Picture the cabinet meeting. The math scores came back flat again. Someone pulls up the intervention schedule, the PD calendar, the walkthrough tallies. Proof, laid out on the table, that the district has been working. Nobody in that room lacks commitment. Nobody is coasting. And the scores are still flat. If you're a leader sitting in some version of that meeting, this post isn't here to tell you what you're doing wrong. It's here to offer a different possibility than the on