Recorded live at the 2026 ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, this session featured John White, CEO at Great Minds; Lizzette Reynolds, Commissioner at the Tennessee Department of Education; Lance Evans, State Superintendent of Education at the Mississippi Department of Education; Ashley Andersen Zantop, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Cambium Learning Group; and Karen Vaites, Founder at Curriculum Insight Project.

The speakers explored how the Southern Surge story was often misunderstood, arguing that it was not simply about phonics or retention laws, but about the deeper system shifts that four Southern states had made around curriculum, coaching, and leadership. They examined what truly fueled the South’s historic gains in reading and why much of that success had been lost in translation as other states rushed to replicate it.

This conversation demystified the underlying drivers of the South’s literacy progress by unpacking how state leaders aligned instructional materials, strengthened educator support through coaching, and built leadership systems capable of sustaining large-scale change. Panelists discussed how these systemic shifts created durable improvements and offered lessons far beyond literacy alone.

At its core, this session explored what the Southern Surge revealed about how states could drive meaningful, large-scale improvement across education systems. By moving beyond surface-level policy replication and focusing on deeper structural transformation, the conversation highlighted how states could turn literacy gains into broader movements for sustained educational progress.