In education policy circles, leadership conversations often gravitate toward funding formulas, legislative priorities, or governance structures. But in a recent episode of Swimming Upstream, Strategos partner and former Idaho State Superintendent Tom Luna steered the discussion in a different direction—back to the place where learning actually happens.

“There are no kids here,” Luna said, reflecting on his own time leading a state education agency. “Education doesn’t happen at the department. It happens in the classroom— teacher to student.”

That shared belief formed the foundation of his conversation with Molly Hart, Utah’s newly appointed State Superintendent. Her leadership philosophy centers on a deceptively simple idea that if systems are not organized around the classroom, they are unlikely to produce meaningful outcomes for students.

A Career Built Inside the School Walls

Hart’s perspective is rooted in experience. She describes education as her lifelong professional identity, as a journey that began in rural Michigan and continued through roles in Georgia and Utah as a paraprofessional, teacher, assistant principal, principal, and charter school leader.

“I’m a one-trick pony,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been continuously in a school site since I started as a kindergartner. This is the first job I’ve ever had that isn’t in a school building.”

Her path to statewide leadership was not carefully scripted. After being elected to the Utah State Board of Education, she initially planned to help organize the search for a new superintendent. Instead, colleagues encouraged her to consider the role herself.

“It’s all about the classroom and opportunities for students,” Hart said. “I’m a first-generation college student. Education was my ticket. Reading opened doors for me, and I’ve spent my career trying to make sure those doors are open for others.”

That commitment, she explained, is fueled by a strong bias toward action. “I have an action orientation. I like solving problems. I don’t like just talking about them.”

The Classroom as the Unit of Measure

Throughout the conversation, Hart repeatedly returned to the idea that education systems must be structured to support teacher-student interaction rather than overshadow it. “The classroom has to be the unit of measure,” she said. “Outcomes are the North Star. When you organize around those two things, the rest of the system falls into place.”

This mindset challenges traditional hierarchical approaches that place policy decisions and administrative priorities above instructional realities.

Hart describes Utah’s system as a layered structure where each level has a defined role. The state agency provides resources and structure, districts implement strategies suited to their communities, and classrooms deliver learning experiences that bring those efforts to life. “It’s like the human body,” she explained. “The state provides the skeleton or the structure. Districts put the meat on the bones. And the classroom dresses it to the nines.”

It’s Hart’s perspective that effective leadership requires understanding where authority ends and service begins. “We are a service agency,” she said. “We use other people’s money (money they worked hard to earn) to provide a service. We can’t forget that.”

Respecting Local Control While Addressing Shared Challenges

As in many states, one of Utah's most pressing issues is declining enrollment and attendance. Hart believes the solution is not top-down mandates but strategic support that allows local communities to respond in ways that resonate. “Our role is to offer resources, to offer a toolkit, to connect people,” she said. “But we’re not the super board of Utah.”

The state’s attendance initiatives range from customizable messaging resources to broader partnerships with community “attendance ambassadors” who reinforce the importance of consistent school engagement.

Ultimately, Hart argues, attendance challenges are inseparable from questions of relevance and quality. “Parents and students have to see value,” Luna added. “You can’t overstate the importance of what happens in the home when it comes to valuing education.”

Hart agreed with Luna’s view of the parental role and emphasized that engagement begins with strong literacy foundations. “We’re rolling out a reading initiative because reading starts in the home,” she said. “Technology gives us incredible tools, but the gold standard is still human-to-human learning. We have to keep expectations high, no matter how or where learning takes place.”

Teacher Quality as the Decisive Factor

If the classroom is the center of the system, then the quality of teaching becomes its most important variable. “The most important factor in a child’s academic success once they walk through the school doors is the quality of the teacher,” Luna said.

Utah’s response to this challenge has produced a striking statistic: the state has retained approximately 93% of its teachers—even during the critical early years when attrition is typically highest. “There’s no silver bullet,” she said. “But there may be a secret sauce, a mixture of ingredients.”

Among those ingredients are legislative investments that increased starting salaries, making the profession more financially viable for career changers. Hart described hiring an actuary who had long wanted to teach but assumed he could not afford to do so. “He ended up being District Teacher of the Year,” she said.

Utah has also expanded alternative licensure pathways, allowing professionals from other fields to enter classrooms more quickly while maintaining rigorous expectations. Equally important, Hart said, is ensuring that strong teachers do not feel compelled to leave the classroom to advance. “We’ve created master teacher programs so educators can take on leadership roles without stepping away from students,” she explained. “Sometimes you lose your best people to administration simply because of compensation structures.”

Another strategy involves “teacher-powered schools,” where educators play a direct role in decisions about curriculum, grants, and professional learning. “This isn’t about giving input. It’s about making decisions. Voice and choice matter just as much for teachers as they do for students,” Hart said.

Rethinking Professional Learning

Hart’s philosophy also extends to professional development, where she believes systems can align support much better with real classroom needs. “That’s not professional development, that’s a lecture,” she said, describing outdated one-size-fits-all training models.

Instead, Utah is responding to growing teacher demand for targeted learning, particularly around literacy and knowledge-rich curriculum approaches. “Once teachers learn about the science of learning, they realize what they don’t know,” Hart said. “Our upper elementary and secondary teachers are now asking for resources. They’re seeing the impact literacy has on everything.”

These shifts represent more than programmatic adjustments. They signal a broader cultural change in how education systems define success. “It’s about flipping the script,” Hart said. “We’ve said the classroom is important for years, but we didn’t always organize around that. Systems that remain top-down simply aren’t nimble enough to respond to real student outcomes.”

Optimism Rooted in Shared Purpose

Despite the challenges facing public education nationwide, Hart remains deeply optimistic about Utah’s future. “What gives me hope is that everyone in this state, regardless of politics or school model, wants children to succeed,” she said.

She believes Utah’s relatively small governance structure allows for flexibility and innovation that larger systems may struggle to achieve. “We’re nimble. We don’t have layers and layers of bureaucracy. And our teachers and students don’t shy away from challenges.”

In Luna’s opinion, it’s a mindset that reflects the kind of leadership education systems need at a time of rapid change. “It’s easy to say the classroom comes first,” he noted. “It’s much harder to actually organize around that idea.”

Hart agreed, identifying her role as helping ensure that policies, resources, and partnerships ultimately serve the teacher-student interaction that defines meaningful learning. “We’re not here to make the system better for adults,” she said. “We’re here to make it better for kids.”

In an era of education marked by competing priorities and complex reforms, her message is clear. If education leaders keep the classroom as their North Star, the path forward becomes easier to navigate even when swimming upstream.