The Delta Issue #72

Your Delta 2025 Wrapped

Hi y’all, Jessica here.

If Spotify can do a year-end Wrapped, we figured The Delta deserved one too.

Over the past year, we’ve written tens of thousands of words, tried our hand at our first video Delta, and dove headfirst into some of the biggest questions in K–12. We even had a Governor — Colorado’s Jared Polis — pinch hit as our first guest author.

It’s been a rollercoaster year in K–12, with more than a few moments that made us want to put our heads on our desks. We’re deeply grateful for the way this community has shown up, and for the work you do every day to make big ideas in education real for kids.

So for our last Delta of the year, we’re taking a beat to look back at what resonated most with you — the Deltas you opened, forwarded, argued with, and came back to — and at the community that’s grown around this work.

Most-Loved Deltas

1. What’s Behind the Southern Surge? In this piece, we argued that the Northeast isn’t as unbeatable as it once was, especially after you look at longitudinal trends in NAEP scores. We dug into why states like Mississippi and Louisiana are outpacing the nation on improvement, and what structural choices might be making that possible — from countywide districts that shorten the implementation chain to appointed superintendents who can play the long game for kids.

Readers told us this Delta helped them reframe the South not as a fluke, but as a proof point: when states use their levers well, you can move an entire system.

2. The Louisiana Story We pulled apart decades of work in Louisiana — from before, during, and after our time there — to show that progress came from a clear and persistent vision for the student experience, paired with a deliberate plan for using every lever to drive adult behavior change.

This Delta was a reader favorite because it did more than say “look at Louisiana”; it said, here’s how you could actually do this in your state, even with local control, even with all the constraints you’re facing.

3. Teacher Prep Is Skimping on Foundational Math (Kunjan’s Pick) This was Kunjan’s favorite because it connects two things that are too often discussed in separate rooms: teacher preparation and student outcomes. Drawing on the National Council on Teacher Quality ’s findings, we talked about what happens when future teachers never get strong training in number sense and mathematical reasoning, and how those gaps follow them into the classroom. As many states take on math adoption in 2026, we wanted to re-up this as a reminder to invest in the people teaching the math.

Kunjan told the story of being handed a brand-new math curriculum with zero training and having to wing it. Teachers can MacGyver their way through almost anything, but that shouldn’t be the strategy. (ICYMI, there’s a great photo of Kunjan’s early days teaching in this one). 

4. Special Video Edition: Katrina, 20 Years Later (Jessica’s Pick) Our Katrina video Delta was a real departure from our usual format, and honestly, one of my favorites. I sat down with Kunjan on camera to talk about what Katrina taught us. We were both in Louisiana, but in very different places in our lives, and it made for a conversation I don’t think either of us could have written on paper. We talked about government, public schools, and what it really takes to rebuild something better after everything has fallen apart.

This Delta pushed us to think about how we bring more voice and story into The Delta next year, and maybe even experiment with a few new formats. We’d love to hear what you’d be excited for us to try.

Themes We Kept Coming Back To

Looking back, a few threads stitched this year together:

• Kids improve when adults at all levels of the system change their behavior in service of a shared vision. We talked (a lot) about the implementation chain, but for good reason. Passing a law or buying a curriculum is the start line, not the finish. To actually move student outcomes, every adult in that chain has to shift, and all of that work lives in the messy middle layers between the statehouse and the student.
• The power (and limits) of structure. From countywide districts to appointed superintendents, we talked a lot about how state design either clears a path or throws up obstacles for kids. Structure isn’t destiny, but it sets the terms of what’s possible.
• Candor as a precondition for progress. The states that are moving the needle are the ones willing to look at the data, be honest with themselves about where they are, and then actually do something about it. It’s uncomfortable, but if we’re serious about student progress, we have to name what isn’t working and then rally the system to fix it.
• The ever-expanding role of state leaders. As the federal government stepped back, the pile of responsibilities for state teams grew taller by the week. Issue after issue came back to the same place: “What can states do?” Your job was already unbelievably hard, and somehow it found a way to get harder. We see you, and we’re grateful for you.

The Delta Community Wrapped

One of the best parts of writing The Delta this year has been hearing from you. Some of you have forwarded Deltas with, “This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say,” and others have offered a completely different perspective. We’re grateful for both.

We started The Delta to make sense of education systems in motion and to have a real conversation with people who care about getting this right. If you’re reading this, you’re part of that.

As we look to next year, if there’s a question you’d like us to tackle or a problem you’re wrestling with in your state or district, drop it in the comments.

Thank you for reading The Delta this year, for thinking in public with us, for doing the hard daily work of building systems that work for kids.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday, and we’ll see you next year, 

— Jessica & Kunjan