Every few years, education seems to discover something new that will finally fix schools — a new framework, a new approach, a new way of thinking about teaching and learning. It arrives with urgency and conviction, spreads quickly, reshapes professional development and classroom practice and then fades away, either replaced by the shiny new thing or layered on top of it. Twenty-first century skills, trauma-informed pedagogy, flipped classrooms, 1:1 devices — all promised to succeed where the last one fell short.

Ask veteran teachers to list the major instructional initiatives they’ve been trained on over the past decade, and you’re likely to get a weary laugh before you get an answer. Discipline systems cycle from zero tolerance to restorative practices; “data-driven instruction” yields to “personalized learning,” which is now being rebranded yet again in the age of artificial intelligence. Each shift arrives with urgency and moral clarity. Each requires retraining, new materials and a reorientation of practice. Spend enough time in schools, and the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. Which raises an uncomfortable question:

Why is education so damn fad-prone?

The easy answer is also the most insulting — that educators are uniquely susceptible to trends, quick to abandon what works and too eager to embrace whatever comes next. But that answer is wrong. Classroom teachers are typically the least enthusiastic participants in these cycles, having learned through experience how quickly today’s “transformational” idea becomes tomorrow’s abandoned initiative.

Education isn’t fad-driven because the people in it lack judgment. It’s fad-driven because the system they work in makes churn not just common, but rational. Four structural forces, in particular, push schools toward constant reinvention:

Weak feedback loops. In most sectors, failure reveals itself quickly. Customers leave, revenue falls and performance problems become unmistakable. In education, by contrast, the signal is slow and noisy. Instructional changes may take years to show results. Student cohorts turn over annually. Outcomes depend on factors well beyond the classroom, such as attendance, family circumstances and peer effects. Even when results improve or decline, attribution is murky. There are too many moving parts to say with reasonable certainty that any single input was determinative. Under these conditions, it’s impossible to offer decisive proof that a given approach is or isn’t working. This makes education unusually vulnerable not just to bad ideas, but to the premature abandonment of good ones.

Leadership legitimacy requires visible change. School systems churn through leaders with striking regularity. The onus is on each new superintendent, principal and state chief to demonstrate that he or she is, in fact, leading. Many will come to the unfortunate conclusion that leadership is signaled not through stewardship, but through action: launching initiatives, unveiling strategic plans, introducing new frameworks, reorganizing priorities. Anyone who has spent time around school systems has seen the pattern: A new leader arrives, announces a bold vision, rebrands existing efforts and introduces a new set of priorities. Three years later, often before results are fully visible, that leader departs (school superintendents tend to a single contract cycle) and the wheel turns another revolution. A leader who says, “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, but do it better,” risks appearing passive or directionless, even if the system is performing well. It is a structural expectation. In education, visible change is how leadership signals its worth.

Low barriers to new ideas. In fields like medicine or engineering, new approaches must pass through layers of validation before they reach widespread adoption. Education has far fewer guardrails. A new framework can be published, marketed and adopted by districts in rapid succession. Professional development cycles spread new ideas quickly, consultants package innovations into turnkey programs and procurement systems often treat instructional approaches as interchangeable. The result is a highly permeable system — one in which ideas can enter and scale rapidly, often long before their effectiveness is firmly established.

Moral urgency. Education is not a typical service sector. It concerns children’s lives and futures, and that reality creates a constant sense of moral urgency. If a proposal claims it might help struggling students succeed — especially disadvantaged children — the pressure to act is immense. Waiting for perfect evidence can feel ethically unacceptable; trying something new, even with incomplete proof, feels compassionate. This isn’t foolish or irresponsible. It’s what happens when moral responsibility collides with uncertainty. But it creates a powerful bias toward action — and, by extension, toward constant change.

Taken together, these forces produce a system in which reform cycles are not accidental but predictable. Slow, ambiguous evidence makes it hard to know what is working. Leadership incentives reward visible change. New ideas face little resistance to adoption. Moral urgency pushes systems to act rather than wait. Under those conditions, stability is not the natural condition. Change is. Indeed, stability can easily be mistaken — and often is — for complacency or indifference.

The problem is not that education experiments with new ideas. Some experimentation is necessary and healthy. The problem is that the system struggles to sustain success once it finds it. Schools that improve often do so through unglamorous means: adopting a coherent curriculum, building teacher expertise, reinforcing consistent instructional routines and maintaining focus over time. None of this is flashy. None of it lends itself to prizes or glowing media profiles. And all of it is fragile.

Recent reforms in offer a useful contrast. Rather than chasing novelty, the district has focused on something far less glamorous: tightly specified lessons, routine checks for understanding and instructional systems designed for the teachers schools actually have — not the ones reformers wish they had. Whatever one thinks of the model (and its critics are many and voluble), its premise goes against the grain of the broader system.

Elsewhere, I’ve that the real miracle in education is not that some schools succeed. It’s that any manage to keep succeeding. The four factors enumerated above help explain why.

The solution for breaking the cycle is not to scold educators for chasing new ideas. It is to realign incentives so stability and execution are valued as forms of leadership. That means treating implementation fidelity as an achievement, not an afterthought, and creating political and institutional cover for leaders who choose continuity over novelty. It means building systems that measure and reward long-term improvement, not short-term activity, and elevating professional norms that prize mastery over constant reinvention.

In short, we need to make competence visible. Because until we do, the system will continue to reward the appearance of change over the reality of improvement. So, yes, education is fad-prone, just not for the reasons we usually assume. We don’t chase reform because we forget what works, but because the system makes standing still look irresponsible — even when standing still is exactly what success requires.

Leadership changed hands in 114 of those districts — 23% — within the past year, a jump from 20% the year before, according to data, shared exclusively with ����Ӱ��, by the  from ILO Group, a consulting firm. The project — the only current publicly available resource on leadership turnover in the 500 largest districts — listed about 15% of districts replacing their superintendents prior to the pandemic.

One surprise outcome of that turnover is an increase in female superintendents: Women now represent a third of district chiefs, up from 30% last year. Of the 114 new chiefs, 44 were women.

But even with those gains, it would take another 30 years for women to reach parity with men in district leadership, the authors said.

To Julia Rafal-Baer,  CEO of ILO Group, this year’s results offer a mixed picture, coming just days after the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results showed declines in reading for 12th grade girls and in science for all 8th graders.

“There is a continued destabilizing of leaders at a time when we really need to have a coherent agenda that is driving instruction,” said Rafal-Baer, also a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the NAEP program.

Even so, she was pleased with the gains for women.  “I’m encouraged by the fact that we’re starting to see some meaningful progress.” 

Superintendent turnover happens for myriad reasons — from stagnant student performance to disagreements over salary. But it’s clear that COVID and the cultural debates that followed — embroiling districts in disputes over mask mandates, “anti-racist” curriculum and sexually explicit books —  transformed the nature of the position. 

“It’s always been political, but it’s never been so partisan,” said Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton School District in Oregon. Since 2011, he has led five districts in the Pacific Northwest and will leave next year to become of the Puget Sound Educational Service District, a regional agency in Washington.

On top of local concerns, today’s superintendents have the added weight of responding to threats of funding cuts and policy shifts from Washington, Balderas said. “I was just visiting a school … that had a family deported.”

‘Worn out’

Researchers who focus on the superintendency and school board politics echoed Balderas’ view. Rebecca Jacobsen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, said district leaders are “worn out.”

“I think that the toll of the past few years continues to ripple and really push people out,” she said. Several faced personal attacks, including , from angry members of their communities. “For many who entered education 15-20 years ago, this is not the landscape that one envisioned.”

The skills superintendents bring to the position sometimes don’t match the demands of the job, added Rachel White, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of the Superintendent Lab, a source of research and data on district leaders. Most were teachers and principals before moving to the central office and spent years overseeing instruction, finance or teacher development. 

Now they’re responding to social media, and the “proliferation of misinformation and disinformation campaigns often rooted in ideology,” White said. “This has shifted what superintendents are increasingly spending their time on — debunking stories being told about what is happening in their schools and classrooms that simply are not true.”

As was the case in 2022, some of the turnover is due to school boards firing superintendents before their contracts expire. Since January, the in Georgia, the district in Tennessee and the district in Florida have fired their chiefs.

Most leaders, however, leave on their , sometimes because they’re seeking a new challenge.

Mary Elizabeth Davis spent nearly seven years as superintendent of Georgia’s Henry County Schools, overseeing the suburban-Atlanta district during a period of growth in both and . She eliminated a $12 million deficit and built teams to support instruction, facility planning and operations.

Last year, she started over in Cherokee County, another metro Atlanta district, where she aims to keep board meetings more focused on core academic issues rather than  just building projects and the budget. They still need to keep the public informed about finances, but “it is no longer the only thing,” she said. 

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In Davis’ part of the country, women are still the least likely to be superintendents, the data shows. Twenty-two percent of chiefs in the Southeast are women, while the Northeast has the highest percentage of female district leaders — 46%, or 17 of the 37 districts on the list. 

This year’s report also delves into the routes leaders take to the top job. 

In 2018, when ILO began collecting the data, fewer than half of superintendents were internal hires. Last year, the majority, 58%, were hired from within, and about 40% had served as an interim superintendent in their district before the board officially gave them the job. Moving up within the same school district is slightly more common for women than men, 55% compared to 50%. 

Over a 20-year period, Cliff Jones worked his way up from teacher to of the Fulton County Schools in Atlanta. Once he entered the central office, he said he “took notes” during a time of leadership turnover and learned the importance of communication in making relationships work with the board.

“The more successful superintendents that I saw were trying to be out in front, trying to create proactive communication,” he said.  

Newly hired as the superintendent in Horry County, South Carolina — with an unusually large 12-member board — he has work to do. He said he doesn’t want to just be a “911 guy,” contacting members when there’s an emergency. 

‘Priorities and values’

Not all candidates spend that much time in a deputy or other cabinet position, which Balderas said is likely one reason why turnover remains high. He calls it “leadership compression.”

Among the 500 districts in ILO’s analysis, 10 male leaders skipped straight from principal to superintendent. They include , named interim superintendent of Texas’ Conroe Independent School District in May, and , who took over in February as acting chief of the South Bend Community School Corporation in Indiana.

“People are just bypassing roles” instead of serving four to six years in a mid-level role where they might tackle some of the same challenges as the superintendent, Balderas said. Maybe, they’re “less prepared to understand the political navigation that’s needed” to stay in the position long enough to make lasting improvements. 

After leading multiple districts, Balderas said it’s possible to work with a politically divided board. He tried to build connections with members by taking on other responsibilities in the community outside of the education sector, from the local chamber of commerce to the Rotary club.

People active in those groups “see that you care about your community,” he said. That word “gets back to your board in one way or another.”

Despite division among board members, districts can stay focused on academic improvement, said Davis, who was hired in Cherokee on 4-3 vote. 

“I think that when you start from that position, you have a lot of work to do to understand the priorities and values of individuals,” she said. She met with each board member, hearing concerns over teachers spending their own money on supplies and a desire for more presentations on student data. 

Having a divided board was familiar for Davis. The Henry County board hired her on a 3-2 vote. During her tenure, public meetings turned into over a mask mandate and a in 2023 that kept students locked out of the internet for nearly a month. 

But she had plenty to celebrate. The majority-Black district saw enough to come off the state’s list of failing school systems and a 9% increase in students scoring at the proficient level or above in .

“I’ve never seen harmony as a requirement for effectiveness,” Davis said. 

Only she wasn’t.

But before the day was over, that innocent mistake reached the ears of Lee’s supervisor in her West Virginia district. Lee had just taken on the challenge of consolidating two struggling schools serving high-need students, and her boss was less than congratulatory. 

“She told me there was no way that I could handle those expectations if I had a baby,” Lee remembered. After that encounter, she never considered having another child for fear she would be overlooked for promotions. “It is a regret I carry,” she acknowledged.

Sixteen years later, Lee is a deputy superintendent in Beaufort, South Carolina, and jokes with her now-22-year-old son that it’s his fault he’s an only child. But her story demonstrates what many women give up to advance in the education sector. In a new , three-fourths of women superintendents and other top female district and state leaders said they make sacrifices that men in the same jobs don’t have to endure. 

Julia Rafal-Baer, founder and CEO of Women Leading Ed, which conducted the survey, called the results “a reality check.”

“Across the country, women are shaping the future of America’s schools. They’re making high-stakes decisions, driving results and shaping the future for tens of millions of students,” she said. But the survey, from leaders in 37 states, shows women are “second-guessed more, scrutinized for their style instead of their strategy, and expected to ‘overcome’ being women.”

The results, shared exclusively with ����Ӱ��, also show that 86% of respondents feel expectations to dress, speak or behave a certain way because they are women in senior leadership positions — a 4 percentage point increase over last year. 

“No one will take you seriously with a ponytail. No one will take you seriously if you aren’t wearing a suit,” Candace Standberry-Robertson, executive director of system-wide programming for NOLA Public Schools in New Orleans, wrote. Sometimes casual attire is more appropriate for the tasks that come with her position, she said. “Who wants to be all dolled up and sweaty while delivering boxes of instructional materials to schools?”

Others said they’ve faced questions from hiring managers or school board members about balancing work and family life. One superintendent wrote that when interviewing for the top post in a small district, the school board president asked her: “How can you manage being a mom while being a campus leader? We have never hired a lady before.”

And sometimes they don’t, regardless of qualifications.

Over half of respondents said they’ve been passed over for leadership positions that later went to men, and over 70% of the women surveyed reported feeling pressure to earn a doctoral degree in order to be considered for a leadership position. show 45% of superintendents have a doctorate, with women more likely than men to earn the advanced degree.

“Female superintendent candidates won’t apply until they know they’re 110% ready, and male superintendent candidates apply when they’re like 55% ready,” said David Schuler, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association. There’s been progress in districts hiring more women over the past 20 years, but he added, “We need more female superintendents, hands down.”

Not a ‘great look’

Data shows that about in the top 500 districts are women, even though women make up of the teacher workforce — an imbalance that some leaders say robs young educators of strong role models. 

“The people actually doing the work are women, and the people telling them what to do are men,” said Julia Drake, an assistant superintendent in the Katonah-Lewisboro School District, north of New York City. “I don’t think that’s a great look.”

Before Rafal-Baer founded Women Leading Ed in 2021, Drake attempted to figure out why bias against women was so pervasive in the field. She grew intrigued by the topic as a young principal in New York City. When her assistant principal went on maternity leave, Drake recalled, her male supervisor commented, “Don’t expect her to come back as productive as she was when she left.”

She focused her on the issue, compiling a sample of over 500 female leaders from 41 states. 

One top finding was that people viewed ambitious women in education as “bossy,” but ambitious men as strong-minded. Respondents also felt that staff members were less comfortable being supervised by women. 

“I think women are very capable, but also very empathetic and can really bring people together,” she said. “What is sometimes seen as weaknesses is actually a leadership asset.” 

Suits, heels, makeup

Examining this year’s data, Emily Hartnett, executive director of Women Leading Ed, pointed to differences in results by age. Leaders under 50 are more likely to say they delayed having children for the sake of their career. They also feel more pressure to conform to a certain image — 93% compared with 78% of leaders over 50. 

“I once had a supervisor encourage me to get my nails done,” one woman wrote.

Several said they are expected to wear suits, heels and makeup, even when male counterparts wore golf shirts and sneakers to work. 

“When I first started wearing my natural hair, I was told by a mentor that I should reconsider because where I was interviewing to be a principal may not accept ‘that much of my ethnicity,’ ” one district official said. “Of course, I wore my new afro to every interview.”

In response to a new question this year, more than half of the superintendent respondents said board members often second-guess their expertise or undercut their decisions.

One particular example sticks with Dana Arreola, who became superintendent of the Bessemer, Alabama, schools in 2023. The district was about to undertake an $8 million capital improvement project, with new roofs, paint and lighting at several schools. In advance of a presentation to the school board, she reviewed the bid process, fully vetted the architects and conducted a deep dive on facility needs.

But that wasn’t good enough. The members first wanted to hear from a state education official, who happened to be a man. 

“My male counterpart ultimately did a great job of reaffirming the information I had already presented,” she said. 

A year later, a few board members sent messages to say they initially underestimated her and that her hard work was paying off.  

“I began to question my own confidence,” Arreola said. “Receiving notes from my board members felt incredibly validating.”

FEV Tutor, a chat-based, virtual tutoring firm with contracts in districts from California to Florida alerted staff on Saturday that efforts to raise more money or find a buyer had failed. CEO Reed Overfelt cited “worse-than-expected company performance” in his message to employees.

Some districts promptly alerted families about the interruption in services. The Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia referred parents to other tutors, including teachers, “to minimize the impact of FEV’s closure.” The Ector County Independent School District in Texas asked its other provider, Air Tutors, if it could take on the 2,000 students FEV left behind. 

“We found this all out on Sunday,” said Ector spokesman Michael Adkins. “We’ll have to work very quickly to change things over, but as of today, we are expecting we will be able to find a virtual tutor for all of our kids.”

‘Too fast, too quickly’

While districts and other tutoring providers might be able to cobble solutions together, FEV’s demise is one of the more visible early signs of what school finance experts warned would happen when nearly $190 billion in pandemic relief funds ran out. Districts have less money to spend on vendor contracts, leaving companies that were in high demand a year ago having to rethink their futures. Those that expanded at a rapid clip, like FEV Tutor, could be particularly vulnerable. 

“We saw what you would expect with large government programs — a lot of folks rushing out with various models,” said Adam Newman, founder and managing partner of Tyton Partners, a consulting firm. “A lot of those organizations grew too fast, too quickly.”

With district contracts in at least 30 states and an estimated value of over $40 million, FEV Tutor was an “early innovator in providing virtual tutoring services” through an on-demand, chat-based platform, Newman said.  With customers including the , and school districts, the company gave tutors access to an AI coach and engaged in innovative contracts in which tutors earned higher rates when students showed greater improvement. 

They were “massive players” in the industry, and when districts started spending their  relief funds , FEV was “very well-positioned to win all these district [contracts],” added John Failla, founder and CEO of Pearl, a company that helps districts manage tutoring programs. “They scaled up like crazy.”

But while its closing was unexpected, the financial reality that caused it was not. 

A year ago, one expert noted that investments in ed tech had dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Even in late 2022, “rising inflation, interest rates, geopolitical crises and belt-tightening brought an end to the copious amounts of capital that defined the pandemic,” Tony Wan, head of platform at Reach Capital. Districts were already “preparing the chopping block for tools and services” that were nice to have but no longer necessary. 

Some districts also just prefer to manage their own tutoring programs. 

“If you look at the districts [that] have succeeded in scaling tutoring the most, all of those have owned a lot of the process internally,” said Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, a Georgetown University . She cited Baltimore City, Guilford County, North Carolina, and Nashville as examples. “Districts are increasingly focused on the relational part of tutoring. It can be virtual or in person, but it’s someone who has a face and a name and that the kid knows.” 

The surprise isn’t that FEV Tutor is a “casualty” of the fiscal cliff, she said. “But certainly, nobody expected them to shut down on a Saturday in the middle of the school year when they have active customers and employees.”

FEV Tutor did not respond to an email requesting comment. A red banner at the top of its home page says the company “ceased operations” on Jan. 25. 

The news clearly confused some parents. In response to an announcement on Facebook, some families in Harford County, Maryland, blamed the district and wondered if officials knew weeks ago that services would end so suddenly. Another wrote, “There’s clearly a mismanagement of money somewhere.” 

On the district’s , officials apologized for the disruption, saying they could not guarantee they would be able to “find or implement a comparable solution at this time.” 

Marguerite Roza, the director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, said she hasn’t seen other pandemic-era vendors face such a dramatic end, but predicted “there will be more in the coming months.”

Return on investment

Software industry veterans Anirudh Baheti and Ryan Patenaude founded FEV Tutor in 2008, well before the pandemic. According to GovSpend, a data company, annual sales didn’t top $1 million until 2018. By 2021, as districts began spending relief funds, sales jumped to over $6.3 million. 

In 2022, Alpine Investors, a private equity firm, acquired the company, and Patenaude said in a press release that he was excited about the “next stage of FEV’s growth.” Jim Tormey, an executive with Alpine, stepped in as CEO until Overfelt took over in 2023. 

FEV’s work in Ector and Duval County, Florida, was also part of an innovative arrangement known as outcomes-based contracting. The company didn’t just deliver tutoring; it promised better results for more money, and offered to take a pay cut if students didn’t make progress. 

Such deals piqued the tutoring world’s interest in recent years as policymakers increasingly called for evidence that relief funds weren’t going to waste. Cohen, who featured FEV’s work last year in a FutureEd , wrote in a commentary that the concept could help ensure districts “get the best return on their investment and help build a culture of performance in public education.”

FEV Tutor further evolved last year when it announced a new AI-enhanced platform, Tutor CoPilot. The tool makes tutors more effective by giving them guiding questions to ask students. In a , the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University, which studies tutoring models, found that when less-experienced tutors used the AI support, student math scores increased an average of 9 percentage points. 

But that breakthrough apparently wasn’t enough to turn business around.

In his note to the company, Overfelt said he and the board of directors had “explored every possible avenue to secure FEV Tutor’s future,” but that talks with additional investors had “reached their end.”

Since FEV was on a pay-as-you-go contract, Adkins, in Ector, said the district wasn’t worried about losing money.

But FEV employees are suddenly out of a job. A customer service manager who once taught in the Las Vegas-area Clark County schools posted on LinkedIn that she was . And Jen Mendelsohn, CEO of Braintrust Tutors, said she spent Monday interviewing former FEV employees.

Many, she said, “have long-term district relationships nationwide and are looking for ways to ensure academic continuity for their students.” 

Great leaders are nurtured, not born. They arise from a combination of education, mentorship, encouragement and practical experience. Service learning — an approach where students apply academic and civic knowledge and skills to address real community needs — provides young people with the vital hands-on experiences needed to develop leadership skills. These include investigating real community issues, designing effective programs and implementing those solutions in real life. Such real-life experiences immerse students in curiosity, creativity and empathy — all of which are essential for effective leadership. Programs that provide service learning can help develop these skills and empower young people to effect positive change in their schools and neighborhoods.

One such program was launched in 2022 by the for students in grades 6 to 12. This program invites teams of at least two students, plus an adult mentor, to create service-learning projects in one of four focus areas: education equity, community health, environmental justice or civics and democracy.

Teams take a deep dive into an issue affecting their community by investigating, exploring and understanding specific needs to identify a meaningful and impactful project to take on. Since its launch, the program has served 1,420 students across 29 states and 71 schools and organizations, fostering essential leadership skills and values, and empowering young people — with their boundless energy, creativity, and passion for change — to lead from an early age. 

Developing projects based on community needs hones collaboration skills with peers and local partners. It builds young people’s understanding of systemic issues and root causes, fosters a sense of civic responsibility, taps into empathy and offers opportunities for action and advocacy.

Across the nation, students have used service learning to tackle issues like water conservation, recycling and distracted driving. One student team in New York investigated the negative impacts of the overuse of social media by teens. They developed a “” campaign, which encourages teens to disconnect from social media and technology for five hours on Fridays in an effort to improve mental health and self-esteem. The team’s efforts resulted in , sparking important conversations in St. Lawrence County about social media’s impact. Upon presenting their campaign to their local , over 100 community members signed up to participate.

Another student team from northern California focused on the lack of financial education resources among underprivileged communities. They developed a and offered free in-person and online for kids between the ages of 7 and 11. These efforts can help families start to build generational wealth, close economic gaps and ease financial instability. 

A team from New Jersey known as H20 Heroes embarked on a mission to investigate access to water in places around the world where it is scarce. They found that women and girls are predominantly responsible for collecting water in households where there is no indoor plumbing. In rural India, for example, women and girls walk an average of 2 miles daily, often bearing the heavy burden on their heads. This not only leads to severe health problems, but prevents them from pursuing employment and education, reinforcing the cycle of poverty. In response, the students committed to raising funds to support Wells on Wheels, an initiative that provides water households in India. The leadership team hosted a Water Summit for fifth- and sixth-graders in their school districts, ran a fund-raising contest and sold reusable water bottles.

demonstrates that students engaged in service learning exhibit improved self-esteem, academic performance, civic engagement and social skills. For instance, during the pandemic, student leaders from Chicago collaborated with a local health organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in the Latino community. One student who spoke to the leadership council about the experience remarked, “I realized that youth can be a force for global change. This experience opened my eyes to the daily issues affecting our world.”

Such experiences have the power to create the next generation of leaders this nation needs; leaders who respond to the challenges of the world while embodying values like empathy, integrity, transparency, respect and commitment.

Now, more than ever, teens need to be empowered with the education, mentorship and opportunities needed to become the transformative leaders the nation urgently requires. Delaying leadership education until college or adulthood risks wasting young people’s potential. The question is not whether America can afford to invest in the leadership development of today’s youth, but whether it can afford not to.

“I accepted it, because I didn’t know any better,” said Tieu, who didn’t find encouragement from her own Vietnamese family either. “My father was like, ‘Oh, I’m so surprised that they selected you to be the principal.’ ”

A decade later, Tieu has not only been an assistant principal and principal, she’s now in charge of student support services for the Houston Independent School District — the eighth-largest school system in the U.S. But as an Asian woman and a single mother, she still feels pressure to prove herself in a male-dominated field.

“I spend double the time to make sure that everything I produce is 100% — nothing less,” she said.

The comment about Tieu’s height — and job prospects — is among the anecdotes district and state leaders shared as part of a first-of-its-kind of women serving in high-level school positions. Conducted by , a 300-member national network, the results show that despite ascending to senior roles in school systems and state departments, the vast majority of female leaders experience bias and think often about quitting. Over 80% of the 110 women who responded, from 27 states, said they feel they have to watch how they dress, speak and act because they are in the spotlight as senior leaders.

“I have found myself in high-powered meetings where men in leadership roles do not even look at me, but instead address my male colleagues,” said Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island education commissioner and a Women Leading Ed board member. “In a world where traditional notions of leadership have been predominantly shaped by men, there exists a profound need for diversity in representation.”

The survey, one expert said, comes at a time when districts could benefit from strengths many women bring to the table.

“Women who come up through this pipeline have often been elementary school principals and that sometimes precludes them from being selected as superintendents,” said Rachel White, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, assistant professor. She launched , a research center, last summer to improve data collection on school system leaders. It’s common, she said, for school boards to view high school principals, who are , as more authoritarian or to prefer someone with a background in finance. “The type of leadership we need right now around family and student engagement and curriculum and instruction — elementary school principals really get that right.” 

But many women leaders say they face a double standard. 

“When a man in leadership takes time to coach his child’s sports team, he is applauded,” Infante-Green said. “If I choose to attend my daughter’s dance recital over a meeting, I am judged much differently.”

One leader quoted in the report said she was told to wear a skirt instead of pants to a presentation so she didn’t “come off as intimidating.” , Hispanic and Asian-American women were even more likely to feel pressure related to their behavior — 55%, compared with 36% for white women. One Black leader’s colleagues said the way she greeted students with “What’s up” made them uncomfortable because she was “speaking Ebonics.”

Tieu, in Houston, said students are often surprised to see a minority woman, especially an Asian woman, in leadership. 

“I want to show these young ladies that there’s nothing wrong with having aspirations,” she said. “There are going to be moments in time when you have to overcome barriers, but be smart and learn from it.”

The survey results build on the conducted by ILO Group, a women-owned firm focused on education policy and leadership. Nationally, over 20% of the nation’s 500 largest school districts saw turnover at the top, according to the 2023 results. Among women, the rate was slightly higher — 26%.

The most recent analysis also showed that even with a modest increase in the number appointed to superintendent positions, women still represent less than a third of those leading school districts. Women, however, make up 80% of the teacher workforce and more than half of school principals. 

Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of Women Leading Ed and ILO, called it a “glass cliff,” and said when women reach higher ranks, they“nearly universally experience bias that impacts their ability to do their job, how they feel about their work and their overall well-being.”

Sixty percent of women leaders said they think about quitting due to stress, and of those, three-quarters said they contemplate leaving on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Loren Widmer, director of student services for the Affton School District, outside St. Louis, left a neighboring system after unsuccessful efforts to advance into administration.

“I really felt like the only potential way to move ahead in that district was to be part of the good old boys club,” she said. “If you didn’t go to school there, play on the football team and come up through the ranks, there was no chance that you would progress.”

That became clear to her in 2017 when she was in line for an assistant principal job. The district offered her a 9 a.m. interview on a Friday, the same morning she was scheduled to have a C-section. She asked for an alternative time — even a virtual interview at noon the same day of her son’s birth — but the official turned her down. The position later went to a man.

‘Among all these men’

The new survey follows a that Rafal-Baer initiated on LinkedIn, asking women leaders to share some of the worst comments they’ve heard along their “professional journey.” Some of the nation’s top education leaders weighed in.

“A … colleague said (in front of the others), ‘You must be really proud to be the only woman among all these men,’ and then squeezed my shoulder a little longer than anyone needed,“ recalled Carolyne Quintana, a deputy chancellor for the New York City schools.

Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shared a comment she heard as a new mom. 

“An older male colleague bitterly complained he wished he’d gotten a three-month vacation after I got back from a horrible, miserable, painful maternity leave,” she wrote. 

And Daylene Long, CEO of a STEM education company, posted that someone told her, “Being competitive is not an attractive trait in a woman.”

‘You don’t have to choose’

But some leaders also see signs of progress. 

In Affton, Widmer’s district, half of the top-level staff and four of the five principals are women. She thinks the support women feel contributes to the district’s stability. 

“You don’t have to choose between staying home with your sick kids or leading a department,” Widmer said. “You can do both.”

And in the early months of the pandemic, Infante-Green participated in daily with then-Gov. Gina Raimondo and Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the former state health director. A mother even sent the commissioner a card with Superwoman on it as a thank you for inspiring her daughter. 

“In that moment, it dawned on me that our presence together at those news conferences was more than just symbolic; it was a powerful statement of solidarity and resilience,” she said. “It sent a positive message that in Rhode Island, leadership knows no gender boundaries.”

At the time, Susan Enfield was superintendent of the Highline Public Schools outside Seattle, close to the site of the first U.S. outbreak. Like her counterparts in neighboring districts, she was still in disbelief that sending students home was even an option. 

“I’m not sure, at the end of the day, that that was the right decision,” said Enfield, who recently shared her reflections with ����Ӱ��. “I don’t think we’ll know for a long time how that really impacted all of us.” 

As the debate over reopening that fall intensified, Enfield was outspoken about the no-win situation leaders were in as they struggled to balance the needs of students with the demands and fears of parents and employees. To her, the predicament felt like having “an enormous square peg that I’m trying to squeeze into a microscopic round hole.”

Like many families and educators over the months and years that followed, Enfield relocated, leaving Highline in 2022 for the larger Washoe County Public Schools in Nevada, which includes Reno. She described the move then as hitting the “superintendent lottery,” but ultimately, stayed just a year and a half. She to return to the Seattle area.

“I’m really happy to be home,” she said. “I’m taking this moment to breathe and figure out how I can contribute from a different vantage point.”

In an interview, she reflected on the past 48 months and how the pandemic has — and has not — transformed the nation’s education system.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

����Ӱ��: The Northshore School District, not far from Highline, was the first in the nation to close because of COVID. What comes to mind now as you recall those frantic early days of the pandemic?

Susan Enfield: I’m really in awe of what educators across the country were able to do under really trying circumstances. I’m proud of how we responded. If memory serves, we deployed over 13,000 devices within the first couple weeks of having to close schools. There’s a real sense of pride in how people came together in a time of serious uncertainty and stress and did what they could to take care of our kids.

For those of us that stayed closed for so long, I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. Thousands of kids were out of school for so long, and we know that’s had an impact on them.

Moving from Highline to Washoe, what differences did you see in how the districts approached the closures?

How districts approached it was tied to local politics. The Puget Sound area is the bluest of the blue, whereas Washoe is really purple, politically. Washoe kids came back a year before Highline kids. That was probably the right thing to do.

What Highline was able to do that Washoe wasn’t was device distribution. We had under 20,000 kids, but Washoe had over 60,000, so there’s a magnitude issue. Washoe is a vast geographical area, so it was a challenge for them to distribute devices. Those differences speak to how every district responded as best they could based on their local political context and just the sheer makeup of their district.

Was there anything you would have done differently?

We would all go back and probably do some things differently, but I also had to recognize what was within my control. Our governor mandated schools be closed. I didn’t know at the time that keeping schools closed would be so detrimental. But there was so much fear and uncertainty around the virus, especially for a district like Highline. We have a lot of multifamily, multigenerational homes. The fears people had were very real, very legitimate.

How did the last four years change you personally as a leader? 

It fortified my values as a leader. I’ve always been a big proponent of health and family first, but that was really amplified — not just preaching it, but modeling it. I had to make sure that I was taking care of my people. 

We have a saying out here when it’s a beautiful clear day: “Mountain’s out.” I remember one Saturday. I just tweeted out a beautiful photo of Mount Rainier and said, “The mountain’s out and it’ll be out again tomorrow.” For those of us in leadership roles, we really had to dig into who we were as people, what our values were. The pandemic had an impact, not just on our children, but our teachers and staff as well. They had to re-learn how to be in community with other people after being in isolation for so long.

What are the biggest lessons we’ve learned from the past four years?

During the pandemic, there was so much talk of “We’re not going back to normal” and I was like, “Well, I don’t want to be the voice of doom and gloom, but the muscle memory of a bureaucracy as large as the public education system in the United States is very strong.” I predicted that we would by and large go back to what we knew. 

We learned some things and continue to do some things differently, like the option for virtual meetings. Family participation in [special education] meetings is up because now parents don’t have to take time off work. On the flip side, we still have a digital divide. We still have too many kids that don’t have access to the internet. There’s been some backsliding there.

One of the key lessons is that we can’t focus on instruction without focusing on the overall well-being of our children. We have to make sure that our kids, and staff frankly, get the resources they need to be physically, emotionally and psychologically healthy. For all of the opportunities that technology brought, being in person matters — seeing that face, being hugged, having someone look you in the eye and sit down with you. 

There are various predictions about the chances of another pandemic in our lifetime. If that bears out, how do you think the system would respond? 

We’ve got some playbooks now. We are better prepared because we actually have some blueprints on the logistical part of it. I don’t think it will be the scramble that it was before. And since many of us blessedly lived through the last one, I’m hoping maybe there won’t be the same level of fear and uncertainty that existed before.

I remember doing virtual happy hours with my family in California and a lot of them were literally wiping down their groceries and they weren’t going anywhere. Those of us in school districts couldn’t do that. I don’t think I ever felt that same level of panic and fear because I just couldn’t afford to. I had to help hand out meals.

Do you think schools would close again? 

That’s a really good question. As much as I think closing schools for the length of time we did wasn’t the right thing to do, I know that officials in Washington state have pointed to the very that we had. I don’t know what the perfect answer is.

I was pretty critical of a lot of our elected leaders during that time, but in hindsight, I have more empathy and compassion. I do believe everyone was doing the best they could with what they knew.

Keynote speakers this year include of Harlem Children’s Zone, of Stanford University, who popularized the idea of “growth mindset,” and actor , who starred on Broadway as George Washington in Hamilton. Jackson, who has a child on the autism spectrum, will discuss how doctors, parents and advocates are working together to change the ways neurodivergent kids communicate and learn.

But one issue that looms larger than most in the imaginations of educators is artificial intelligence. This year, South by Southwest EDU is offering dozens of sessions exploring AI’s potential and pitfalls. To help guide the way, we’ve scoured the schedule to highlight 18 of the most significant presenters, topics and panels: 

Monday, March 4:

: The New School’s Maya Georgieva looks at how AI is ushering in a new era of immersive experiences. Her talk explores worlds that blur the lines between the virtual and real, where human ingenuity converges with intelligent machines. Georgieva will spotlight the next generation of creators shaping immersive realities, sharing emerging practices and projects from her students as well as her innovation labs and design jams. .

: Educators have long sought a better way to demonstrate learning, adapt instruction and build student confidence. Now, advancements in machine learning, natural language processing and data analytics are creating new possibilities for finding out what students know. This session will explore the ways in which AI is rendering assessments invisible, reducing stress and anxiety for students while improving objectivity and generating actionable insights for educators. .

: Many high-pressure professions — pilots, doctors and professional athletes among others — have access to high-quality simulators to help them learn and improve their skills. Could teachers benefit from hours in a simulator before setting foot in a classroom? In this session featuring presenters from the Relay Graduate School of Education and Wharton Interactive at the University of Pennsylvania, panelists will discuss virtual classrooms they’re piloting. They’ll also address the challenges, successes and possibilities of developing an AI-driven teaching simulator. .

: In just the first half of 2023, venture capital investors poured more than $40 billion into AI startups. Yet big questions loom about how these technologies may impact education and the world of work. How are education and workforce investors separating wheat from chaff? Hear from a trio of venture capital and impact investors as they share the trends they’re watching. .

: This session will look at the profound transformations in teaching taking place in classrooms that blend AI with tailored, competency-focused education. Laura Jeanne Penrod of Southwest Career and Technical Academy and Nevada’s 2024 will explore AI’s role in enhancing rather than supplanting quality teaching — and what happens when schools embrace the human touch and educators’ emotional intelligence. .

: In this interactive workshop led by women leaders from the University of Texas at Austin and the Waco (Texas) Independent School District, participants will learn how to design effective lesson plans and syllabi that incorporate AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E to help prepare students to address society’s most pressing needs. .

: If we get AI in education right, it has the power to revolutionize how children learn. But if we get it wrong and fail to nourish children’s creativity — their ability to innovate, think critically and problem solve — we risk leaving them unprepared for a changing world. Creativity is the durable skill that AI cannot replace. And this panel, comprising educators and industry leaders, will explore the role we play in nurturing children’s innate creativity. .

: This panel, featuring early AI-in-education pioneers such as Amanda Bickerstaff, founder of AI for Education, Charles Foster, an AI researcher at Finetune Learning, and Ben Kornell,  co-founder of Edtech Insiders, will explore their journeys and what they consider the most exciting future opportunities — and important challenges — in this emerging space. .

Tuesday, March 5:

: AI’s continued adoption in schools raises concerns about bias, especially toward students of color. This session, hosted by Common Sense Education’s Jamie Nunez, will highlight practical ways AI tools impact engagement for students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. It will also address ethical concerns such as plagiarism and issues with facial recognition tools. And it will feature positive student experiences with AI and practical ways to ensure it remains inclusive. .

: In 2024, what defines “AI literacy”? And how can we promote it effectively in schools? Marc Cicchino, innovation director for the Northern Valley Regional High School District in northeastern New Jersey, shares insights on fostering AI literacy through tailored learning experiences and initiatives like the NJ AI Literacy Summit. As part of the session, Cicchino guides attendees through organizing their own summit. . 

: Come watch a live recording of The Cusp, a new podcast hosted by Work Shift’s Paul Fain, exploring AI’s potential to not only enhance how we develop skills and improve job quality but exacerbate inequalities in our education and workforce systems. Leaders from Learning Collider, MDRC and Burning Glass Institute will share their perspectives on how AI can reach learners and workers in innovative ways, bridging the gap to economic opportunity. .

: While a few school districts have embraced artificial intelligence, neither the technology companies creating the AI nor the governments regulating it have provided guidance on how to integrate the new tech into classrooms. This has left districts wondering how to integrate AI safely, ethically and equitably. This panel of TeachAI.org founders and advisory members will discuss why government and education leaders must align standards with the needs of an increasingly AI-driven world. The panel features Khan Academy’s Kristen DiCerbo, Kara McWilliams of ETS, Code.org and ISTE’s Joseph South. .

Wednesday, March 6:

: Just as artificial intelligence is gaining momentum in education, the early childhood education workforce is experiencing record levels of burnout. A recent survey found many educators say they’re more likely to remain in their roles if they have access to better support, including high-quality classroom tools and flexible professional development. Could we harness AI to empower our early childhood workforce? This panel, led by the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Stanford Accelerator for Learning, will explore the possibilities and challenges of AI in early childhood education. .

Perhaps no one in education needs to adapt more to AI than principals. This discussion with a principal and consultants from IDEO, The Leadership Academy and the Aspen Institute will explore how principals can lead during this time of swift change. Participants will come away with tangible suggestions for fostering innovation, adaptability and self-awareness. .

: This interactive session will give educators an opportunity to explore how they might use AI to advance their work, regardless of their background or technical expertise. ​Led by project managers and leadership development specialists with Teach For America, it will help participants create their own AI tools, build a deeper understanding of generative AI and develop a better sense of its promises and risks. .

Thursday, March 7: 

: This panel discussion, led by The Education Trust’s Dia Bryant and Khan Academy’s Kristen DiCerbo, will look at whether emerging uses of AI in schools could create a new digital divide. It will explore the intersection of AI and education equity and AI’s impact on students of color, as well as those from low-income backgrounds. The session will offer steps that educators and policymakers can take to ensure that schools factor in the culture and neurodiversity of students. . 

: This session, led by Alex Tsado of Alliance4ai, will explore what’s required to engage diverse learners to become emerging AI leaders. It’ll also explore how educators can help them build tech and leadership skills and promote an “AI-for-good” worldview. And it’ll examine the challenges that Black communities face in AI development — and propose research and solutions that can be scaled easily. .

: This panel brings together of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology and Jeremy of Digital Promise for an interactive conversation about generative AI that will integrate two distinctive and powerful vantage points — policy and research. They’ll reflect on the listening sessions they’ve conducted, talk about policy and share insights from major research initiatives that address the efficacy, equity and ethics of generative AI. .

However, what if the right fit isn’t in that ever-shrinking stack of resumes or on a headhunter’s candidate list? Maybe it’s an educator already in the ranks who has the potential to be an innovative leader and changemaker but isn’t on a traditional path toward superintendency. 

The leadership shortage crisis isn’t going to be solved anytime soon — and if anything, it has the potential to get worse over the next few years. It’s essential that today’s administrators and education leaders rethink how they recruit and prepare prospects. But more importantly, they must create a network of support that elevates talented educators into fearless trailblazers with a clear vision for students’ futures.

As new superintendents who followed different trajectories into our current roles and are working to uplift the incredible educators coming up behind us, we have benefited from three major movements that are reshaping talent development in our field.

Identify, Inspire and Encourage Educators to Find Their Inner Leader

Sometimes, school districts inadvertently set up roadblocks to leadership roles by requiring candidates to exceed professional credentials beyond those set by their state’s principal and superintendent licensure programs. Instead of investing in those who show promise, they tap someone with a doctorate in education but less applicable experience.

Because the bank of qualified candidates continues to clear out, district leaders need to disrupt the current model. Long-term succession plans can no longer stop at current administrators and principals — districts must identify and nurture educators with leadership potential who may not yet recognize how their talents can drive districtwide change.

To do this, districts must create a clear coaching model to raise educators from teacher leader to executive leader. By offering ongoing coaching and mentoring, involving promising educators in strategic planning sessions and providing them with additional responsibilities (and pay!) that align with their interests, districts can equip the next generation of leaders with invaluable skills and experience.

For example, in the Rush-Henrietta district in New York, we are creating professional learning communities that connect new principals and assistant principals with a mentor to help navigate the first year in office. Mentors attend a training session before the start of the school year and provide support to the new leader throughout the year via one-on-one meetings and a quarterly roundtable discussion with all new administrators and mentors. These networks can promote an to discover how to maintain board relationships, develop a shared mission for their district and hone leadership skills such as building a strategic plan.

Ensure the Path to Leadership is an Equitable One

When students see themselves in their school leaders, they feel . Yet, there continue to be a lack of representation and ongoing equity issues in superintendency. 

In K-12, , but of students do. Aspiring leaders of color need unfettered access to mentor-led learning communities to help them break through barriers, such as having their ability questioned by administrators because of their race, as they prepare for new roles. Once they get the job, mentors can help leaders of color stand up to the challenges of navigating fraught district politics. These connections are especially critical if there’s a lack of diverse leadership development opportunities in their districts.

District administrators and school board members must also ensure that the leadership pipeline is free from bias. Beginning at the teacher level, there should be equitable opportunities and support for leadership development. This could include partnering with organizations that match educators of color with leaders of color for mentorship. Gaining this outside perspective helps develop leaders by providing a confidential and safe place to exchange ideas while broadening their professional network. Most importantly, current leaders must be allies, in the face of community resistance to policy changes or discussions of race and identity.

Leadership development programs should articulate a strategic direction geared at improving student outcomes. By developing a strategy rooted in equitable learning opportunities, cultural belonging and justice, with clear student outcomes at the center, districts can ensure that promotions, growth opportunities and learning communities are based on merit, not racial biases.

Connect Aspiring Leaders to One Another

Leadership can be isolating, and a circle of trusted confidants can quickly grow small. As we worked our way up to superintendency, it was important to embrace a cohort of mentors and peers from diverse backgrounds and districts who shared our vision and provided us with skills and resources we could take back home.

We continue to stay connected to our ever-expanding community through both traditional learning environments and informal coaching sessions. This helps us find the clarity needed to tackle the complexities of a rewarding, yet sometimes overwhelming, career. It’s important for all aspiring leaders to have a safe space where they are welcome to brainstorm ideas, problem-solve complex challenges facing their districts and learn how to navigate the power structures within their particular communities.

Administrators should encourage aspiring leaders to participate in national professional professional development and workshops. This can help them take the next step in their careers by providing an empowering space to find mentorship and build on their leadership skills — and bring those skills back to their districts.

K-12 continues to see high turnover rates of educators at all levels, with few plans in place to keep its foundation from crumbling. If school districts refuse to alter the status quo — to cultivate their own leaders rather than invest resources into recruiting the same people other districts are competing for — the hiring gap isn’t going to close anytime soon. There is incredible talent in classrooms right now waiting to be tapped. District administrators just need to communicate to future leaders that they see something great in them.

Since then, superintendents in nine of those districts — stretching from Florida’s Atlantic coast to central California — have resigned or been fired, often after a period of conflict with board members.

“Six new board members clean house first night on the job,” on Facebook Nov. 16, the day after its slate of candidates took office in Berkeley County, South Carolina. Before a confused crowd, they , who had spent his entire career, over 20 years, in the district.

Moms for Liberty founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich told ����Ӱ�� that their endorsed board members don’t always take office with plans to replace superintendents, but that sometimes it’s “necessary.”

Six of those nine districts hired permanent replacements; three still have interim chiefs.

Forcing out district leaders is one of the most obvious ways Moms for Liberty has made its mark over the past two years. As they over library books with sexually explicit content and LGBTQ-inclusive policies, members tend to portray these removals as victories for parental rights. Others say the group has unfairly targeted effective leaders and failed to address pressing issues like teacher shortages.

“The one thing that districts can point to that will demonstrate change is a new superintendent,” said Andrea Messina, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, which conducts superintendent searches. “It’s an immediate message to the community.”

ILO Group, an organization focused on women leaders in education, analyzed superintendent turnover in those 17 districts for ����Ӱ�� as part of to track leadership changes since the pandemic. 

The Laramie County district in Wyoming — where Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates tipped an already conservative board further to the right last fall — is among those that have seen recent superintendent turnover. Margaret Crespo stepped down in August after serving as chief for two years. She who wanted to restrict books with sexually explicit content from children unless their parents gave permission. 

Crespo said she recognized what she was up against.

“They’re highly organized,” said Crespo, now a superintendent-in-residence with ILO Group. She said the organization knows how to mobilize quickly. “They have taken that skillset and moved it into this very dynamic political arena.”

Florida wins

Moms for Liberty’s goal is to “recruit moms to serve as watchdogs over all 13,000 school districts,” according to its website. combats what they view as government overreach and seeks to give parents more control over what their children learn, particularly as it relates to race, sex and LGBTQ issues. According to their tally, more than half of their first-time candidates won in the 2022 elections. 

The group’s impact is particularly noticeable in Florida, where Justice and Descovich served as school board members.

Their candidates flipped seven Florida school boards last November, four of which have had superintendent turnover — , and counties.

Justice and Descovich say they’re giving parents a voice in the political process. 

“We are focused on empowering parents who are seeing problems in their school districts to stand up and fight for their children and make real change by running for school board,” they said in a statement to ����Ӱ��.

Last month, they released a new “” with ready-made design templates, that they say should jump start the process for those seeking election in 2024.

As it looks ahead, the group’s fortunes may be shifting. it endorsed this past April for seats in Illinois, Oklahoma and Wisconsin haven’t fared too well. Of 32 endorsements in 15 races, just eight candidates won.

The groups advises winning candidates to reject training from their state’s school board association because many “foster the same woke propaganda Moms for Liberty is fighting against,” according to their site.

Because it’s a nonprofit, it’s unclear how financially successful the group has been. A 2021 put their revenue at $370,000, but membership has grown since then. There are now 285 chapters nationwide.

Other organizations such as and are working to counteract Moms for Liberty’s momentum. But experts say they are not nearly as well-funded and lack a national infrastructure.

“They’re out there, but they do need some connecting,” said Heather Harding, executive director of Campaign for Our Shared Future, a nonprofit advocating for attention to inclusion and equity in schools.

Moms for Liberty’s “network structure,” on the other hand, has given them considerable reach, said Rebecca Jacobsen, an education policy researcher at Michigan State University.

Some education advocates say once elected, however, the group’s members don’t always act with the same efficiency to address complex challenges in their districts.

“For all the power that they say they have, they haven’t really done much,” said Kathleen Low, president of the Berkeley County Education Association, which represents teachers in the district where Jackson was fired. 

The district is currently responding to a challenge over that include material one parent considers inappropriate for students. Among the titles are those targeted by Moms for Liberty members elsewhere in the state, including “The Kite Runner,” the story of an Afghan boy during the rise of the Taliban, which features a rape scene. In another, “Gabi: A Girl in Pieces,” a Latina teen chronicles her feelings about a friend’s pregnancy, another friend who comes out as gay and her father’s drug use.

Low called the issues a distraction at a time when schools in her district are short . include counselors, elementary teachers, and middle and high school teachers in core subjects and special education.

Book controversies are “like trying to discuss the feng shui of the furniture in a house that is on fire,” she said. “That’s how serious our situation is with staffing.”

Mac McQuillan, the Moms-endorsed chair of the board, didn’t return calls or emails seeking comment. 

Others note that solving such problems may not be part of the plan.

Members of Jacobsen’s research team have been watching hours of school board meetings in districts where Moms for Liberty won a majority last year. Compared to board meetings from 2019, they’ve noticed a shift in the “demeanor” of members, including new rules that limit public comments, less engagement and eye contact with parents or others who address the board and a more “hostile” atmosphere during meetings.

Moms for Liberty members, she added, have been successful at getting citizens without children in the local public schools to attend meetings and share their concerns about books and curriculum.

“You don’t have to have any agenda if your agenda is to disrupt,” Jacobsen said.

Here are our top five takeaways:

1. Knowledge of self is critical. “Evaluate your own beliefs,” urged Dr. Cathy Grace of the University of Mississippi. “Make sure they align with what is best for young children in the sense of access and equity.”

And Demetria Joyce of Bank Street College of Education noted that discovering and scrutinizing the “long-held beliefs, assumptions and values that we carry when thinking about racially, culturally, linguistically diverse children and how we serve” is imperative to meaningful leadership.

2. Political divisions pose problems for policy leaders. “People feel reluctant,” Dr. Valora Washington, CEO and president of CAYL Institute, said. “They feel afraid as we live in a climate where many people are being silenced.”

The ’s Dr. Lee Johnson III said that overcoming this dilemma “requires increased awareness and understanding among policymakers, communities and the public about the long-term benefits that stem from investing in early childhood education.

“We have some very deep divisions in our country along political lines,” Grace explained. Being in touch with who you are and how that looks in terms of how you’re able to serve may help leaders transcend divisiveness to bring about what’s best for children.

3. Leadership should represent the population they serve. “Policy decisions should be inclusive and representative of the linguistic and cultural context of the leaders that serve them in every part of the early childhood education system,” said Joyce, who manages Bank Street’s Early Childhood Policy Fellowship.

She emphasized representation as a way to disrupt systems that hold and reinforce inequities. “Women of color make up most of the workforce serving the children,” she said, “and we need our policy tables to be more representative and inclusive of these leaders because representation matters. Leadership is one of the greatest levers for change, but we need to ensure we have an equitable path to leadership for our next generation of leaders.”

4. Conflict is an inevitable part of change. We’re all human, and, as Johnson said, “Conflict will inevitably arise in any human community, organization or group.” Strategy and tools are required to constructively address and solve conflict, such as active listening and “resources around conflict management styles, recognizing that we all come to issues with different leadership styles.” Grace, who has 25 years in the industry, added, “It’s going to take for us to be tough and to have the skills to know how to make some progress” and make it last.

Washington noted that even if the work changes, “This is a baton we keep passing from generation to generation. It may look different, but the work still needs to be done.”

5. Evidence and experience-based education are crucial. Johnson explained, “It’s necessary to cultivate leadership skills that emphasize compassion in decision-making and evidence-informed practices, promoting policies grounded in scientific evidence. It’s crucial to focus on strategies like providing rigorous education and training in the field of early childhood development.” Collaboration and cross-sector learning allow upcoming leaders to ponder and create solutions for what is going on right now.

Grace suggested real-world experiential learning as another useful avenue. “We all have a vision of what it’s like to be a leader, but are we in the sense of the reality of what it could take?”

Forty-seven of those districts have seen two or more leadership changes. The turnover has been particularly hard on women: Of the 94 female superintendents who left their positions, two-thirds were replaced by men, according to the report, released Monday from ILO Group, a consulting firm that focuses on female school leaders.

“The challenges women face to get the top job are not new; they’re the systems that have been in place for generations,” said Julia Rafal-Baer, the firm’s managing partner. “With all the churn in districts happening right now, one positive outcome could have been the addition of new perspectives, but instead we are seeing the opposite.”

This is the third time ILO has published findings on superintendent turnover, which it based on news reports and press releases. Superintendent transitions are up 46% in the 500 largest districts — 228 this fall, compared to 155 in 2018. Many of the changes followed intense political strife and debate over issues such as book banning, transgender student rights and confronting issues of historical discrimination in the classroom. When there’s sudden leadership turnover, “a reset button gets hit,” said Susan Enfield, superintendent of the Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada. 

“It’s sad, it’s wrong and it’s not good for kids,” she said. 

While Enfield, former superintendent of the Highline schools in Washington, is among those who left for a new position this year, it was after 10 years in the same district, which allowed for a meaningful transition.

She wishes that board members set on ousting their leaders would “understand that the superintendent store shelves aren’t chock full” of candidates who are both eager and prepared for the job. 

“You will find people to move into these jobs,” she said. “But will you find the right people?” 

Some of the more dramatic departures over the past year have taken place in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has endorsed and replaced local board members. Moms for Liberty, a conservative advocacy organization, has also endorsed candidates in the state.

Superintendent is on his way out in Sarasota, Florida, after conservatives gained a majority in the November election. That’s despite the district’s from the state and . 

Paulina Testerman, who founded Support Our Schools to counter Moms for Liberty’s influence in board elections, spoke in . 

“There have been many decisions that you have made over these harrowing two years that I have personally disagreed with, but that is the definition of a good superintendent — someone who isn’t a lapdog,” she said at a Nov. 22 school board meeting. “You’re being forced out of your position … not because you were inept, but because you are not a bobble head who just nods his head.”

At the , Asplen pleaded with members to “do better by your next superintendent” and to keep them from being “dragged into the quagmire of the political arena.” 

Bridget Ziegler, an incumbent on the board who won re-election in November — and also co-founded Moms for Liberty —only said during that he “needs improvement.” She did not elaborate.

While some turnover stemmed from culture war issues, parents in many communities mobilized after district leaders repeatedly pushed back reopening dates in 2021. Watching their children fall further behind in school, some left for private schools and charters, or chose to instruct their children at home.

When she looks at Sarasota, Rafal-Baer sees another issue affecting district leaders: Double standards for women. Before Asplen was hired, the board . They later when she said her husband and daughter wouldn’t relocate to the area with her if she was hired. 

But when Rafal-Baer worked with Chiefs for Change, its Future Chiefs program supported four men between 2018 and 2020 who left family members at home when they relocated for jobs. 

“Not one of them faced questions about their commitment, or whether they could handle the dual responsibilities of chief executive and faraway parent,” she wrote in an op-ed for ����Ӱ��.

Thirty percent of superintendents are women — only one percentage point higher than in 2018, ILO’s report shows. But there are regional differences. Almost half of district leaders in the Northeast are women, compared with less than a quarter in the Southeast. 

The report calls for more transparency in candidate searches. Boards and search firms, the authors write, should be required to report the qualifications and demographic characteristics of candidates, the report said.

“The combination of leadership churn and lack of representation in education leadership puts kids’ futures at risk,” Rafal-Baer said. “At a time when women are seen as decisive and trustworthy in [a]crisis, shouldn’t we be pushing hard to elevate more women?”

But 15 months later, the superintendent in Gainesville was after the district defied Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on school mask mandates. DeSantis appointed a board member who tipped the majority 3-2 against her. She was the district’s sixth leader in close to a decade.

“My district will have a hard time explaining the turnover rate of superintendents and convincing the right person to pull up roots and move to our community,” she said. “The governor’s culture war has impacted the work environment so negatively that a school superintendent would be working to push back a very strong current of low morale.”

Far from being an isolated incident, her termination is part of a COVID wave of superintendent firings from the to . The charged atmosphere is a sign of the times, as toxic national and state politics filter down to local school districts.

A recent poll showed a clear decline in parents’ opinions toward their local schools. Those on both sides of the culture war have turned out in force at school board meetings — sometimes calling for superintendents to. But the issues have not been limited to closed schools or classroom controversies. Even run-of-the-mill decisions, like renovating buildings or replacing staff, have toppled careers. With alarming national test scores released Monday and pandemic relief funds running out in two years, the temperature is only likely to increase.

“We’re about to hit a different level of vitriol,” said Julia Rafal-Baer, co-founder of ILO Group, a consulting firm that helps future district chiefs find jobs. “We’re asking our leaders to be a sponge for divisiveness.”

‘Taking a risk’

The job of leading school systems has always been tricky. As they navigate complex bureaucracies and clashing constituencies from parents to teachers unions, superintendents are paid well (average salaries are in the ) but frequently burn out.

What’s changing, according to Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is that now “we’re seeing a whole range of issues migrate into districts that in the past were somewhat buffered.”

Recent and point to a general increase in superintendent turnover, but none has directly examined the spike in terminations. In conversations with district leaders and their advocates, however, many say the phenomenon is inescapable.

Kevin Brown, executive director of the 3,800-member Texas Association of School Administrators, said in his 31 years in the profession, he’s never seen more superintendents fired than he has in the past two years. And Steve McCammon, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, a 100-member network, said it’s becoming common for members to be fired “without cause” — legal language that allows school boards to part ways with their chief executives without offering a reason, a hearing or other elements of due process. Previously, he recalled only one instance in the past 20 years. 

“The stories are out there all over the place,” he said. “Everything has become a political decision.”

To get a sense of the scope of the issue, ����Ӱ�� reviewed news clips detailing nearly 40 no-cause firings or forced resignations in 26 states since the beginning of the pandemic. ����Ӱ�� also sent an informal survey to leadership networks, including the National Superintendents Roundtable, the Council of Great City Schools, Chiefs for Change, ILO Group and Education Counsel, another consulting organization. Out of 70 superintendents who responded, 15 said they’ve seen several district leaders fired or forced to resign since the pandemic began. Twenty said there have been many more. Nineteen worry they might be next.

“The role of the superintendent has become a punching bag … during the pandemic and the attacks are personal,” one wrote. 

Another said: “I have board members running to remove me, and I run a very strong and high-performing school district. It is a dark and sad time for superintendents.”

As in Alachua, debates over polarizing issues preceded firings in dozens of school systems across the country. 

Snapshot

A COVID Wave of Fired Superintendents

When school boards fire their leaders, it is seldom done with transparency. Payouts to superintendents and non-disclosure agreements typically mean the public doesn’t get the full story. The map reflects a sample of school superintendents fired — primarily without cause — since the start of the pandemic.

When conservatives took over the board in Spotsylvania, Virginia, last January, they , who was set to step down just five months later. The district was embroiled in debates over books with LGBTQ themes, with some board members calling for not only banning, but burning, library books they deemed “sexually explicit.” After banning several books, the district after a public outcry. 

In 2021, Kevin Purnell of Oregon’s was among a for simply complying with the law — in this case, a state mandate that students wear masks. The terminations prompted lawmakers to pass this year that protects superintendents from being removed for following laws. 

The perception that schools prolonged closures to protect teachers rather than serve students fueled a huge backlash from parents. Dozens of parents’ rights groups have sprung up since 2020, and Republicans have seized on the issue as a critical plank for upcoming midterm elections.

“School leadership failed students and catered to union agendas during the pandemic,” said Sharon McKeeman, founder of Let Them Breathe, which sued unsuccessfully over California’s mask mandate. McKeeman, who’s also in the Carlsbad Unified district, told ����Ӱ�� that “it’s time for leadership that will put students’ needs first and help them recoup the learning loss and social-emotional damage they incurred during school closures and COVID restrictions.”

Part of the problem in tracking the issue is that such firings are typically shrouded in secrecy. For ����Ӱ��, Rafal-Baer of ILO Group analyzed the departures of 210 chiefs who vacated their positions in the nation’s 11 were fired. But based on news coverage, she suspects many more were forced to resign. Superintendents fired without cause often and agreements for everyone involved not to discuss the terms.

“We never hear the real story,” she said. “They legally can’t talk.” 

Issues over district management 

But Cheryl Watson-Harris, fired in April from her post as superintendent of the DeKalb County schools in metro Atlanta, refused to go quietly.

Her termination capped off a two-week media storm following the posting of a that exposed mold, crumbling ceilings and other safety hazards at the district’s oldest school. High school students shot the video after the board voted not to renovate the facility — an action she . 

Even before she walked into the job, Watson-Harris knew the district had a reputation for turmoil. Before they hired her, board members named former New York City schools Chancellor Rudy Crew as the sole finalist for the job, only to vote against hiring him two weeks later. for discrimination based on age and race, and the board later paid out a $750,000 settlement. Rafal-Baer of ILO Group said she even advised another candidate not to pursue the position.

Nonetheless, Watson-Harris, who previously served as second-in-charge under former New York City Chancellor Richard Carranza, hoped her status as an outsider would help her rise above the district’s troubled politics. It didn’t take long for controversy to find her.

She proposed that would require top deputies to reapply for their jobs in an effort to address what she felt was a lack of accountability over school improvement. She the district’s chief operating officer last year, according to local news reports, after an investigation found he bullied other employees and drank too much alcohol at a work conference. He , arguing that he was falsely accused of “a handful of minor violations” and that she retaliated against him for raising questions about accounting irregularities. 

In an interview, Watson-Harris acknowledged “spotty recordkeeping” in the district, one reason she brought in outside evaluators to review finances and was upgrading outdated systems for managing staff and operations.

The former employee died in a car accident in September near Detroit, according to police reports. His attorney declined to comment on the status of his lawsuit.

Board Chair Vickie Turner declined to answer questions about Watson-Harris’s termination. The other three board members who voted to fire her, along with the school district’s attorney, did not respond to requests for comment. 

“When you’re dealing with personnel matters such as this, you have to be very, very careful,” Turner said. “I don’t think it would be wise to speak to that, because we may have some things that are still not closed.” 

Watson-Harris’s firing shocked many in the community, even drawing a from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, who said the board chose “politics over students, families and educators.”

With just a month left in the school year, the board spent $25,000 to without her signature. 

“I could have closed out [the school year] and given people some stability,” Watson-Harris said.

Because she was fired without cause, Watson-Harris believes she was denied a chance to respond to the accusations against her. For that reason, she said, she’s refused to accept a $325,000 severance package and is considering legal action. 

After watching the district go through four leaders in three years, state Superintendent Richard Woods finds the volatility troubling.

“You cannot get any continuity of services and support,” he told ����Ӱ��, adding that consistent leadership is needed to “have some forward growth.”

‘In the spotlight’ 

Such churn is becoming commonplace. In her review of the nation’s 500 largest school districts, Rafal-Baer found more than 20 have had two leadership changes since COVID’s arrival. 

Watson-Harris was both hired and fired during the pandemic. So was Florida’s Simon, who said she faced similar resistance from a board reluctant to challenge the status quo.

Alachua board member Tina Certain, who voted against Simon’s termination, said the former superintendent’s and creation of a teacher advisory committee that included non-union members likely contributed to discontent. 

“Every department I looked at had financial efficiency issues and basic management concerns — lots of ‘this is how we do things around here’ excuses,” Simon said.

That issue came to the fore when she raised questions about the that runs outdoor education programs. She found that scholarships meant for poor students were being awarded to those without financial need, including the child of a former superintendent on a six-figure salary. She — and shared with ����Ӱ�� — a text message between the camp’s director and a former staff member about scholarships given as a “thank you for being business partners.” 

An internal investigation of wrongdoing, but the district continues to push for of the camp. The director filed a against Simon, the district and the former camp staffer. He denied the allegations and said he didn’t violate policies because there weren’t any in place. His attorney didn’t respond to requests for comment.

But for DeSantis, it would appear that Simon’s vocal opposition to his COVID policies was the tipping point. “She went on the national news and put us in the spotlight in a very negative way,” Mildred Russell, the DeSantis appointee who cast the deciding vote to fire Simon, told ����Ӱ��.

Simon now leads that backs board members and superintendents who push for equity and inclusion. She doubts she could find another superintendent job in the state. 

“I think every board in K-12 or higher education would be taking a risk of being in DeSantis’s crosshairs in the event they consider my employment,” she said. “We are asking for people to risk financial and professional stability.” 

The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis — who is setting the GOP’s agenda on education policy and is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential contender — expanded his reach into nonpartisan school board elections this year, 30 candidates in 18 districts. The majority won their races or have moved to a November runoff. Several of the governor’s candidates were also backed by the conservative organization Moms for Liberty, a parents’ rights group, and the , which has spent over $2 million on school board races in several states.

The charged atmosphere nationally is producing leadership candidates who aren’t seasoned or politically astute enough to withstand the pressure, said Daniel Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

“There’s no time to learn,” he said. “You’re going into battle now.” 

That’s why Alachua is holding off on looking for a new superintendent, said Certain, the board member.

“We’re not going to get anybody who is worth anything at this point because of the turnover,” she said.

While RAND’s early look at 2021 departure rates suggests the “big quit” has yet to play out among superintendents, an emerging trend raised concern: Urban school district superintendents are leaving in higher numbers than their suburban and rural counterparts. And that churn could further damage the districts, composed predominantly of students of color who were . 

At the same time data from , an education strategy and policy firm, show about 37 percent of the nation’s 500 largest school districts have experienced leadership turnover since the pandemic began.

“At a time when school systems and students most need steady leadership and stability, this level of turnover is likely to impact not just individual districts’ pandemic recovery efforts, but our country’s recovery as a whole,” Dr. Julia Rafal-Baer, co-founder and managing partner of ILO Group, told ����Ӱ��. 

“We need all hands on deck right now to prevent a lost generation of students,” Rafal-Baer added.

ILO Group’s research also found the turnover in large districts exacerbated gender gaps: 70 percent of districts that have appointed permanent replacements have chosen men. And of the women superintendents who left since March 2020, 76 percent were replaced by men.

While an abundance of research analyzes staff, substitute and teacher shortages, the last national analysis of superintendent turnover was published more than 15 years ago.

In 2006, 12-14 percent of superintendents left their posts. The 2021 departure rate, gleaned from about 3,000 district leaders in RAND’s latest American School District Panel survey, is right on par: 13 percent. But with the effects of the pandemic lingering, school district leadership change can affect progress. 

Researchers say the trends bubbling underneath the average are worth a closer look, particularly as neither report analyzes the racial or ethnic backgrounds of leaders leaving.

Four important findings from the reports: 

1 About 26 percent of current superintendents will likely “leave soon.” Another quarter is still undecided. 

With little differences across urban, suburban and/or high poverty districts, superintendents are split on whether they want to continue leading school systems.

Projections could play out differently: some of the 20 percent who are “staying” until they’re eligible for benefits, for instance, may be near retirement age and leave within a year. 

Still, the uncertainty with which many approach their career is clear; likely the result of overwhelming workloads. Pre-pandemic, the average superintendent worked 59 hours a week; according to RAND’s November survey, 67 is now the norm.

2 Urban superintendents left their jobs more often than suburban and rural district leaders.

About 18 percent of urban superintendents left their position between spring and fall 2021, compared to about 13 percent of suburban and rural leaders. It is indicative of a persistent pattern that urban schools and districts experience higher teacher and staff . 

“We are noticing some worrying patterns about urban districts. The majority student of color districts in particular are expanding hiring at higher rates than other districts,” suggesting they’re more impacted by staff shortages, said Melissa Kay Diliberti, an assistant policy researcher at RAND.

, RAND found urban districts were more likely to face significant challenges like enrollment declines.

“When you put a lot of these patterns next to each other, it creates a more formidable work environment, which perhaps is related to superintendents’ likelihood of leaving,” Diliberti said.

3 The superintendent gender gap is getting worse in the country’s largest districts.

ILO Group’s analysis of the 500 largest American school systems found that of districts who have appointed permanent replacements since March 2020, 70 percent have chosen men. And of the 51 women who have left since March 2020, half of whom served schools in western states, 76 percent were replaced by men. 

“Progress to close the gender gap in the leadership of our nation’s public schools was already slow, and now it’s gotten more severe,” said Rafal-Baer. “Districts pledge diversity and inclusion, but the data from our research and show that a majority of districts still consistently – and increasingly – hire white men for the top jobs. And far too often the white men have less experience than the women and leaders of color they compete against.”

ILO Group recommended state education leaders close ; work with search firms and school boards to set goals for gender equity; build mentorship networks for women to enter education leadership; and support contracts with stronger family leave policies. 

4 About 37 percent of the country’s largest 500 districts have had a leadership change since March 2020.

With leadership turnover in large districts averaging 18.5 percent per school year, well beyond the national average, larger districts may be facing concentrated challenges: political polarization, unfinished pandemic learning, youth mental health crises, longer workdays, teacher shortages and .

The disruption caused by these departures will disproportionately impact students of color, who predominantly attend larger districts. 

In addition, by not making superintendent turnover and demographic data publicly available, federal agencies enable “inequities rooted in discrimination that historically exist in superintendent hiring practices to go largely unchecked,” Rafal-Baer added.

Chris Riback: Darrius. Thanks so much for joining us in the studio. It’s great to see you.

Darrius Knight: Thank you for having me. It’s great to see you, too.

Chris Riback: What year are you in school and what are your interests?

Darrius Knight: I’m in the 11th grade right now and my interests are in law.

Chris Riback: Law.

Darrius Knight: Law and government. Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Law and government. What do you want to change with the law? What impact do you want to make in government?

Darrius Knight: I definitely say one thing I want to change is our nation’s criminal justice system. I see quite a few flaws with it, especially when you look at our prison system. Our prison system, it’s not the best in the world and it doesn’t do what I believe it needs to be doing.

Chris Riback: We’re at a conference that is focused on education in part. Do you see the ways in which education, youth education connects with some of the questions that you raise around our criminal justice system?

Darrius Knight: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: What do you see?

Darrius Knight: We often ask ourselves, how can we as youth, prepare ourselves for the future, prepare ourselves and also prepare our current leaders for the issues that we will have to face in the future. That, in my opinion, is an issue that we will have to face in the future, our prison system. Taking on how we will deal with issues in the future, that is something that will greatly give.

Chris Riback: You serve on a few different councils and groups. You’re pretty involved in a lot of different stuff, aren’t you?

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: In these councils and groups, there are adults that you work with.

Darrius Knight: There are.

Chris Riback: What do they not know? What do they not know about what the youth of America is thinking and doing?

Darrius Knight: I would say they don’t really understand exactly what our goal is. They struggle to see exactly what we’re trying to lay the foundation as, as to what they want the foundation to be. It’s completely different and I think they don’t see that, and that’s where issues come into play. When youth want to do one thing, the adults want to do one thing and it’s lack of communication.

Chris Riback: How do you close that gap? How do you communicate or try to communicate in a way to bring, I first want to start with the adults? I’m going to ask you about your peers, about other kids as well, but first, how do you communicate to bring adults along to your vision?

Darrius Knight: Often it’s usually through just strong wording, just emphasizing exactly what it is that we want. I’ll talk to my peers, because I am the leader on my youth council, so I gather that information, take it to the adults, say this is what we want. This is what they want. How can we bring that in between to what you want, we want? Make it merge.

Chris Riback: What about those peers? The other kids, the other youths who are on the council, how do you communicate with them? How do you get ideas coordinated so that you can bring them forward?

Darrius Knight: I act a very certain way when I’m very lively and trying to get things done, but when I’m serious, they get that. They understand, okay, this is the time he wants to actually get down on to get the business. Again, strong wording. I emphasize my voice a lot.

Chris Riback: Good for you. In reading about you, learning about you, I came across that you also are very passionate about the COVID 19 vaccine and the importance of bringing along the black community, the African American community…

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback:  …to understanding. What motivated you on that and what are you trying to do to help people understand what you want them to understand?

Darrius Knight: I would definitely say my motivation is just hearing at school, how people are saying, “I’m not getting the vaccine because of this. I’m not getting the vaccine because of that.”

Chris Riback: Kids or adults?

Darrius Knight: Kids, and some adults as well, but mostly my peers are saying they’re not getting the vaccine and I wanted to understand why they weren’t getting the vaccine, so that’s what I did. I got the information as to why they weren’t getting the vaccine, had a conversation with other youth, along with NLC’s CEO, Clarence Anthony, as to how to break these stigmas and what is the truth?

Chris Riback: Yes. You had a conversation, a video conversation with the CEO of NLC, didn’t you?

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: Yes, on the topic. Darrius, what’s next for you?

Darrius Knight: What is next for me? That is still uncertain right now.

Chris Riback: I don’t mean today or tomorrow. We can go out a few years.

Darrius Knight: I do see myself in the future becoming a defense attorney. That is the short term goal. My long term goal is, shooting for the stars, is to end up as a United States Supreme Court Justice.

Chris Riback: That would be outstanding. You’re sitting not too far from there right now.

Darrius Knight: Yes.

Chris Riback: Maybe we go walk over there afterwards. Let them know that you’ll be coming in…

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

Chris Riback: ...30 years.

Darrius Knight: Yes, that would probably be nice.

Chris Riback: Okay. We’ll let them know. I think you’ll get there.

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir. I hope so.

Chris Riback: I look forward to it. Darrius, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and for coming to the studio to visit us.

Darrius Knight: Yes, sir.

As it kicks off the search to replace Henderson Lewis, who announced over the summer that he will retire next June, the Orleans Parish School Board does, in fact, need someone with a vision. Whoever replaces the outgoing superintendent will take the reins of an entirely new kind of school system.

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The superintendent will be the chief executive of the nation’s first all-charter district. New Orleans is the site of the fastest U.S. school improvement effort ever — and yet, pre-pandemic, a third of its public school students still attended failing schools. Even before the setbacks of COVID-19 and Hurricane Ida, creating thousands more seats in high-quality schools was a tall order. 

In other words, the new superintendent is going to need a totally new playbook. And the board is giving itself a full school year to find someone with the right skills and mindset.

“There is, in fact, no other person in the country who has ever run a district like ours, except for the current superintendent,” says board President Ethan Ashley. 

Because NOLA Public Schools has a unique and clear-cut legal structure, its next leader will have virtually no authority to push individual schools for changes, yet will face pressure to unlock new levels of student achievement systemwide. Whoever is hired will need to build relationships in a community whose Black residents have demanded an end to white control of the schools. And the new superintendent will be asked to make and defend unpopular decisions — and help families with children in the schools understand the nature of the all-charter district. 

“So often when boards look for a new superintendent, they talk about the person committing to change and all that,” says Paul Hill, founder of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, who has written extensively about school governance. “The trick will be to find someone who is acceptable to the community, who understands what’s special about the district and is committed to making it work.”

After a one-month delay forced by Hurricane Ida, the school board in late September formally opened the lengthy process by soliciting proposals from search firms that meet criteria the board settled on in July. , the board is eager for recruiters to reach out to nontraditional candidates, versus just superintendents with experience in conventional districts, and to local leaders and people with experience in New Orleans schools who have since moved on. 

It’s too early to prognosticate about individual candidates, says Kate Mehok, who heads Crescent City Schools. “We’ve all had fun throwing each other’s name in the hat,” she says. “I think there’s going to be an interesting pool.”

‘Such a unique system’

Before the pandemic struck, the district was at an inflection point.

The decade of intense change that followed Hurricane Katrina moved New Orleans schools from the equivalent of an F on the state report card to a C. The 2005 flood damaged virtually every school in what was one of the nation’s lowest-performing — and most corrupt — districts, and Louisiana seized control of all but a handful. The state-run Recovery School District recruited organizations with promising proposals for reinventing them as public charter schools.

Those that did not live up to the terms of their performance contracts eventually lost their charters, closed and were replaced by higher-performing operators. The strategy was not popular, but it was effective. Looking at data on student academic performance, high school graduation and college outcomes during the first decade following state takeover, concluded that the practice was the biggest factor behind New Orleans’s gains. By 2014, though, progress had stalled. 

As the storm’s 10th anniversary approached, the community erupted in frustration that white outsiders were still running a mostly Black school system. At the behest of Lewis, former Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard and others, in 2016 Louisiana lawmakers passed Act 91, returning the schools to the Orleans Parish School Board.  

In anticipation of the shift, education leaders troubleshot a number of inequities. For example, they instituted a single computerized enrollment system to stop individual schools from cherry-picking students and established a universal discipline system to keep them from pushing challenging kids out. Agreements were forged on transportation and funding. 

With new arrangements in place outlining which responsibilities belonged to local school leaders and which accrued to the district, the state returned the schools to local control in 2018 — less than two years before COVID-19 hit. 

Education researchers and policymakers throughout the country watched anxiously, wondering whether the experiment would continue or sputter out under district oversight. Moving the system from a C to an A, many opined, would require daunting changes.

a division of authority. Decisions about things like staffing, academic focus and the length of the academic day or year are made by the schools themselves. NOLA Public Schools is the authorizer of the district’s 79 individual schools, some of which are part of independent networks. The district’s main duty is to decide, on an ongoing basis, whether a school’s performance merits renewal of its charter, and if not, what should replace it. 

Holding schools accountable for performance, however, is something many elected boards struggle to do in the face of inevitable pushback. Recognizing this, Act 91 insulates NOLA Public Schools’ superintendent and spells out criteria for renewing or terminating a school’s charter. It’s an arrangement most state and local leaders favor preserving. 

“We have such a unique system in New Orleans, but it’s more manageable than it seems from the outside,” says Mehok. “It’s very clear what is the responsibility of the schools and what is the responsibility of the central office. I could very quickly write that on a piece of paper.”

As the autonomy-for-accountability law was being crafted, however, academic growth in the system as a whole had stalled and policymakers had begun to fret about constraints on the district’s ability to continue to improve. Schools were still highly segregated and uneven at best at serving children with disabilities and English learners. 

One huge problem: The system hasn’t been able to adequately increase the number of high-quality options available to families. The superintendent will need to both find ways to help existing, successful school networks grow without diluting their quality and recruit new leaders. 

And there are concerns that the pandemic may weaken district leaders’ resolve when it comes to accountability. Six schools are in danger of losing their charters this fall, but the full set of data the superintendent is supposed to use to make recommendations about their fate has not been available for two years because of COVID-19 disruptions. 

In its absence, the district is ” of each school that may take other factors into account. This subjectivity may be necessary in a pandemic, but some fear it could lead to a permanent loosening of the rules. 

NOLA Public Schools needs about 900 new teachers a year, as well as a supply of new leaders. Also sorely needed, even before COVID-19 and the most recent hurricane, was mental health support for children whose families are still dealing with being uprooted during Katrina. 

Another problem: Despite the intense interest in New Orleans’s novel system among education wonks nationwide, families with children in the schools don’t necessarily understand how they work, or by extension, which of their complaints the superintendent and board have the power to address and which should be directed to their school. 

“The person in this position needs to come in and build a clear vision for the system going forward,” says Scott Benson, a member of the board of New Schools for New Orleans and a managing partner at the NewSchools Venture Fund. “They need to build that clarity of vision with the community.” 

Decision-maker and communicator-in-chief, talent magnet

New Schools for New Orleans surveyed the city’s school leaders about their priorities for a new superintendent. Among the top traits: the ability to make hard decisions and communicate the rationale, says Holly Reid, the organization’s chief of policy and portfolio. 

Beyond that, school leaders said they want the new superintendent to be someone people want to work for. “Do they have a track record of attracting talent?” says Mehok. “Turnover at the central office makes our jobs a lot harder. We lose institutional memory and we have to bring new people up to speed.”

Perhaps most important, the person chosen should embrace the role of partner. “Every charter school leader has mentioned the importance of collaboration,” says Olin Parker, who left his job as a state charter school regulator to take a seat on the Orleans Parish board. “Not just working within the district, but bringing school leaders together.”

School-level administrators have long met to talk through common issues and to jointly let NOLA Public Schools know what support they need from the district. The result is an unusually nimble system, say Parker and others. 

School leaders praised NOLA Public Schools for stepping in to troubleshoot issues they raised in the early days of the pandemic much more quickly than other Louisiana school systems. Immediately after schools were ordered to close, for example, the district bought and distributed thousands of internet hotspots and helped schools buy meals for families.

More recently, when Hurricane Ida damaged the KIPP network’s Frederick A. Douglass High School too much for it to reopen, a neighbor, Lusher Charter School, offered up a building. Community members to get the facility ready within days, says Parker. 

“They sent out an all-call for volunteers, and 300 people came out,” he says. “They painted, swapped furniture, put up bulletin boards. It went from drab to fab in a week.” 

Limits on the new superintendent’s authority notwithstanding, there’s room for creativity and a community ethos of collaborative problem-solving, says Benson. “The chapters of this story — in terms of governance, in terms of leadership — are still being written,” he says. “I don’t think it is a foregone conclusion one way or the other what the ending is going to be.”

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to New Schools for New Orleans and .

Unfortunately, between the and school leaders and the utter failure of teacher training programs to educators to all teachers to effectively serve Black and brown students, that authentic connection is in precariously short supply.

African Americans account for just 7 percent of the and 11 percent of school , while 15 percent of students are Black. And while nearly 30 percent of public school students identify as Hispanic, just 8 percent of teachers and 9 do. These aren’t just harrowing mismatches; they’re self-reinforcing deficiencies that push children further behind. 

Research has shown the that Black and brown teachers and leaders have on students, but it also has demonstrated the effect they can have on the larger school community. Black- and brown-led schools are more of Black and brown teachers. Black, brown and Indigenous school founders and leaders more easily build trusting relationships with the in which their . 

With a push to acknowledge these too often ignored facts, there has been a welcome swell in the number of voices calling for more Black and brown leaders to be put in top roles. But a truly effective effort will take more than just replacing white faces with Black or brown ones. These leaders need the resources to create institutions and systems of their own design and vision, and there has to be a broader vision of what it means to lift up leaders of color. For that to happen, our public schools and the organizations that contribute to their effective operation need to construct systems of support and preparation that liberate Black and brown educators to thrive.  

Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of Black- and brown-led schools, especially in the public charter school sector, face barriers to funds, inadequate leadership support, and even outright closures. That’s why the organization I lead, the National Charter Collaborative, is exclusively  focused on supporting the work of charter school leaders of color through what we call an umbrella of support.

It starts with supply. We work to increase the number of school leaders and grow the pipeline of school board members of color. These leaders, properly supported, can do profound good by their students and communities. As Yetta Lewis of Gestalt Community Schools , “When you know a child and form an authentic relationship with their parents, it impacts how you educate a child, it impacts how they access the educational environment.”  

Second, we strengthen. We build professional learning communities and provide real thought partnership through our flagship — an 18-month program for Black and brown school leaders centered on developing innovative, scalable and culturally responsive solutions with their peers and subject matter experts. Our goal is to ensure that Black- and brown-led schools can not only succeed, but thrive and expand to serve more students and communities of color. I myself have seen the power of a peer network. Having participated in the City Fellowship supported by City Fund, the relationships, perspective and support I have received from my fellow education leaders have strengthened my practice and expanded my toolkit as a leader.  

Finally, we work to sustain Black- and brown-led schools. This takes the form of research on the issues and challenges facing school leaders of color, their students and their communities. This empowers school leaders to improve the teaching and learning in their schools, build their own leadership practices and provide the comprehensive support their communities require. 

Our work to sustain also takes the form of ensuring that the voices of Black and brown school leaders and their school communities are heard and valued. Being able to tell our own story as school leaders, to directly speak your own truth to power, has always been vital for our shared liberation — education or otherwise. The collaborative provides the tools, strategies, networks and capacity to effectively share the challenges and successes our schools and leaders face and, in doing so, help them make the case for their continued growth. 

Schools leaders of color are essential levers in the pursuit of educational equity and justice. But in order for them to thrive, we must overcome the barriers to their historical success. That requires a network of supports designed specifically to enable Black and brown leaders and teachers to do their best work in the service of their students and communities. The National Charter Collaborative’s mission is to foster such a network of support — a vital and urgent aim.

Naomi N. Shelton is chief executive officer of the National Charter Collaborative, a nonprofit organization focused on increasing the diversity and performance of the nation’s charter school sector by supporting the success of single-site schools led by leaders of color. 

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to ����Ӱ��.

Speaking to ����Ӱ�� as the uprising was unfolding, Clay Roy said the day exposed the “very deep divisions” in America, but she also held onto a sense of optimism: “I am hopeful in this moment, that there is a peaceful conclusion to what’s happening now and that folks can begin to focus on how we are going to move forward and try to repair many of the breaches and rips that have occurred.”

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That hope infuses how Clay Roy talks about about civics education and in particular action civics — an approach that guides students to find a problem in their community and work together to solve it — which Generation Citizen helps bring to life in classrooms around the U.S.

More recently, critics have action civics for encouraging students to be activists and for promoting partisan causes. But, Clay Roy said, Generation Citizen is “issue neutral” and teachers using the program let students choose issues that matter to them.

Clay Roy said the controversy is an opportunity to explain Generation Citizen’s mission and talk about its success. , for example, showed students in Generation Citizen classrooms were more likely to say they participate in their other classes.

����Ӱ�� talked to Clay Roy earlier this year about her own journey with civic life and her dreams for Generation Citizen.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

����Ӱ��: I noticed in that when you were a kid you campaigned door to door for local politicians in Boston and led the youth coverage of the 2000 presidential election for a PBS show. How did you first get interested in civics and politics? 

Clay Roy: I grew up in a house where politics were talked about all the time. As an only child of two educators, I often say this because it is very true: I went from my preschool years of having Sesame Street on the TV all the time to watching the Eyes on the Prize documentary on PBS on repeat. The was this powerful representation of the Civil Rights Era.

Even though I was growing up in the 1980s, that it was on so frequently in my house is a representation of the fact that my parents believed that the struggle for civil rights wasn’t over, but had changed. I grew up in a house where there was a lot of discussion about politics, equity, fairness, and the role that education can and should play in a fair society.

I remember in third grade, during the Bush-Dukakis election, I volunteered to do a classroom debate with a fellow student. I was really passionate about politics from a very, very early age.

It really developed outside of school. On weekends, I would get involved with voter registration campaigns, which you could volunteer for even if you were too young to vote, or go door to door for city council candidates. I had a chance to think through that — and by watching lots of C-SPAN and Meet the Press from an early age — really develop greater confidence in myself as a future citizen and civic actor.

Part of the reason I’m so passionate about the work that Generation Citizen does is because I think it is important that a young person’s civic identity is formed in lots of spaces. For some people that’s family, for some people that’s church or faith, and for others, it might come about from a youth organization they’re involved with. But school is such an important setting for young people to have that civic identity affirmed and grow.

It was really an incredibly caring high school teacher who encouraged me to be confident and to talk about what I cared about inside of school, even if that’s not what anyone else was talking about, even if teachers weren’t necessarily creating opportunities to talk about current affairs. That teacher knew about my interest because I was always bothering him about it, talking to him about it. He encouraged me to really develop that part of my identity, and that was really important and allowed me to go from being a pretty shy and quiet middle schooler to a really proactive vocal high schooler and college student. And so I deeply appreciate not only the foundation I was given by my parents in terms of my own civic development but, I really credit that teacher, Mr. Bryant, for helping me solidify that in the school setting.

Thinking back to you as a kid, was there anything in particular that stuck with you or really inspired you in the Eyes on the Prize documentary? 

What I really noticed was how young many of the protesters were. It was clear to me that this was different from what I read in history books, which seemed to focus on what older people were doing, what established leaders who held representative office were doing. These change makers who were putting their bodies on the line — and who ended up in many ways being founding mothers and fathers of our multiracial democracy — were really young. It was visible that they were teenagers or college students.

It was reinforced by my parents telling me about their own experience. They both were involved in civil rights efforts, and they talked about that. I was also inspired because so much of our civil rights story of the 20th century in this country has had both youth leadership and happened in and around schools.

I grew up in Boston, so the Boston busing riots were never far from our imagination. I started school after the riots had occurred, but it was all a reminder, and one that I carry with me when we talk about issues of racial equity and racial justice. Those aren’t somehow grown-up issues that should be shielded from children. Children are very much engaged and involved in those elements of our society, from as soon as they leave home, and we have a responsibility to create an environment that’s worthy of young people’s engagement, and we have to be conscious of their safety.

We also should not shield young people from conversation and opportunities to engage in changing their surrounding environment until they’re old enough to vote. There’s nothing magical about the age of 18 that says that that’s when you fully become a member of society. Just because we’ve determined that to be the voting age doesn’t mean that that’s the first age when you get to take civic action, or when the consequences of government will start to affect you. The consequences of government start to affect young people far sooner.

I think that what the takeaway for me [from Eyes on the Prize] was that young people have an opportunity and a moral responsibility to be involved in civic change.

Some critics have said action civics tends to leave out facts that they think students should know or that it overemphasizes social justice and progressive causes. What do you make of those criticisms? 

I think it’s important to be grounded in facts — we want that for our students. … Action civics is project-based learning about civics and our democracy. And the fact is classrooms are one of the only public spaces where students engage with the world independently from their caregivers. It’s especially important that students have an opportunity to learn in a supported and supportive setting, about current event issues, so that they can be supported on their path toward active citizenship.

One of the core tenets of our work at Generation Citizen is that we as an organization are completely issue neutral. We have never selected an issue that students participate in, nor do we ask teachers to play any role in that. That’s one of the many areas that we are in fact looking to support student critical thinking, student learning and deliberative debate among students, which are the skills we’re trying to teach. The students select the issues that they work on.

For those who are worried about politics in the classroom, we know that the overwhelming experience of Generation Citizen teachers over the last decade in several states has been that the curriculum brings students together and helps them find common ground, reducing polarization, reducing mistrust. We’ve seen that from Texas, to California, from Oklahoma to Massachusetts, and Rhode Island and New York, and and we believe that project-based civics really teaches students to engage in civil discourse, bridge their differences and build consensus, which are some of the skills that we sorely need as adults in this country. Being able to help the rising generation do that feels more important than ever.

Does the culture war that’s unfolding around critical race theory change how you think or talk about Generation Citizen’s work?

It doesn’t change fundamentally except that we always feel like we have a responsibility to communicate about our work in a way that is understood. And so if it means that we have to more thoroughly share our approach with a variety of different stakeholders, we don’t take that as a problem: That’s a good thing to have the opportunity to talk about our work with different folks. Our work is more important than ever. The concerns that are being lifted up do not take us off of our path as an organization seeking to support high-quality civics education across the country, and we believe that education and action are both good for democracy … We want more people to participate in their communities, not fewer. And I think what’s important is we know that because this has become polarized, and there’s different levels of information in different communities about what action civics is.

We welcome the opportunity to share our work with teachers and students, of course, but also with parents and school boards, and others. What we can take for this moment is it is always good to be having conversations about how we can best support student learning, and best support students on their path to becoming whole adults. We welcome the opportunity to talk about that.

What would you say to a teacher or a principal who wants to bring Generation Citizen into their school or classroom but is worried about hearing backlash from people who might just be uninformed about what it means or who are worried that it’s going to be too political?

I think it comes down to first making the very clear, data-driven case, first, that action civics is effective at supporting student learning. We know that high quality civics education prepares young people to be informed civic participants in our in democratic society. There are so many program evaluations that verify the effectiveness of Generation Citizen’s work and other civics education curricula, and find positive influences on their applied knowledge, their skills, as well as their civic disposition.

The other part is to answer some of the questions that other stakeholders might ask of that teacher or administrator. First, does action civics promote a partisan agenda? And the fact is no, it does not push any partisan agenda. Neither the curriculum nor teachers ever tell students what to think or what to prioritize or identify as a critical issue. Instead, teachers are guided to help students gather reliable information, including sources of information from different perspectives, and how to read those carefully considering assumptions and underlying logic to formulate their own conclusions.

Another question that sometimes comes up is, are students too young to engage? What we know is that civic literacy is not something you’re born with, but it can be developed in a developmentally appropriate way at every age from elementary school on up… No one is imposing on students an agenda, but in fact, teachers are giving them tools to use as they look at the world out in front of them, which can be their classroom, school, community or country. This is different in each school. We believe that teachers have deep wisdom and knowledge about how to support their students through this journey, and our role as Generation Citizen is to provide state standards-aligned materials, and a well-documented and tested program that can support educators to guide their classes through that process.

The last thing that has been raised, for example, on social media, is a notion that students are taught to protest or to have or to have a negative point of view about establishment or government. That is not what action civics is doing. We’re supporting students to learn how to find their own voice and participate in self government. … We take very seriously the notion that our government is a government for the people, by the people and of the people. And action civics is a set of tools that helps schools make that real for their students. And I can’t think of anything more important or more patriotic that schools could be doing in a moment like we’ve been in.

We just have lived through a really dramatic couple of years: There’s a major crisis in the pandemic. We saw an impeachment, Donald Trump disputing election results and making false claims, and an armed insurrection at the capitol. What does civics education need to look like in the post-Trump presidency America? 

Despite the intensity of this moment, civics education in many ways is as urgent now as it was 12 years ago when this organization was founded, and the urgency remains, and has only grown. What Generation Citizen believes is critical for civics education is that it is fully experiential and action-oriented. Not just because pedagogically that is a powerful approach to engage students and have them feel excited about and connected to what they’re learning. It’s even more critical in this moment, because in a moment like this when we are seeing such turmoil, a danger can be that young people — or any of us — get into an observational stance around our government. We have to remain firm in a sense of our own agency. And the active role that we play reminds me of , “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.” It feels particularly critical in how we think about civics education and I think what is so essential, even on a day like Jan. 6 when [many students were in school remotely and might have been watching on TV].

By having a positive experience where they have learned about and identified a priority issue in their community and researched it so that they feel confident in their understanding of that issue, and then having the experience of being able to go to city council meetings, talk with local officials, work with staffers of a state legislator and put together legislation — to me, that kind of lived experience can create a likelier path to success for bigger projects.

What does your identity as a Black woman and your previous work on racial justice mean for you as the leader of Generation Citizen? 

I’m conscious, frequently, of the fact that a generation from now, there will be no one racial group that is a demographic majority in the United States. I’m hopeful about that. I think people are recognizing that greater racial justice and deeper democracy are actually interwoven as critical for America’s foundational strength, and that it’s going to be difficult for us to have a strong multiracial democracy without addressing the challenges that racial injustice have created in the foundations of our country.

[At Generation Citizen,] we have set a clear goal around strengthening democracy by elevating youth voice, and that also means being attentive to the ways in which racial equity is connected to whose voices are listened to. The outcomes of a healthy, robust democracy are intertwined with the outcomes of an equitable society. That’s something that for me, as a Black woman growing up in this country, has always kind of been second nature. I can’t imagine a notion of a strong, healthy democracy that leaves some people out. So in that sense, I think we have always been on the path of perfecting our democracy. And we’re not, in fact, in a moment where we are looking to the past, to find our democratic strength, I think we’re looking to the future.

The poem that has always resonated with me so profoundly — though this was before became perhaps one of my favorite American poets — but the poem that’s always struck me so deeply, so personally, is Langston Hughes’s and the recognition that he describes in that poem — “America will be” — is my version of patriotism, which is a deep, abiding love for the country that we could become, and that we have not yet been. That language really speaks to a recognition that you cannot have a true robust, healthy democracy that leaves some people out based on any marker of their identity.

From a practical point of view, how does getting kids involved in action civics and real-life projects help make this country a more robust democracy? 

It does it in a number of different ways. When young people participate in Generation Citizen’s curriculum, some of them go very quickly from feeling like they are observing politics from afar to recognizing that they are actual changemakers in their community at that moment. They don’t need to wait for anyone’s permission to be changemakers in their community. And once you learn that, and once you’ve experienced that, and you have gotten the attention of an elected official who is listening to you, recognizing your expertise, and is starting to make change as a result of what they’ve heard, it’s hard to go back to a place where you think that your participation doesn’t matter.

Even if your entry point to that is on the safety of water of the water in your schools, as it is for some of our students in New York, or it’s about substance abuse issues in your school in Lowell, Massachusetts, whatever your entry point is, the recognition and the civic knowledge you develop, as a result of that process, will forever be part of your consciousness as other collective challenges arise. You have learned the skills to bring your voice forward and engage others to bring their voices forward, to try to make community change. And particularly to do that outside of the ballot box. Now, we believe so deeply in voter engagement, and often partner with groups that work on voter engagement, but too often, our conversations about democracy with young people are telling folks to vote. We feel very deeply that what we’re doing here is talking about everyday democracy, which complements voting and is a real driver of long-term civic engagement.

The other piece is that in our curriculum, we invite students to do a root cause analysis of the challenges facing their community. That is a lesson that sticks with young people. When we ask years later, what do you remember most of the curriculum, often former students talk about the root cause analysis, because once you have undergone that with a great teacher, with engaged classmates about one issue, you keep doing it, and you wait to return to a deeper understanding of the root causes of any of the symptoms of our collective crises. For me, that is the most exciting kind of critical thinking you can do.

And lastly, the civic knowledge and skills that are developed as a part of the curriculum invite young people to understand the levers of power in their community, in a way that does make them more invested and engaged in future elections, and potentially in running for office themselves, because they have a real, tangible understanding of how change gets made on issues that they know impact their lives.

You wrote this year in a Generation Citizen that hope is a “tool of personal and collective survival.” Can you talk more about your sense of hope and what that means for you going forward?

Many of us who spend time working with young people in or out of schools have to be hopeful almost by definition because there’s attention to the possibility in every day and the possibilities for each student and a real commitment to never giving up … Some of my hope is grounded in a core belief that individuals can make a positive and profound difference and that even as we see dark moments for our country, the positive action of individuals, particularly young people, can be meaningfully transformative. I believe that when we invest in young people — whether that’s through civics education, whether that’s through mentoring, whether that’s through the arts or the many other areas where we invest in young people — we will see the results of that can be exponential. That’s why I feel deeply passionate about working with and for young people.

The other reason I feel a sense of hope and optimism is because I believe there has been a greater unveiling of the challenges that we face as a country and a shared witnessing of the seriousness of the moment we’re in. The pandemic has made incredibly visible our interdependence. It’s become cliche to say this, but we’re not going back. We’re only going forward. I believe strongly that there is going to be a deep desire on the part of many many many Americans to find ways to move forward that strengthen our democracy. I believe we’re not going to take it for granted.

I am particularly hopeful because I think that the rising generation — which reflects a diversity not yet seen in America and a greater understanding and openness to our diversity — creates space for so much leadership to emerge. They can be transformative for our country in a positive way. I’m excited about this work because of what Generation Citizen’s work can do to support our democracy and to support a sense of self worth and agency in the hearts of young people across this country. I think both of those are needed — collective transformation and an individual sense of agency and purpose.

Choudhury, currently the district’s Associate Superintendent of Strategy, Talent, and Innovation, built a popular school integration plan, and was also involved in creating a similar one in Dallas ISD. 

Choudhury, 37, a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Bangladesh, is an outspoken proponent of integration, known for frank discussion on issues of race and poverty.

 He is also the primary architect of the tiered poverty measurement system now used by Texas to target state funding to the highest need schools in the state. 

“One of the things that really caught my attention was that he thinks big and thinks small,” said Maryland State Board of Education president Clarence Crawford of Choudhury. “He thinks big, because he thinks of big bold fresh ideas. He thinks small, because he’s able to turn those ideas into results.”

Board members and the outgoing state superintendent told Choudhury they looked forward to seeing how he would build on progress the state had recently made.

While there was indeed a lot to be proud of in the state, Choudhury said, “That doesn’t mean there aren’t gaps…we are only as strong as our most struggling student.”

He told the board that he looked forward to working with them to make Maryland a state that “demands equity, celebrates innovation, and values accountability.”

Choudhury will be charged with implementing a landmark school funding initiative, the , passed in February by the Maryland General Assembly. Democrats control the legislature, and the Blueprint gained enough support to override Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of the big-spending bill. 

The Maryland State Board of Education is an appointed body of 13 plus one student and one teacher member, and voted unanimously on the appointment. The board conducted a “quiet” search, drawing 55 applicants from across the country, said Crawford, and Choudhury stood out.

This will be Choudhury’s first political position, though working across a partisan spectrum has long been part of his job. Texas’s 2019 school funding bill, House Bill 3, drew heavy bi-partisan support, largely because of elements developed by Choudhury and his colleagues in Dallas and San Antonio. 

At the same time, some of his reform-minded strategies have at times inflamed teachers unions, and won allies among conservatives.

In San Antonio, Choudhury oversaw partnerships between the public school district and nonprofits, charter management organizations, and higher education institutions. The partnerships were controversial at times, but lucrative for the district, bringing into the district an additional $800 per student.

Choudhury has also prioritized creating “guardrails” in enrollment, staffing, and innovations to ensure that schools do not bend to pressure from wealthy or privileged parents. 

The choice-driven integration initiatives in Dallas and San Antonio created open enrollment schools using Montessori, dual language, and other popular curricular models to attract middle class families into schools where 50 percent of students qualified for free and reduced lunch, with many coming from the poorest neighborhoods in the city. A carefully monitored lottery ensured that the high-demand schools didn’t have a “back door” for local VIPs. 

Board members welcomed Choudhury and his wife, Aniss Khani, with jokes about Texas and Maryland, food recommendations, and basketball jabs, sharing their excitement to get to work with the new superintendent.

“All the board members have come up with about 10 things we’d like you to do,” Crawford joked, “We’ll give you a week.” 

FROM THE 74’S ARCHIVE: We’ve reported extensively on Choudhury’s work over the past several years, including his desegregation efforts in our special 2018 series: “78207: America’s Most Radical School Integration Experiment.” Here’s some of our recent coverage of San Antonio schools: 

• Profile — The Architect: Meet Mohammed Choudhury, the Texas innovation officer rethinking school integration
• Video Interview: Inside Choudhury’s ‘diverse by design’ strategy to integrate schools and bolster student performance (Watch the full interview)
• Diverse Schools By Design: San Antonio’s ambitious plan to expand school options — and horizons
• Pandemic Recovery: New plan will give top San Antonio educators $100,000 to fight COVID learning loss at poorest schools
• Special Report: 78207: America’s most radical school integration experiment