Every person in a school sees something real. But no one sees the whole school alone.

Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, opens the Seeing the Whole School series by exploring how every role in a school comes with a distinct line of sight. Teachers, counselors, coaches, students, families, board members, advancement officers, civic partners, and school leaders each experience the institution from a particular vantage point. The challenge is that these views, while true, are also incomplete.

In this episode, Alderdice introduces the Proximity and Purpose Continuum as a way to understand how schools must connect the work closest to students with the work that sustains the institution. At its heart, this episode invites educators and stakeholders to approach the new school year with humility, curiosity, and a renewed commitment to seeing beyond the part of the school closest to them.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

Every summer, America seems to have the same argument about New York City's elite specialized high schools. But what if the real debate isn't about admissions at all—it's about asking one kind of school to serve two fundamentally different educational missions?

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores the decades-long controversy surrounding schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech through a different lens. Drawing on research in gifted education and his own experience leading a selective residential STEM school, Corey argues that identifying talent and developing talent are distinct organizational competencies that often require different institutional designs. Rather than forcing every specialized school to pursue the same mission, he proposes a broader ecosystem of excellence—one that preserves legacy institutions built to accelerate highly prepared students while imagining a new generation of opportunity-focused schools designed to cultivate extraordinary potential. In the collision between excellence and opportunity, perhaps the future of specialized education isn't choosing one over the other, but building enough pathways for both.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

Arkansas may be emerging as one of the nation’s most ambitious laboratories for early college. Through the ACCESS Act, expanded concurrent-credit funding, a statewide goal for more students to earn associate degrees in high school, stronger transfer pathways, and performance-based funding tied to completion, the state is assembling many of the policy elements national researchers now recommend.

In this bonus double-sized episode, Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, examines how Arkansas aligns with the Community College Research Center’s five recommendations for dual enrollment policy, where the state’s approach appears especially distinctive, and which challenges remain around advising, equitable access, institutional funding, faculty capacity, and long-term outcomes. This bonus episode asks whether Arkansas can move beyond expanding college credit to become a national model for postsecondary completion.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

Each August, schools begin again. As a new year opens, it is worth asking not only what our own work requires, but how that work connects to the responsibilities carried by others.

Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, previews Seeing the Whole School, a four-part August series about the interplay between student-proximate work and the broader institutional responsibilities that sustain schools over time. The series explores the Proximity and Purpose Continuum, moving from the work closest to students to the external relationships, public trust, governance, resources, and strategic translation that make school missions possible.

Designed for educators, school leaders, families, board members, alumni, civic partners, and anyone who cares about how schools actually work, this preview invites listeners to begin the year with a wider field of vision. Because no one sees the whole school alone, the new school year offers an opportunity to better understand how care, stewardship, proximity, and purpose connect.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

Belonging may sound like one of the least controversial ideas imaginable. Yet in recent years, even the language of belonging has become politically charged in schools and institutions across the country. Why?

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores how belonging evolved from a relational concept centered on connection and community into a broader cultural flashpoint tied to larger debates around identity, ideology, and institutional values. But rather than abandoning the concept altogether, he argues for a more durable vision of belonging rooted not in conformity or constant affirmation, but in shared purpose, contribution, accountability, and human dignity.

Through reflections on school culture, student flourishing, leadership, and the tension between excellence and connection, this episode asks a timely question: can schools create communities where students remain connected even amid disagreement, challenge, and growth? In an era where many institutions risk becoming increasingly transactional, Alderdice makes the case that belonging still matters deeply — not as institutional theater, but as intentional culture-building that helps students know they matter.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

Curiosity isn’t disappearing from higher education—it’s being squeezed by cost, structure, and the pressure to get it right the first time. But what if the very tools designed to accelerate students could instead give that curiosity room to breathe?

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores how the argument that colleges have stopped rewarding curiosity intersects with the rise of early college experiences like Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, and concurrent credit. Rather than treating accumulated credits as a fast track to graduation, this episode reframes them as a form of academic margin—space that allows students to double major, study abroad, pursue internships, and explore disciplines without the constant pressure of efficiency.

At the center of the conversation is a fundamental question: are we designing systems that push students to finish faster, or ones that allow them to experience more?

Editor's Note: This is an encore presentation of an episode released earlier this season that fits alongside the bigger discussions of early college experiences.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

A bizarre internet meme about Cook Out and its legendary tray menu sparks a surprisingly thoughtful reflection on schools, identity, and the environments that shape young people. What begins with the question “What if a main entrée was a side dish?” becomes a deeper conversation about possibility, belonging, interdisciplinary exploration, and why some of the most transformative parts of education are often treated as secondary experiences.

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores what Cook Out’s “chaotic abundance” can teach us about the future of education, the importance of environments that grant students permission to imagine larger futures for themselves, and why the schools students remember most are often the ones that make life feel expansive rather than simply efficient.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

As dual enrollment and concurrent credit continue expanding across the country, public conversations often focus on what students and families save through accelerated college pathways. But beneath the promise of affordability and access sits a more complicated question: who absorbs the actual cost of delivering college-level education at scale?

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores the growing financial pressures that widespread acceleration places on colleges and universities — especially community colleges increasingly carrying much of the operational burden of concurrent credit expansion. Drawing on recent research and the policy implications of Arkansas’s ACCESS Act, this episode examines why sustainable funding structures matter not only for institutional stability, but for preserving the quality, advising, support, and meaningful learning experiences that make acceleration worthwhile in the first place.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.