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