Of Interest

It was a bit of serendipity that, on the same day the link to the Superintendent Search Survey was published on Gossips, this opinion piece appeared in the New York Times: "These Three Red States Are the Best Hope in Schooling." 

Photo: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The three states in question are Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These states have achieved significant gains in public education by insisting "on metrics, accountability and mastery of reading by the end of third grade." They also recognize the importance of getting kids to attend school regularly.

The following is quoted from the piece:

For many years, skeptics have offered dispiriting arguments about the prospects for educational gains: The way to improve literacy is to fix the family, fix addiction, fix the parents, for as long as the child's environment is broken, there's not much else that can be done.

The gains in these states suggest that that critique is wrong. Mississippi and Alabama haven't fixed child poverty, trauma and deeply troubled communities--they have figured out how to get kids to read by the end of third grade.

Here's another quote that will resonate with taxpayers in the Hudson City School District:

What's particularly impressive is that the Southern surge states lifted student achievement with only modest budgets. Spending per pupil in Alabama and Mississippi was below $12,000 in 2024, while in New York it was almost $30,000.

In Hudson, the budget for 2025-2026 works out to almost $40,000 per student.