Dec. 1, 2025
Episode 51: Leading with Laser Focus: Dr. James Lane's Educational Leadership Journey
Send us a text A trumpet, a baton, and a blueprint for real school change. James Lane went from touring musician to teacher, principal, superintendent, state chief, and ultimately a senior leader at the U.S. Department of Education and he never lost sight of the same question: what happens the moment a student struggles? This conversation turns that question into a repeatable system any school can use. We start with the early days: a tiny band program that grew into half the school, superior...
A trumpet, a baton, and a blueprint for real school change. James Lane went from touring musician to teacher, principal, superintendent, state chief, and ultimately a senior leader at the U.S. Department of Education and he never lost sight of the same question: what happens the moment a student struggles? This conversation turns that question into a repeatable system any school can use.
We start with the early days: a tiny band program that grew into half the school, superior ratings, and national trips. That success wasn’t magic it was structure. James shares the seven-step framework behind his book, Leading with Laser Focus: align curriculum to the test blueprint, be maniacal about talent, use common assessments that actually measure what you teach, run tight data cycles, deliver timely intervention, strengthen PLCs, and wrap it all with smart technology and family partnerships. The core test for leaders is simple: can every adult explain exactly what happens when a student falls behind?
From there, we zoom out. As Virginia’s state superintendent, James navigated policy, politics, and the hardest pivot of a generation closing and reopening schools during COVID. He breaks down how a state agency translates laws and executive orders into guidance districts can act on, and why showing up in communities matters more than perfect memos. Then we head to Washington, where James led K-12 at the U.S. Department of Education, accelerated ESSER spending, and focused resources on tutoring, mental health, staffing, and safe operations to get schools open and keep them open.
The throughline is belief and execution. James reframes teacher efficacy as academic optimism: when teachers believe they make the difference—and leaders remove barriers outcomes move. He also shares breaking news on his new CEO role tackling teacher shortages and high-dosage tutoring, turning leadership principles into capacity schools can feel. If you lead a classroom, a building, or a district, you’ll walk away with practical steps and a renewed sense of what’s possible.
Enjoyed the conversation? Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review telling us the one system you’ll strengthen this month. Your reflection might spark someone else’s breakthrough.
Connect with Dr. James Lane:
Email: james.lane@gmail.com
Leading with Laser Focus: The Seven Steps to School Success: (Amazon)
University Instructors:Dr. James Lane
University Instructors Website:
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Click Here to Connect with Principal JL:
00:00 - Meet Dr. James Lane
04:56 - From Touring Musician To Teacher
09:28 - Lessons That Led To Leadership
14:48 - Becoming Principal And Rapid Turnaround
20:59 - Mentors, Mobility, And Opportunity
27:55 - Expecting The Unexpected In Leadership
34:00 - State Superintendent: Role And Reality
42:33 - COVID Closures, Reopening, And Policy
49:50 - Inside The U.S. Department Of Education
WEBVTT
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Today's guest is one of the most accomplished educational leaders you'll meet.
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His career spans from the classroom to the principalship, to the superintendent's office, state level leadership, and even senior leadership at the U.S.
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Department of Education.
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Joining me today is Dr.
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James Lane.
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He recently has been named the CEO of University Instructors.
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He was also the managing director of K-16 at ETS.
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He has served as CEO of PDK International and Educators Rising.
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He was named the 2017 Virginia Superintendent of the Year.
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He has served as the state superintendent of public instruction in Virginia.
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And later became the acting assistant, secretary, and senior advisor to the U.S.
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Secretary of Education.
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He has been a teacher.
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He has been a principal, an assistant to superintendent, a superintendent.
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And he's also an author of his new book, Leading with Laser Focus, The Seven Steps to School Success.
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Oh, and have I mentioned he's also a trumpet player inducted into the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame as a member of the Castaways.
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Without further ado, let's get to the conversation with Dr.
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James Lane.
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Welcome back, everybody, with to another exciting episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast.
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Today I'm excited to bring on Dr.
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James Lane.
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James, welcome to the show.
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Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
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Super excited to be with you today.
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All right, James.
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I'm going to go ahead and ask you the same question I ask everybody on the show.
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What inspired you to become an educator?
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Yeah, I think I talk about this a lot, actually.
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So I actually didn't start out as an educator.
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I was a full-time musician.
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I was touring on the road.
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I was playing with bands that were signed on labels and really, really thought I was going to be a musician.
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And, you know, met my wife in college.
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She was also a musician.
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She also ended up out on the road playing with a ska band while I was doing more like the jazz and you know, cover band and wedding band.
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And you know, I was in a salsa band.
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And she came off the road first.
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And, you know, as it became clear we were going to get married and hoping to have a family, she reminded me that being on the road a couple hundred dates a year wasn't the long-term stretch for us.
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And so I had gone to school to get a degree in teaching, you know, hoping to teach one day.
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And I took a band job in Durham, North Carolina that was actually at a year-round school.
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They had closed the school because so the performance of the school was so low, they replaced all the teachers and they turned it into a year-round magnet school.
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And so the cool part about it was I was allowed to teach, you know, full time, but then on the intercessions, as we called it, I was still allowed to go on the road and do tours and stuff like that.
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So loved that.
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But to answer your question, it became obvious to me day one that education and teaching was where I was supposed to be.
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The minute I put that baton up in front of my band for the first time, I just absolutely loved it.
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I took over a band program that only had 25 kids in it.
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By the time I left to become an assistant principal, you know, several years later, over half of the school was in the band program.
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We were superior at competition.
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We were traveling all over the nation.
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And I'm it just really was an amazing experience.
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So I eventually gave up playing music, stayed in education, but it was about impact for me.
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And I saw the impact that I was having on kids' lives, and I realized, hey, I want every classroom in my school to be as impactful as I thought mine was.
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So I became a principal.
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And then as a principal, I started thinking, gosh, I've turned this school around.
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We've got scores from the 50s into the 90s at my school.
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What if every school in my district could be this impactful?
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So I became superintendent, and that that focus on impact pat continued.
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Became state superintendent because I wanted every district to be as impactful as I thought mine would be.
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And I went to the federal level and I did that work because I wanted every state to have the experiences that I thought that my state had.
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And for me, from the moment I got out of playing music and the moment I went into the classroom, I knew I was going to change people's lives or try to change people's lives.
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And that's what drove me and inspired me to become an educator.
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I love that you talk about impact and how, you know, that is what got you going in education and impact in the young lives of students and how that carried you through.
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And so you talked a lot about how impact, you know, you like to see throughout your career there.
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But let's kind of go back to your teaching days.
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What happened during your teaching time that helped you become an assistant principal?
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So what was it that you learned as a teacher that said, you know what, I could take this and use it into becoming an assistant principal down the road?
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Well, I, you know, Jeff, you're a principal, so I'm somewhat joking as I say this, but you know that principal assistant principals spend a lot of their time on discipline, right?
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And and uh, and so I this wasn't why I wanted to become an assistant principal, but I would joke with people, try putting a hundred kids with noisemakers in their hand and manage their behavior and see if you can be an assistant principal, right?
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And so the idea was, you know, I I I'm joking as I say that, but the truth is what I learned in my band experience and and working with a hundred kids with noisemakers and and and keeping them strategically and vision the line to what I wanted to do with the band program.
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What I learned in that is I I wanted to inspire people to be the best that they could be.
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And I wanted to do a remit, you know, bigger than what I was doing in the band.
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I wanted it to be, I already said this, I wanted to be about every kid in the school.
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But I knew I would, I I didn't go into the assistant principalship wanting to be an assistant principal.
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I went there wanting to be a principal, and you know, I knew that assistant principal was the was the pathway to that.
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But the reason I wanted to be the principal is, you know, that's actually kind of always been a dream of mine.
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I mean, obviously I had dreams of being a musician and other things, but when when I was in middle school, you know, they did those superlatives, and I I was named most likely to be JMS principal and most likely to succeed.
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And they had made me choose, so I chose to you know if you look at the yearbook, it says most likely to succeed.
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But I also, even my friends in middle school knew that this was a pathway for me, and that that resonated with me later in life.
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And I thought, you know, when I finally made that decision to get off the road completely and just be a band director, I immediately enrolled in school to become a principal.
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I wanted my own building, I wanted to show that, you know, with the right structures in place and the right team in place, we could make a difference in kids' lives.
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And I was in an I was in inner city Durham, and it was, you know, my assistant principalships were some some challenging situations.
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And I'm I'm glad I I served in those places first because it really taught me that you know, all the different services and wraparounds and and pieces that you have to have in place and teachers and quality that that make a difference.
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So for me, uh it wasn't just one thing that led me to the principalship.
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It was really about back to that impact.
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And and I just I saw I saw what I what was happening in my van program, I saw how we were changing kids' lives, and I just wanted that for every kid in my community.
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You bet.
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And I really appreciate you talking about the assistant principal job because that is something that people kind of overlooked, and some people are like, hey, I want to become a building principal, but I think understanding that role and understanding the different layers that go on in a building is really important.
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So when you're leading that building, you know all the little nuances and things like that.
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And so, was there a story that you have being an assistant principal or a principal that you could share with us that you know really impacted your leadership ability and maybe got you starting to think about becoming this next step as a superintendent?
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Yeah.
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So when I took over my first building as principal, and you know, I I laugh sometimes because I feel like I feel like the when I applied to be principal, that was I feel like that's the last time I really interviewed for a job, you know, because superintendent, you kind of get tapped by the board, and you know, state superintendent was governor, federal, of course, White House and all that.
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And so like it's the last time where I was really putting myself out there and and you know and interviewing.
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And I I remember I got to the point where I was interviewing to be the principal in the community where I was an assistant principal, and I was interviewing to be principal in a location that was about an hour and a half away from home.
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I was gonna have to drive an hour and a half each way to take that job.
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And I go into the final round with the superintendent in the community where I was currently serving, and I'm talking to him about the job, and you know, I'm feeling really good about being a finalist.
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And I said, you know, one day I want to be superintendent.
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And what's your advice for me going into this principal?
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You know, because I always ask you, where do you want to be in five years?
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And I was like, Well, you know, one day I want to be superintendent.
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What's your advice for me?
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And and that superintendent at the time, we're still friends, actually, was just in his school district last week, and he said, You know, you might have to leave to come back.
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If you want to be superintendent in this community, they usually only hire people that have been superintendent before.
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And I was like, Wow, I you know, I can't believe he said that.
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And you know, here I have this opportunity to be principal, but he's saying that that might be a longer journey for me.
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And so I went and interviewed in the other district the next day, and the superintendent there said, you know, they wanted me really badly.
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It was 90 minutes away, they had a hard time recruiting it, you know, outside they're a very rural community.
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And and he said, Look, if you go with us, we won't be able to pay you as much as where you live now, all of that.
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And you're gonna have to drive 90 minutes.
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Yes, all that's true.
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He said, But I'm gonna guarantee you you'll be the next assistant superintendent here if you come.
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And I thought, gosh, this is this is a pr a pretty good deal.
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Now he couldn't really guarantee me that, but interestingly, one year later, the assistant superintendent left and he said, Look, you've only been principal a year.
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I can't make you assistant superintendent after only one year.
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But I turned that school around, we had unbelievable scores.
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And I said, Well, you promised me in the interview, and I said, I'll make you a deal.
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I know how tight budgets are right now because this was you know back during the recession and everything.
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And I said, How about I be principal and assistant superintendent at the same time?
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And he agreed to that.
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And and and I did both of those jobs for a year and eventually found a new person to be principal, and then we broke it up.
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But but you know, I saved him a lot of money and got a unique experience about my career.
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But the reason I share that is one of the big biggest pieces of advice I give to principals and assistant principals is don't be afraid to ask advice from your leaders.
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I mean, if that superintendent hadn't given me that advice, I might have totally disregarded that school district the next day.
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That ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.
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I would not have been an assistant superintendent one year later, just wouldn't have happened.
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And it was it was by chance and luck.
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But what I tell people all the time is you know, opportunity is the intersection of skill and luck.
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You got to be good, but then you just gotta find those right moments.
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And my willingness to be mobile actually led to, you know, I was one of the youngest superintendents in the history of Virginia, one of the youngest state superintendents in the history of Virginia.
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And had I stayed in my home community, I don't know if I would be the superintendent, and for what it's worth.
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I ended up going back and I was superintendent in that district years later.
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And and so it's just been a really cool journey.
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But that that that willingness to take on mentorship, and I mentor people now.
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There's nothing I think is more important to a principal or assistant principal who wants to grow their career than finding people that will give you good advice because not everybody will give you that advice that guy gave me.
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And and you know, they would have tried to encourage me to stay when he knew my long game was probably better suited leaving and coming back.
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Yeah, you make a great point there, James.
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I hear that a lot, where you may have to go somewhere to come back to a place that you may really aspire to be.
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And that that is true in education.
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And I know, like when I became a principal, I knew I had to leave to get back to a place to where I'm at today because I knew I wanted to be at a certain certain level of a high school because we have small rural schools here in Nebraska, as well as your metropolitan, you know, bigger, larger districts.
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And I knew I fit the larger district model the best, but I knew I had to take a job somewhere to get back to a position to where I'm at today.
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And so that's that's that rings true to a lot of people inspired to take those steps.
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So I really appreciate you sharing though that information.
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Is there anything in your leadership journey as a principal, as a superintendent, that you were just like, this is a total surprise.
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I was not prepared for this, be it in the leadership role.
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Well, I will say I did three superintendencies and the state superintendency.
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You come to expect that the unexpected is going to happen all the time.
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I mean, I don't mean to sound like the show Big Brother or whatever, but the biggest thing I say is expect the unexpected.
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But there were things all the time.
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I mean, my that that district I came home to, the big district, right?
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All those years later, the the day I got there, their early retirement plan had you know major underfunding that I had to solve.
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And I, you know, I thought I was coming in just to kind of fix the instruction and get things going there.
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And my first day as superintendent and my second superintendency, we had a a domestic situation happen in the parking lot, and someone that did not work for us attacked somebody that worked for us, and the community didn't even know who I was, and I had to stand in front of the whole community and explain this story that was all over the news and build transparency around it.
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And then, you know, I think over my 25 years, I think education has become much more interesting in the media and in the political scenes, and and being adept and prepared for how to handle that has been unique.
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But where I where I tend to think that folks will thrive is there will be all kinds of craziness that happens.
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I mean, it's my favorite part about being a middle school principal was every day there was something to laugh at and there was something exciting that happened.
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And you know, you come to expect that in education.
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But you know, Jeff, you know I wrote this book, and and I'll talk more about that later.
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But what I what I didn't expect, I think, and and this is another piece of advice I'd offer to principals and and future principals, is I I didn't expect when I got to the broader district vantage that so many schools didn't have the structures in place to actually be successful with kids.
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And I didn't expect that I would have to you know work with so many principals to build a system of instruction that responded to kids' needs.
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And you know, again, when we talk about the book, I'll talk about my seven-step process.
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And anyone that's ever worked for me knows my seven-step process.
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But what I tell principals all the time is you don't have to follow my process, but you have to have a process and you have to have everyone believing in it.
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But your process is working if you can answer one question.
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And that that first school where I was principal, I would, you know, where I was principal and assistant superintendent a year later.
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There was no assistant principal at that school when I got there.
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I was running the whole building by myself.
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You know, it's a small rural school.
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And I what I learned in that environment that I took to the bigger environments, the bigger district environments, is you actually can set up the system so that everyone in the school community, from the custodian to the principal, to the superintendent to the parents, to even the clergy in your community, everyone should be able to know the answer to one simple question, and that is what happens to a kid at the moment they show failure in our school?
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And if you don't have a system for that, then you're not really responding to the needs of your kids in a systemic way.
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And so what I did through my process is I tried to build that out.
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But that was that was the one piece I wasn't expecting is I, you know, I would hear that schools were good, and then I'd look under the hood and there were issues, and I'd hear that schools were bad, and actually they had really great systems in place.
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They just, you know, they they had higher percentages of poverty, and you know what that leads to in terms of correlation with student outcomes.
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And so I have focused my time in the broader leadership and making sure that school improvement was systemic and not by accident or because of just a charismatic principal or a special teacher in the building.
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And that's that's what I didn't expect when I got into this.
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Awesome.
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Well, I really appreciate that because there's a lot of things that they don't quite prepare you for, of stepping into those roles.
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:56.319
And like for me, you know, getting into the principalship, one of the things I I talk about, I wasn't expecting like the amount of time that I work with my adult staff as much, you know, and I wasn't prepared for that.
00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.519
I was like, wow, I work with my adults a lot more than I thought.
00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:12.959
And I thought I would, you know, I'd be helping kids by helping adults, but man, I really focus in on helping my adult, you know, staff be the best they can be so they can translate down to helping the students.
00:20:12.959 --> 00:20:19.919
And so, yeah, I kind of I kind of learned that lesson the hard way because I was like, well, what did I get myself into?
00:20:19.919 --> 00:20:22.719
But you know, being a superintendent, I don't have that experience.
00:20:22.719 --> 00:20:24.799
I'm not aspiring to be that right now.
00:20:24.799 --> 00:20:38.959
But at the same time, when you're taking over a district like that, and you kind of talked about it, you deal with the politics of that, and you know, you have to deal with state legislation, and that's just a whole nother beast that takes special people to do.
00:20:38.959 --> 00:20:41.359
And I'm glad that you were able to do that.
00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:45.679
And so you talked about becoming the state superintendent of Virginia.
00:20:45.679 --> 00:20:50.399
Talk about how that happened and what was that role like, and what did you do?
00:20:50.399 --> 00:20:52.719
I mean, I have no clue what that is.
00:20:52.719 --> 00:20:59.199
So, you know, here in Nebraska, we have a commissioner of the Department of Education that's elected by the board.
00:20:59.199 --> 00:21:04.799
So kind of tell me how Virginia works in that way and that role and what you learned from that role.
00:21:05.119 --> 00:21:08.879
Yeah, well, it's it's very similar to the commissioner's role in Nebraska.
00:21:08.879 --> 00:21:13.199
I mean, in fact, I've known a few of yours in Nebraska really well over my career.
00:21:13.199 --> 00:21:16.879
I mean, you've had some legends there, Doug Christensen, Matt Blimstead.
00:21:16.879 --> 00:21:19.199
I mean, just really, really great leaders.
00:21:19.199 --> 00:21:22.079
And and Matt and I served at the same time.
00:21:22.079 --> 00:21:33.039
And so, you know, in terms of how it happened, in Virginia, it's appointed by the governor and it's called the Superintendent of Public Instruction, colloquially referred to as the state superintendent.
00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:41.199
And you know, the in Virginia, another unique thing about us is we only have one-term governor, so it's four years and they're out.
00:21:41.199 --> 00:21:45.759
So I knew going in, I was gonna do four years with my governor, had no guarantees after that.
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:49.359
Luckily, I ended up with a position afterwards in the federal level.
00:21:49.359 --> 00:22:00.479
But the you know, it it it it politics is interesting, where you know it it started with a phone call of like, have you ever thought about being the state chief?
00:22:00.479 --> 00:22:01.519
And I was like, nope.
00:22:01.519 --> 00:22:15.839
I actually my whole dream was to come be Superintendent Chesterfield because I started my career here and I'm kind of coming back, and you know, and I at that point I'd only been there a couple of years, and they were like, Well, you know, the governor would like to know if you'd consider serving.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:29.039
And and you know, you know, I'm deeply rooted in service and the way I've talked, and you know, I feel like if you know the governor's a constitutional officer, and uh, you know, governor calls you, you gotta, you gotta sit down with him, and and and so I did.
00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:38.319
And you know, he asked me a lot of questions, I asked him a lot of questions, and ultimately, you know, I just felt like it was a good time for me to lead.
00:22:38.319 --> 00:22:45.839
And and and so, you know, the the governor you know vets you and then they run you through the legislature and all that, and it you know, eventually happens.
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:53.919
And I decided to approach the Virginia Department of Ed a lot like I did a school district, you know, that you know, I never felt like I was my principal's boss.
00:22:53.919 --> 00:22:58.399
I felt like I was their coach and their guide, and you know, I was a steward to them.
00:22:58.399 --> 00:23:05.359
And I always would tell people like, none of us would be here, not a principal, not a superintendent, if it wasn't for teachers and students, right?
00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:07.439
It's about the teaching and learning experience.
00:23:07.439 --> 00:23:09.519
So we're here to serve them.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:12.159
And I just felt like as state chief, I had to do the same thing.
00:23:12.159 --> 00:23:19.039
Now, the cool part was I think I was well situated to lead because I had been, you know, one of the superintendents.
00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:29.919
I went to all the superintendent events, they were all my friends, and so you know, when it came time for me to make tough decisions, they at least knew that I knew their perspective and that I appreciated it.
00:23:29.919 --> 00:23:37.599
And and you know, superintendents' associations are gonna super advocate for superintendents, principal associations for principals, teachers for teachers, and parents for parents.
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:48.079
And and you know, I decided that I in my state, I was gonna advocate for kids, and and and so you know, mine might disagree with the superintendents or the principals or the teachers sometimes.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:51.919
And so I decided to approach the role like that.
00:23:51.919 --> 00:23:54.799
And so, you know, when I was a superintendent, I tried to visit my buildings all the time.
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:56.879
When I was a principal, I tried to visit classrooms all the time.
00:23:56.879 --> 00:23:59.119
I made a commitment on day one of being a state superintendent.
00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:02.719
I was gonna visit every single school district, school we call them divisions in Virginia.
00:24:02.719 --> 00:24:08.879
We're I was gonna visit every division in Virginia, and I did that by the end, even in the middle of COVID.
00:24:08.879 --> 00:24:14.319
Uh, I continued to visit uh school districts trying to get them open when that time came.
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:19.839
And I just wanted to be a leader that was there for our educators, our students, and our parents.
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:21.519
And and and so that's how I approach it.
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:29.039
Now, the job is vastly different than the district superintendent, division superintendent, and vastly different, obviously, than principal and a teacher.
00:24:29.039 --> 00:24:33.839
The Virginia Department of Education, then much like in Nebraska, is a regulatory body.
00:24:33.839 --> 00:25:21.019
We have to deal with federal legislation and make sure that our state is compliant with that.
00:25:21.019 --> 00:25:26.059
We have to deal with state legislation, which is often directed directly at the Department of Education.
00:25:26.059 --> 00:25:29.659
We had we had the state board, we had governor's executive orders.
00:25:29.659 --> 00:25:33.500
And so, you know, and there are a million ways that policy is made.
00:25:33.500 --> 00:25:39.899
And we had to navigate all of that and shape it into something and then communicate it to districts to make sure that they knew what to do.
00:25:39.899 --> 00:25:45.819
But at the end of the day, the Virginia Department of Education and most state departments of education are regulatory bodies.
00:25:45.819 --> 00:25:55.339
They're they're passing the regulations of the state that you know are underneath the laws of the state and the constitution of the state and the you know, the constitution of the United States.
00:25:55.339 --> 00:25:58.699
And and so I, you know, I took that job very seriously.
00:25:58.699 --> 00:26:06.379
And then sometimes there's policy that's directed directly from the department, sometimes there's investigations, sometimes there's licensure issues.
00:26:06.379 --> 00:26:10.539
I mean, the the department just does a lot of things, and we are the funding body, right?
00:26:10.539 --> 00:26:22.859
Most of the state and federal funds flow through the department of education to the states, and so we make sure that those dollars are routed appropriately, spent wisely, and and spent compliantly in districts.
00:26:22.859 --> 00:26:30.220
What I didn't expect is during my time, we would close every school in America for a short amount of time and reopen them.
00:26:30.220 --> 00:27:19.159
And Virginia was the second state to close, Kansas was the first, believe it or not.
00:27:19.159 --> 00:27:25.879
And and we actually put policy in place where schools could open almost as fast as anyone else.
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