The Delta Issue #98

Everyone Agrees Implementation Matters. So Why Aren’t States Acting Like It?

Hi y’all, Kunjan here.

Over the last decade, the education world has reached an important consensus: implementation is what turns good ideas into better outcomes. The problem is that while our rhetoric has changed, our behavior—especially at the state level—often hasn’t.

Both states and districts spend enormous amounts of time planning, curating, and reviewing—obsessing over getting things exactly right instead of focusing on what’s happening in classrooms. In many cases, the pursuit of perfection gets in the way of getting things done for kids.

Implementation doesn’t have to die on the vine while we continue debating inputs. States have enormous influence over the conditions districts operate in, and they can make it easier for districts to focus on what happens in classrooms.

Here are four things states can do right now to help districts move from planning to implementation.

1️⃣ Spend less time curating curriculum and more time supporting it.

States should help districts identify high-quality instructional materials, and there are a growing number of resources to support those choices. But at some point, you have to pick one and move on.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t curate curriculum—you should. It’s to say curriculum selection is only the beginning. Once those decisions are made, the bulk of the work should shift toward implementation.

States don’t have to do all of that work alone. National organizations have created strong resources to help identify high-quality instructional materials. States should leverage those resources to ease the burden on themselves and redirect that time and capacity toward implementation.

A good curriculum only improves outcomes if districts purchase the materials, teachers are trained to use them, coaches know how to support them, and new staff are onboarded into the work. States have to support districts and schools all the way down the implementation chain. If schools need help getting access to the new curriculum, help them get access. If they need support training teachers or onboarding new staff, help them do that, too.

In Louisiana, state leaders asked districts to submit a picture of a purchase order receipt showing they actually ordered the new curriculum.

And we literally used to roll dumpsters down hallways to clear out the old curriculum. It sounds dramatic—but if the old textbooks are still sitting on the shelf, you’re increasing the chances that teachers fall back on what they’ve always used. Sometimes implementation means making the new thing the easy thing. Sometimes it means making the old thing go away.

2️⃣ Use data to understand whether implementation is happening.

Implementation isn’t something you check on once a year. It’s something you manage every single day.

The good news is you don’t need a complex system to do it. Simple data collection tools can give you a clear picture of what’s happening in classrooms—and that information is gold. It tells you where to focus, where districts need more support, and whether your strategy is actually working.

Every state leadership meeting is an opportunity to take the pulse of implementation. Agenda item #1 should be what’s happening in classrooms. At least once a month, your team should sit down with the latest implementation data and ask: How many districts have adopted high-quality instructional materials? Which districts are still holding out, and how can we help them? How many classrooms has our team visited this month? In those classrooms, are teachers actually using the curriculum?

Then the conversation has to shift to action. What are you going to do about what you found?

Implementation is an ongoing process, so measuring it can’t be a one-time audit. States need a continuous cycle of gathering information, responding to what they learn, and tracking whether those actions are making a difference.

We said earlier that implementation dies on the vine. But it only dies if nobody catches it in time. So get into classrooms, measure what’s happening, act on what you find, and then do it again.

3️⃣ Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

We’ve talked a lot about how it’s the state’s role to make the right thing the easy thing. But we can’t forget that part of making the right thing easy is making the wrong thing hard.

A few weeks ago, we wrote that one of the state’s core responsibilities is improving outcomes for kids. One of the most important ways states do that is by designing systems so the path of least resistance leads to their priorities. If you think that’s beyond the state’s role, we’d encourage you to revisit what we wrote in The Myth of Local Control.

Whether you realize it or not, every decision your agency makes sends a signal about what matters. Every grant, procurement process, reporting requirement, and meeting either reinforces your priorities or distracts from them. If you’re not intentional about those signals, they’ll still get sent—you’ve just taken your hands off the steering wheel.

Districts are always drinking from a firehose, which makes it difficult to stay focused on the core work of implementation. States can cut through that noise by relentlessly reinforcing the few things that matter most.

For example, if you’ve already negotiated contracts with high-quality vendors, districts don’t have to spend months figuring out procurement. The easiest option becomes the best option, and working with the wrong vendor becomes much harder by comparison.

When every state touchpoint reinforces the same message, it becomes much harder for districts to get sidetracked and much easier to stay focused on what improves teaching and learning.

4️⃣ Don’t add more to people’s plates. Reprioritize their time.

State and district leaders all face the same limitation: There are only 24 hours in a day. If you want to spend more time supporting implementation, you have to spend less time on planning and administration.

Focusing your energy on implementation does not mean you need to hire a bunch of new people. You have to use the people you already have differently.

What is your team doing? How many staff members spend their days reviewing grant applications, reading long plans, or managing paperwork? What if more of that time was redirected toward visiting schools, supporting implementation, and helping districts solve problems?

It’s on states to look for opportunities to shift capacity away from activities that consume time without changing student outcomes and toward the work that gets people into classrooms and directly improves teaching and learning.

The fastest way to reclaim that time is to simplify the planning process itself. A Super App creates a single experience where state priorities, funding, reporting, and implementation supports all live in one place. Instead of asking districts to complete a different planning exercise for every initiative, states can create one system that helps districts get to work. (For more on how to build a Super App, read here.)

States should absolutely set a vision and establish clear priorities. But once those priorities are set, every effort should make execution easier. Student outcomes don’t improve because a district wrote a great plan. They improve because teachers, principals, and school systems consistently execute that plan over time.