Implement. Change in Education

“DCPS 23, no more.” Dorchester County Public Schools (MD), a rural district of ~4,500 students, posted Maryland’s biggest 3rd-grade ELA jump: +22 points (27% → 49%) and climbed to 19th statewide in ELA in a single year. In this episode of Implement Change in Education, Superintendent Dr. Jymil Thompson and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jodi Colman share what actually changed inside the system. Key...

A pathologist’s autopsy report can tell you exactly how a patient died. But it tells you absolutely nothing about how to live a long, vibrant life. For twenty years, K-12 education has been running an autopsy model. We call it "school turnaround." Between 2010 and 2016, the federal School Improvement Grants program poured roughly $7 billion into turning around struggling schools. The result? Null...

What does it really look like to lead a school district when your own children are learning inside that same system? In this episode of "𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑬𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏", I’m joined by two extraordinary Maryland leaders: Dr. Maria Navarro, Superintendent of Charles County Public Schools, and Dr. Sonja Brookins-Santelises, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. Together, we explore a side of education...

Maryland's $3.8B education bet had no scorecard — so we built one. 24 districts. 43 indicators. 685+ documents. The bright spots might surprise you. Maryland's first official Blueprint evaluation publishes in December 2026. The earliest quantitative data comes a year later. But the Governor and legislature need to make major policy and funding decisions in the 2027 session — before the evidence is...

One of the biggest challenges I see across systems is the gap between a strong plan and real results. In this episode of Implement Change in Education, I share an excerpt from a talk I gave at the Delaware Department of Labor’s Leadership Academy, a month-long development opportunity for promising managers of people and projects. Through two powerful stories - one from healthcare and one from chil...

With tighter budgets, what do you actually protect? Across the country, school and district leaders are facing tough choices for SY26–27 - shrinking funds, rising costs, and real pressure to cut. But the biggest risk isn’t the budget itself; it’s losing what’s already working. In our latest blog post and podcast episode, we explore a simple but critical question: How do you protect hard-won studen...

One of the clearest takeaways from my conversation with William Barnes, Superintendent of Howard County Public Schools: “We’re not going to claim greatness until we’re great for all of our students.” Superintendent Barnes leads one of Maryland’s most well-regarded districts, but what stood out most was his honesty about the students the system has not yet served well and his urgency around changin...

Organizations Change Differently Than Leaders Imagine The superintendent exhaled. "We rolled this out eight months ago. Trained everyone. Built the dashboard. And half the schools are doing something completely different." I've heard some version of that in almost every system I've worked in. The plan was clear, the training solid, and yet what happened on the ground looked nothing like what anyon...

How do you turn an emergency declaration into a sustainable literacy system? Delaware is showing us.   With only 39% of third graders proficient in reading, Governor Meyer declared a state of emergency. But what followed wasn’t just policy; it was an implementation strategy.   In this episode, Kathy Kelly and Sam Lougheed unpack the hard work of turning Science of Reading principles and high-quali...

Today I'm launching MarylandBlueprint.com — and opening it to just 25 education leaders. The Blueprint for Maryland's Future is buried in 5,000+ pages of AIB reports, district plans, and accountability decisions. MarylandBlueprint.com uses AI to turn that into something useful: district profiles, cross-district comparisons, pillar analyses, and an AI query tool where you can ask questions in plain...

In this episode, I’m joined by two Baltimore leaders advancing career readiness at scale, Brady Wheeler, Senior Program Manager for the Baltimore City Career Coach Initiative at the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, and Eric Roberts, Director of Post-Secondary Success at Baltimore City Public Schools. Together, we dive into Maryland Blueprint Pillar 3 (college & career readiness) and w...

Government for Good: Why Implementation Matters Now More Than Ever I once sat in Baltimore City Hall watching Mayor O'Malley review data dashboards tracking everything from potholes to crime stats. "Show me your data," he'd demand of department heads. This wasn't political theater—it was government using evidence to serve people effectively. As we face critical challenges in governance today, the...

Kicking off the new year with highlights in our end-of-year podcast compilation featuring incredible education leaders and practitioners. 🎉 Throughout the second half of the year, we had the pleasure of recording conversations with leaders who are doing the hard, real work of implementing change across education systems—and this episode brings together some of the moments that resonated most with...

In this episode, I’m joined by two of Delaware’s workforce and CTE leaders — Joanna Staib, Statewide Coordinator of Delaware’s new Office of Workforce Development, and Dr. Jon Wickert, Director of Career & Technical Education at the Delaware Department of Education. Together, they co-chair Delaware Pathways, a statewide strategy designed to ensure every learner has a clear, supported route to...

In this special episode, I celebrate the two-year anniversary of my book How to Implement (Just About) Anything, now available as an audiobook on Audible! I share reflections on what has changed and what still holds true about implementation since the book’s release, and introduce a short excerpt from one of the book’s most practical insights for leaders driving change in real-world systems. Links...

Go See the Work: What Delaware's Early Literacy Site Visits Revealed Delaware is tackling early literacy with purpose and precision. In this episode, we explore what happened when Secretary of Education Cindy Marten and her team visited the work in action across five schools. The visits revealed powerful insights: • When schools commit to core practices and use data effectively, students thrive •...

NEW EPISODE: Where High-Quality & Diverse Teachers Drive Student Success My conversation with Dr. Maria Navarro, Superintendent of Charles County Public Schools, reveals a powerful blueprint for educational transformation in action. Dr. Navarro's district has increased teacher diversity from 37.8% to 43.2% while dramatically expanding National Board Certification candidates from 8 to 117 teach...

For Father's Day, I was given a family-friendly cooking class from my wife and boys (3rd and 6th grade). The experience reminded me of how cooking and education have quite a bit in common. Including cuts and burns! Chefs know that success in the kitchen doesn’t happen by accident—it’s built through *mise-en-place* (“everything in its place”). Leaders face the same challenge: prepare well, or get l...

Making Reform Real: Lessons from Maryland’s Blueprint Want to implement ambitious education reforms that actually stick? Maryland’s Blueprint shows us the stakes — and the lessons. I recently joined the Blueprint Pillar 5 Advisory Committee to share insights on how communication and implementation strategies can make or break systemic reform. While Maryland is the case study, these lessons apply a...

Finding Our Stride in Times of Change! Change is hard — but when we embrace it, it opens the door to possibilities we never saw before. Driving back from CACTE through the Rockies, I was reminded that change often feels like stepping into the unknown, but those paths can lead to powerful growth. As William Bridges writes in Managing Transitions, change is like a marathon. Leadership isn’t about sp...

EdScale's Founder Tom DeWire gave the closing keynote in July 2025 at the annual CACTE Summit in Colorado to talk about change management.  It was an incredible gathering of over 400 educators in Colorado focused on career and technical education.  Since 1917, Colorado Association for Career and Technical Education (CACTE) has been the largest state organization supporting CTE educators in their e...

What does it take to build and retain a strong, more diverse educator workforce? This episode spotlights Delaware’s bold approach to strengthening the teacher pipeline, and how one state is turning strategy into sustainable, statewide impact. Inside the episode: How Delaware is tackling teacher shortages with short- and long-term strategies Why partnerships, pathways, and pipelines are reshaping t...

In this episode of Implement Change in Education, we’re joined by Laura Weeldreyer, Executive Director of the Maryland Family Network. With decades of leadership in public and private education, including key roles at Johns Hopkins and Baltimore City Schools, Laura brings a clear-eyed, mission-driven perspective on what it takes to build a truly integrated early childhood system. Drawing on her ye...

What will it take to turn Maryland’s historic Blueprint into lasting change? Our latest blog unpacks why coordination is breaking down and what it will take to turn visionary policy into real impact for schools, students, and communities. Inside the post: - Why implementation has become “everything, everywhere, all at once - What districts are doing well — and why we’re not learning from them - Ho...

In this episode of Implement Change in Education, we’re joined by the visionary Dr. Derek Mitchell, CEO of Partners in School Innovation. With deep roots as a district leader, researcher, and systems thinker, Dr. Mitchell shares a powerful perspective on what it really takes to improve outcomes in under-resourced schools. Drawing from decades of work across the country—and his own experience growi...