Kunjan: Welcome to the Delta. I'm Kunjan Narechania CEO of Watershed Advisors. And this month for Women's History Month, we're highlighting women who are shaping education leadership today. I'm more than thrilled to be joined by Kaya Henderson, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of the Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute. ⁓ As you all well Kaya has a esteemed career. She started as a middle school Spanish teacher in the South Bronx for Teach for America and has dedicated her career to expanding opportunity for young people as a teacher, a leader, and entrepreneur. Before joining Aspen, she founded Reconstruction, an organization focused on teaching African-American history, culture, and contributions in a more complete and affirming way. From 2010 to 2016, she served as the chancellor of DC public schools where she led major gains in student outcomes and expanded opportunities for young people across the district. Kaya also continues to be a leading voice in education and beyond as co-host of Pod Save the People. Kaya, thank you so much for joining us.
Kaya: Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
Kunjan: we're going to get right to it. ⁓ have spent a lot of your career thinking about how to expand opportunity for young people, ⁓ just inside schools, but in the systems that shape their lives and futures. ⁓ the Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute, ⁓ work includes helping institutions think differently about youth leadership and making sure young people have a real seat at the table. Can you share a bit about the center, the work you're leading there, what your goals are, what you're most focused on?
Kaya: Sure, absolutely. So I feel like I have had a charmed life because I not only had the best job in America running DC public schools or the best job in America starting my own curriculum and technology company, but now I have the best job in America and maybe the world trying to ensure that civil discourse, leadership development, and civic engagement are predictable parts of growing up for all young people 14 to 24. That's the mission of the Center for Rising Generations. You know, when we think about youth leadership, who are the leaders that we tap as young people? We tap the most academically talented or the most athletically talented or the most charismatic or the most well-connected, the people that I call the usual suspects. But there are so many... regular young people who have incredible leadership potential. And what we know is that leadership is like driving. You learn about it, you learn how to do it by doing it. And so if we can give many more young people kind of at bats at leadership development, if we can give them many more opportunities to engage civically, if we can teach them how to, dialogue across lines of difference, we feel like these are the skills that young people need to lead. people ask me what my definition is of leadership. ⁓ And it is funny that, you sometimes you meet people who change your life. Wendy Copp was one of those people who started Teach for America. ⁓ But I had the pleasure of with Wendy at Teach for All, which is kind of the international version Teach for America, where they think about leadership. And this has now become my definition as preparing young people who can solve problems for themselves, for their community, and for the world, right? And we talk about young people being leaders of the future. At the Center for Rising Generations, we believe that young people are leaders right we ⁓ leading tomorrow starting ⁓ And so ⁓ we are doing from taking ⁓ Aspen leadership development programs and broadening them to a much wider audience. As many people know, Aspen has a reputation for being elite. I think you would be surprised at how many people we reach, and for us, that's not enough. So part of the work of the center is expanding and pushing out ⁓ our impact work with young people. We also have learned that narrative about young people is really important to supporting their leadership. What young people are saying to us is, you can't tell us we're the anxious generation or we're in midst of a mental health crisis or we're lonely or we're lazy or media is rotting our brain. And then in the same breath tell us that we're supposed to lead. And so we need a different narrative about young people. we think that from our particular position.
Kunjan: Mm.
Kaya: we can highlight young people. Young people right now are leading all across the country and we can push that up. We can push back on the deficit-based narratives because people listen to us when we talk. So we are doing some narrative work. We've also learned that there are tons of young people who would like these opportunities and they don't know where to find them. And there are tons of organizations that would like to find more and different young people. And so, we're creating kind of a hub to bring these ⁓ pieces the ecosystem together so that young people can find opportunities and each other. And so that programs can find young people. And then we are doing sort of creative new ⁓ at scale work with, know, cool partners like ⁓ the America's Promise Alliance where are. sort of thinking about a civic summer and what would it look like for every kid in America to participate in a summer experience where they're learning civil discourse, getting developed as a leader, and then working in teams to solve problems for their communities. ⁓ get to do a lot of different things. We're also, know, Aspen is known for its ideas festival. We will host the first rising generations ideas festival So. A little bit of everything. I'm doing, we're doing a lot of stuff, but again, all in service of every single 14 to 24 year old having some opportunities to build those skills that are going to allow them to lead for themselves, their community and the world.
Kunjan: That's amazing. I have so many questions, but we have limited time. So I'm going to limit my questions too, but this is really incredible. And I can see why you say you have the best job in the
Kaya: Yes. ⁓
Kunjan: Like in our sector, we talk a lot about caring about student voice. ⁓ I think what you're calling on us to do is different than sort of how we've defined student voice ⁓ far. And so my question back to you is like, what does meaningful youth engagement look like in the education sector? ⁓ where would you say there are bright spots?
Kaya: Yeah, so I'll say, you know, I've learned over my leadership journey ⁓ that the people closest to the problem usually have the solutions. They don't have, they might not have the money to solve the problem or the political cover or whatever, but they know what needs to happen. ⁓ ⁓ found that in my community work in DC, ⁓ I find with young people. And so I had a pretty transformative experience at DCPS that I'll just talk about quickly where ⁓ were required to do a budget hearing ⁓ the beginning of the budget season. And it was a very random meeting where people in the community would just come down and be like, we want more music education, or we want more, kind of totally disconnected from the realities of the budget. ⁓ they were exercising their voice to say this is what they wanted to see in their school system. ⁓ But it was random. And so I was frustrated by it. ⁓ so I said, let's do this differently. with 17 high schools, let's ask two kids from each high school to engage with their peers and find out what each school's biggest priorities were for our budget this year. And then let's have a budget hearing with student leaders. ⁓ those young people came with the most thoughtful and highly implementable ideas ever. ⁓ said things like, ⁓ an increasingly global and international world. But in some of our schools, there is no foreign language. In others of our schools, there's 10 foreign languages. How do we think about that? You you say we're the leaders of today, but there's no funding or no real role for student government in this district, right? Like, yes, you have a student cabinet, but it doesn't represent everybody. And so here are some policy changes we'd like to see around student government. They said things like, you know... increasing technology and here's how we'd like to be thinking about technology differently. I these kids came up with amazing things right? There are equity issues, what does you know advanced placement courses look like or why are only things happening in these places? Anyway I say all of that to say it was so transformative for me that we moved to require that the first budget hearing ⁓ the DCPS budget season is always a youth hearing. And that is still in place, even though I've been gone for 10 years. And so every time, what I've learned is every time we invite young people to the table as co-creators, not student voice, right? Like, don't tell me what you want, tell me what we can do together. And we always get to better solutions than if I was doing it by myself or if they were doing it by themselves.
Kunjan: Yeah, I think your redefinition here is really helpful. It's helpful to me and I hope helpful to the people listening because, you know, if we're really going to take young people seriously as partners, we need to listen as you're suggesting that we do to what they're saying about their experiences, not just in school, but more broadly, you know, everything from AI to you mentioned mental health to economic uncertainty to changing career pathways. Sort of what signals from young people. should state leaders be paying more attention to right now? And what should we be acting on as state leaders?
Kaya: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that we have heard a lot from young people, ⁓ given all of the things that are happening right now around social media and AI and just technology in general, ⁓ of all, they're like, stop talking about AI ⁓ technology or social. ⁓ are all very different things and require very different solutions. So yes, ⁓ media is problematic in a number of ways. And it's also the only way that I get to talk to all of my friends. So we need to be more nuanced about, for example, cell phone bans in schools, right? And they recognize the destructive forces of having their phones in schools, but they have five or six other suggestions that are not just ban at all. And I think, as adults, so, ⁓ we to show that we're tackling this so quickly when in fact,
Kunjan: Yeah.
Kaya: if we sat down with young people, they would get us to the answers that we're looking for without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the things that I think in the coming weeks, I think it is Gallup that's gonna release some more up-to-date research ⁓ teens and technology specifically around AI ⁓ how young people's trust in AI is kind of bottoming out, right? And they are making really logical choices about when and how they will engage with AI and when they are not, right? ⁓ that's not a story that we hear. We hear, ⁓ my God, you know, ⁓ kid is committing suicide and every kid is in love with a chatbot. That is not true, right? That's not true. ⁓ so how do we help surface the real story?
Kunjan: Yeah.
Kaya: which is that some young people recognize the real dangers and they don't want that for themselves and they are making those decisions. They are also leading other young people. there's a young man in rural Maine who developed a program to mitigate ⁓
Kunjan: Yes.
Kaya: the impacts of online gambling for young men and boys And, this is a young man who is recognizing the problems of online gambling, creating solutions where he's bringing young men and boys together to discuss and figure out what some of their other options are, which is more responsible than, you know, these gaming companies who are using celebrities to entice young people into online gambling, or even our state and federal, you know, policymakers who are more concerned with businesses having the latitude that they need to operate than they are with also trying to mitigate the disparate impact on young people. ⁓ say all of that to say young people are actually savvy consumers.
Kunjan: Mm.
Kaya: young people actually clear ideas about how to solve problems. They are willing to solve problems now. They support. They need resources. ⁓ And maybe the most surprising thing to me ⁓ in the months that I've been doing this work is they want to do it with us. They want to do it intergenerationally. ⁓ And like, I've been hearing the narrative was, you know, that the young people don't want anything to do with us. You know, we smoke this world, just give it to them and let them fix it and whatnot. That is not, that's not my experience. All of the young people here want to learn from older people. want to, ⁓ they want work together. we actually employ a number of young people on our staff because I just feel like I can't do stuff for young people without young people. But one of my youngs said to me, Kaya, the solutions to the questions that we seek, are at the intersection of wisdom and imagination. ⁓ And I was like, wow, that is profound. Like need to put that on a t-shirt. But I was like, ⁓ wait a minute. So ⁓ you are imagination and I'm wisdom. Is that right? was like, yes. ⁓
Kunjan: Yeah, no doubt.
Kaya: But she's right, right? She's right. There are things that they are good at and know that I don't, and there are things that I am good at and know and they don't, and we get the best answers when we come together.
Kunjan: Wow, that's amazing. I hate to pivot because I have still so many questions and I'm inspired by what you're saying, but we put this series together as a part of Women's History Month and we've been reflecting on ⁓ the women whose leadership has helped move education and public life forward. How have women in your life shaped your own understanding of leadership? And is there a lesson you've learned from one of them that feels especially important to carry forward right now?
Kaya: Yeah, I I think a lot. So first of all, I am ⁓ an child ⁓ of educator mother ⁓ and non-professional educator grandmother. And so I grew up with these very strong women in my life who were kind of setting expectations for me, both personally and professionally. ⁓ And, the big mantra in my household was to whom much is given, much is required, right? It is the Bible verse that calls us to, ⁓ you know, it forward, pay it back, be responsible, do the things. And so I think, and when I think about ⁓ the Black women that I know in the education space, every single one of them ⁓ could tell you you know, Bible verse because it has been drilled into us. And so I do think that for me, ⁓ ⁓ what these women have taught me. ⁓ I think about the big luminaries in history, I think about Mary McLeod Bethune or Septima Clark or Marva Collins, right? ⁓ These all African-American women who ⁓ recognized the system was failing young people and they created something new. what, these women have poured into me is that not only do I have the ability to create something new when ⁓ needs are not being met, when our children's needs are not being met, but I actually have a responsibility to try to create something new ⁓ the system isn't working. And that has sort of guided the way I walk into work.
Kunjan: Hmm. What advice do you have for young women stepping into education leadership?
Kaya: of all, I would say we need you now more than ever. I feel like people are opting out or everybody wants to consult and like people want easy jobs and I think ⁓ You know ⁓ you want easy jobs, I don't know why you're in education if you want to change the world, right ⁓ ⁓ know ⁓ the world is not an easy thing So if you want easy go somewhere else right now, we need people who are warriors for our children. We need people who are willing to ⁓ up in the status quo and create new and better opportunities. We need dreamers and imaginers because, you know, if one more person tells me we should just double down on this thing that we've done for 30 years and it ⁓ might be but it hasn't gotten us the results. Like we need, we need, we need people who are imaginative, courageous. and willing to not give up on young people just because it gets a little hard. the payoff on that is way than you will feel sitting at home ⁓ on couch eating while you are trying coach somebody about something or another, right? Like it's just a very different thing. So ⁓ who do you want to be? Like, do you to be ⁓ the spectator or do you want to be the in the arena? women in the arena. And I am saying we need people who are willing to jump into the arena.
Kunjan: ⁓ I couldn't say it better myself, thank you. Who is one woman in education whose work you think our listeners and readers should follow right now?
Kaya: woman, yikes.
Kunjan: maybe, you know, a few.
Kaya: I don't think that people associate her with education but I do. I Gina Raimondo ⁓ is somebody whose work we should be following. first of all, I got to know Gina when she was the governor of Rhode ⁓ and her commitment to ⁓ re-imagining the Rhode Island education system.
Kunjan: ⁓ yeah.
Kaya: was unprecedented. I know there used to be like education governors, ⁓ ⁓ is the closest thing to that I feel like we've had in a long time. Maybe with the exception of my other friend, Bill Haslam in But ⁓ also like sort of deep understanding ⁓ of the community and what it needs given her time as ⁓ secretary of And now she is doing deep, deep work in the world of AI and workforce development. and full transparency, just named her as a co-chair to our Rising Generation Strategy Group ⁓ because ⁓ the are longer just in the education space. The answers are about connecting young people to jobs, to technology, to public good. We have to think. much more expansively about what it means to prepare young people to thrive in America. And I think she has a unique perspective because she's both run a state, she has, you know, thought about the business environment for the country, ⁓ tackling head on the kind of the, gestalt that we are under with the advancement of AI. So,
Kunjan: Awesome. Kaya, cannot thank you enough for taking time to share your thinking. You've given us a glimpse into both your imagination and your wisdom. So I really cannot thank You do and more. For those watching, you can find this conversation and others in our Women's History Month series by searching the Delta on your favorite podcast platforms. You can also watch the full video and read the transcript on LinkedIn at the Delta.
Kaya: I'm saying Gina Raimondo. ⁓ Thank you. See, I got a little bit of both.
Kaya: Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
Kunjan: we're going to get right to it. ⁓ have spent a lot of your career thinking about how to expand opportunity for young people, ⁓ just inside schools, but in the systems that shape their lives and futures. ⁓ the Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute, ⁓ work includes helping institutions think differently about youth leadership and making sure young people have a real seat at the table. Can you share a bit about the center, the work you're leading there, what your goals are, what you're most focused on?
Kaya: Sure, absolutely. So I feel like I have had a charmed life because I not only had the best job in America running DC public schools or the best job in America starting my own curriculum and technology company, but now I have the best job in America and maybe the world trying to ensure that civil discourse, leadership development, and civic engagement are predictable parts of growing up for all young people 14 to 24. That's the mission of the Center for Rising Generations. You know, when we think about youth leadership, who are the leaders that we tap as young people? We tap the most academically talented or the most athletically talented or the most charismatic or the most well-connected, the people that I call the usual suspects. But there are so many... regular young people who have incredible leadership potential. And what we know is that leadership is like driving. You learn about it, you learn how to do it by doing it. And so if we can give many more young people kind of at bats at leadership development, if we can give them many more opportunities to engage civically, if we can teach them how to, dialogue across lines of difference, we feel like these are the skills that young people need to lead. people ask me what my definition is of leadership. ⁓ And it is funny that, you sometimes you meet people who change your life. Wendy Copp was one of those people who started Teach for America. ⁓ But I had the pleasure of with Wendy at Teach for All, which is kind of the international version Teach for America, where they think about leadership. And this has now become my definition as preparing young people who can solve problems for themselves, for their community, and for the world, right? And we talk about young people being leaders of the future. At the Center for Rising Generations, we believe that young people are leaders right we ⁓ leading tomorrow starting ⁓ And so ⁓ we are doing from taking ⁓ Aspen leadership development programs and broadening them to a much wider audience. As many people know, Aspen has a reputation for being elite. I think you would be surprised at how many people we reach, and for us, that's not enough. So part of the work of the center is expanding and pushing out ⁓ our impact work with young people. We also have learned that narrative about young people is really important to supporting their leadership. What young people are saying to us is, you can't tell us we're the anxious generation or we're in midst of a mental health crisis or we're lonely or we're lazy or media is rotting our brain. And then in the same breath tell us that we're supposed to lead. And so we need a different narrative about young people. we think that from our particular position.
Kunjan: Mm.
Kaya: we can highlight young people. Young people right now are leading all across the country and we can push that up. We can push back on the deficit-based narratives because people listen to us when we talk. So we are doing some narrative work. We've also learned that there are tons of young people who would like these opportunities and they don't know where to find them. And there are tons of organizations that would like to find more and different young people. And so, we're creating kind of a hub to bring these ⁓ pieces the ecosystem together so that young people can find opportunities and each other. And so that programs can find young people. And then we are doing sort of creative new ⁓ at scale work with, know, cool partners like ⁓ the America's Promise Alliance where are. sort of thinking about a civic summer and what would it look like for every kid in America to participate in a summer experience where they're learning civil discourse, getting developed as a leader, and then working in teams to solve problems for their communities. ⁓ get to do a lot of different things. We're also, know, Aspen is known for its ideas festival. We will host the first rising generations ideas festival So. A little bit of everything. I'm doing, we're doing a lot of stuff, but again, all in service of every single 14 to 24 year old having some opportunities to build those skills that are going to allow them to lead for themselves, their community and the world.
Kunjan: That's amazing. I have so many questions, but we have limited time. So I'm going to limit my questions too, but this is really incredible. And I can see why you say you have the best job in the
Kaya: Yes. ⁓
Kunjan: Like in our sector, we talk a lot about caring about student voice. ⁓ I think what you're calling on us to do is different than sort of how we've defined student voice ⁓ far. And so my question back to you is like, what does meaningful youth engagement look like in the education sector? ⁓ where would you say there are bright spots?
Kaya: Yeah, so I'll say, you know, I've learned over my leadership journey ⁓ that the people closest to the problem usually have the solutions. They don't have, they might not have the money to solve the problem or the political cover or whatever, but they know what needs to happen. ⁓ ⁓ found that in my community work in DC, ⁓ I find with young people. And so I had a pretty transformative experience at DCPS that I'll just talk about quickly where ⁓ were required to do a budget hearing ⁓ the beginning of the budget season. And it was a very random meeting where people in the community would just come down and be like, we want more music education, or we want more, kind of totally disconnected from the realities of the budget. ⁓ they were exercising their voice to say this is what they wanted to see in their school system. ⁓ But it was random. And so I was frustrated by it. ⁓ so I said, let's do this differently. with 17 high schools, let's ask two kids from each high school to engage with their peers and find out what each school's biggest priorities were for our budget this year. And then let's have a budget hearing with student leaders. ⁓ those young people came with the most thoughtful and highly implementable ideas ever. ⁓ said things like, ⁓ an increasingly global and international world. But in some of our schools, there is no foreign language. In others of our schools, there's 10 foreign languages. How do we think about that? You you say we're the leaders of today, but there's no funding or no real role for student government in this district, right? Like, yes, you have a student cabinet, but it doesn't represent everybody. And so here are some policy changes we'd like to see around student government. They said things like, you know... increasing technology and here's how we'd like to be thinking about technology differently. I these kids came up with amazing things right? There are equity issues, what does you know advanced placement courses look like or why are only things happening in these places? Anyway I say all of that to say it was so transformative for me that we moved to require that the first budget hearing ⁓ the DCPS budget season is always a youth hearing. And that is still in place, even though I've been gone for 10 years. And so every time, what I've learned is every time we invite young people to the table as co-creators, not student voice, right? Like, don't tell me what you want, tell me what we can do together. And we always get to better solutions than if I was doing it by myself or if they were doing it by themselves.
Kunjan: Yeah, I think your redefinition here is really helpful. It's helpful to me and I hope helpful to the people listening because, you know, if we're really going to take young people seriously as partners, we need to listen as you're suggesting that we do to what they're saying about their experiences, not just in school, but more broadly, you know, everything from AI to you mentioned mental health to economic uncertainty to changing career pathways. Sort of what signals from young people. should state leaders be paying more attention to right now? And what should we be acting on as state leaders?
Kaya: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that we have heard a lot from young people, ⁓ given all of the things that are happening right now around social media and AI and just technology in general, ⁓ of all, they're like, stop talking about AI ⁓ technology or social. ⁓ are all very different things and require very different solutions. So yes, ⁓ media is problematic in a number of ways. And it's also the only way that I get to talk to all of my friends. So we need to be more nuanced about, for example, cell phone bans in schools, right? And they recognize the destructive forces of having their phones in schools, but they have five or six other suggestions that are not just ban at all. And I think, as adults, so, ⁓ we to show that we're tackling this so quickly when in fact,
Kunjan: Yeah.
Kaya: if we sat down with young people, they would get us to the answers that we're looking for without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the things that I think in the coming weeks, I think it is Gallup that's gonna release some more up-to-date research ⁓ teens and technology specifically around AI ⁓ how young people's trust in AI is kind of bottoming out, right? And they are making really logical choices about when and how they will engage with AI and when they are not, right? ⁓ that's not a story that we hear. We hear, ⁓ my God, you know, ⁓ kid is committing suicide and every kid is in love with a chatbot. That is not true, right? That's not true. ⁓ so how do we help surface the real story?
Kunjan: Yeah.
Kaya: which is that some young people recognize the real dangers and they don't want that for themselves and they are making those decisions. They are also leading other young people. there's a young man in rural Maine who developed a program to mitigate ⁓
Kunjan: Yes.
Kaya: the impacts of online gambling for young men and boys And, this is a young man who is recognizing the problems of online gambling, creating solutions where he's bringing young men and boys together to discuss and figure out what some of their other options are, which is more responsible than, you know, these gaming companies who are using celebrities to entice young people into online gambling, or even our state and federal, you know, policymakers who are more concerned with businesses having the latitude that they need to operate than they are with also trying to mitigate the disparate impact on young people. ⁓ say all of that to say young people are actually savvy consumers.
Kunjan: Mm.
Kaya: young people actually clear ideas about how to solve problems. They are willing to solve problems now. They support. They need resources. ⁓ And maybe the most surprising thing to me ⁓ in the months that I've been doing this work is they want to do it with us. They want to do it intergenerationally. ⁓ And like, I've been hearing the narrative was, you know, that the young people don't want anything to do with us. You know, we smoke this world, just give it to them and let them fix it and whatnot. That is not, that's not my experience. All of the young people here want to learn from older people. want to, ⁓ they want work together. we actually employ a number of young people on our staff because I just feel like I can't do stuff for young people without young people. But one of my youngs said to me, Kaya, the solutions to the questions that we seek, are at the intersection of wisdom and imagination. ⁓ And I was like, wow, that is profound. Like need to put that on a t-shirt. But I was like, ⁓ wait a minute. So ⁓ you are imagination and I'm wisdom. Is that right? was like, yes. ⁓
Kunjan: Yeah, no doubt.
Kaya: But she's right, right? She's right. There are things that they are good at and know that I don't, and there are things that I am good at and know and they don't, and we get the best answers when we come together.
Kunjan: Wow, that's amazing. I hate to pivot because I have still so many questions and I'm inspired by what you're saying, but we put this series together as a part of Women's History Month and we've been reflecting on ⁓ the women whose leadership has helped move education and public life forward. How have women in your life shaped your own understanding of leadership? And is there a lesson you've learned from one of them that feels especially important to carry forward right now?
Kaya: Yeah, I I think a lot. So first of all, I am ⁓ an child ⁓ of educator mother ⁓ and non-professional educator grandmother. And so I grew up with these very strong women in my life who were kind of setting expectations for me, both personally and professionally. ⁓ And, the big mantra in my household was to whom much is given, much is required, right? It is the Bible verse that calls us to, ⁓ you know, it forward, pay it back, be responsible, do the things. And so I think, and when I think about ⁓ the Black women that I know in the education space, every single one of them ⁓ could tell you you know, Bible verse because it has been drilled into us. And so I do think that for me, ⁓ ⁓ what these women have taught me. ⁓ I think about the big luminaries in history, I think about Mary McLeod Bethune or Septima Clark or Marva Collins, right? ⁓ These all African-American women who ⁓ recognized the system was failing young people and they created something new. what, these women have poured into me is that not only do I have the ability to create something new when ⁓ needs are not being met, when our children's needs are not being met, but I actually have a responsibility to try to create something new ⁓ the system isn't working. And that has sort of guided the way I walk into work.
Kunjan: Hmm. What advice do you have for young women stepping into education leadership?
Kaya: of all, I would say we need you now more than ever. I feel like people are opting out or everybody wants to consult and like people want easy jobs and I think ⁓ You know ⁓ you want easy jobs, I don't know why you're in education if you want to change the world, right ⁓ ⁓ know ⁓ the world is not an easy thing So if you want easy go somewhere else right now, we need people who are warriors for our children. We need people who are willing to ⁓ up in the status quo and create new and better opportunities. We need dreamers and imaginers because, you know, if one more person tells me we should just double down on this thing that we've done for 30 years and it ⁓ might be but it hasn't gotten us the results. Like we need, we need, we need people who are imaginative, courageous. and willing to not give up on young people just because it gets a little hard. the payoff on that is way than you will feel sitting at home ⁓ on couch eating while you are trying coach somebody about something or another, right? Like it's just a very different thing. So ⁓ who do you want to be? Like, do you to be ⁓ the spectator or do you want to be the in the arena? women in the arena. And I am saying we need people who are willing to jump into the arena.
Kunjan: ⁓ I couldn't say it better myself, thank you. Who is one woman in education whose work you think our listeners and readers should follow right now?
Kaya: woman, yikes.
Kunjan: maybe, you know, a few.
Kaya: I don't think that people associate her with education but I do. I Gina Raimondo ⁓ is somebody whose work we should be following. first of all, I got to know Gina when she was the governor of Rhode ⁓ and her commitment to ⁓ re-imagining the Rhode Island education system.
Kunjan: ⁓ yeah.
Kaya: was unprecedented. I know there used to be like education governors, ⁓ ⁓ is the closest thing to that I feel like we've had in a long time. Maybe with the exception of my other friend, Bill Haslam in But ⁓ also like sort of deep understanding ⁓ of the community and what it needs given her time as ⁓ secretary of And now she is doing deep, deep work in the world of AI and workforce development. and full transparency, just named her as a co-chair to our Rising Generation Strategy Group ⁓ because ⁓ the are longer just in the education space. The answers are about connecting young people to jobs, to technology, to public good. We have to think. much more expansively about what it means to prepare young people to thrive in America. And I think she has a unique perspective because she's both run a state, she has, you know, thought about the business environment for the country, ⁓ tackling head on the kind of the, gestalt that we are under with the advancement of AI. So,
Kunjan: Awesome. Kaya, cannot thank you enough for taking time to share your thinking. You've given us a glimpse into both your imagination and your wisdom. So I really cannot thank You do and more. For those watching, you can find this conversation and others in our Women's History Month series by searching the Delta on your favorite podcast platforms. You can also watch the full video and read the transcript on LinkedIn at the Delta.
Kaya: I'm saying Gina Raimondo. ⁓ Thank you. See, I got a little bit of both.
