The Education Insider Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

As universities move toward test-optional admissions, the standardized testing industry is at a crossroads. While critics argue that the SAT and ACT perpetuate inequality, others question how colleges can fairly evaluate students without a common metric. If standardized tests disappear, what replaces them?

Host Jacob Hanson sits down with Adil Husain, founder of Emerging Strategy, and PR expert Kristen Plemon to explore the uncertain future of high-stakes testing. They dissect the industry's failure to control its own narrative and the risks of abandoning standardized assessments without a clear alternative. Despite decades of influence, organizations like the College Board and ACT have been surprisingly silent in the debate over their own relevance.

"What we always counsel clients on in terms of PR is when you leave a void, others are going to fill it,” says Plemon. “So you lose that thought leadership. And they have spent decades building this expertise, this trusted brand and credibility. And if they're letting others step in to take that, that's going to erode their brand over time.”

Meanwhile, as test-optional policies become common, data is becoming more skewed—leading to an even more competitive and subjective admissions process. “What’s happening now with test-optional policies is that only students with the highest scores are submitting, which is skewing data and making the admissions process even more competitive,” Plemon adds. “Colleges need a way to fairly compare students, and without a standardized measure, that becomes much harder.”

Without a strong voice from the industry, critics of standardized testing are shaping the conversation. As Husain says, “The criticisms that they're biased or ineffective should be addressed either through improvements or better communication, but simply accepting the criticism and backing off from the debate altogether seems to be a disservice, not only to their business and their employees but to the institutions trying to make objective decisions from a growing number of applicants.”

The future of standardized testing isn’t just about whether the SAT and ACT survive. It’s about whether the education industry can define a better way to assess student readiness—or if test-optional policies are simply shifting the advantage to those with more resources.

Listen now for a candid discussion on what’s next for testing, equity, and college admissions.

 Questions? Ideas for our next episode? Drop us a line, jhanson@hawkemedia.com 

Guest Links:

• Emerging Strategy: www.emerging-strategy.com
• Adil Husain’s LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile

Key Topics Covered in this Episode:

• The consequences of test-optional policies: who benefits, who loses

• Why the SAT and ACT are struggling to defend their place in college admissions

• How the lack of industry leadership is leaving space for critics to control the conversation

• The role of AI and adaptive assessments in reshaping student evaluation

The Value (and Necessity) of a District’s Strong Brand Identity 

In an era of declining enrollment, school choice expansion, and crisis management, a strong brand identity is more crucial than ever for school districts. In this episode of The Education Insider, host Jacob Hanson sits down with Dr. Kecia Ray, former superintendent and founder of K20 Connect, to discuss why school districts must take control of their narrative.

From branding strategies to crisis communications, Dr. Ray shares insights on how districts can build trust with their communities, proactively engage stakeholders, and ensure families recognize the value of public education. The conversation also touches on lessons from Nashville’s school system, the role of AI in education communications, and the importance of messaging around national policy changes.

Whether you’re an educator, administrator, or policymaker, this episode is packed with actionable insights on how to strengthen school identity and communications in uncertain times.

Guest: Dr. Kecia Ray, Founder & CEO of K20 Connect

Guest LinkedIn: Dr. Kecia Ray

Resources Mentioned:

• K20 Connect

• AASA Conference Booth #458 – Meet Dr. Kecia Ray & PRP Group in New Orleans

• Article: 3 in 4 District Leaders Expect a Cyberattack Soon (The Journal)

  
  

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#EducationLeadership #NCE2025 #PR #Storytelling #Edchat

In a lively chat with PRP editorial director Chris Piehler, Susan Enfield, the award-winning Superintendent of Washoe County Schools, shares why she wants to work with “compassionate human beings,” why fall break is a good time to reach her, why AI will never trump human-to-human connection, and the correct way to pronounce “Nevada.”  

Collin Earnst is the founder and managing partner of The EdTech Leadership Collective, which helps K-12 edtech companies build leadership capacity in their middle management. He joined Alison Deutsch, VP of curriculum assessment and data at Lexia Learning, at the T&L Ed Exec Summit. In today’s The Education Insider Podcast Short, Jacob Hanson chats with Collin about the summit and key takeaways from Collin’s presentation.

Watch the Episode >

On this Education Insider Podcast Short, Jacob interviews Chuck Amos, CEO of The Amos Group, about his panels at the Tech & Learning EdExec Summit, which focused on funding and government affairs. The Amos Group is the parent company of SchoolBondFinder & SchoolNetwork.

SchoolBondFinder is the first comprehensive online database tracking K12 funding projects in the U.S., and SchoolNetwork is a networking platform for K12 District Administrators to view and share funding project documents, review solution providers, and advertise RFPs nationwide.

Show Links
The Amos Group: https://theamosgroup.us/
The Ed Exec Summit: https://www.techlearningevents.com/edexecsummit/home

After a lively couple of days of sessions and networking, PRP’s Kristen Plemon recorded her thoughts live from #TLTechLive! Whether or not you were with us at Chateau Elan, you'll want to check out her 90-second rundown of her most important takeaway from the EdExec Summit!  

“I've ​been ​fortunate ​enough ​to ​speak ​at ​conferences ​around ​the ​world, and ​one ​of ​the ​things ​that ​I ​come ​away ​with ​is ​educators ​around ​the ​world ​are ​all ​trying ​to ​solve ​the ​same ​problems,” says Dr. Charles Khoury, who recently retired after a 49-year career in which he served as classroom teacher, assistant principal, high school principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent.

On this episode of The Education Insider Podcast with PRP Group, Dr. Khoury shares insights and anecdotes about being on the receiving end of education vendor’s sales pitches, and delves into the importance of the “post-back-to-school” period to educators and education vendors.

About the Guest

Dr. Charles V. Khoury is the former district superintendent of Ulster BOCES. In addition to his role as chief executive officer, he was the New York State Education Commissioner’s representative in the field, the major liaison between local districts and the state education department, as well as the spokesperson for regional education issues. He can be reached at khourych@gmail.com or via LinkedIn.

Are you ready for the Tech & Learning EdExec Summit? I'm super excited to come and see all of you!

FYI that there is a ride sharing opportunity from the airport. Reach out to me or Christine Weiser to learn more. It's a bit of a jump from the airport to this wonderful venue, so I encourage you to reach out: info@christineweiser.com. So drop her line and she will get you hooked up with Joyce Whitby who is helping to coordinate this.

Where we want to be spending some time today is looking at the agenda and scrolling through here to make sure that you all know where to go and where to look. You can access this information once you've logged in as well. I'm gonna be spending some time this week getting myself scheduled into some sessions. There's some really good ones and some fantastic speakers.

You can see the venue map and kind of check out where you'd like to meet locations, those kinds of things as you're looking to reach out for meetings. I just want to caution you that you actually have to put in a meeting time and date as well as a location like they mentioned up there.

But knowing this is a holiday weekend coming up and we're gonna be there Wednesday, I strongly encourage you all to get moving on, taking a look at some of these things, starting to look through the directory and reach out to folks.

Welcome to the first episode of The Education Insider Podcast Shorts from PRP Group. Our podcast shorts are a new series of 2-minute videos with timely info about what's happening in education, best practices for understanding your customers, and answers to listener questions about our episodes.

In this episode, PRP Group co-founder and CEO Jacob Hanson introduces our podcast shorts and gives a sneak peek into what you’ll get out of them. Spoiler alert: He talks about what you should really be doing during this back-to-school period and the importance of the post-back-to-school period for education vendors.

Episode Links

• Tech and Learning Ed Exec Summit
• Anonymous Edvisors
• PRP

If you've worked with PRP before, you might know Benjamin Bachman. Benjamin is the former Director of Marketing at PRP and is now the founder and CEO of Identify.Solutions, where he helps companies bring ideas to life with no-code platforms like Airtable, SmartSuite, Zapier, etc. In addition to his expertise in creating user-friendly webapps, advanced prototypes, and more, Benjamin is a wizard with one of our favorite digital platforms for education organizations — HubSpot!

Benjamin agreed to come on the show to share tips on why HubSpot is one of the leading platforms education companies use to build their website, relationships, and more. In this episode, he shares thoughts on AI, A/B testing, and how to use tools like HubSpot to reach edtech buyers with the right message.