want to teach them you know, many different skills, that they can access information and solve problems, well, that becomes wide open and more inviting to see a change in the process. A lot of times I think teachers just need permission. You know they need you to say it's okay, if you try this and it fails, I'm not evaluating you on it, you're not. You know, go with it. And that esprit de corps is very hard in a in a in a school building culture. It's not, it's not really embraced.
Speaker 1:So you've, as we mentioned before, you've been in your current district for two decades. As we mentioned before, you've been in your current district for two decades and from my experience you know your comment, your quote about the babies and the diaper being the only ones embracing change. My additional I totally agree with that. My additional piece to that would be as we get older, where it's almost like the baby's the most open to change and maybe toddlers are fairly open and then, but as we go through life, we become less and less, so we get up to where the age we are right and and so we don't like it at all. But are you seeing anything in your district where, because you've been there so long, that students who've gone through your schools and I know this is a big assumption but are staying and then maybe put their kids in the schools, are perhaps more open to the innovative approach that you take?
Speaker 2:You know, I certainly think my staying power here has led to a lot more flexibility with my crazy ideas. So you know, the community is almost like oh, here he goes again. You know we're launching a new initiative at the high school I'm really excited about we're calling. It's called BYOG build your own grade and that's been like two years in the making. So I think the, the longevity of the, the leader, definitely helps. But you know, my wife said to me the other day when are you going to retire? I said I'm still having fun and if you're not making me retire, then I'm just going to keep working because I have a lot of work I want to do. I'm excited about this notion that we can redesign school to make it more in line with the generation of kids in front of us.
Speaker 1:What are the downsides or the challenges of being in one role for so long, if there are any?
Speaker 2:I think there's a comfort zone the devil you know. For a lot of people I bring stability. I'm very black and white, there's no wishy-washy about me, so you can pretty much predict how I'm going to react to a question you ask or a statement you make, and I wouldn't ordinarily say the longevity. Also, you know you tend to be set in your ways and you don't have a lot of new ideas. But we really have a team here. I've turnover in my team because they all get promoted, so all my admin team move on to promotions. A principal just left me for an assistant soup spot and it allows us to keep the train moving and keep a new set of ideas and fresh ideas constantly coming in. I think that's one of the things we do pretty well here. Next, man up is a common expression around here.
Speaker 1:And I'd imagine that your collaboration with the board is also really critical and probably you've seen turnover. I mean, maybe you've been fortunate enough to have a lot of board stability. Sometimes that happens, but you might also, you know, life happens and people come and go Talk to us about how that part of I always call it the care and feeding of boards right Is a part of a superintendent's role that the public doesn't necessarily see that often. Yeah, we learned that in the same place't necessarily see that often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we we learned that in the same place somewhere, because I use that same expression all the time. My board is very stable. We've had the same board for five years now and prior to that we had one new person come on. I think there's a there's a comfort and a familiarity with each other that really helps in discussing problems and leading into the future.
Speaker 2:I don't need to convince my board that what we're doing is the right thing. I basically explain it and I say what do you think? And there's a buy-in at their level. That's mandatory. It has to happen so we can have success. We're just doing the draft of the board goals and the way we envision it is. You know, every year's goal is that incremental portions of the bigger picture, that utopia we're trying to get to. So and they understand that. So if we think about like an umbrella for six, 10 years out, they know that we're going to have pieces, we're going to start something, we're going to continue working on something, we may initiate a new thing, and those pieces all fit into a puzzle.
Speaker 1:How did you you know, speaking of boards and community, the trust of a community how did you navigate through COVID right which was something that none of us had on our strategic plans and hopefully, God willing, never happens again, but the possibility of a pandemic is always out there there how did you lead your, your community, your district, through that and even those culture wars that that flared up to some degree in all of our workplaces?
Speaker 2:well, we um, we're very fortunate we we were one to one long before covet, so we had digital assets. We, we were tech savvy. I was down for one day because I needed I didn't want to use Zoom, so I needed to get the. We used WebEx. I needed to get that up and running and we were back online on the Tuesday and I think the credibility that we received we were up faster than any of my neighbors All the things I was I'll put my air quotes all the things I was selling about technology were clearly evident in our ability to just flick a switch and be prepared and that gave us a lot of credibility in in the community to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:The. When we came back in person, we were able to work it out where every school except my high school came back fully. I didn't have the space at the high school, so we had to do a split day. That wasn't great. We had to do a split day. That wasn't great and I got some angst over that. But pre-K to seven, no problem, and we kept plugging away. We had a lot of communication how are we doing? What can we do better? What don't you like? And by and large.
Speaker 1:It went really well and by and large it went really well. I want to circle back to what you mentioned about the role of you know. You made a comment that you could basically ask Siri to summarize Edie Hirsch's book and you'd have all the answers right there on your phone. What are you doing in your district about the cell phones in classrooms, cell phones on campus? That's obviously become a national debate. California, you know, our governor jumped out on it a year ago, and so now we've got mandated cell phone policies that we have to enact by a year from now. But districts are already putting theirs in place. Some are, I think, in my opinion, my editorializing pretty weak and unenforceable. Others are more thoughtful. Where did you come down on that and what does that look like in your district?
Speaker 2:So our governor didn't give us a generous timeline. She decided we're going to have a ban bell to bell ban starting September. So kids can't use it during free periods, they can't use during lunch. Um, I am wholly opposed to that uh edict, partly because I think it's reactionary to a bigger problem and and we're supposed to be teaching, not being restrictive I think we need to teach kids information technology, we need to teach them about social media, particularly echo chambers and algorithms designed to feed you and regurgitate information. And in the absence of that teaching, what good is pulling the phone of that?
Speaker 2:teaching what good is pulling the phone and, I think, administratively, my high school. That's all they're going to be doing pulling phones from kids and it's kind of silly, I mean I also. We have elected school boards. These are elected officials that are supposed to be local control, that do what's best for their local community, and now they're coming over the top of that to mandate something that's probably not going to work.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting that you say that. Something popped up in my feed about all these videos of students hacking the wander bags I think that's what they call it right the restrictive bags for our listeners. The restrictive bags that supposedly you put your phone in and then there's a code and you can't open it until you walk off the campus. Forget about the fact that all kids need to do is bring one burner phone to school and have another one or whatever, which again favors kids of means. But anyway, the number of videos of kids finding ways to hack those bags was unbelievable and I go wow that. Look at all that creative energy gone into that.
Speaker 2:Yep, but it's a very practical example of there's a problem that they wanted to solve, and guess what? They solved it and they shared it with everybody. So if and the adults aren't going to catch up as quickly, so when something goes viral, the adults aren't making it viral, it's the kids making it viral. So we just happen to be at the tail end of of that video stream. They saw it five days ago, right, right.
Speaker 1:What do you want your legacy to be? I know you're going to work still a long time. I'm not corroborating your wife's question about what do you want your legacy to be in, let's say, 20 years from now, in terms of where your district is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want Mineola's legacy not necessarily my legacy At this point in the game I think we're intertwined. I want Mineola's legacy to be you know, push the boundaries and working hard to do what's right for kids and engaging them and have a love for learning. It drives me nuts that kids, when you ask them what their favorite subject is, they can't give you one, or they say well, what do you love to learn about? They struggle answering that question. But that's what school is supposed to be. We're supposed to be instilling this love to learn and helping you in that process. And when we miss that mark, I think it hurts everybody.
Speaker 1:I know you mentioned that at heart you're a teacher and you're at heart you're student centered and those are great motivators. They cut through a lot of the clutter that happens when we hear criticism and we get tired and we get stressed. But what gets you up every day coming back and loving your job? I mean, this is a job that has an extremely high burnout rate. Someone should do a study of how many times superintendents go on to their state pension plans and run different scenarios right Like in the last five years of their careers. That would be an interesting study. What makes you just so full of life and with just real vision into the future?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I want to change the world. That's part of my personality. But I think you see the work, I see the enthusiasm of my people. This BYOG project is either going to make or break me. If you hear, I retired. It was a complete failure, but the esprit de corps around the implementation of this has been so infectious with my teachers, with my admin, with my principal, that I'm excited about it. I'm excited about to see kids use it and get feedback and see what's happening with it.
Speaker 1:What advice would you give your former self just starting out in an educational leadership role? So you're probably an assistant principal or a coordinator. What advice as a veteran superintendent with all these accolades and awards and recognition and trust of your board and community, what advice do you give that young guy?
Speaker 2:What advice do you give that young guy? Seek first to understand, then be understood. I think we don't listen enough, especially as leaders. We get a little younger, we're a little impatient, we're a little more egotistical and we want to do before we listen.
Speaker 1:Sage advice, right, the energy of youth? I always. It's probably not a good analogy, but in meetings we talk about the young rattlesnake. If you have a choice between being bitten by an adult rattlesnake or a young rattlesnake, always take the adult, because half the time it's never going to strike and if it does, it only uses a little bit of venom. The baby rattlesnakes are the one that they're on there, they know what the solution is and they pump all the poison in. You know it's kind of a sinister analogy, but that's what popped into my head when you said that.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm with you on that it that it's true so I'm gonna ask you a a final question, but before that I wanted to see if there's anything that we have not touched on, that that you thought the world should know. The world here I say very generously, listeners should know. The very small portion of the world listening should know about your work but, more importantly, your district, which in this conversation you've always put first. So I appreciate that, the community you come from, your vision.
Speaker 2:I would want people to know we share everything. So all of our badge books are online. All of our integrated curriculum is online. You can follow MineolaGrowthcom. It's all of our SEL work and growth mindset work.
Speaker 2:Youtube channel is Mineola Creative Content. It's there. We enjoy making the videos, enjoy sharing. This isn't a profession that we can be insular in. There's too many challenges, whether it's public, private sector. I share with everybody. If you're helping kids, I want to help you and I think that we need a little more of that. A little less competition and a little more cooperation goes a long way.
Speaker 1:That rings so true, and especially when we look at the amount of public sector interest that there is in education to make money off of this endeavor and that endeavor it seems like every conference I go to, half of the booths are AI-based learning tools that you can just plug it in and it's going to do everything for you. And then the other half are other curricular innovations in quotes that pay for, but you pay for them, and if you don't pay, you don't get access, and so the fact that you're an open book is really, really special and refreshing. My last question is if you have the opportunity to design a billboard on the side of the freeway I think you guys call them throughways or I can't remember my old days of New York so the main road there outside when you drive to work every day and you drive home, what does your billboard say about your beliefs, about district, about your work, like, choose any of those, what's the first thing that pops into into your mind?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a tough one, it's so, uh. So my, my head is right now. I would say we need to trust kids a little more. It's a bit of a tangent, but I think there's a bit of a generational bias that you know, this generation is just going to become the generation before and I don't think that's going to happen and that worked for years and years and years. You know, father knows best and it helped kids. I don't know that the adults know best now, that the adults know best now, and and it's a little scary to me because it's like we need this generation to be, um, be themselves and be productive citizens, and I think some of it is about trust them a little more in in living in their world.
Speaker 1:They know best very long billboard, but it's oh, I mean trust kids more is is perfect, right I I? I was having a conversation the other day about the chronic absenteeism challenge that that, uh, I know has been a national challenge. Certain states are more acute than others, and part of my gut feeling and it's hard to substantiate with research is that kids are sending us a message. They're sending us a message Like what's rewarding gets done and what's rewarded gets done. And if things aren't seen as being wholly relevant the days when you and I were kids where if you were caught out during the day walking, if the truancy officer didn't stop you, the neighbor's mom would go hey, son, aren't you supposed to be in school? That's long gone. And so if kids don't find meaning, they're kind of voting with their feet half the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree 100%, and I think that's our job as leaders is to make it meaningful when they get here. And you got to listen to them In order to do that. You have to listen to them, and you got to listen to them. In order to do that, you have to listen to them.
Speaker 1:Well, trust kids more. That's a fantastic place to wrap our conversation. We will link your Web site, the YouTube channel and the show notes. Dr Nagler, it's really been a pleasure. Again, congratulations on your award as superintendent of the year in the state of New York. Thank you. Eight, 800 and something, 80 districts or something that's. It's quite an honor and and they chose very well with the award recipient. So thank you for your time. It's been refreshing speaking with someone from the East coast and yeah, I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I love the conversation, so thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:All the best in your new school year.
Speaker 2:Thank, you have a great one you too.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye, thanks for joining us on the Hangout Podcast. You can send us an email at podcastinfo at protonme. Many thanks to my daughter, maya, for editing this episode. I'd also like to underline that this podcast is entirely separate from my day job and, as such, all opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thanks for coming on in and hanging out.
