Student Achievement | Dr. Iheoma Iruka, Nancy Livingston
In the newsletter this week: Two Learning Centered Podcasts, Teacher Pay, and Vibe Breakers.
🎙️ This Week on the Podcast: Dr. Iheoma Iruka & Nancy Livingston
🎙️ Episode 3, Dr. Iheoma Iruka, Pay Attention to PreK
In this episode of the "Learning Can't Wait" podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Iheoma Iruka, a professor at the Gillen School of Global Public Health, fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Institute, and founder director of the Equity Research Action Coalition. Dr. Iruka discusses her work with the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine on developing a new vision for pre-K curriculum, with special emphasis on supporting Black, Latino, multilingual, disabled, and low-income children who have historically been underserved. She explains how curriculum must be evidence-based, culturally responsive, and reject false dichotomies between play and academics, arguing that children need both integrated approaches to thrive.
Dr. Iruka emphasizes that while a quality curriculum is essential, it must be paired with well-supported, compensated, and trained teachers who can implement it effectively. She highlights how the Gates Foundation has worked to bring researchers, policymakers, and educators together to implement the report's recommendations through state adoption initiatives, professional organizations, and developing a research agenda. Dr. Iruka concludes with heartfelt advice for early childhood educators, encouraging them to be change agents who use their voices and recognize their profound impact on young children's development, even in the face of challenges and undervaluation of their profession.
📖 Key Quote: "Our children deserve the best, and our children of color, our children living in poverty, our children with special needs and our multilingual learners, they deserve the best. And so how do we do that."
🎙️ Episode 4, Nancy Livingston in Summer Learning
Summer Learning features the wisdom and musings of educator Nancy Livingston as she reflects on her journey in education and her current work with the National Summer School Initiative (NSSI). She shares how her grandmothers shaped her values, instilling both high standards and a deep sense of joy, which continue to guide her approach to teaching and leadership. Livingston discusses her experience as a teacher and leader at KIPP schools, where she learned to focus on what she could control to drive impact. She now brings that mindset to NSSI, which combats summer learning loss through a structured, five-week program offering 90 minutes each of daily math and ELA instruction. The curriculum is designed to align with the school-year experience while also providing teachers with meaningful professional development through mentorship with master educators.
NSSI has demonstrated strong early outcomes, including approximately 20% gains in student performance from pre- to post-assessments. Livingston emphasizes the initiative’s dual impact: accelerating student learning and building teacher capacity at a lower cost and with great scalability. The model is a great blueprint for sustainable summer programs, and I feel honored to have had a moment to learn from Livingston.
📖 Key Quote: "It is probably the hardest thing in the world to center instruction in schools. It shouldn't be, but it really is. And there's a lot of outside noise that comes in to prevent instruction from being the focus."
📚 What I’m Reading
I’m a big fan of Chad Aldeman. His incisive, data-driven insights are an absolute must read every time he publishes.
This week, Aldeman analyzed school spending and teacher pay. As previous reports have noted, spending is up across the country while teacher salaries are not.
“The graph below compares the growth in school spending versus employee salaries for the last two decades. Both figures are adjusted for inflation. But, while spending rose 31% per student, the average salary paid to district employees fell by 2.5%. If district salaries had merely kept up with total education spending, they would have been 34% higher. That would have worked out to nearly a $22,000 raise for the average employee.”
What accounts for this discrepancy? Schools are adding more full-time roles such as aides, coordinators, and admin staff, while student enrollment remains flat or slightly increases. All the while, benefits have increased, and thus, salaries have been squeezed.
Aldeman has addressed the causes of the discrepancy, but for the sake of the audience, let’s focus on its consequences: low teacher pay leads to low satisfaction, which drives burnout, then attrition, and ultimately poor student performance—each step compounding costs for schools. Do we see the problem?
This reminds me of a Learning Can’t Wait episode with Dallas Superintendent Dr. Elizalde, where she shared their teacher retention strategy. According to her, Dallas ISD retains 90% of its top teachers year over year—a success she attributes to the district’s focus on the “Three Cs”: culture, climate, and compensation.
Teacher pay matters. We have the data, we have the anecdotes, we know what to do.
If you’re curious, check it out here.
💭 What I’m Thinking About
Vibe Breakers in Education: A (Highly Opinionated) List
There’s a lot of talk in the AI world right now about vibe coding — a programming approach that leverages AI to generate code from natural language descriptions. That’s cool and all. But you know what’s not getting enough attention?
Vibe breakers.
And education has a bunch of them.
This is my unedited list of what’s crushing the vibe in too many classrooms, schools, and systems. Agree or disagree, I’ve been a teacher, a school leader, and a parent. I’ve lived it.
1. Homework. Yes, I said it.
There was a time I thought it had value. But now? The research, and my own lived experience, say otherwise. Homework is a vibe breaker. It adds stress, not depth. It punishes kids who need more support. It creates tension at home. We can do better.
2. Worksheets.
Sure, they have a place. But in a highly engaged classroom, kids should be co-creating, thinking creatively, and demonstrating learning in dynamic ways. If every student is just filling in blanks, we’ve got a worksheet problem — and yes, that’s related to homework, but it also stands alone.
3. Teachers who dismiss graphic novels as “not real reading.”
If your kid is reading, they’re reading. Period. Graphic novels are literature. They build vocabulary, comprehension, inference skills — all the things. The fastest way to turn a reader into a non-reader? Criticize what they choose to read. Let them read Amulet, New Kid, Heartstopper, whatever. Just let them read.
4. The expectation of a quiet classroom.
If you know me, you know: quiet classrooms = bad.
Joyful, noisy, curious classrooms = good.
Sure, there are moments for quiet reflection, focused writing, deep thinking. But when I close my eyes and picture a thriving school, I hear dialogue. Questions. Debate. Laughter — gasp, yes, laughter. Noise means engagement.
5. Identical art projects in the hallway.
Nothing sucks the soul out of a school faster than walking past 24 identical penguins with cotton-ball bellies. Kids are not templates. Their art shouldn’t be either. The hallway should reflect personality, not perfection.
6. Believing in “bad kids.”
This one’s the deepest cut. The ultimate vibe breaker?
Educators who still talk about “bad kids.”
Stop. Just stop. There are no bad kids. There are kids with unmet needs. Kids making poor choices. Kids responding to trauma. Kids learning to regulate. But a child’s worth is not defined by their behavior on a single day — or any day. If you still believe in the concept of “bad kids,” it’s time to reflect and unlearn. Fast.
Final thought
Vibes matter. Energy matters. School culture isn’t built with mission statements and handbooks — it’s built in moments. In classrooms. In language. In how we treat kids.