The Louisiana Story

Let’s face it: We were all desperately searching for any bright lights in the sea of darkness that is the 2024 NAEP scores. So when one of those bright lights was Louisiana, our inboxes started filling up with questions about our firsthand experiences there: What did Louisiana do right? How can other states replicate it? 

Over the next few weeks, Kunjan and I are going to tell as much of the Louisiana story as we can and share our insights from a career spent working in the state. The fact that this is a series, not a single post, really says a lot: Louisiana’s success isn’t due to any one thing, one administration, or one year. It came from a clear set of priorities and a series of deliberate, aligned steps to get kids learning. This started years before we were there, and continued for years after.

In these next few weeks, we’ll boil down the most important takeaways with tangible to-dos for state leaders. 

The Louisiana story is defined by four key things:

1. A coherent vision for an improved student experience shared among everyone in the state, along with rigorous standards that were aligned with that vision and made sense in the lives of kids and teachers. (See this post for a good reminder of what it means to take your vision from vague platitudes to specific changes). 
2. An implementation chain that named every player between the statehouse and the student, described the most important behavior shifts they must make to achieve the student vision and included a plan for measuring the extent of these changes.
3. A plan for using the state’s most important levers (standards & assessments, funding, accountability, regulations & guidance, support & training, and communications) to elicit behavioral shifts from everyone in the implementation chain.
4. Opportunities to review data, glean insights, and adjust strategy to ensure achievement of the student vision.

We’ll get into the nitty-gritty for K-8 and early childhood (ECE) and explore everything from unifying all your state and federal funding through a SuperApp to revamping your weekly and monthly communications to principals and teachers. 

But before anything else, here’s what state leaders should know today:

First: Yes, YOU can do this in your state — really! 

We often hear state leaders say, “We can’t do that — local control makes it impossible.” Louisiana is proof that’s not true. Yes, local control is real. There are 13,000 elected school boards across the country, each making decisions for their communities. But local control doesn’t mean state leaders get to abdicate responsibility, it means they need to get savvy about using the levers they do have to influence behavior and support improvement. The state’s role is to make the right thing the easy thing. That means giving teachers, principals, and district leaders the clarity, support, and momentum they need to do what’s best for kids. We’re going to give you a list of those levers — pull them!

Second: Yes, I meant it when I said Louisiana has been at this for decades. 

Back in 1977, Louisiana implemented statewide assessments, marking the beginning of a decades-long journey toward better accountability. By the early 2000s, students in grades 3-8 were being tested in all four core subjects — English language arts, math, science, and social studies — going beyond what the federal government required. These annual results helped parents understand how their children’s schools stacked up and helped teachers meet student needs. 

To make the data more accessible, Louisiana introduced an A-F school grading system, giving every community a straightforward snapshot of how their local schools performed. High schools added end-of-course exams to ensure that earning a diploma meant students had mastered essential academic skills. And when schools persistently underperformed, the state intervened to help those schools turn things around. What has worked in states that outperform the nation like Louisiana and Mississippi can and must be applied urgently in your state.

Third: Passing big, statewide policies is the start of the race, not the finish line. 

While state policies established a strong accountability structure, Louisiana’s real progress came from the state agency’s involvement in supporting teachers to shift their daily interactions with students at the classroom level. The shift wasn’t about reinventing what was happening in classrooms, it was about aligning resources, professional development, and district-level decisions to support what the best teachers and schools were already doing well. The state’s role was to support those efforts and spread them around, acting as wind in their sails, not a gun to their heads. Over time, that approach helped Louisiana do something powerful: define what an excellent student experience should look like in every grade from K to 12.

And finally: Louisiana is far from perfect! There’s a lot of work left to do. 

The state mapped out in detail what needed to change at every level — classroom, school, district, and state — and partnered with educators, families, and community leaders to make that vision real. Was it perfect? No. Is it still a work in progress? Absolutely. But the key was sustained movement — aligning incentives, removing obstacles, and making sure teachers and leaders had what they needed to move kids forward. 

Our students don’t have decades to wait. Kunjan and I want to share what worked for us in Louisiana so we can all move toward progress faster for more kids. And we’re excited to dive in with you next week! 

Let’s Get Muddy

Do you have specific questions you want us to address about K-8 or ECE as we talk Louisiana over the next few weeks? Let us know in the comments.