Education Excellence

Education Excellence is a conversation podcast about the working parts of a school system: the devices students carry, the software parents log into, the data leaders read and the people hired to teach. Michael Levin-Epstein introduces himself as its creator, producer and host. Episodes begin with a short excerpt from the conversation, followed by his welcome and the episode number. From there, the guests supply the detail. The Chromebook episode leads with the observation that students now become fluent with devices at a much earlier age, so the machine is just a conduit and their attention goes to learning. A guest from CTL urges IT directors to get value out of aging hardware before they buy, since a refurbished device reaches the same learning tools as a new one. Asked what being a B corporation means in practice, the guest talks about putting people and the planet on par with profit, down to where spent lithium batteries end up. The conversation with Chelsea Lopez handles AI at two levels. For young students, AI literacy can start with a question as simple as why a tool suggested something. For wary teachers, there is a story about removing identifying details from a parent's email and asking ChatGPT to help shape a more professional reply. A four-part series with PowerSchool, which the host credits on air as collaborator and underwriter, stays on the systems side of the job. Its leadership installment treats bold leadership as a willingness to have the AI conversation, and it traces whole-child analytics from a single student up through the classroom, school and district. The workforce installment ties coaching teachers back to the tools used to hire them, and it frames change as small, individualized habits, with coaching even through failure. In the same conversation, the host brings up teacher pay. The home-and-school installment argues for inviting parents in as partners instead of wagging a finger. It describes one portal where a guardian with an email and a password can check grades and attendance, book a conference or ask who to contact. One guest there speaks from having run technology for a large district. Not every conversation is about tools. An episode titled 'Developing Life Skills with Susan Liebesman' includes a frank passage about body weight and about not assuming why someone is thin or heavy, and Christina McBerry introduces it as host under a school-happiness banner. Closings ask for feedback by email or LinkedIn, pitches from would-be guests, marketing partners and sponsors, and a five-star rating. For anyone curious how ed-tech decisions play out in real schools, the PowerSchool run is a sensible place to start.