You Can Just Do Things—Education Edition
“You can just do things” is one of those memes floating around the internet, plus the name of two recent books, including one by lawyer-turned-professional poker player-turned-biotech entrepreneur Cate Hall. Another word for it is “agency.” Nike would say “Just do it.” Or as opinion columnist Matt Yglesias argues, don’t just admire a problem, do something to fix it.
It’s on my mind because of the current enthusiasm for muscular state action around teaching and learning. For decades, many of us in education policy (and ed-reform) thought these topics were taboo for state lawmakers and state ed department bureaucrats, thanks to America’s well-entrenched tradition of local control. Then a few (mostly Southern) states decided otherwise. They decided to just do things.
That’s the story of the Mississippi Marathon in a nutshell, although, as Rachel Canter explains, of course it was much more complicated. First, in the 2000s and early 2010s, state lawmakers laid a solid foundation, with higher standards, stronger assessments, a transparent A–F school accountability system, a third-grade retention policy, and investments in pre-K and literacy. Then, in 2013, Carey Wright arrived and worked to drive improvements in the core functions of schooling from her perch as state superintendent. And it worked!
She didn’t respect the timid traditional role of states versus districts—for example, just providing small grants to a few local education agencies to pilot stronger approaches to teaching reading, or merely using her bully pulpit to encourage local educators to do the right thing. No, she acted like she ran the schools and used every lever she could find to push a coherent vision of teaching and learning (especially around early reading) from the state capital to the classroom. That included directly hiring reading coaches and placing them where she thought they needed to go, designing professional learning experiences at the state level, forcing ed schools to change their ways, and leaning hard on local curricular decisions.
Other states in the South—especially Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and more recently Texas—have also used parts of this playbook. It’s similar to what our cousins across the pond in England are up to, as well. And long, long ago, Massachusetts used it to “miraculous” effect, too.
