Here's a question I'd like every superintendent in America to answer.
What's one thing your district stopped making teachers do because it wasn't working?
Not something you replaced with a newer version. Not something you renamed. Something you actually stopped doing.
Think about how difficult that question is to answer.
Schools are remarkably good at adding things.
A new instructional framework. A new assessment. A new technology platform. A new professional development initiative. A new reporting requirement.
Every addition comes with a reason.
We need consistency. We need accountability. We need better data. We need to make sure every child receives the same opportunities.
And those are reasonable goals.
But when was the last time a school district announced that it had decided to require less?
Not because the budget was cut.
Because somebody looked at what teachers were being asked to do, examined the evidence, and decided the requirement wasn't helping children learn.
That's the conversation I want to have.
I've been thinking about this as I investigate how decisions are made in public schools. And the more questions I ask, the more interested I become in something that rarely appears in district improvement plans.
What are we willing to stop doing?
Consider professional development.
A district adopts an instructional approach. Teachers attend training. Administrators receive training on how to observe it. Meetings are scheduled to discuss implementation. Teachers are expected to demonstrate that they're using it.
Eventually, the approach becomes part of how the district operates.
Now imagine a teacher who has been using that approach for two years and believes something else would work better for a particular group of students.
What happens next?
Can the teacher explain the concern, present evidence, and make a professional decision?
Or does the teacher have to keep following the established approach because that's what the district has decided everyone should do?
There may be legitimate reasons for common expectations. A district needs to ensure students have access to an appropriate curriculum. Schools must comply with legal requirements. Teachers need support, and administrators need ways to identify ineffective instruction.
But none of those responsibilities means every instructional practice should continue indefinitely.
And none of them eliminates the need to ask whether a requirement is producing the result it was supposed to produce.
Here's another example.
Technology.
A district purchases devices for students. It invests in software, infrastructure, training, technical support, and replacement equipment.
Over time, the technology becomes part of the school day.
Teachers adapt their lessons. Students develop routines. Parents learn to monitor assignments online.
But purchasing technology and making it available are not the same as demonstrating that it improves learning.
The important question isn't whether students have access to a Chromebook.
It's whether the Chromebook is helping them learn something better than they would have learned without it.
And if the answer depends on the student, subject, age, or activity, shouldn't the teacher have meaningful authority to decide when the device belongs in the lesson?
That's not an argument against technology.
It's an argument for examining what the technology actually accomplishes.
The same principle applies to assessments, lesson-planning requirements, meetings, evaluation systems, and instructional programs.
We should be able to ask what each requirement costs in time, money, and professional attention.
And then ask what students receive in return.
Because every new requirement consumes something.
A teacher's time. An administrator's attention. A district's money.
Sometimes those costs are justified.
Sometimes they're not.
But if we only evaluate what we're adding, and rarely examine what we're keeping, the system becomes more complicated every year.
And complexity starts to look like improvement.
I think part of the problem is that schools have become uncomfortable admitting that a decision didn't work.
If a district spends money on a program, abandoning it can feel like acknowledging that the investment was a mistake.
If administrators spend years training teachers in an approach, changing direction can make their previous work seem wasted.
If a school board publicly celebrates an initiative, ending it can become politically uncomfortable.
So we keep going.
We modify the training. We adjust the implementation. We schedule another meeting. We collect more data.
And sometimes we convince ourselves that the solution to an ineffective requirement is to implement it more consistently.
But that raises an uncomfortable possibility.
What if the problem isn't that teachers aren't implementing the program correctly? What if the program itself isn't the right solution?
That should be an acceptable question in any profession.
Doctors change treatments when evidence changes. Businesses discontinue products that aren't working. Coaches abandon strategies that aren't producing results.
We don't ordinarily consider those decisions proof that improvement is impossible.
We consider them part of improvement.
Schools should have the same freedom to reconsider their decisions.
And that freedom needs to extend beyond the superintendent's office.
Teachers should be able to question instructional requirements without being labeled resistant.
Principals should be able to identify unnecessary procedures without being accused of lacking consistency.
Superintendents should be able to tell school boards that an initiative hasn't delivered the expected results.
And school boards should be willing to hear that explanation without immediately treating it as a leadership failure.
Of course, changing a practice requires more than one person's frustration. Decisions should account for evidence, student needs, legal obligations, and the consequences of abandoning something that may be helping.
But that is exactly why professional judgment matters.
We should be able to have those conversations.
I recently invited Woodland District 50's superintendent and school board to sit down for a recorded discussion about instructional decisions, professional development, technology, and teacher autonomy.
One of the five questions I sent them was this:
What is an example of an instructional requirement Woodland has changed or discontinued after feedback or evidence showed it was unnecessary or ineffective?
I think that's a fair question.
And I think every superintendent should be able to consider it.
Because the answer tells us something about whether an organization is capable of learning from its own decisions.
This isn't about attacking administrators.
I've made administrative decisions I would approach differently today.
That's what experience is supposed to do.
You learn. You reconsider. You change.
But we have built an education system that often celebrates implementing something new more visibly than it celebrates eliminating something unnecessary.
Maybe that should change.
Maybe every district improvement plan should include a section titled:
WHAT WE STOPPED DOING THIS YEAR.
Not as a public-relations exercise.
As evidence that the district is willing to examine its own practices.
Imagine teachers returning in August and hearing their superintendent say:
"We listened to your concerns. We examined the evidence. And here are three things we're no longer requiring you to do."
Think about what that would communicate.
It would tell teachers that their professional experience matters.
It would tell principals that improvement isn't measured by how many initiatives they implement.
And it would tell parents that the district is willing to change its mind when something isn't helping children.
That's the kind of accountability I'd like to see more often.
Not just proving that everybody followed the plan.
Proving that we're willing to change the plan when necessary.
Schools need permission to change.
But first, they need permission to stop.
— Mike Pope
The Pope Report | Pope Studios
