#15 Guest: CACTE Closing Keynote- Leveraging Change for Students

EdScale's Founder Tom DeWire gave the closing keynote in July 2025 at the annual CACTE Summit in Colorado to talk about change management.  It was an incredible gathering of over 400 educators in Colorado focused on career and technical education.  Since 1917, Colorado Association for Career and Technical Education (CACTE) has been the largest state organization supporting CTE educators in their efforts to prepare students for career and life success. EdScale co-designed breakouts right after this session for their members to put the learnings from the conference into practice around four key questions relevant to educators in Colorado.  It was a pleasure to work with such a committed group of educators! Change is inevitable. But how we implement it—that’s the choice. At CACTE, I left the group with a few key takeaways: Get clear together before diving into details. Obsess over what’s working. Build feedback loops for course correction. And above all, stay consistent. Because the real measure of leadership isn’t how fast you get to the finish line—it’s how many people cross it with you.