Innovation in education rarely arrives as a finished product. It tends to surface first as a change in behavior, a shift in attention, or a new way institutions respond when existing approaches stop working. My guest John Gulla, in my latest episode, is the longtime head of the E.E. Ford Foundation, which supports independent secondary schools across the country and gives him a front-row view into how schools respond when old assumptions begin to break.
Early in our conversation, Gulla tells a story about a meticulous New York couple searching for a school for their child. They gathered data, interviewed widely, and narrowed their options with care. “They’d finally found the right school,” he says. “They just didn’t have the right child.” The line lands because it exposes a central tension in education. Systems are often designed around an imagined student, while real students arrive with distinct needs, abilities, and interests.
Gulla’s career spans that reality from several vantage points. He worked directly with younger students, spent many years inside secondary schools, and also gained exposure to higher education through admissions work at a selective college. That continuity shapes how he thinks about schooling. Issues that appear late in a student’s academic life often reflect earlier design choices. His emphasis on differentiation reflects long observation. Teachers begin by teaching as they themselves were taught. Over time, they encounter students who learn differently and require instruction shaped to those differences.
Independent schools provide a useful window into how adaptation occurs because their incentives are unusually clear. “They are dependent on families choosing them,” Gulla notes. That dependence is inseparable from cost. Families commit significant resources, often making real tradeoffs to do so. Schools therefore operate under sustained scrutiny. They must articulate a mission, demonstrate fit, and deliver an experience that continues to justify the investment. Enrollment decisions function as ongoing feedback, shaping how schools adjust over time.
One clear example of innovation emerges when Gulla describes how teachers responded to the arrival of artificial intelligence. What began with a small group of educators sharing classroom experiences expanded quickly, moving from a handful of participants to hundreds. Teachers gathered regularly to exchange concrete uses of AI in their own subject areas, discussing assignments, classroom techniques, and practical constraints. With support from the E.E. Ford Foundation, this informal network became a durable channel for experimentation at a moment when schools were under pressure to adapt.
Clip from interview.
Gulla is careful not to overstate what this means for the future. He expresses real concern about adolescent mental health and about the profession’s ability to attract and retain talented teachers. At the same time, he sees reasons for hope in a growing understanding of how students learn and in the willingness of educators to adjust practice accordingly. Progress, in his account, is uneven and uncertain, but not absent.
Taken together, his observations point to where meaningful change is most likely to emerge. Institutions that combine choice, cost, and professional flexibility are forced to pay attention. They notice sooner when students disengage, when parents lose confidence, and when teachers need new approaches. If artificial intelligence does reshape education, independent schools are among the places most likely to work out how, because they are structured to learn while teaching continues.
Full interview that can also be seen on my YouTube channel.
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