The One-Room Schoolhouse

“It seems a universal rule in this world that people will always look for victims and scapegoats, does it not? Especially at times of difficulty and tension.”
― C.J. Sansom, Dissolution

Remember that old lyric, “It’s summertime and the living is easy?”

Whoever wrote that clearly didn’t have teenagers.

Summer used to mean a slower pace. School was out. The alarm clock got a break. Families took vacations. Kids disappeared until dark and somehow survived without location sharing, Life360, or a parent tracking their every move through three different apps.

Not anymore.

These days summer feels less like a season and more like a second job.

I’ve got a daughter heading into her senior year who is spending June doing college prep, meeting with tutors, squeezing every possible point out of the ACT, and trying to navigate a process that somehow gets more complicated every year.

I’ve got a son entering what could be the most important stretch of his athletic career. June means baseball. June means football. June means camps, workouts, throwing programs, travel schedules, and dreams of what might happen after high school.

And while families are trying to keep all those plates spinning, policymakers are hard at work.

Summer, after all, is when the students disappear.

No students means fewer distractions.

No students means fewer parents paying attention.

No students means lawmakers, administrators, consultants, and education experts can gather in conference rooms and retreats across the state and cook up their newest ideas about how schools should operate.

Some of those ideas are good.

Some are questionable.

And some make me long for the simplicity of a one-room schoolhouse.

Before I dive into the latest round of educational shenanigans, let me restate a few principles I’ve developed over the past decade writing this blog.

They’re not revolutionary.

In fact, they’re remarkably simple.

Which is probably why they’re ignored so often.

The Relationship Is Everything

The single most important factor in a student’s educational experience is the relationship between a student and a teacher.

Not a test score.

Not a curriculum map.

Not a strategic plan.

Not a consultant’s PowerPoint presentation.

A relationship.

Everything else flows from that.

If a policy strengthens that relationship, it’s worth considering.

If a policy weakens that relationship, it belongs in the trash.

That’s the lens through which I view virtually every education proposal that comes across my desk.

The second principle is equally straightforward.

Teachers cannot be effective without effective administrators.

And effective administrators understand who they work for.

Far too many school leaders believe their primary responsibility is protecting the Director of Schools.

That’s backwards.

Completely backwards.

The principal’s job is to support teachers.

To remove obstacles.

To create conditions where teachers can build relationships with students.

To establish an environment where learning can occur.

The moment administrators become more concerned about protecting central office than protecting classrooms, the entire system begins to break down.

The third principle is one policymakers continually struggle to understand.

Children are not empty containers waiting for adults to pour knowledge into them.

Kids have their own interests.

Their own motivations.

Their own agendas.

Ignore those realities at your own peril.

The fastest way to lose a classroom is to assume students exist solely to absorb whatever adults have decided is important.

Education requires engagement.

Engagement requires connection.

Connection requires listening.

Yet many education initiatives seem designed around the exact opposite philosophy.

The Myth of Expertise

One of my personal struggles is deciding how much value to place on reading about something versus actually doing it.

I love reading.

Always have.

But reading can be deceptive.

Reading about baseball doesn’t make you a baseball player.

Reading about parenting doesn’t make you a parent.

Reading about education doesn’t make you an educator.

Experience matters.

Failure matters.

Trial and error matter.

The lessons learned from doing something are fundamentally different than the lessons learned from reading about it.

Unfortunately, a lot of education policy gets crafted by people who mistake information for experience.

That’s how we end up with adults who haven’t spent meaningful time in classrooms confidently telling teachers how classrooms should operate.

It’s how we end up with policies that sound good in interviews but fall apart in practice.

Which brings us to State Representative Scott Cepicky.

Defining “Winning”

This week Cepicky sat down with The Tennessee Star to discuss education priorities.

Let me be clear.

I genuinely like Scott Cepicky.

I think he’s thoughtful.

I think he cares.

I think he works harder than most legislators to understand education issues.

Those qualities matter.

Good intentions matter.

But good people can still arrive at conclusions I disagree with.

During the interview Cepicky said:

“It’s about winning, right? And we have to win with our kids.”

That sounds great.

The problem is nobody ever defines what winning means.

Because that’s where things get complicated.

In education circles, winning almost always means test scores.

Your scores are higher than my scores.

Therefore you win.

I understand the appeal.

It’s measurable.

It’s quantifiable.

It’s easy to place on a chart.

But it also misses a lot.

Standardized tests capture a single moment.

One day.

One snapshot.

One measurement.

Nothing more.

Imagine applying that logic to sports.

If Ja Morant outscores LeBron James in a game, does that make Morant the better player?

Of course not.

That would be ridiculous.

Yet we routinely make similar assumptions in education.

A single data point becomes evidence of success or failure.

An entire narrative gets built around one measurement.

Education should be less about winning and more about serving.

I don’t particularly care whether Tennessee scores higher than Oklahoma.

I care whether Tennessee students are being served.

Those aren’t always the same thing.

The Rankings Game

Cepicky also noted:

“We were 47th in education. We’re now 22nd.”

That statement gets repeated often.

And maybe it’s true depending on which ranking system you’re using.

But rankings deserve healthy skepticism.

Because rankings are often less about reality and more about methodology.

One organization says you’re 22nd.

Another says you’re 31st.

A third says you’re 18th.

Everyone grabs the number that makes them look best.

The more interesting discussion involves literacy.

Cepicky pointed out third-grade reading proficiency has increased from roughly 26 percent to the mid-40 percent range.

That’s real progress.

It deserves recognition.

But then he added:

“If we get to 50, they’re gonna be patting me on the back and patting everybody on the back about how great a job we’re doing, and 50 percent of our kids still can’t read and comprehend on grade level. If you were in sports, you’d be terminated immediately.”

Now hold on.

Scott comes from a baseball background.

A sport where hitting .300 makes you a star.

A sport where hitting .400 puts you among legends.

So no, you probably wouldn’t get fired.

You’d likely make the Hall of Fame.

The bigger issue is something education leaders never acknowledge.

If proficiency ever reaches 50 percent, somebody will simply move the goalposts.

That’s how the system works.

Standards change.

Benchmarks change.

Cut scores change.

The target moves.

It always does.

The One-Room Schoolhouse Solution

One of Cepicky’s proposed solutions involves what feels like a return to a simpler era.

He wants textbooks back in classrooms.

Actual books.

Paper.

Pencils.

Handwriting.

Direct instruction.

Even cursive.

He said:

“We are looking at getting textbooks back in the classrooms in K-5, tried and true, proven.”

And:

“Hard copy textbooks. Pen and pencil with the kids.”

And yes, he also advocated for expanded cursive instruction because it activates different parts of the brain.

Now before anyone accuses me of being anti-book, let me clarify.

There is absolutely value in physical books.

There is value in handwriting.

There is value in minimizing screen dependence.

In some ways, the one-room schoolhouse model got important things right.

Students knew their teacher.

Teachers knew families.

Relationships mattered.

Community mattered.

The school belonged to the people it served.

Those are lessons worth remembering.

But nostalgia can be dangerous.

The goal isn’t recreating 1920.

The goal is building effective schools in 2026.

And those aren’t always the same thing.

The Discipline Conversation

Where Cepicky absolutely hits the mark is discipline.

He said:

“We’ve got to stop this mentality of we’re gonna hold back the education of 29 kids because one kid doesn’t wanna behave. It’s gotta stop.”

That’s exactly right.

A classroom cannot function without order.

Teachers cannot teach if chaos dominates the environment.

Students cannot learn if disruptions consume instructional time.

This isn’t complicated.

It’s common sense.

And teachers know it.

Which may explain why Tennessee is experiencing such severe teacher attrition.

According to recent reporting, Tennessee lost more than 7,400 teachers between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

That’s staggering.

Professional Educators of Tennessee CEO J.C. Bowman described it this way:

“It’s a Peace Corps mentality.”

That’s a devastating observation.

Teaching increasingly resembles a temporary assignment rather than a profession.

People enter.

Serve a few years.

Leave.

And discipline problems remain one of the biggest reasons why.

Meanwhile in Metro Nashville

Which brings us to Metro Nashville Public Schools.

This week MNPS released data claiming exclusionary discipline has decreased significantly compared to previous years.

In plain English?

Suspensions are down.

According to district officials, that’s because students are making better choices.

Dr. Elisa Norris said:

“Our students are making different choices. This is a reflection of them feeling welcomed, of them making different choices. And by extension, we are seeing that in the data.”

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Bowman offered a different perspective:

“We hear from our teachers. They tell us that there’s a lot of things that are not reported, or they are not dealt with when they are reported.”

That’s worth considering.

Because data can tell stories.

But data can also hide stories.

Reducing discipline referrals doesn’t necessarily mean reducing discipline problems.

Sometimes it simply means changing reporting practices.

Teachers across the district routinely describe frustration with disciplinary processes.

They talk about referrals that go nowhere.

Consequences that never materialize.

Behaviors that repeatedly return to classrooms.

When those experiences become common, teachers eventually stop reporting.

Not because problems disappear.

Because they don’t believe reporting matters.

That’s a very different reality than the one presented in district presentations.

Data Versus Reality

One of the biggest weaknesses in modern education is the obsession with metrics.

Everything becomes a number.

Everything becomes a dashboard.

Everything becomes a data point.

The assumption is that if something can be measured, it can be managed.

But schools aren’t factories.

Children aren’t spreadsheets.

Teachers aren’t algorithms.

Reality is often messier than the charts suggest.

Take crime statistics.

Arresting fewer people doesn’t automatically mean less crime.

Sometimes it means fewer arrests.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Similarly, fewer suspensions don’t automatically mean fewer behavioral issues.

Sometimes they mean fewer suspensions.

Again, not the same thing.

That’s why classroom voices matter.

Ask teachers what they’re experiencing.

Ask students.

Ask families.

You may discover a reality that looks very different from official presentations.

My Own Experience

This issue hits particularly close to home.

My own high school student was suspended during testing season for throwing an empty Pringles can in a cafeteria.

A first-time offense.

Yet somehow it escalated into a Level 400 violation.

Expulsion became a possibility.

That’s difficult to reconcile with narratives suggesting suspension has become a last resort.

Either discipline standards are inconsistent or the data isn’t telling the full story.

Possibly both.

And when Teacher of the Year recipients resign citing lack of support, it’s hard not to question whether the system is functioning as advertised.

The people closest to classrooms often tell a very different story than the people presenting data.

Maybe we should listen to them.

The Louisville Retreat

Then there’s the annual summer pilgrimage.

This year MNPS administrators traveled to Louisville.

The agenda included leadership discussions, planning sessions, and even a private tour and dinner at Churchill Downs.

The district says conversations focused on future initiatives and increasing parent engagement.

One discussion topic reportedly encouraged parents to ask children:

“What does an IB scholar look like?”

Now maybe it’s just me.

But after thousands of hours of conversations with my kids, neither has ever asked that question.

Not once.

Kids want to talk about friends.

Sports.

Relationships.

Teachers.

Music.

Stress.

Dreams.

Problems.

Life.

I’ve always believed car conversations are powerful because kids eventually reveal what’s actually on their minds.

The key is letting them set the agenda.

Adults constantly tell kids what matters.

Very few adults genuinely listen when kids tell us what matters to them.

The one-room schoolhouse understood something modern systems often forget.

Community starts with listening.

Not messaging.

Not branding.

Listening.

Follow the Money

Naturally, people want to know what these retreats cost.

Unfortunately, getting clear answers isn’t always easy.

Much of the funding runs through Alignment Nashville, a nonprofit organization that receives public funding and contracts with MNPS for conference-related services.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s proposed budget includes additional funding for the organization.

Which raises a simple question.

Why?

What exactly was accomplished in Louisville that couldn’t have been accomplished in Nashville?

Nashville hosts national events.

Major conventions.

Large-scale conferences.

Surely it can host a principal retreat.

If taxpayer dollars are involved—even indirectly—the public deserves transparency.

That’s not an unreasonable expectation.

It’s basic accountability.

The Growing Bureaucracy

One final development caught my attention.

MNPS announced plans to establish a philanthropic arm.

Let that sink in.

A public school district funded by taxpayers wants to create a philanthropic arm.

At the same time, district leadership is exploring adding in-house general counsel rather than relying solely on Metro legal services.

Maybe there are legitimate reasons.

Maybe those explanations will come.

But it’s hard not to notice a pattern.

The bureaucracy continues expanding.

The administrative structure continues growing.

The organizational chart gets larger.

Meanwhile, teachers continue leaving.

Classrooms continue struggling.

And relationships—the one thing that matters most—often feel like an afterthought.

Back to the One-Room Schoolhouse

Maybe that’s why the image of a one-room schoolhouse keeps coming back to me.

Not because everything was better.

It wasn’t.

Not because we should abandon modern education.

We shouldn’t.

But because the one-room schoolhouse understood a truth we’ve spent decades trying to outsmart.

Education is fundamentally human.

It’s built on relationships.

It’s built on trust.

It’s built on listening.

It’s built on community.

The further we move from those foundations, the more complicated our solutions become.

And the less effective they seem.

Maybe the future of education isn’t found in another dashboard, another initiative, another retreat, or another consultant’s report.

Maybe it’s found in rediscovering the basics.

A teacher.

A student.

A relationship.

Everything else is just furniture.

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