Sometimes I get the answers to questions before I even publicly ask them.

Case in point: high school graduations.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard a steady stream of complaints about Metro Nashville Public Schools graduation ceremonies. Most were held at Municipal Auditorium, while a handful took place at Lipscomb University and the Grand Ole Opry House. The complaints weren’t necessarily about the graduates, the schools, or even the ceremonies themselves. They were about the experience.

Parking.

Lots and lots of complaints about parking.

Over the years, MNPS has steadily moved toward homogenizing graduation ceremonies. There’s a graduation handbook. There are scripts. There are prescribed procedures. There are expectations for how things should look, sound, and feel. In some ways, it’s understandable. A district the size of MNPS wants consistency.

Still, I can’t help but notice the irony.

In a district that loves to remind us that it is committed to “Every Child Known,” everything increasingly feels exactly the same.

Scripted ceremonies.

Scripted celebrations.

Scripted experiences.

At some point you start wondering whether we’re celebrating individual students or simply managing an event.

The biggest complaint I heard involved the cost of parking downtown. Students were expected to attend rehearsal the day before graduation, which meant families were paying to park multiple times. By the time everything was finished, many families were spending around $40 or more each visit.

Now, if you’re fortunate enough that forty bucks feels insignificant, good for you.

For a lot of working-class families, forty dollars isn’t insignificant.

It’s groceries.

It’s gas.

It’s a utility bill payment.

It’s the difference between ordering pizza on Friday night and eating leftovers.

I remain puzzled why an event planned months in advance can’t somehow incorporate parking into the equation. Maybe there are logistical reasons. Maybe there are contractual reasons. Maybe there are financial reasons.

Whatever the reason, it still feels like an unnecessary burden.

To be fair, bus transportation was available. But after talking with several students, the consensus seemed to be that the process was confusing and not particularly practical for their needs.

After hearing complaints all week, I found myself grumbling to a friend.

“I don’t know why we don’t just hold graduation on the football field like we used to.”

As often happens, the universe immediately decided to provide a counterargument.

Because that’s exactly what happened in Williamson County.

And then it rained.

Not a gentle spring shower.

Not one of those light Tennessee drizzles that comes and goes.

The skies opened.

Centennial High School and Franklin High School held graduation ceremonies outdoors, and students ended up celebrating one of the biggest milestones of their lives in a torrential downpour.

Predictably, parents were unhappy.

Dr. Michelle Wyatt summed up the frustration after watching her goddaughter graduate:

“Our baby did it! Congratulations Brooklynn Michelle Broadnax. We are so proud of you. We love you! Now: Centennial High School is totally OUT OF ORDER!!! These children deserved to have a graduation!!!!!”

Then, in one of those moments that reminds you social media has broken everyone’s brains, Marjorie Taylor Greene weighed in.

Yes. That Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Her argument was straightforward:

“This is ridiculous. The school should have organized graduation indoors. The graduates and their families deserved a nice ceremony.”

Williamson County Director Jason Golden offered a reasonable explanation. Families traditionally wanted graduations on campus. The district watched forecasts and radar. They believed they could finish before the weather arrived.

Mother Nature had other ideas.

And that’s when it hit me.

There isn’t a right answer.

Hold graduation downtown and people complain about parking.

Hold graduation at school and people complain about rain.

Limit attendance and people complain about ticket availability.

Expand attendance and people complain about logistics.

In the age of social media, every decision is simultaneously the worst decision ever made.

That’s not a criticism.

It’s just reality.

Someone is always going to be angry.

The challenge isn’t finding a perfect solution.

The challenge is accepting that one doesn’t exist.

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Everybody Has the Secret Formula

If graduation debates have taught me anything, it’s that everyone thinks they know how schools should operate.

The education policy world is absolutely overflowing with people who possess unwavering confidence in solutions to problems they have never personally experienced.

They’ve never taught.

They’ve never managed a classroom.

They’ve never broken up a fight in a hallway.

They’ve never called a parent to explain why a student failed a test despite not completing a single assignment.

But somehow they’ve cracked the code.

Usually the pattern is predictable.

First, they discover a miracle solution.

Then they convince enough people that they’ve discovered a miracle solution.

Then they either start a charter school or create a foundation.

Sometimes they do both.

Then they descend from the mountain carrying educational commandments.

The latest prophet to emerge is Tennessee Star publisher Michael Patrick Leahy.

Leahy is advocating for a dramatic overhaul of Tennessee education through something known as Direct Instruction.

At first glance, it sounds reasonable.

Maybe even compelling.

That’s usually how these things work.

The sales pitch is always cleaner than the implementation.

Leahy argues that despite increasing education spending, academic outcomes remain disappointing.

“It’s a huge problem because the more money we’ve spent on it, the worse the performance of kids has become.”

The statement sounds convincing.

The problem is that reality tends to be more complicated.

I’ve spent enough time around schools and students to know that today’s students are doing things that would have seemed extraordinary a generation ago.

The technology they’re using.

The research they’re conducting.

The expectations placed upon them.

The opportunities available to them.

None of that suggests a society producing less capable young people.

What it suggests is that we’re measuring success through increasingly narrow lenses.

And that’s worth discussing.

Leahy’s critique eventually lands where many education reform conversations land:

Teachers unions.

Of course.

Everything eventually comes back to teachers unions.

During his radio show, Leahy highlighted comments from education activist Liz Wright criticizing unions and the educational system.

At this point I should probably confess something.

I am married to a teacher.

Not a temporary teacher.

Not someone who taught for eighteen months before becoming an education consultant.

A career teacher.

The kind who actually stays in the classroom.

Which means I’ve had a front-row seat to the realities of public education.

Teaching is hard.

Really hard.

It’s emotionally exhausting.

Politically vulnerable.

Professionally demanding.

And frequently thankless.

Teachers unions aren’t perfect.

No organization is.

But if you’ve ever watched what classroom educators deal with on a daily basis, you understand why collective representation exists.

Without it, many teachers would be swimming with sharks without a cage.

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The Appeal of Direct Instruction

Leahy’s preferred solution is Direct Instruction.

For those unfamiliar, Direct Instruction is a highly structured educational model built around explicit teaching, scripted lessons, measurable outcomes, and carefully sequenced curriculum.

There is evidence that it can work.

Depending on how you define success.

That’s an important qualifier.

Because educational success is often in the eye of the beholder.

If your goal is maximizing performance on specific measurable tasks, Direct Instruction can be effective.

If your goal is cultivating curiosity, creativity, exploration, and independent thinking, the conversation becomes more complicated.

What concerns me isn’t necessarily the existence of Direct Instruction.

It’s the assumption that it should become the dominant model everywhere.

Education reformers often fall in love with universal solutions.

Teachers know better.

Students are different.

Schools are different.

Communities are different.

What works in one classroom may fail spectacularly in another.

That’s why good teachers employ multiple strategies.

They adapt.

They adjust.

They respond.

They don’t simply read scripts.

And that’s where Direct Instruction starts making me nervous.

A heavily scripted curriculum inevitably diminishes teacher autonomy.

Maybe that’s intentional.

Maybe that’s accidental.

Either way, the effect is similar.

The teacher becomes less professional and more technician.

Less educator and more operator.

Anybody can follow a script.

Not everybody can teach.

Those are different things.

Private schools understand this.

The same people advocating highly structured scripted learning for public school students are rarely marketing those same experiences to affluent families.

Funny how that works.

When wealthy parents are spending tuition dollars, they want innovation.

They want creativity.

They want individualized experiences.

When we’re talking about public schools, suddenly the answer becomes standardization.

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The Cost Nobody Mentions

Another thing missing from these conversations is cost.

Education reform advocates frequently discuss wasteful spending.

They rarely discuss the cost of implementing their own ideas.

Direct Instruction isn’t free.

Curriculum materials aren’t free.

Training isn’t free.

Teacher resources aren’t free.

Student workbooks aren’t free.

The irony is difficult to ignore.

Many advocates for limited government eventually arrive at the same conclusion:

The state should mandate the thing they like.

Leahy ultimately argues that Tennessee lawmakers should introduce Direct Instruction throughout public schools statewide.

Which is fascinating.

Because every conversation about local control somehow ends when somebody discovers a policy preference.

Then suddenly statewide mandates become acceptable.

Apparently government overreach depends entirely on whether you agree with the policy.

Who knew?

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Principal Season

May is always principal season.

While students are preparing for graduation and teachers are counting days until summer, district leaders are busy playing musical chairs with school leadership.

This year MNPS announced fourteen principal appointments.

Some make sense.

Some raise questions.

Most probably fall somewhere in between.

Principal placement is one of the hardest jobs in education.

The right principal can transform a school.

The wrong principal can create years of instability.

Finding the right fit isn’t easy.

It requires judgment, experience, timing, and occasionally luck.

And let’s be honest.

Politics.

Before anyone gasps, principal appointments have always involved politics.

That’s not unique to MNPS.

That’s not unique to Tennessee.

That’s public education.

The challenge is balancing politics with competence.

The hire drawing the most attention is at Hume-Fogg.

With longtime principal Kelly Harris retiring after fourteen years, one of Tennessee’s most celebrated high schools is entering a period of significant transition.

The school is losing experienced leadership at multiple levels.

That’s a lot of institutional knowledge walking out the door.

Which makes the replacement decision particularly important.

The incoming principal brings assistant principal experience from Williamson County and has been involved in diversity and recruitment initiatives.

Reasonable people can disagree about those initiatives.

That’s not really my concern.

My question is simpler.

Is this the right fit?

Hume-Fogg isn’t just another school.

It’s one of the crown jewels of the district.

It consistently ranks among the strongest academic institutions in Tennessee.

Replacing a long-serving successful leader is difficult under any circumstances.

Doing it with someone relatively inexperienced inevitably generates scrutiny.

That’s not unfair.

It’s expected.

Especially given Hume-Fogg’s unique place within district politics.

For years the school has occupied an interesting position.

Celebrated for academic excellence.

Criticized for demographic realities.

Admired by families.

Viewed skeptically by some advocates.

It’s a school that often becomes a proxy battle in larger conversations about equity, access, achievement, and opportunity.

So naturally every leadership decision gets magnified.

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The Eye Test

Some of the other appointments have generated similar conversations.

A few involve candidates with limited assistant principal experience.

Some arrive from districts facing their own challenges.

Others come from specialized instructional backgrounds rather than traditional administrative pathways.

Could they all be excellent?

Absolutely.

I hope they are.

Schools need great leaders.

Students deserve great leaders.

Teachers deserve great leaders.

But experience matters.

I’m a sports guy.

Everything eventually becomes a sports analogy.

Nobody gets called up to the major leagues without proving something first.

You spend time in the minors.

You develop.

You make mistakes.

You learn.

Then you move up.

Education leadership should probably work similarly.

Not because experience guarantees success.

It doesn’t.

But because experience provides perspective.

And perspective matters when you’re responsible for hundreds of students and dozens of employees.

That said, leadership isn’t solely about résumés.

Character matters.

Accessibility matters.

Relationships matter.

Which brings me to one appointment I genuinely feel good about.

Lish Burgess.

Over the years, Lish and I spent plenty of time on opposite sides of conversations while he served at Oliver Middle School.

We’ve disagreed.

We’ve debated.

We’ve occasionally frustrated each other.

But one thing I never questioned was his commitment.

His door always seemed open.

Sometimes probably more open than he preferred.

That’s a quality that matters.

Schools need leaders who are visible.

Leaders who listen.

Leaders who show up.

DuPont Hadley is getting someone with experience and heart.

And in education, those things still count for something.

Maybe they count for everything.

So congratulations, Lish.

Don’t make me regret writing nice things about you.

Because if you do, we’ll be right back to arguing.

And frankly, we’re both pretty good at that.

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Graduation season always brings perspective.

One minute we’re arguing about parking fees and rainstorms.

The next we’re debating instructional philosophies and principal appointments.

Different topics.

Same underlying truth.

Public education is messy.

It’s complicated.

It’s imperfect.

There are no magic formulas.

No secret sauces.

No miracle programs.

No universal solutions.

Just students.

Teachers.

Families.

Administrators.

Communities.

All trying to navigate an increasingly complicated world.

The temptation is always to believe somebody has finally discovered the answer.

The graduation answer.

The reading answer.

The leadership answer.

The education answer.

The reality is much less satisfying.

There usually isn’t one.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because education has never been about finding perfect answers.

It’s always been about asking better questions.

Nobody reads it. Everybody quotes it.