What if unlocking educational excellence meant embracing both our past traumas and the resilience we’ve built through them? In this compelling episode of Voices for Excellence, Dr. Michael Conner welcomes Dr. Paul Miller, an influential educator and author, as part of our Black Excellence series during Black History Month. With a visionary approach that bridges the past and future of learning, Dr. Miller's leadership and literary works challenge conventional narratives and inspire transformative change.

Dr. Miller is currently the Chief Academic Officer at Exceptional, overseeing 27 (soon to be 29) charter schools in Rochester, New York. His dedication to educational equity, especially for Black and brown students, is reflected in his best-selling books and his mission-driven approach to school leadership. But it’s the personal stories, as much as the professional insights, that make his voice such a crucial addition to modern educational discourse.

This episode dives into the heart of systems transformation, using Dr. Miller’s books, such as From Gutter to Greatness and The Good Me and the Hood Me, as lenses for understanding how authentic leadership and self-awareness can redefine educational outcomes. Dr. Miller unpacks the necessity of addressing personal and professional wounds to foster school environments where every student can thrive.

What You’ll Learn:

1. Embracing Vulnerability: Understand how acknowledging personal struggles can lead to authentic and effective leadership.
2. Transforming Mindsets: Explore strategies for collective teacher efficacy to create meaningful change in student outcomes.
3. Redefining Resilience: Learn how the dualities within students, such as 'the good me and the hood me,' can be strengths rather than deficiencies.
4. Systemic Change through Storytelling: Discover how storytelling and lived experiences can inform educational practices and policies.
5. The Power of Purpose-Driven Leadership: See how connecting personal pain to a larger purpose can drive educational excellence.

This conversation is not just about reforming schools, it’s about reshaping the cultural narratives that drive educational systems. Dr. Miller’s insights beckon us to reimagine the future of education with a renewed commitment to authenticity, empathy, and courage.

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How do we build the future of learning with—and not against—the forces of innovation transforming society?

In this visionary episode of Voices for Excellence, Dr. Michael Conner sits down with Mike Yates—education disruptor, creative strategist, and a national leader shaping the future of teaching through AI and learner-centered design. From leading AI innovation at Teach For America's Reinvention Lab to helping launch Alpha, one of the most talked-about school models in the country, Mike brings a rare combination of tech fluency, classroom insight, and a relentless push for equity-driven excellence.

Grounding the conversation in what students truly need—schools they love, learning that matters, and life-readiness that empowers—Mike shares raw truths and bold strategies for unlocking student potential through agency, design, and affirmation. He also offers a candid look into his personal why: a student who once hated school but now champions joyful, rigorous, and radically different models of learning.

Together, Dr. Conner and Mike explore how AI must be used not as a substitute for teachers, but as a tool to unleash their genius—and how reengineering teacher preparation, redefining mastery, and resisting fossilized systems are no longer optional if we want all students to thrive.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

1. Bold Reimagination: How Alpha Schools deliver world-class outcomes in just two hours a day—and the deeper design thinking behind their success
2. AI for Equity: Teach For America’s radical redefinition of teacher training to prepare future-ready educators with powerful AI tools
3. Unlearning as Leadership: How dismantling traditional pedagogies opens space for excellence, authenticity, and cultural alignment in classrooms
4. Design Over Directives: Why the designers of tomorrow—not just instructors—will define the future of learning
5. Power of the Pivot: Why students need real-world, high-stakes learning models—and how systems can start small but think big
6. Tech as Amplifier: How generative and agentic AI can elevate human connection, not replace it—if leveraged with empathy and precision

Mike’s work reminds us: the systems we build today decide who gets to lead tomorrow. This episode is a must-listen for education leaders ready to rise to the moment and build a future where every learner thrives. Through frameworks, lived experience, and actionable design strategies, this conversation advances Dr. Conner’s mission to architect equitable, innovative, and high-performing ecosystems for all.

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What does it really take to redesign education systems for a future that demands equity, human-centered innovation, and world-class learning outcomes?

In this riveting Black Excellence Series episode of Voices for Excellence, Dr. Michael Conner sits down with visionary systems leader Dr. Tauheedah Baker-Jones—a powerhouse in transformational education reform whose work bridges research, policy, and practice. As the Southeast Regional Director of the National Center on Education and the Economy and co-founder of the Trinity Strategy Group, Dr. Baker-Jones brings a rare lens: one grounded in faith, justice, and rigorous, evidence-based systems change.

From her early days as a classroom teacher in Los Angeles to her groundbreaking role as the first Chief Equity and Social Justice Officer for Atlanta Public Schools, Dr. Baker-Jones has championed coherent, high-impact leadership in some of education’s most complex contexts. Her doctoral research at Harvard explored the execution of controversial change efforts in polarized environments—and she didn’t stop at the theory. She applied these frameworks in real time, helping to move the needle on outcomes for thousands of students in Atlanta, even amid unprecedented adversity.

You’ll hear her powerful philosophy: "Design for outcomes, not intentions," and discover her signature Amplify Impact framework—a discipline-driven, change management model shaped by moral clarity, systems architecture, and the deep belief that every child must thrive, not by accident but by design.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

1. Bold Frameworks for Equity-Centered Change: Why coherence, not isolated initiatives, must guide system redesign
2. Systemic Excellence vs. Good Intentions: How to shift from performative cycles to clear execution aligned to outcomes
3. Why Equity Is an Engineering Principle: A pragmatic and visionary reframe of equity as intentional design for universal excellence
4. Leading Through Controversy with Moral Clarity: What it means to be courageous when your leadership becomes a political target
5. Long-Life Learning & 22nd-Century Readiness: How forward-thinking systems must evolve for a globally connected, AI-enabled future
6. The Critical Triad for Transformation: Change management, systems design, and disciplined execution

Drawing from both global research at NCEE and real-world systems leadership, Dr. Baker-Jones leaves us with a human truth: the future of learning must be intentionally designed to elevate every learner—and that requires moral leadership, courage, and coherence at every level.

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