Tonight, ESPN premieres "Saban," a six-part series on Nick Saban. If you're a regular reader, you know I'm a big Alabama fan and a bigger fan of Coach Saban. (Monte Burke's biography of him is practically part of W/A onboarding.)

The first episode is titled "The Process," a concept Saban developed at Michigan State with Lionel "Lonny" Rosen, a psychiatry professor who taught him to apply the step-by-step thinking of cognitive therapy to every part of preparing a team. In Saban's words, “the process” is about focusing less on the results and more on "what it takes to get the results." Sure, the play call matters, but the preparation and execution that bring the play to life matter even more.

Which brings me to education’s playbook problem. 

If you haven’t noticed, the education “ecosystem” (including us, at times) has pointed more and more of its machinery at producing policy "playbooks." Nothing wrong with that, in theory. There's a lot to learn from the places where policy changes have played a role in moving student outcomes.

But when we asked Maryland Superintendent Carey Wright (who led Mississippi's schools through the “Mississippi Miracle”) which intervention mattered most, she explained that success doesn’t come from one thing. It comes from a collection of them—aligned over time—so that policy, materials, assessments, and accountability pulled in the same direction. "It is not a miracle," she told us. "It is a marathon."

The playbook problem is that context often gets lost when you try to reduce decades of policy development and dealmaking to single play. The most effective policy interventions are, after all, often the most controversial—and rarely make the leap from idea to reality without a healthy dose of political will and adaptation.

Transposing plays from place to place often overlooks the people who first shepherded them through a legislature, a school board, or an election. It can discount the complexity—and variability—among implementation environments made up of thousands of districts, schools, administrators, and educators.

The risk of playbooks isn’t just underestimating the importance of place. It's that institutions calcify around a play, stop asking whether a play works in context, and then defend it dogmatically. Over time, research funding flows to it, advocacy infrastructure gets stood up, scorecards go back to grantmakers. We claim victory when it's adopted, justify it even when local evidence may differ, and rarely ask whether something else might fit better.

Saban had no such luxury.

He was famously grumpy about the hurry-up spread offense which was at odds with his worldview, but gaining popularity (and success) in college football. Rather than resist, he hired a young coach to run it, and the team that won in 2020 looked nothing like the one that won in 2009.

When it comes to political attention and funding, most states are zero-sum environments, and reasonably gravitate toward ideas that arrive with money and advocacy attached. But over time, those ideas are layered onto local systems and leaders who can become resistant to change, and skeptical about the latest education fads.

It turns out, those leaders often have ideas of their own, grounded in the political and historic peculiarities of their state or district. We owe it to them, too, to do a better job of listening.

Thirty-six governors' races are on the ballot next month. New governors will want to know what worked elsewhere. But a playbook is a starting point, not a strategy, and I'd hate to see the next class trade policy innovation for replication. 

Saban didn't win six titles in 17 years at Alabama by running the same playbook. He won them by changing the plays as the game evolved.

Last month, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Higher Education announced the receipt of a $50 million Talent Search Grant, the largest award in the grant’s history.

Ohio will receive $10 million per year for five years to provide wraparound supports to 20,000 low-income and first-generation college students annually across 130 schools. The state will work in concert with community-based organizations to deliver timely, relevant assistance and resources to students.

In an exclusive for Whiteboard Notes, we sat down with Mike Duffey, chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education, to learn more about the impact of the grant, and how these dollars help maximize the potential of every Ohioan.

In less than a month, voters will deliver the highest level of guaranteed gubernatorial turnover in at least a decade. That change comes as the federal government pushes more responsibility for education to the states, giving the people elected this November a larger role in deciding what comes next for schools and colleges.

Thirty-six states are electing governors this year, and in 21 states and territories the seat will change hands no matter who wins, because of term limits or an incumbent stepping aside, according to the Education Commission of the States. Most of those governors will appoint at least one state board member, and 15 will pick their state’s education chief. Eight of the new or returning governors will have the authority to appoint their state higher education executive officer. Eight states elect their K-12 chief directly, and four of them (Arizona, California, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) will get a new one no matter what. Add elections in 88 of the nation’s 99 legislative chambers, and the people who will write 2027 education budgets are largely on the ballot this fall.

Voters will also decide policy themselves. Education Week counts 34 education-related ballot measures in 17 states. Eighteen deal with school funding, and two-thirds of those would limit the taxes schools rely on, whether by repealing them, capping rates, or expanding exemptions. Alabama’s slate is the outlier: a constitutional amendment requiring public schools to broadcast or perform the first stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner” once a week, alongside amendments on county school board mergers and a daily Pledge of Allegiance, as the Alabama Reflector’s Anna Barrett reports.

School choice is on the ballot in a way it couldn’t have been four years ago, before any state had a universal program. Arizona’s superintendent candidates, Republican Kimberly Yee and Democrat Teresa Leyba Ruiz, agree the state’s education savings accounts need more accountability and split over whether to cap family income, the Arizona Capitol Times’ Rachel Ohm reports. In Iowa’s governor’s race, Democrat Rob Sand wants income limits on ESAs and a 5% increase in public school funding. Republican Zach Lahn defends the program and argues public schools need flexibility more than money. Both back spending audits, according to Iowa Public Radio’s Sheila Brummer.

Then there’s Congress. Education Week’s Alyson Klein reports that a Democratic majority in either chamber would bring oversight hearings on the Education Department’s dismantling and a push to repeal the federal tax-credit scholarship before it launches in January. President Trump keeps his veto, so the real fights move to must-pass spending bills. Klein also finds room for bipartisan work on student data and safeguards for AI in schools.

AEI’s Rick Hess, writing in Education Next, expects a blue wave to speed up the tech backlash, since hearings on Big Tech’s ties to the White House would embolden skeptics in blue states and districts, and to give higher education a reprieve, though a modest one. The lending limits and accountability system Congress passed last year are law, and they have supporters on the left.

Election Night will tell us who won. Turning those results into education policy takes longer.

Join us on November 12, nine days after the election, at Gallup headquarters in Washington for Whiteboard Advisors’ post-election policy summit. We’re bringing together education and policy leaders to work through what the results mean for federal and state policy, school funding, the technology backlash, and higher education accountability.

Know someone who’s got a passion for education and an interest in strategy consulting and public affairs? 

Whiteboard Advisors is now accepting applications for our spring fellowship, starting in January 2027. This part-time, paid internship opportunity is designed for students and early-career professionals who are motivated to learn more about education and workforce research, advocacy, and communications.

Many of our fellows have gone on to become full-time members of our team, supporting the businesses and organizations that are transforming the way we learn, work, and live.

Applications are due on October 28. For more information, visit our listing.

If you read our summary of the proposed regulations for the federal scholarship tax credit (also known as Section 25F), you may have found yourself scratching your head at the mention of Coverdell accounts. You aren't alone. You could spend your entire career in education without hearing of these seldom-used accounts. But they have suddenly become important thanks to the new federal tax credit, which borrows Coverdell's provisions and, based on the latest from Treasury, may end up rewriting them.

So, what are Coverdell accounts? Why haven't you heard of them? And why should we care about them now?

Pearl Education, in partnership with Whiteboard Advisors, released new research this week that explores how tutoring is being delivered in K-12 schools today. The State of Tutoring 2026: What Leaders Can See and What They Can’t draws on interviews with state and district leaders across the U.S., and an analysis of nearly 900,000 tutoring sessions delivered to more than 64,000 students across 28 programs—one of the largest cross-state collections of tutoring implementation data to date.

Finishing ninth grade on track predicts high school graduation better than test scores or student background. Many districts have made ninth grade a priority. Fewer have put in place the conditions that let that work last: time in the school day for teacher teams and student interventions, ninth graders grouped so teachers share the same students, and district and school leaders who review ninth grade data together.

On Wednesday, October 14 at 12 p.m. ET, W/A's Hillary Rinaldi will moderate a conversation with Jennifer Troy, Chief Academic Officer of Aurora Public Schools, and James Arndt, Director of Partnerships at the Center for High School Success and former principal of Camelback High School, where the ninth grade on-track rate nearly doubled.

Panelists will also share how districts can join the National 9th Grade Success Accelerator, an 18-month, fully funded partnership for up to 10 districts. District applications are due October 30.

Can't join live? Register and we'll send the recording.

Check out W/A Jobs, which features 3,631 career opportunities from 328 organizations across the education industry. Hiring? For $250/month or $1,000/year, organizations can post an unlimited number of jobs with no per-job fees.