A small, kindergarten-through-8^th-grade district in rural Oklahoma, Lane was identified by Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, as one of the few districts in the country that “grow” its students almost six academic years in five calendar years (Chicago, profiled in Season 1, is another). Since he identified it, Lane has improved its absolute achievement considerably.

When Karin Chenoweth visited she heard from teachers and administrators that its improvement process started when its former superintendent visited a nearby high-performing high-poverty district and realized that he hadn’t understood how important early learning and early reading instruction is. He began sending teachers to learn from nearby Cottonwood and they upped their reading instruction game. Today, years later, the two districts, both located in the Choctaw Nation, continue to learn from each other.

Hear directly from teachers and administrators in both Lane and Cottonwood as they talk about what they have learned from each other and how improvement takes place.