Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho on school closures, the COVID-19 crisis & re-opening schools

Hi everyone! Welcome to our daily live stream. This is something that we started about two months ago, really to stay in touch during times of social distancing and physical school closures. Obviously, we've been trying to do a lot of other things, but we thought it's also nice to have interesting guests and have interesting conversations about the crisis we're going through and beyond.

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So special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis. And now we're gonna have a new segment where I'm gonna bring in Dan. Hi Dan! To just make a couple of quick announcements for us.

All right, so we're super excited to announce the launch of our Spanish language US site for remote learning, khan.co/gamosaprediendo. The folks, our team will be adding the links to the message boards right now. It's really exciting because not only is it for our U.S. Spanish-speaking folks, it is also an adaptation of our resources. So we didn't just translate; we actually made sure that we were adapting all of our remote learning resources appropriately.

And then another announcement we wanted to share is that there will be no Homeroom show tomorrow. Sal will be on Hey There Human with Rainn Wilson, better known as Dwight Schrute on Soul Pancake's Instagram channel at noon tomorrow. But we will be back on Thursday for a special Homeroom celebrating the graduating class of 2020. So if you know any other graduating seniors this year, please invite them to join Homeroom. Sal is going to be sharing some special messages, and the segments will be highlighting all the great work that you all did this past year.

Thanks, Dan! I'm mildly entertained and disturbed by some of those graphics that I just saw, so thanks, Dan. And so I'm super excited for our guest today, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho from Miami-Dade. You know, we've known each other off and on for many years now. Superintendent Carvalho, thanks for joining us today.

It's a pleasure! Sal, thank you so much for the opportunity. I look forward to the conversation, and I can't wait to see you in cap and gown Thursday. [Laughter] My mom will probably be excited, and anytime it looks like I'm getting more educated. So maybe a good place to start, before obviously it'll be interesting to talk about how you all have been navigating the crisis, but what kind of blew my mind was the first time that we had a chance to really dig in deeply with everything going on in Miami-Dade.

There's a lot of narrative of large urban school districts. The stereotype is it can be a little bit dysfunctional, a little bit slow-moving. And I think, and you know I've told this to other people, when you're not in the room, something you all have done at Miami-Dade seems pretty incredible. Tell us kind of the transformation of Miami-Dade and where you all have gotten with things like graduation rates and other measures.

It's very interesting! We're having that conversation now, in the middle of a crisis, because I'm a crisis superintendent. I started back in 2008-2009 as superintendent at the onset of one of the greatest recessions this nation ever went through. And quite frankly, within that crisis there was an opportunity.

And then we'll go back to how we're finding the opportunity wrapped in today's crisis. But you know, when I started as superintendent, this was a district where only 30 percent of the students were taking advantage of choice programs, particularly advanced academic choice programs. The graduation rate was at 56 percent district-wide, but behind that curtain of general performance there were some high schools where the graduation rate was as low as 35 percent.

The shame of our community! We had nine schools under a threat of shut down by the state of Florida because of performance, because for as long as there was an accountability system there, these schools had never posted anything better than a D or an F. There were literally high schools in Miami-Dade where zero students were taking advantage of advanced placement classes, IB, or Cambridge, and that was reasonably disturbing.

And of course, on the natural setting, I don't think Miami-Dade was necessarily moving the needle. You fast forward a decade later: 73 percent of our students are enrolled in non-traditional programs. That means parents and students are making choices about the types of programs, modality of learning—something that actually excites them. If they want robotics, coding, performing visual arts, cyber security, there's something for everyone. A one size fits none in Miami-Dade, over one thousand choice programs—one thousand parental options for kids in Miami-Dade.

Secondly, for the second year in a row, we are an A-rated school system in the state of Florida, the highest level of performance. Three years in a row, zero F-rated schools. Graduation rate this year at 90 percent from 56 percent, and zero schools with a graduation rate below 80 percent. The school that used to have a graduation rate of 35 percent today at 80 percent.

And the most remarkable thing is during that time period we became better. You know, during times of crisis, we had a chance of reinventing ourselves into a better version of us, discarding a lot of the dead wood, slaying a lot of sacred cows that anchored the status quo. We really reinvented the school system through digital convergence.

That's why we were so prepared for our transition to distance learning, because we passed a remarkable bond referendum back in 2012 for 1.2 billion dollars, 250 million of which were spent on technology. And that was really revolutionary in Miami-Dade from curating, developing, acquiring applications, content—digital content that's personalized and adaptive, to ubiquitous universal Wi-Fi guarantee, expanded bandwidth across the board.

And then the device conversation, where not using bond referendum dollars because I don't believe in mortgaging for 30 years an asset whose lifespan is two and a half to three years. But we've acquired an excess of 300,000 devices. And that's where we are today: a broad-winning district, one of the highest performing urban districts in the country, with the highest percentage of Cambridge passing rate, AP passing rate.

And when you look at who we are, a minority district: 95 percent minority, 75 percent poor, 50 percent of our student body is immigrant, 80,000 of our kids are English language learners. A lot of people would say it can't be done, but we've shown that the impossible can become the inevitable right here in sunny South Florida.

And I want to double click on that before we even get to the present, because when I remember when I first learned these, you know, for those of you who are listening who are not familiar with data from public schools and large urban school districts, what Superintendent Carvalho just described is not usual. This is a major transformation that a lot of people talk about.

What, in your mind, Superintendent Carvalho, I mean even from your leadership point of view or what other stakeholders are bringing to the table, what allowed you to do this? Why can't we do this in every city in the country or in the world? Or what would have to happen or what should the leaders be doing?

Yeah, that's the question I most ask everywhere I go when I give a speech, when I teach at Harvard. Everybody always asks me that, and the answer that I give is really fundamentally based on five simple points. And the conclusion is that this is really not that hard of work. It's no longer a skill set that impairs or prevents others from replicating these results. It's really a will set proposition. Do you have the political courage?

Yes, do you have the political courage to actually embrace the work and the practice with the degree of abandonment, take risks, and do right by kids, while sometimes irking the adults? Respecting the adults but sometimes irking the adults, and certainly we've done that here.

So the five things: number one, leadership matters. Shortly after I became superintendent, I am—principals are directly accountable to me. And I have to tell you that, and I don't say this with pride, that I removed, replaced, demoted, terminated, promoted 85 percent of all principals in the fourth largest school system in America.

And there's a reason for that. I was looking for data-driven, courageous instructional leaders who are community-minded and are risk-takers themselves, who can navigate complex data systems, can identify gaps before they materialize and develop strategies to address them. And that's the profile of the leader that I want.

Secondly, the reason why leadership—school leadership is so important is because, in Miami-Dade, and I believe this is a good practice, we screen teachers, but principals hire teachers. So the hiring of teachers, you know, the building block of public education is done at the school site. So I put a lot of trust in my instructional leaders, my captains who are principals.

And that is the second critical element: effective, strategic, data-driven teaching that is differentiated—that utilizes all the assets we have that complements the leadership style of the principles we hired. The third one is in fact digital convergence.

And for me, this was our way of tackling a huge inequity that existed prior to our work here, which, by the way, America came face to face with it during this pandemic crisis, which is digital inequity. The fact that across the country, by zip code, people finally became aware of what they already knew is that there are a lot of digital deserts.

And what digital deserts do to poor kids particularly is it limits their ability to learn. Their learning is limited in the bell-to-bell time they have in school. Why? They don't have a device at home; they don't have connectivity at home. So our digital convergence effort, which began in 2012-2013, empowered us with the ability to actually create a portal of learning for the most fragile kids by giving them a device, personalized content, applications, and connectivity if they need it.

And by the way, developing a parent academy to orient parents in assisting their kids from home. That's number three. Number four is parental engagement. And by the way, I leave it for number four because I can't change the parent as much as I can change the child, but I can influence the parent.

And our launch of the parent academy as a college for parents, number one, to help parents help their own kids navigate schooling. Second, empower parents with skill sets to get them a job in our own school system, in our technical colleges. And thirdly, empower parents in an immigrant community to be civic-minded, know their rights, know the laws, take advantage of the protections afforded them.

But the real reason for the parent academy—and this hurts the feelings of some educators out there in America—is I want to make parents dangerous. You know, just like the law of economic supply and demand, we all know communities that are demand-sided in terms of their parents. Others are supply-sided. Demand-side of communities—it's those communities, reasonably affluent parents know exactly where the best school, the best program, the best principal, the best teacher is, and they demand that their kid be in it.

Then you have certain communities where parents, unfortunately, don't really know what to ask for. They supply with their children with a hope and prayer and wish that you do something right by them. So part of my theory of action here is I want to feel pressure from communities that have not necessarily expressed their discontent sometimes with what happens with their children in school.

That's empowering parents. And then the last element is effective targeted strategic human capital development—professional development, really retooling, re-skilling the workforce that we have. Look, you cannot go out there and trade your army. By the way, my army is fantastic. So it's hiring the right people, but it's also accelerating the pace that you transition the army of employees you have, particularly teachers and support staff, into a new way of thinking, a new way of teaching, a new way of supporting, a new way of using data, a new way of using technology.

You do those five, and I guarantee you any school system, rural, urban, small, large will prosper. Now those are great, and I'm getting a lot of questions showing up on YouTube and Facebook. Before I go into that, I actually have a leadership question. And also, before we talk about the COVID crisis, you know, you talk about those five things and they make a ton of sense.

But I love your phrase with the will set—the willpower to do it. You know, to go in as a new superintendent and to make some of these changes—some of them quite dramatic—it's easier said than done. You know, I'm curious from a personal level what went through your head. Is there sometimes we say, “Hey Alberto, maybe I'm the wrong one. Maybe I shouldn't rock the boat too much. Maybe I should just kind of play nice.” I mean, how do you—because I weigh those things all the time.

Sometimes I feel conviction about something, but I'm the only person who believes. I'm like, “Maybe I should just back off a little bit.” Well, I'll tell you a funny story, Sal. Number one, I do believe in working at the edge of the abyss because if you don't know how deep the gap where our kids live is, you don't know until you get really close to it. And you don't get really close to it unless you take immense risks.

So when I talk about abandonment, yeah, I'm talking about abandonment for the position that I hold. I risk the position. I try very hard—I tell this to people all the time—to get fired. And it is in that precious moment where you flirt with termination that something big happens for the district. If it's big enough for you to make a personal bet, trust me, things will happen.

And that happened, quite frankly, within two weeks of being appointed superintendent. It goes directly to your question. Look, remember the nine schools that were going to be shut down by the state of Florida for performance? And by the way, these were all black and brown schools in high-poverty areas. If you shut down the school for performance, the only thing that will be on that street will be a liquor store, a pawn shop, maybe a church, and the beacon of hope and opportunity for that community is extinguished.

I was not going to do that! Okay? There was a greater chance of the crown of Spain reclaiming Florida than me giving up on these schools. So I brought the nine principles of the schools one at a time to have a conversation with me, and I had a conversation with them, asked them all the questions. They had been there for a long period of time, and the one question they all across the board failed was when I asked them, “Why don't you have a single AP class—AP literature, AP physics, chemistry? Give me something, AP Spanish.”

And across the board, the answer was, “You know, I'd love to, but I don't have kids for that.” At that point, I didn't have a job for them. I fired nine principals. Well, nobody had told me that over the previous 90 years the school system had not fired nine principals. And I remember the board chair at that time taking me aside and saying to me, two weeks in, “You know, I regret voting for you as superintendent. You fired my friends.”

Now, it burnt, it was rough, but I survived. And once you go through one of those experiences, you build resiliency. When you time that with the window of opportunity—and by the way, those don't just come once in a lifetime—they happen cyclically. We have one happening right now, a window of opportunity; then you can get really crazy good things done.

Not devoid of threat or challenge, but if you're grounded in that which is right, then you take on the sacred cows, you take on the political establishment, and you force through that which you know will actually pay off for kids. Do I worry sometimes? I, myself, not as much; sometimes my team does, sometimes my wife, maybe a bit. But I feel the community is on our side.

We're very transparent. I tell the story all the time. The media—believe it or not, 12 years in—I don't complain about the media, the print media, TV media because they recognize that we leave it all out there. So yeah, there are some tough times, but there are enough people in this community who are awake and support the work and provide the cover for the work to continue.

That's super powerful! Just, you know, do what's right and the chips fall where they do—even for yourself versus, you know, preserving a job or title or whatever is expedient. I think it's a very powerful notion a lot of folks out there do what I do that never really risk that much out of fear of pushing the envelope too far. And you know what happens? They end up losing the job because the performance never increases.

And so at least, you know, lose your job doing something big, bold, and right that actually moves the needle because you have greater chances of actually keeping your job if the needle moves because people pay attention. So, you know, that to me, it's my theory of action, and it's worked. I recommend it strongly to those who don't mind feeling the pressure—it comes with the territory, but it's worked for us.

That's fascinating. So I'm gonna go into some of these questions and really get more to the present. You know, Susanna Garcia Dominguez on YouTube is asking, “Greetings, Superintendent Carvalho! What are your takeaways from this pandemic crisis?”

We have another one—I just thought it just disappeared—where a student was asking about just how are you navigating the crisis? So yeah, play it out for us. You know, how did this all evolve in Miami over the last, I guess, two and a half months when it started to become clear that we might have to close?

Yeah, so you may find this incredible, but we did not wait on the federal government or the state of Florida to tell us—to provide us directives on how to prepare for what was inevitable. Actually, I remember us back in January simultaneously—we were digesting headlines out of China. And I had just watched a series on Netflix dealing with a pandemic, and I connected the two.

A week later, coronavirus is on my leadership agenda to be discussed with my cabinet. And a few weeks later, we were readying a survey for parents to determine what the critical technology needs were at home. Why? Because we put on the board the worst-case scenario to solve for. And that worst-case scenario is all schools are going to shut down—355,000 K-12 kids going to be home, in addition to 40,000 adult learners, 48,000 employees will be home.

What are you going to do? What's our solution for that? So we bet on the worst-case scenario.

And when was this? Was this in February or January? The process? January! You were having this conversation in general no one was talking about school closures in January. No, we began a contingency plan in January. February, we began to actually write the plan. And before two weeks before the shutdown, we had the first version of our instructional continuity plan, which was followed by an ICP 2.0 and much more evolved with student and teacher accountability.

Look, we shut down schools with a negotiated agreement with the teachers' union agreeing to accountability: you know, number of hours that we’re expecting in terms of responsiveness to students, and connectivity, and connection, the same thing attendance for students. We didn’t have to do this on the back end. Before we shut down schools, we had already developed webinars for teachers.

We had already put 100 percent of our teachers through professional development—which was not difficult because they were already using the same applications, the same devices in the classroom that now the kids and the teachers themselves were using at home. The geography changed, but nothing else did. The survey results empowered us with the ability to actually know exactly who needed a device, who needed a hotspot.

So when we began the distribution, 119,000 devices hit the hands of kids quickly—11,000 hotspots, 100 percent connectivity in Miami-Dade. And by the way, and this is still right now, average daily attendance—hold on America—91 to 92 percent, that's about one to two percent away from a typical day last year around this time.

Because we prepared, we were not waiting on the federal government to say, “It's time to go now.” We anticipated worst-case scenario and we prepared for it hoping for the best, and that's exactly what we're doing right now, by the way, for the reopening come August 20.

We are, you know, these days it's less about strategic planning, it's more about active strategic thinking that is nimble, that is swift, that can pivot on the basis of environmental changes in our communities. And I think leadership today is having a number of contingency plans ready to jump to depending on conditions as they emerge between now and the reopening of schools, however that happens in August. And that's exactly what we're doing.

We were not waiting for the landlord to tell us when to rearrange the furniture. At our level, we got ready for that. And there's several things. I mean, we could double click on a lot of what you just said, but I'm curious how you were able to so quickly. I mean, it sounds like one of your advantages: you saw it coming, and you planned ahead. But you know, just the devices that you mentioned—100-something thousand devices—a large chunk of the students.

I mean, it sounds like you've kind of closed the digital divide in your community somewhat. You know, not overnight, but over a few weeks. How did you pull that off?

Data! Data, data, data! You know, data is part of our DNA; it's our North Star. We had an equity mindset. We knew exactly where the opportunity gaps were for kids, and we planned to address it in a very strategic, methodical, procedural way. And you're right, as far as the data that we manage daily.

And every single day at 9 am, I get the reports from my senior team before we start today via Zoom conversation that looks at system-wide performance, but then looks at disaggregated data for the lowest 25 percent of students in terms of reading proficiency for English language learners, for students with disabilities, for the immigrant child. I get all those reports in addition to attendance for every one of these groups so we can very, very quickly address the pockets of low performance or the outliers.

I mean, there was a point where we had students who were unaccounted for. Guess what? We used wellness checks, even our own police department with a knock on the door—a social worker, a device in a bag with easy instructions. We leverage the fact that we continue to feed kids. And again, but Yoshi belt, once again, as of today, we fed 2.9 million meals out of 50 centers.

We do it twice a week for every single day for every single kid, no questions asked that comes to our schools. But in addition to that, because we know that some kids live in really harsh conditions facing food insecurity in their zip codes, we embrace and embarked on this community feeding project—not using taxpayers' money, but through our foundation, capturing money, then putting small restaurants to work to prepare meals to distribute to the zip codes where we had the highest poverty overlaid over this grid that demonstrated the largest concentration of poor kids.

So have we filled or narrowed some of the gaps? In some cases, we obliterated the gap. In many cases, it's work in progress, but it's what we're doing now, quite frankly, as we wrap up this school year and the end of next school year that I'm excited. And if we have a chance, I'd like to talk about it.

Yeah, I know we got a bunch of questions there from YouTube. Charlotte, sometimes what is the plan for next school year? Will it only be digital or will it be mixed learning?

Kim Darling from YouTube, do you anticipate going back to school?

Yeah, so speak to that. What are the contingency plans you're thinking of? So number one, I have absolute expectations. I'm the eternal optimist. Kids will go back to schooling.

Now, going back to school and when—that's a function, since I'm a science-driven guy. You know, my degree is in biomedical sciences with a minor in physics—I have no choice, it's in my DNA to decode science and use it to inform the practice. So what I can tell you right now is what we're doing, really, you know, in a very proud and deliberate way, is dealing with America will experience very soon, which is the largest precedent-setting historic academic regression, the likes of which the nation has never seen.

And by the way, it's going to impact disproportionately the kids who were always at the bottom to begin with. These are, by the way, the kids who, before the crisis, were already in crisis, which is interesting right there.

There were a lot of kids amongst us before the COVID-19 crisis; they were already experiencing a multifaceted crisis on a daily basis. So for us, this is the educational opportunity hidden in this health crisis. And it begins with two summer sessions. And by the way, all of our budgets are going to be hit hard, but this is my priority, budget before my board.

Two summer sessions—the very first one is a virtual session targeting students already identified on the basis of performance, on the basis of fragility, on the basis of their lackluster connection during distance learning, on the basis of formative assessment data. The second summer session may be virtual, or should conditions improve significantly, we may bring students into schools in small groups, small ratios for very individualized attention by teachers—credit recovery, students with disabilities, immigrant students and the like.

Then we already budgeted for and planned for the next school year to start two weeks earlier for 25 percent of our student population—that's 46,000 students—opening all schools taught by selected teachers who have a high record of success with these minority populations, with these struggling students.

Next: virtual mentors and tutors for every single kid. Next, for 25 schools that have the greatest percentage of these fragile children, one hour added at the end of the day for additional opportunity to catch up.

What I'm describing here is the opportunity for us is to academically stabilize these kids who historically have fallen behind by the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Now, what will school look like next year? Guess what, America: since distance learning became a reality across all 50 states, parents have had a unique opportunity to have a front-row seat and observe the whole show.

They have been monitoring what's happening in their kids’ education. They have made judgments, evaluated the experience. They have determined how responsive the teacher was or wasn't. They know the level of engagement of their own children, and I think parents, as a result of this, are not going to give up that knowledge.

So that's why this new normal everybody keeps talking about—it’s real. Parents will be more demanding, and I think they'll be more demanding in terms of expectations for their children. But now that they know that it is possible, my prediction is—and this is what we're planning for in Miami-Dade—again, one size fits none is a very flexible opportunity to schedule students and teach students on the basis of individual student modality, flexibility, and demand on a parent's life.

The logistics that will condition our actions: social distancing, measuring of temperature, kids going into schools, having to reconfigure schools. The way—for example, you feed probably you're not going to be able to congregate kids in the cafeteria, so food will be distributed to each classroom like Uber Eats to the classroom—unidirectional hallways to reduce contact, cyclical mandatory washing of hands, much stronger systems for illness detection and reporting.

But what I'm excited about, quite frankly, is the fact that we will see, in my opinion, an explosion of hybrid and blended learning models. And I'll just give you an example: little Johnny, because of parental circumstances or the fact that he is a highly social being, wants to be in school 100 percent of the time. Our school system ought to be able to deliver that.

Mary, on the other hand, may say, “You know what? My parents—one parent is at home part of the time, and I’d like to be home part of the time. So I would like to be on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at home, on Tuesdays and Thursdays actually at school.” We can do that too! Why not?

Then there may be yet another child who, for a whole host of reasons, may say, “I actually thrive in this environment, and I want to make school visitations. I want to take advantage of some of the programs, athletics, etc., but I feel safer, at least for the beginning of the year, based on parental concerns, staying home and learning from a distance.”

What I just described is sort of a spectrum of opportunity that is choice-driven, that identifies the needs of parents and students and tries to match them with individualized learning pathways that are suited and suitable for each kid. And I think that's what's going to explode—it's sort of the new dimension of choice in America.

That's super powerful because if you take it one intellectual step from there, that means that even the physical experiences will have to support the virtual and that, to some degree, you're not necessarily bound to one physical location anymore—in theory.

That is absolutely right! And look, I'm already writing letters and advocating based on the experience we’ve had. I think state houses and the federal government need to rethink a number of things. Number one: how education is funded.

I mean, I think we're proving that having everybody start at the same time, end at the same time, for the exact same number of minutes every single day in the same place doesn't work anymore. So we need to liberalize funding methodology for public education across the country so that mandated seat time is not a mandatory feature in student funding. Secondly, the how—when, how, by whom, and how often something is taught, and what is taught needs to be looked at as well.

And I think that what we have learned under the rest, right, in the rush can now, over the summer and in months to come, be analyzed and let's use some of the learnings from this experience to actually enhance the student experience moving forward. And I think that's reasonably powerful.

Wow! Well, you know, Superintendent Carvalho, I could talk to you for a few more hours. I actually want to take notes on a lot of this because what you're doing, I mean, at a very large scale with a complex school district, and there are a lot more houses, a lot of questions about how you are able to pull this off. You know, what you're saying makes so much intellectual sense, but, you know, the time frames and obviously the dollars, where are you getting the resources to do it?

You know, I guess you're willing to stake your job on a lot of things we talked about that, so that's the will. I mean, I actually just answered. If you have a couple more minutes, I'd love—how are you able to do this? How are you able to do these programs? Where are you finding the resources? When you talk to a lot of places, they're like, “Oh, we don't have an extra penny, we're already over our heads in terms of budget.”

Yeah, well, you know, I think real number one, let's recognize that the fiscal shock that our nation is about to experience, the fiscal shock that public education systems across America are about to face, is going to be a daunting one. But we've been there before—probably not to this degree.

So you know, I don't want to give Tallahassee, in my case, or Washington DC a pass. During the last economic recession, under stimulus packages back then, over 115 billion dollars were appropriated to stabilize educational opportunities across the country. So far under the CARES Act, the current federal stimulus packages, only 16 billion dollars have been earmarked and trust me, by all accounts, you know, and we read Moody's Analytics as often as we possibly can, the prediction is that what's coming is a more powerful, longer-lasting economic recession than the Great Recession of 2008-09.

So the federal government needs to do quite a bit more. At the same time, I'm one who believes that reductions across the board don't require leadership. So even during tough times, you ought to prioritize that which is most important. And that's where we start.

We follow something we branded here in Miami, which is values-based zero-based budgeting. Each year starts at zero, with the highest priorities being funded first, everything else is secondary. And that's exactly what we're doing. We are preparing for this fiscal shock, so we turned off the spending rivers long ago. Non-essential hiring stopped, procurement stopped, renegotiation of private sector contracts at a discount—10 percent minimally—because whatever the cost was for something, a service, or a good, three months ago, it's not the same today.

You know, as a nation, we went from three percent unemployment to over 20 percent in six weeks. Everything has changed, which means we need to change. So we will face the fiscal crisis. We have amassed reasonable reserves. We passed two bond referenda that have secured teacher salaries in a very significant way. We boosted our teacher salaries last year anywhere from 14 to 23 percent and improved security, and that's not in danger because the funding stream for that is property tax based, not state revenue.

So that's going to remain stable. Our investment in technology is going to remain stable. Our upkeep of our school is going to remain stable because we saw the need to help ourselves operate. Yes, we will depend on state and federal revenues, and we're working those as well.

But there’s always an opportunity to prioritize that which is important in a budget. We don't believe in five percent across the board, 10 percent across the board. In fact, during times of recession, it is customary for us to actually augment funding for certain critical priorities, like what we're doing for the fragile student population, rather than shying away from it. Obviously, other areas will have to be cut, but those are judgment calls on the basis of priorities, and that's what leaders right now in America should be doing.

You know, what's most important? What are the priorities? What are the gaps that if you don't address them right now will grow dramatically between now and August of 2020, making it more expensive for you to engage in the remediation, which I don't believe in. I believe in accelerating towards every child's potential. But those are the considerations and that's how we're doing it.

We're navigating the same waters, but we have a different cell, a different rudder, and we're reading the stars in different ways. Wow! Well, that's super inspiring. And, you know, I think as we go through tough times, whether it's in a school system, you're a superintendent out there, or you're just a leader in anything, I think there's been a lot of really powerful takeaways.

So thank you so much, Superintendent Carvalho! I hope we can continue this conversation, especially over the next few months. I would love to learn how all of this evolves, and I think you're really on the cutting edge of thinking through how this is going to play out. Thank you so much!

So I really appreciate it. You've been a terrific partner. Let's continue to do what we do, not only with Khan Academy but with the College Board, the Council of Great City Schools, and that to all the educators out there, listen: schooling will resume, and it is important for us to be a steady stream of normalcy for kids—not only intellectually, academically, but also socially, emotionally.

And if you cannot do it face-to-face, there are means by which today, using technology, you can do it from a distance. And that's what we've been doing. So good luck to all of you and talk to you soon! Thank you so much!

Thank you! Well, thank you, everyone, for joining. Hopefully, you're as inspired as I was by talking to Superintendent Carvalho. I think not just lessons on where we're going on the education front, but frankly leadership lessons I thought were pretty profound.

So thank you so much, and as Dan mentioned, we're not going to be here tomorrow. I'm obviously a big Office fan, so I'm excited to meet Rainn Wilson, or also known as Dwight Schrute, tomorrow, so that should be entertaining. And then we'll resume back up, I think, on Thursday. But either way, everyone have a good evening and I'll see you one way or the other tomorrow!