Mike
Hadaway

I work where public education, data, and artificial intelligence meet. The technology matters. Whether agencies can trust it, govern it, and use it to help the people who serve children matters more.

Education Intelligence LeadPublic Consulting GroupHappily employed · open to speak
The call

A biology major, a youth pastor, and an operating system almost nobody used.

In 1995, a friend called the church office where I worked and asked whether I knew anyone with OS/2 experience. He did not expect me to know what that was.

I did. My father had given me an IBM PS/2, then a copy of OS/2 Warp. I spent six months learning it for no reason except love. That unlikely answer opened the door to BellSouth, enterprise architecture, and eventually twenty-five years of making data useful in public education.

The complete story →
One career · three connected themes

Data, intelligence, and the public work.

The site gives equal weight to the three ideas that have shaped my work. They are not separate practices. Each depends on the others.

01 · AI in Education

Move beyond the classroom debate.

AI literacy, agency operations, public-facing services, responsible use, and what changes when an answer can affect a family, an audit, or a due process hearing.

Explore AI in Education →
02 · Education Intelligence

Make enterprise capability fit education.

Bring governance, analytics, interoperability, organizational knowledge, and applied AI to agencies that do not have unlimited budgets or unlimited staff.

Explore Education Intelligence →
03 · Data Governance

Make trusted information operational.

Definitions, ownership, quality, lineage, access, and correction provide the foundation for dependable analytics and grounded AI.

Explore Data Governance →
What I think

The interesting question about AI was never what it can do. It is whether the people around it will trust it, and whether they should.

01

Hesitation is not resistance

The people asking the hardest questions are often the ones worth listening to.

02

Expert in the loop

Review means little unless a qualified person can evaluate and overrule the system.

03

Provenance before intelligence

An agency cannot defend an answer if it cannot explain the sources behind it.

Choose your path

Start where the work is.

Understand the education implications, follow the developing argument, build practical operator skills, or learn how I arrived here.

AI in Education

For education leaders and practitioners

Literacy, agency operations, public services, governed data, expert review, and responsible implementation.

Explore the section →
Writing

For the current thinking

Approved summaries of new articles on AI, Education Intelligence, education data, architecture, and professional practice.

Browse the writing →
AI Operator’s Manual

For practical AI work

A field manual for choosing tools, giving useful direction, grounding requests, checking results, and building automation carefully.

Open the AI Operator’s Manual →
About Mike

For the person behind the argument

From youth ministry and OS/2 to enterprise architecture, education data, speaking, and applied AI.

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Current writing

AI without the product hype.

The website curates the argument. The complete articles and ongoing conversation live on Substack.

Featured · AI literacy

AI literacy is more than prompt training.

Education professionals need more than techniques for producing fluent answers. They need judgment about sources, uncertainty, information protection, consequence, and what responsibility remains human.

Read on Substack →
AI in Education

You hired a brilliant intern and never onboarded them.

A capable AI can still invent citations, infer unsupported numbers, and repeat outdated guidance when education professionals give it no context, standards, or boundaries. The answer is disciplined onboarding: define the work, supply trusted sources, explain what failure costs, and keep a qualified person responsible for verification.

Read the article on Substack →

Example content. Production summaries appear only after editorial approval.

About Mike

Twenty-five years, one problem. A few unlikely ways of getting there.

I began as a youth minister, moved through enterprise support, solution design, and architecture, then spent my career bringing data and technology into public education.

The full story follows the turning points, from my father’s IBM PS/2 through five technology waves, the origin of Education Intelligence, and the Artificial Intern.

Read my full story →
AI literacy

What capable professionals need beyond prompting.

AI in the public square

Trust, evidence, accountability, and consequential work.

The data headache

Governance, interoperability, analytics, and agencies counting pennies.

Start a conversation

Happily employed. Open to speaking and good conversations.

Speaking invitations, professional conversations, and article or media inquiries are welcome.

Contact Mike