Interview with Dr. James Lane

Key points:

Running a school district is a lot like conducting an orchestra: It’s about getting the best out of each musician. That’s according to Dr. James Lane, who went from traveling musician and music teacher to landing a job in the Biden-Harris administration.

In this Q&A, Lane discusses her career path, the biggest challenges facing educators today, and how schools can leverage technology to serve all students.

The interview was conducted as part of the Visionary Voices Video SeriesIt has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How did you go from being a musician to working for the President of the United States?

I studied to be a professional trumpet player and gained some amazing experiences touring. After a few years, I really wanted to share my passion for music with students, so I became a band director in Durham, North Carolina.

I wasn't teaching traditional band music. We were playing Earth, Wind and Fire, hip hop songs – we were doing really cool stuff, and over time, we grew that program into a championship band program. Just a few years later, over 50 percent of the school was participating in the band program. It was at that point that I knew I wanted to become a director because I started thinking, “What if every classroom in my school could have the same impact?”

I became a principal in Middlesex County at a school that was struggling with some test scores. In sixth grade, the pass rate was about 50 percent. We implemented my seven steps to improve test scores, and a year later, our pass rate was over 90 percent.

“What if every school in my community could have the same impact?” I knew I wanted to become a superintendent, and I eventually ended up in one of the largest school districts in the country: Chesterfield, Virginia.

After a few years, the governor asked me to become state superintendent, in charge of 1.3 million students in Virginia and an $8 billion budget. Every dollar we had, every regulation we created, we tried to make a difference for kids.

I later had the opportunity to work at the U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Cardona and lead the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. This was one of the greatest honors of my life and there is no better opportunity to make an impact. I led all of the degree programs, assessment and accountability, the American Rescue Plans, the ESSER funds. We did so many amazing things to help the country recover from the pandemic and improve education overall. Going from being a musician and from a small town in Kentucky to having meetings at the White House, I will always be grateful for that opportunity.

I now lead PDK International, where I have the opportunity to work with future teachers and make sure that we end this teacher shortage.

What is one of the most important elements that you have brought from your life as a musician to your role as an educator?

In every job, I still think of myself as a conductor. When you're in charge of your organization, the trumpet section might be perfect, but maybe the clarinets need a little work. So, we'll stop and make sure the clarinet part is perfect. Then we'll put the whole piece back together.

As a leader, my job is to make sure that every facet of the organization is maximizing its potential. Sometimes there are things we want to work on to improve, and other things that are going great. But when we bring that whole orchestra back together, we create magic and beautiful music together and make a difference in people's lives.

That passion for music is what drives me. I think about leadership and inspiring people and making sure that we are doing the best we can in every sector of our work, just like the sections of our orchestra.

Part of your current role is finding ways to address the country’s teacher shortage, including through staff development programs like EdRising. What tools have you seen work to address teacher recruitment and retention?

If you talk to any educational leader, you'll see that they are struggling to find the right person who is perfect for each job.

First, we need to pay our teachers more. I don't know any teacher who doesn't have a side job. It shouldn't be necessary to have a side job to make a living as an educator.

The second thing we need to do is focus on teachers' working conditions. We need to make sure that we are protecting teachers' time so that they can review their students' data, make adjustments, and create plans for each of their students.

Finally, we need to build a network of teachers. Sixty percent of teachers end up teaching within 20 miles of where they went to high school, so if you're a district leader and you're not recruiting in your home community, you're never going to eliminate the shortage.

The shortage of special education teachers and staff is especially acute. How can leaders ensure that students with IEPs receive the services they need? What innovative solutions should schools explore to achieve this?

One of the things we need to do is reduce the workload of our IEP leaders and our adjunct teachers so that they are working with a smaller group of students in a much more individualized way on their individualized IEP goals. By bringing in additional staff, that is what will allow those numbers and the workload to be reduced.

(Teletherapy) is an innovative solution. It is flexible in terms of time, space and location. There were times when we really struggled to find speech therapists, occupational therapists (OTs) and physical therapists (PTs). It would have been a game-changer in the way we could serve our students.

Parents also want to be involved in their child's education. Thinking that speech, physical, and occupational therapy services should only happen during the school day is a very old way of thinking. Parents could be allowed to sit next to their child and think about the strategies the specialist is working on and mimic them. It could become a partnership between parents and educators to help the student solve his or her learning needs. That would be amazing.