Catching Up: School Choice, AI & Humanity, and Bottom-Up Innovation

In this episode of Catching Up , Nate McClennen and Mason Pashia explore what's changing in education—and what should change next—through the lenses of infrastructure, accountability, and emerging technology. They discuss a "smart city" view of transportation and connectivity, unpack new research on how parents respond to grades vs. standardized test data, and examine a Florida study on how school choice competition impacts performance. The conversation then shifts to the Future of Tech and Work, including AI agents and the incentive structures shaping major AI companies—ending with a clear call to invest in "relational infrastructure" so that human connection, trust, and agency grow alongside AI. Outline (00:00) Welcome & Overview (03:23) Infrastructure & Mexico City (08:36) AI Agents & Moltbook (13:37) Parents, Grades & Testing (18:28) School Choice Study (38:26) Bottom-Up Innovation Framework (47:08) What's That Song? Links Watch the full video here Interpreting Performance: Evidence on Signal Weighting in Human Capital Investment In These Districts, Students Get an English Credit for On-the-Job Internships What actually determines AI's impact on humanity? Incentives, value networks, and the forces shaping AI's future. The CHOICE We Make: The Critically Human Skills That Define Our Future Welcome to the Era of Relational Intelligence Can't Get There from Here: A Framework for the Start, Spread, and Scale of Bottom-Up Innovation in Education Low-Earning Degrees Will Soon Lose Access to Federal Loans—Is Yours on the List

You can listen to Catching Up: School Choice, AI & Humanity, and Bottom-Up Innovation online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Catching Up: School Choice, AI & Humanity, and Bottom-Up Innovation is an episode from Getting Smart Podcast by Getting Smart.

This episode is 48:03 long.

This episode was published on Mar 13, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Getting Smart Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.