In the latest episode exploring new school models powered by artificial intelligence, Summit Public Schools’ Cady Ching and Dan Effland join Michael Horn and Diane Tavenner to discuss Summit’s transformation into an AI-native school model. The conversation examines how clarity around school outcomes and model design enables the effective integration of new technology, followed by insights into the evolution of Summit’s expeditions. Ching and Effland emphasize the importance of a holistic, purposeful education, as well as the need for a robust technology infrastructure to scale innovation.

Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.

Cady Ching: I think what has been really helpful for me is to list the ways that a model is not. It’s not a curriculum, it’s not an LMS, it’s not a schedule by itself, it’s not a set of beliefs or a graduate profile by itself. Those are parts of a model, but a lot of the building that we’re seeing right now is focused on building for parts versus building for an actual whole model. And so the AI-native model is how all of those model elements are working together. And it is not going to be replacing a school model. It’s going to expose whether or not you actually have a model. And I think AI is forcing a lot of school systems right now to get really honest, because if you don’t know what students are supposed to be learning and you’re not sure how they’re showing that or what adults are responsible for, AI just layers on complexity and, quite honestly, chaos. But if you do have the level of clarity of what Dan is speaking about, AI is actually making systems work a lot better, or it can make systems work a lot better.

I think the jury is out on the tools that we need and how we can create the tools that we need. But AI really isn’t replacing, it’s revealing whether or not your school model actually exists.

Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.

Michael Horn: Hey, Diane, it is good to see you with some excitement for today’s episode.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, we have a real treat today. We’ve got two of my favorite educators in the world joining us for what I’m sure is going to be just a really interesting conversation.

Michael Horn: Well, and for years, as obviously I’ve learned about Summit from you, direct from you, and yet it’s been nearly 3 years, I think, since you passed the baton, if math is still a thing. And I know from afar that the team continues to be among the most innovative schools in the country and so I know that they continue to think about reinvention, and frankly, you know, what does Summit need to look like? How can it get even better? All these questions for its learners. And so I’m incredibly excited to dig in and learn about what they’re calling Summit 3.0 on today’s show. I will say it’s also interesting to have this conversation because we’re sort of in our model geek out, if you will, at the moment, right? While we’re having this conversation, we’ve had the founders of Alpha School, Flourish on, both of which are designed as AI-native models. And for those who listened to those episodes we sort of created a little bit of a side-by-side, if you will, where we said, hey, Summit is here as this baseline for a pre-AI model trying to do personalization or optimization of each kid’s learning. And we explored what can you do in an AI-native world? How can you design differently? But today what’s exciting, I think, is we’re going to get to dig into what does it look like for an existing model with that orientation to become, quote unquote, AI-native.

And as you know, transformation and how organizations reinvent themselves, that’s something I get really passionate about and excited. So I cannot wait to learn from the real-life example in progress.

Diane Tavenner: Well, we’ve got the two perfect people for that conversation, Michael. And so let me introduce you to Cady Ching, who is the CEO of Summit Public Schools, where she was an extraordinary teacher and school and network leader for a decade before taking on that role. So she brings this full spectrum of experience to this next phase. And Dan Effland, who is the senior director of innovation at Summit, where he was also an extraordinary teacher and school leader before taking on this new role of leading for the second time in the history of Summit, the reinvention of the model. And so welcome, Dan and Cady. We’re so happy that you’re here with us and excited to talk to you about the work you’re doing.

Cady Ching: Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m excited too. It’s coming at this moment for Dan and I where we’ve been trying on a lot of language about where we’ve been, where we are today, and where we’re going. So selfishly, this is a milestone for us.

Michael Horn: Well, and I get to feel like I’m jumping in on a team huddle of y’all. Yeah, this will, this will, this will be fun.

Cady Ching: Welcome, Michael.

Michael Horn: Thank you.

What Is a School? 

Diane Tavenner: Dan and Cady, a few weeks ago we got together and you walked me through the thinking and planning you’re doing. And honestly, I was captivated, you know, because I got stuck on it and I wanted to dissect every word. By this simplest definition of school, it’s honestly the simplest definition I’ve ever read of a school. And I wanted to start there today because I really think we always have talked about getting to the simplicity on the other side of complexity. And I think you’ve done it with this definition, and I think it’s going to be really powerful in this next chapter. And so maybe, Dan, kick us off. And if you will share that definition and a little bit about how it came to you or how you all came to it in your process and what you think it unlocks.

Dan Effland: Yeah, happy to. And thanks for having me here. I’m so excited to talk to you all. Yeah, so, I mean, we’ve been working on this for years, right? What is simplicity on the other side of complexity? And I think as we’ve been digging into what does redesigning look like, it became really clear that you have to get down to some foundational elements to avoid designing within conventions and not even really realizing you’re doing it. And so the way we’re thinking about schools is simply, it’s a group of young people. It’s a set of outcomes or competencies. And then it’s a set of resources that help you support young people to achieve those outcomes or competencies. That’s it.

Kids, outcomes, resources. And stripping all the way back to that has allowed us then to engage with our community, because all this work is like with students, caregivers, and educators, and go like, OK, what do we really want? What do schools really need to be? With full freedom, we call them dreaming sessions, where we can really engage off the simplest foundational elements and not get hooked by any of the conventions that have existed, you know, for decades or longer than that in a lot of cases.

Summit 2.0: Evolution and Vision

Michael Horn: It’s really cool because you’ve sort of, like you said, you sort of have a conversation around what those end posts, and we can sort of figure out what’s inside the box to get there apart from what’s always been there. But before we go to that sort of Summit 3.0 vision and where you’re thinking currently is, because I’m imagining you’re going to have lots of trade-offs and changes as you go through the design process, but I think it would be helpful to do a quick turn on Summit 2.0. Both to ground, frankly, our audience, but also to set up a question of how things are changing and where and so forth so that we can understand that. And so I’d love, and maybe Cady, you dive in on this first, how would you describe the Summit 2.0 model, which was not only in your schools, but schools across the country? It’s one of the reasons I think it can be called a model,  it’s scaled beyond Summit itself, right? And as you think about that, the new model, what is it in the Summit 2.0 that you’d say, we really want to hold on to this? Or where are the things that you’re saying, hey, actually, that’s something we can leave behind or start to question whether we want to change that?

Cady Ching: Yeah, thanks for asking this question. I think it’s so important. The reason why I keep smiling when you all say Summit 2.0 and 3.0 is because Dan and I actually got into it a couple weeks ago about if we wanted to use that language or not. And my issue with it was I think it’s really, it serves a purpose because like to Diane’s point, it is simplicity at the other end of complexity. And there is a danger in the simplification of the 2.0 and 3.0 because at Summit, we really think about innovation in two ways. One just being innovation through refinement, which is the day-to-day tightening of the model elements that we’re building on for these larger moments of innovation, which we call innovation for redesign. And so those are sort of the sector-shifting, big model, what we call Big M changes. But I’m going to use Summit 2.0 and 3.0 language today in shorthand.

Michael Horn: Thanks for doing it for the listeners.

Cady Ching: Yeah, and so Summit 2.0 really speaks to our personalization era at Summit, where we showed personalization doesn’t need to be a luxury. And we did that by designing cohesive student and teacher experience., and it included model elements like mentoring and skills assessment and differentiation using real-time data, which we enabled through tech. And the tech that we co-built was called the Summit Learning Platform. For me, what I think was most remarkable about what we proved in Summit 2.0 is what you mentioned. It was scalable, and it did scale, and schools were able to implement and sustain the Summit model on public dollars. Which was remarkable. And so we reached 100,000 students, 6,000 educators, and 400 schools across 40 states.

And we did it with district, charter, private, rural, suburban, and urban. It was completely shifting the field. And then we normalized mastery-based learning, personalized playlists and skills and habits in a way that now is the foundation and the baseline in so many places that we’re now talking about building these AI-native models on top of. And so to the second part of your question, which I’ll kick off and then, Dan, I’m going to pass it to you to add on, we think about model elements and processes that we want to carry forward into Summit 3.0. In the process side, which is where I thrive, we were successful because we were leading from this intersection of the learning science, community engagement, and technology, and we centered teachers and students at every part of the design.. And we’ve used those same design principles to continuously improve our model since Summit 2.0. For me, I feel like we’re 4 years into Summit 3.0, and we’ve already gotten some really exciting data back about situating us as leaders in the field again around what we’ve built on top of the personalization.

In last year, this is our most recent data, we saw that our Summit alumni have some of the highest post-graduation incomes and lowest debt loads, as compared to other top-performing charters. And this is the type of longitudinal outcome evidence we’ve been really longing for. And when you think back about how Dan just defined the system, what that data does for us is it grounds us in that we do have a really strong set of outcomes and competencies that are timeless. Our young people are now achieving them, and we’re letting go of the old technology to create space for AI-reimagined infrastructure that’s going to help us to better allocate resources. And we think our biggest resource levers are people, technology, and time. So that’s really how we’re thinking about Summit 2.0 setting us up for Summit 3.0.

Michael Horn: Dan, did you want to jump in there and add some?

Dan Effland: Yeah, yeah, I think I’ll just like, you know, I think, you know, Cady and I were both teachers in Summit 2.0. We were both school leaders in this, and so we have a lot of really direct connection to it. And the thing that really makes me think about it is like, you know, the learning platform is no longer in existence, but the elements of the model really deeply took root. Mentoring, mastery, what we called habits of success, I think we’re calling durable skills in our world now. Like, I’m fine with it, whatever we want to call it. It’s become ubiquitous. And I think it really helps. I mean, I think it really gives us a sense of a strong foundation of like, we’ve done this before, we’ve built a model that’s scaled and really stuck.

And it doesn’t matter if the technology, you know, is stuck or not, because that technology is not the model. The tech model is these elements of how you support kids to master these outcomes with whatever available resources you have are. And so, yeah, I think there’s a point of pride when we think about, you know, what we’re begrudgingly calling Summit 2.0. And then I think there’s a sense of the strength of the foundation to then build what’s coming next.

Personalization & Durable Skills

Michael Horn: It’s interesting. And we’ll come back to the technology, I know, and we want to circle back to that. But hearing Cady, you described the model, used a few words that I think are really important for people to hear. One of them was cohesive, because I think a lot of the tech efforts right now around personalization in so much of the country are the opposite of cohesive. And that’s why we’re seeing a blowback sometimes against technology, because it’s sort of all over the place and hundreds of things going on at once for a young person with tons of distractions. And you talked about it being grounded in the learning sciences and personalization as a, as a means, not the ends, right? And, and then you have these longitudinal outcomes. And I’m just calling them out because I think people often lose sight of, this is the bedrock, right, of how we build from, and then go from there. And the other piece, and Dan, you just referenced this, the field is now calling it durable skills.

I still prefer habits of success. Let me just be on record on that one. But one of the things you all really did well around Summit 2.0 was have incredible clarity on the mission, what success looks like, such that you could measure in the way you just said, Cady. And I didn’t know those stats. I mean, it’s fascinating., and then you had these commencement-level outcomes, right? You were super clear on what does it look like from a, you know, for a Summit graduate as they go out in the wild. And it seems in some ways those commencement-level outcomes have been precursors to the movement across states that we’ve seen in the Portraits of a Graduate. And I do think that there’s some key differences. I’ll hold my editorial back on what those are more because I want your take on that.

Like, what, if anything, are the differences and, and between those commencement-level outcomes that you all have defined, the portraits of a graduate that we see states doing, and more broadly, like, what’s the importance of being super clear on what those outcomes are and, and how you’d know, on the other side, if you could speak to that. And I don’t know, I’ll make it a grab bag of which one of you wants to jump in on that.

Dan Effland: Dan, take it away. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, so our vision has been the same for 23 years. It’s preparing young people for a fulfilled life, really all people. We think of our staff as part of that too. And fulfilled life is in some ways, again, simple. It is purposeful work, financial independence, strong community, strong relationships, and health. And so that’s given us a holistic picture, a holistic point B that we’re always going for.

You know, I don’t, I don’t know how I compare it to Portrait of a Graduate or Portrait of a Learner. What I know is it gives us a lot of clarity in that you can’t design a coherent model without clarity of where you’re headed. And that it’s also really important that that clarity is holistic and is not simply a set of academic outcomes. It is much broader than that. And that gives us a huge advantage in this work right now because we’re not spending a lot of time. We certainly talk to our community and affirm, you know, on a regular basis, is this still what people want? Is this still what our communities are after? And it is. And so we can move right to like, okay, how do we get there?

Cady Ching: The thing that I would add on top of that is, I loved, Michael, what you called out around the language of a model. I think that at the operator level, and when I’m talking to, to other school leaders, this word is used in a lot of different ways. And I think what has been really helpful for me is to list the ways that a model is not. It’s not a curriculum. It’s not an LMS. It’s not a schedule by itself. It’s not a set of beliefs or a graduate profile by itself. Those are parts of a model.

But a lot of the building that we’re seeing right now is focused on building for parts versus building for an actual whole model. And so the AI-native model is how all of those model elements are working together, and it is not going to be replacing a school model, it’s going to expose whether or not you actually have a model. And it’s, I think AI is forcing a lot of school systems right now to get really honest, because if you don’t know what students are supposed to be learning, and you’re not sure how they’re showing that, or what adults are responsible for, AI just layers on complexity and quite honestly, chaos. But if you do have the level of clarity of what Dan is speaking about, AI is actually making systems work a lot better, or it can make systems work a lot better. I think the jury is out on the tools that we need and how we can create the tools that we need, um, but AI really isn’t replacing, it’s revealing whether or not your school model actually exists.

Diane Tavenner: I’d love it if we go back to your simple definition, Dan, that we started with, when we sat down. You use the word package of outcomes, and I was obsessed with that word package for this reason, because you know, maybe I will jump in here a little bit on the portrait of a graduate. 

Michael Horn: The table’s been set for you, Diane. 

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And one of our, you know, Summit’s longtime beloved board chair, board member, who honestly is one of the most forward-thinking, I think, philanthropists who launched a scholarship for Summit graduates going into Pathways years ago, like ahead of the curve, you know, sent us a note the other day with a real critique of portraits of a graduate. He was sort of reading about them and was just very, you know, like, what are these people thinking? And I think what he was responding to was a lot of the portraits of the graduate, like, feel very checkboxy and compliance-oriented. Versus this sort of holistic. And I know that’s not the way they were intended.

AI Evolution in Education Models

Diane Tavenner: They all have good intentions behind them, but the way they have been sort of brought to life and then communicated and then implemented are what Cady, I think, is speaking to, not as a model, but as like these individual components that don’t have a coherence about how they’re actually organized an organized set of resources to achieve those package of outcomes, if you will. And so I think that what you all just described is at the core of your success going forward and what an advantage you have. And it really speaks honestly to the durability that you’re carrying all of that forward in this next phase, that being, living a life of wellbeing it actually hasn’t changed, right? The elements of that haven’t changed, and that’s what you’re equipping young people for. So, you know, in a recent episode, Michael and I had a conversation, just the two of us, which was super fun, and we were dissecting a way of thinking about school models in three buckets. And I know you are both familiar with this framework, which is essentially that, you know, Model 1 will use AI to make sort of the existing industrial model school more efficient and better. Model 2 will stretch the bounds of that industrial model school with integrated AI. And Model 3 will be AI native, you know, essentially built from the ground up with AI capabilities that are assumed to be at the core. And, you know, as you think about where you’re now going with Summit 3.0, how do you view it in the context of this framework? And, you know, what does AI make possible that wasn’t possible in 2.0 because it was designed pre-AI?

Dan Effland: Love this question. And I did listen to that episode. So I’ll start with the model part, and then I really want to get into what AI makes possible and kind of what it pushes us to do. So I love reading like Learner Studios’ 3 Horizons model. I love Bob Hughes’ paper on the 3 models. I find that stuff really, really important for evaluating what exists and really valuable for visioning and for getting into this place of what really is possible. And I think, and that’s really useful. I will say, when we start designing and working with our young people and working with our caregivers and our educators, I actually find it useful to kind of set those categories aside and to ask the more foundational questions around, like, we know where we want to go, we have this clear vision, we have this really simple, you know, conception of what a school is with kids’ outcomes and resources.

And now let’s go from here. And when you get into, like, as we’ve talked about, we have a lot of clarity about our outcomes already. We really believe deeply that this holistic model of a healthy, thriving, you know, young person, young adult, adult is going to be durable regardless of the transitions that are happening in our society. But when it comes to the resources part, now we have this whole huge different potential, one, AI being a resource, but also a way that I think we’re most really interested when it comes to AI is how we can use it if we integrate it into our tech stack. Really how, like, with a really robust knowledge graph and really strong data layer, you could be dynamically reallocating resources in a way that just would be impossible for people. You know, like when I used to build an annual schedule, like the primary schedule with our Dean of Operations, she and I would sit in an office for a week with a spreadsheet to make a schedule for the year that never changed, right? Like, it’s just so labor-intensive. But now I think when we think about AI as part of our infrastructure, and it’s kind of a layer in our tech stack interacting with a really robust knowledge graph and data layer, we can start to ask ourselves, like, how do we get the right resources to the right kids at the right time for the right outcome? And really get very, very precise, and also do that dynamically. And I think that then allows us to think about personalization, just-in-time instruction, integrating real-world experiences, ensuring that personalized learning still happens in community and there’s deep human connection that is part of personalized learning journey in a way that was, was not possible when, you know, 12 years ago when we were thinking about Summit 2.0, the technology just didn’t exist.

And so, I mean, it’s exciting. I mean, I really think there’s incredible possibility there. And while there’s definitely lots of really cool tools being built, we’re much more focused on the, like, where does this fit as part of our technology infrastructure or our tech stack, because we think that’s, like, potentially a huge lever for transforming learning for young people.

Current Applications of AI in Schools

Michael Horn: It’s fascinating to me, ’cause you just named a number of things that AI could do that I had never thought about in terms of, like, dynamically changing the schedule for, you know, the school and students and, like, there’s some pretty cool things you can start to imagine that ripple out of that. One of the things in that conversation that Diane referenced that she and I agreed to hold ourselves accountable for was to get really specific when we talk to school leaders about, so what’s happening today in your schools that’s actually leveraging AI or is quote, unquote AI native, if you will? And so you all are obviously still in the design phase for 3.0. I use that with trepidation now, but put that aside for a second. Like, today, if I were to, you know, get to be in California again and I was hanging out in your schools, what would I see that’s powered today by something that’s AI native? What is it? What are the tools? What does it look like? What does it do? What are you building versus partnering with? Give, give us a sense of some concrete applications. Anywhere in the tech stack or during the day, that is AI-powered?

Cady Ching: I think this would be a good opportunity to talk about a specific tool that we’re using, which maybe not ironically is Futre as one model example of what it can look like. And Dan can speak to specifically what it’s looking like in the student and teacher experience. But one of the reasons why I start with speaking about a specific tool is because I think that largely edtech has not— has been really unsuccessful in solving for what we need to operationalize innovative school models. And Futre has been a nice shift of pace for us because it is truly a tool that is building for the child versus fitting a child into a tool or larger system. And I think that the way in which we’re using it with our young people can work in many H2 and H3 model contexts because it’s able to give us real-time data about our young people and then allowing us to build their student experience based on the data that we have about them. Dan, can you introduce, Michael a little bit more to Futre and how we’re using it at Summit?

Dan Effland: Yeah, absolutely. So Futre right now we’re using with our juniors and seniors, although we anticipate starting younger, in the coming year. And right now, our juniors are really using it to do a lot of career exploration, which the tool excels at, and really like exploring very deeply different possibilities. And then what those possibilities mean as far as what they need to be working on now or experiences they have between kind of their current point A and their future point B. And then our seniors are using it to get more concrete about what really, what is my next step? What does that mean? What is the thing I’m doing immediately after high school?  — I think we deeply believe this and will proudly say it is best-in-class career-connected learning. It is. Absolutely. It is the thing when we do — when I do focus groups, when we do alumni data, kind of research, it just comes up over and over again because our young people actually get out in the community or within the school building and really doing what we now are calling real-world experiences. We’ve called them lots of different things over the decades, but we are — one of the things about that though is that kind of like we were talking about, how do we really curate the journey with this resource allocation stuff? Just tracking all of those different experiences, often there’s 50 or 60 choices for students at one school when we had those expedition cycles. We’re now pulling those experiences onto the Futre platform so we can really start to map what students have been doing, what they haven’t been doing, maybe what they should be doing. And then their mentor can take an even more engaged kind of role in coaching them through that pathway. We’re really excited about that.

We’re kind of just starting, you know, to pull those on. But I think in the future it’s one of the things that we see that the Futre tool will be really, really helpful with because, you know, young people need coaching as they’re figuring out that concrete next step.

Michael Horn: So super interesting. I actually have two questions, but let me go to you, Dan and Cady, first. And then I have a question for you, Diane. I’m going to put you on the hot seat. But I think we’re allowed to do that. But it’s interesting. You just said something there in your answer, Dan, which was then the mentor or coaching.

And so just like to put a fine point on it, The, like, this works really well because you have a model where there is that function that is meeting on a regular weekly basis, right? And like, so therefore that touchpoint, like it’s coherent again to use that word, but I, I would love a quick update on how Expeditions has evolved because when I think when Diane was exiting Summit, like, y’all were in the middle of redesigning it and I’ll be super honest, like even though she and I talk basically weekly, I don’t actually know the new version of Expeditions. And so, I still have a slide in my talk about Summit that says, you know, like every 8 weeks or whatever, you go off for 2 weeks. And y’all should update us on what’s the current state of Expeditions at Summit.

Cady Ching: Yeah, I’ll respond to 2 pieces. One, with the mentoring piece, that model element does exist. One of the reasons why I personally love Futre is because it takes some of the lift of mentors needing to be the vessel of all career pathways off the human. So when we think about that resource allocation of, you know, people, talent, it’s creating a better, more coherent system for the adult as well, which has been so important because we love to center our teachers as well in the design. And then the Expeditions redesign, it’s been really cool. We’ve been, you know, continuously shifting that program based on what our alumni are sharing back with us, based on how the world is shifting. And of course, AI, as so much a part of our students’ experience today and in the future, has shifted it again. It is non-graded— so this is actually surprisingly one of the most controversial things when we rolled it out to parents— they are not receiving grades on the different career exposure pieces that they try out as they’re with us at either the high school levels or as early as 6th grade in Seattle.

And it’s really about ensuring our students get about 9 career exposures between the time they start with us to the moment they leave, because we know it’s really important for them as they develop their identity to see themselves in different career pathways that are all mapping towards high opportunity where they can build their generational wealth for their family. So it’s probably pretty similar in terms of the time allocation. They’re in sort of what we call their core classes for 6 weeks, and then they’re pausing for 2 weeks to go out, usually in the upper grades, off campus. You don’t see — when people come to observe this on our site, they’re not actually a lot of kids in the building because learning happens without walls. Dan, what else would you add as you’re going? Dan is quite literally on an expedition tour currently. He’s at one of our school sites right now, and right after this recording, he is going to go in and speak to our teachers. So what else would you add?

Dan Effland: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s an important side of it is so that, I mean, one, it’s just, I was still in a school leadership position when we transitioned to this kind of redesigned Expeditions, and I just can’t tell you how powerful the experiences are. I can think of so many stories, so many young people, but like one in particular that a young, he’s — well, he’s probably not even that young now, but he’s 25, but he was a young, young man at the time who was really, really struggling. And this kid was having discipline issues, attendance issues, struggling, like, not necessarily living at home on a regular basis. And we really, we thought we were gonna really lose this kid. And he started doing an expedition experience related to culinary arts. After he did that first one, he did a second one, and then there was kind of a sequence of them where he had, you know, like the first one was kind of like a survey course. It was the community college. It was about 25 kids.

Finding Passion and Purpose

Dan Effland: Then he was able to do one where he was actually kind of shadowing one of the actual culinary arts program college students and learning in a second wave. So I’m having a hard time not using his name, but I’m going to keep it out. But I just loved this kid. And he found his pathway. And not only did he find his pathway and ended up going to a culinary arts program and graduating and now works, you know, like in the culinary arts, you know, scene in Seattle, his attendance improved, his grades went up, his connections with his mentor, with his teachers, with his peers, which were, you know, fraught, got better and better. And he became a healthier human because purpose and passion and having a pathway is essential for all of us. And we’re at a time when, you know, you can read about this everywhere, there’s studies, our young people are really searching for that clarity about purpose and pathway. And when you see it, I mean, it’s just like Cady said, it’s kind of hard, like it’s not a good thing to tour because the kids are mostly out in the community.

Dan Effland: But when you have the privilege of being a school leader and you see these kids over the years and they do their cycles, you just, the impact is unbelievable. So yeah, I just wanted to, yeah —

Designing Education for the Child

Michael Horn: No, the anecdotes make these things always so much more powerful. And I mean, you can, through your story, hear him building a positive identity of himself, right? And that’s incredible. Diane, something Cady said made me think of it, which is obviously, you know, folks who listen to us know that you’re the entrepreneur behind Futre. I now understand why it was originally called Point B based on Dan’s language and I guess, but she said something interesting, which was like a lot of edtech has not helped the launch of new model design, right? Because it’s been, and that, that’s sort of been obvious to me for why, right? Because the market is schools as they are, and venture capital wants big markets, and right, like, it’s — so it’s, it’s this sort of reductivist thing that happens. But she said you’ve been designing for the child, and so you’ve been able to escape that and I wondered if you just might want to reflect on that, because I imagine it is still hard though, um, because you’re still like — schools are the conduit to the kids. So just sort of like, what’s the advice, or what have you learned, right, through, through navigating that?

Diane Tavenner: Well, I think that I mean, so much of what Dan and Cady have just said is so important. And I think that what, what was one key thing is, you know, I sort of set out to build Futre as an edtech partner that did things differently than what I experienced when I was sitting in, you know, the seat that Dan and Cady are in. And you know, that core value of our company is how we do the work is as important as the work that we do. And so how we do the work is very much co-building with schools and leaders and students. And so, you know, we are out in the field working with students and teachers and people like Dan and Cady literally every other week. So we are literally co-designing and code building what happens. And so what you just heard, that Futre is being designed to help young people build this identity over a 10-year journey. I mean, that’s unheard of, I think, in any sort of tech market.

People don’t think about that. We have real outcomes that people are aiming towards, and most tech products just look at what’s something that exists and try to make it more efficient or slightly better. They don’t think about the integration of it, the flexibility of it, how it will be used by the adults. I mean, As an example, they just told you Futre can be used both in individual coaching, mentoring, advising, counseling. It can also be used with groups of students in a classroom, and it’s actually literally designed to support both of those. And I will say the, the inclusion of really supporting real-world experiences came directly from our engagement with our school partners and our students. That emerged as this real need And we were watching people literally running around schools with laptops on their arm and all these spreadsheets and trying to organize. And so we have co-built these elements together.

But you’re right, the incentives in the business side of things are not to build this way. And so, you know, like always, we’re going to see if we can prove that wrong and say, no, when you do build this way, you not only get better outcomes for young people, schools and teachers and educators, but you also can be a successful, scalable product.

Michael Horn: So certainly a more enduring product if you, if you thread that needle, right? So for sure.

Cady Ching: Yeah, exactly. So I think it’s I think it also speaks to why it’s so important for Dan and I to sort of pull together a coalition of the willing with other operators. One thing we haven’t spent — I know we’re almost at time — that much time talking about is how hard this work is. It is challenging, and we have so much to learn. We are not perfect. We are learning every single day. We are constantly seeking out other school systems that have similar visions for education, and we’re trying to learn from them. We’re trying to get out onto their campuses and be in community with them because we know that if we want to build something that’s enduring and lasting and maximizing impact on the number of students in our country, or even globally, we have to build for the students of Summit as well as all students.

And I think that, that’s what’s most important for me as I set out to lead some of this work is if it only works at Summit, it’s not good enough. And what we’ve learned about leading change at scale is that we need a shared purpose for what school is actually for, and that belief that it’s possible to build a system for that purpose, which is actually no small feat. And it’s why we’re spending so much time building what I would call a coalition of the willing, which is educators and systems who agree on our common destination before we start building the actual tools. I think my core idea is that beliefs come first, model comes next, and then the tools come last. And when we get that order right, that’s when the scale can become possible.

Summit Learning: Model vs. Technology

Diane Tavenner: Cady, I want to double-click on what you’re saying because, you know, you talked at the top of this about how Summit Learning had really scaled across the country to 40 states and, you know, 100,000 students, etc. But Dan, you also said the technology, the Summit Learning platform was not the model. It is not the model. And the model has really taken root even as that particular piece of technology has gone away. That said, I do know that you both believe deeply that having an aligned core technology that is the infrastructure that sort of I think, Dan, you used the word guardrails, like puts up the guardrails and the support for the model is profound. And I know that you’re in conversation with other folks who’ve done some at learning who are, who it’s taken root for them as well, but are having a hard time really keeping that model intact. And so talk about sort of the need for that infrastructure, the role that it plays and what you think it might look like in 3.0. And Cady, you just said it, no one’s going to build technological infrastructure for a single school or a single school system.

And so there has to be this coalition.

Cady Ching: We have to create the market.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And so talk about that because the market generally is not very coherent. And as I sit on the other side, it can be really confusing and hard so talk about how you guys are thinking about that.

Enabling Learning Through AI

Dan Effland: Yeah, I think this is something we’ve started to be spending more and more of our time on as we’ve gotten clearer in the work with our students and caregivers and educators this fall. We’ve gotten clearer about where we’re going. There is this need, which is that technology is not the model, but it is, you know, there’s a reason we talk about time, talent, and technology as the big levers with resources. It is a huge enabler. And I think the possibilities with AI as part of that technology infrastructure make it an even stronger enabler. So I’ve already talked about like the idea of like dynamically reallocating resources, which is, I think, I love in a conversation educators here, because I think sometimes it’s not the, like the shiniest thing to talk about, but we know that getting kids the right thing at the right time in the right sequence is often the difference between learning and not learning, between progress and not progress, and between finding that pathway and not finding it. And so, at a high level, when we’re thinking about that infrastructure, we need to make sure that, like, we have a really rich, you know, amount of data.

And there’s a lot of work to be done there. Our school systems historically have not put data together in ways where you can create what like a technology person would call the data lake in a way where you can really access that as you need it. And then the next element is going to be a really robust knowledge graph that is not just academic standards. It’s got to be much broader than that. And then, of course, the way that AI would then interact with that to allocate and think about your resources. And I’ll share too, like when we think about resources, I generally think of everything as a resource. My time is a resource, Cady’s time is a resource, our educators’ time is a resource, curriculum is a resource, YouTube is a resource. Anything that can help a young person move towards those outcomes, we think of as a resource, and how can we constantly repackage those and get them in the right order while holding onto the vision? Because I think there’s a version of personalized learning that I would call like individualized learning.

That’s not what we’re talking about. I believe this has to happen deeply in community and with really strong relationships and human connection. And so the personalized learning, then it’s actually more complex when you’re committed to maintaining community and relationships, because you’ve got to figure out configurations of young people and not just put everybody separately on a computer they have a particular pathway and so.

Cady Ching: And that’s what we’re seeing, we’re seeing people just run, sprint towards an outcome without doing the diligence. And I think that it’s resulting in a lot of binary. If you’re either tech-forward or you’re human-centered, and there is a way to bring that together and build a model that’s doing both and that’s what we’re setting out to do.

Dan Effland: Yeah. There’s another binary too, that we haven’t talked about, but we should stamp here, which is this binary of like, real-world readiness or academic foundations. And that we now, we have these camps and like, we’re all about academics and we’re all about the real world. And when you talk to students, you talk to students and caregivers and educators, no one thinks it should be an either-or. That’s the scarcity mindset we’re often in, an area that we engage in educators. And we’re deeply committed that our young people will be prepared with college-ready academic foundations and real-world readiness, which means for us habits of success, communication, collaboration, all executive functioning. That is has a purpose

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. One is, as Dan, your story of that student showed, the sense of purpose, which is connected to what my life will look like in the future, really is what drives everything for a young person, right? It’s how they’re forming their identity as they build that vision. It’s what motivates them to stick to the hard work every single day on this journey to get where, where they’re going, and so yeah, I think what you’re up to is really critical. I hope that a lot of schools and systems engage with you to create this demand in the market for this type of infrastructure, dare we say, you know, Summit Learning Platform 3.0 as well. Because I think that it’s really, it’s hard to conceive of a post-AI model that doesn’t have that. That real infrastructure.

And I know you all haven’t seen it or found it yet, but continue to make strides in bringing it to life.

Michael Horn: This season of Class Disrupted is sponsored by Learner Studio, a nonprofit motivated by one question: what will young people need to be inspired and prepared to flourish in the age of AI as individuals, in careers and for civil thriving. Learner Studio is sponsoring this season on AI and education because in this critical moment, we need more than just hype. We need authentic conversations asking the right questions from a place of real curiosity and learning. You can learn more about Learner Studio’s mission and the innovators who inspire them at www.learnerstudio.com. 

So a good place maybe, Diane, to wrap up.

Should we pivot to our before we let you off the hook section? Cady, Dan, we have a tradition here where we, where we talk about something we’ve been reading, writing, watching, listening, whatever it is, not writing, listening to, and eventually I’ll get my verbs correct. But and then, so just often we try to keep it outside work, but we often fail. So, Cady, you want to go first, and then Dan, we want to hear what’s been on your playlist or bedside table, and then Diane and I will wrap it up.

Cady Ching: Yeah, sounds great. I have been— I taught my 7-year-old what it means to brain rot. I don’t know if you’ve heard that term, but where you just sit on the couch and just kind of watch nothing for hours and hours. And we did do a Spider-Man and Avengers binge this past weekend. So that is something I have been watching a lot of. Reading is going to be hard for me to separate it from the professional. I’ve just been really deep in leader succession. I think to do this work, you need really strong talent in leadership pipeline.

And so I’ve been in HBR. I check the Marshall Memo every week to see what, what they’re pulling out, to really think about how I’m leading personally, locally, individually, but then also what the sector needs. Dan, I’ll pass it to you.

Dan Effland: Similarly, like the kind of first answer on my mind is just this fire hose of like white papers and podcasts about education and AI.

Cady Ching: And then he screenshots them and sends them to the whole team.

Dan Effland: Yeah, drive everyone nuts with them. But I do have a more, maybe a more fun one on the personal side. Kind of finally reading the Foundation series, the Isaac Asimov kind of classic sci-fi. It’s honestly about connection for me. My siblings are sci-fi readers and I’m very late to the party. And then my father is retired now, and one of his, it seems like, main activities as a retiree is to reread everything Asimov ever wrote multiple times.. And so for Christmas this year, I got a stack of these really great, Half Price Books paperbacks of all the Foundation novels, and I’m starting to work through them.

And we have a text thread about them, and they are, it’s a wonderful story, it’s very complex, and it certainly does also make me think a little bit about the future of our world and AI and, and what, you know, where, where young people fit in that, but it’s also just been a really fun way to connect to the family.

Michael Horn: That’s cool. Wow.

Diane Tavenner: What about you, Diane? Well, picking up on that. So first of all, apparently this is not going to be a novel recommendation because this Apple TV series, I guess, is the most watched at this point. But we watched Pluribus, which was created by Vince Gilligan, who — yes, Breaking Bad. Yes, Better Call Saul. I didn’t watch either of those, but I was a huge X-Files fan

Michael Horn: Back in the day.

Diane Tavenner: OK. And so there is very much some X-Files feel here in Pluribus. But to what Dan said, and I think Foundation is related, I just find this series to be so provocative in the questions that it’s bringing up and sort of the contemplation of where we’re going as a society and how the choices we’re making each day might affect that and what we actually want. And I will— I told you I would report back my goal. I did finish Ian McEwan’s novel that I pre-promoted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was everything I expected and more.

It was just extraordinary. And I did both of those over the holiday. And I will tell you, I feel like I’m sort of in surround sound right now of asking these big existential questions along with everything from what’s happening in the news on a day-to-day basis to all the work in AI. So, but I would highly recommend it. Super provocative and interesting.

Michael Horn: Perfect

Diane Tavenner: Perfect. Crazy. Like, you never know what’s gonna happen next.

Michael Horn: That’s fun when you can’t predict it coming.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah.

Michael Horn: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, so the brain rot theme that you brought up, Cady, I mean, we talk about it all the time with our 11-year-olds, here at home. But I was — this is not where I was going to go at all with this, but I — something one of my kids said made me think of the Animaniacs theme song, if you all remember that cartoon from back in the day, and I pulled it up and showed it, and my wife just dismissively said, this was brain rot when we were growing up. so, there you go. the one I’ll say is, we all went with another family and saw Wonder, at the American Repertory Theater. Many people may know the book, Wonder, which follows the story of Auggie Pullman, a 10-year-old who has Tretcher Collins, syndrome that presents as disfiguration of the face and sort of how going into a school environment for the first time and all the things that it does. And there’s a movie about it as well, but now there is a musical too.

And Diane, you will not be surprised, I was crying from the opening number and I kept it up through the whole thing. So it was, I was true to form. That’s a good one to cry over. It was good. I represented well, but it was fantastic. We’ll see if it makes the jump from sort of off-off-Broadway to something bigger, but until then, if you’re in the Cambridge area, definitely check it out. And for all of you, just huge thanks, Cady, Dan, for joining us, getting us to have a peek under the cover of what’s coming next at Summit and the broader — as usual, you all are thinking about the broader ecosystem as well, which I admire so much about the work you all do at Summit. It’s not just our model, but how does our model spur this greater change across education.

So huge thanks for joining us. And for all of you listening, keep the questions, comments coming. Diane and I feed off them, and we really appreciate all of you. We’ll see you next time on Class Disrupted.

Disclosure: Diane Tavenner founded Summit Public Schools and served as its CEO from 2003 to 2023.��

This episode is sponsored by LearnerStudio.

John Danner, the cofounder of Rocketship Public Schools and now the founder of Flourish Schools, an emerging network of AI-native microschools, joined Michael Horn and Diane Tavenner to share what’s now possible when it comes to school design in the age of artificial intelligence that wasn’t previously possible. Danner explained how Flourish is leveraging AI to deliver foundational skills like reading and math through conversational tutors to free up teachers to focus on building relationships and nurturing students’ passions and “superpowers.” 

He also shared how they’re using the technology to provide real-time assessment and feedback on student projects. The conversational models can be much more powerful, he says, than previous edtech applications. 

Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.

Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.

Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. It is good to see you again for our continuing conversations on AI.

Diane Tavenner: You too. This one’s going to be a fun one. You know, our most recent episode, we talked with Alpha School founder Mackenzie Price. Most people have heard of Alpha at this point. It’s getting a ton of attention. And so what we tried to do there was really move beyond the talking points and the marketing to really dig into the model itself, including specifically how they’re using AI, which is turning into a bit of our quest this season. And so this conversation today is a part of that exploration on who’s building what I would call maybe AI-native school models, if anyone. And, you know, what might they look like? What are they starting to look like? And it’s a really fun conversation today because we get to have a chat with an old friend.

Michael Horn: Yes, that is indeed correct, Diane. Today we’re going to get to chat with none other than John Danner. John, for those that don’t know him, has had a decorated career in tech before turning to education, as he co-founded and led NetGravity, the first ad server company, I believe. And after taking it public, selling it to DoubleClick, John went back to school and then became a teacher, and he taught in Nashville for a few years there. And then I think a lot of folks know him because he co-founded, of course, Rocketship Public Schools in 2006, which we, of course, talked about also in our last episode. But Rocketship was a buzzy school for a good while there, marked by its student outcomes, its use of technology, its expansion. And then after leaving Rocketship in 2013, John did a number of other things, including founding an online math tutoring company, creating some very interesting education investment vehicles and more. But I want to skip ahead to his most recent venture, Flourish Schools, which is what we’re going to hear about today.

Michael Horn: So, John, hopefully I did some justice to the bio, but, welcome. It is always good to see you.

John Danner: Thank you, Michael. Great to see both of you. Long time.

Michael Horn: This is going to be fun. This is going to be fun. So let’s start with grounding our audience. My assumption is that a lot of folks know Rocketship and what you did there. Far fewer know about the Flourish Schools model itself and what these schools actually look like. So maybe give us the basics, like what is Flourish Schools, how many of them are there today, how big are they, what’s the grade levels, what does a day in a student’s life look like at these schools? You know, paint the picture for us.

John Danner: Yeah, yeah. So we started Flourish about a year ago. We opened our first school last August. In Nashville, one microschool so far. They’re middle schools, so grades 6 through 8. I’m out in Phoenix today. We’re opening a couple more schools in Phoenix next year, next August. And I’d say the reason for doing it, you know, Diane knows this well, like doing schools is quite difficult work.

Enhancing Foundational Learning with AI 

John Danner: I often prefer being on the software side where, you know, life is good. But, you know, schools are hard work and sometimes you have to do them. I think the big motivator in starting Flourish for me was that I had started a couple of AI companies, Project Read, probably the most notable doing reading, which is in a lot of classrooms. And I just noticed that most schools are using AI in a very supplemental way right now, very much the same way they used edtech. And that bothered me because, you know, in reading, for example, I think there’s a pretty good argument that AI for reading is going to be better than the best human reading teacher within the next year or two. It’s not a long way off at all because teaching reading is really hard. Training teachers to teach that is hard. It’s hard to be patient with kids when they’re making lots of mistakes.

And it’s hard to remember everything a kid has ever done when they’re reading with you, right? All of which just is default for AI. So, you know, in watching Project Read roll out and seeing everybody kind of use it, you know, in those last 15 minutes in the class when they were kind of, you know, a kid was done with the assignment and needed to do something else. Like, I was like, you know, that doesn’t seem like how AI should, affects schools. It should be used more strategically. You know, what can AI do, and therefore what do you do with teacher time? I think, you know, for me, teacher time has always been kind of the scarce resource. It’s like whatever teachers focus on is really what schools do. No matter what schools talk about, it’s like, OK, what, what are your teachers doing? That’s what’s going to have the most impact. And so Flourish we, we started with the assumption that what we call foundations, kind of the basic skills, reading, writing, math, are going to be better taught by AI.

The way we kind of look at it is if you think of like Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 instruction, it’s really the move from technology as a Tier 2 or Tier 3 product to a Tier 1. So, you know, can you use AI to do kind of tier 1 basic skills and standards-based instruction? And so that was what we did from day 1 at Flourish. We’re 6 months into it now. I would say the lesson learned is, of course, you’re going to have students in any school that like, you know, whatever. We have several special ed, several ELL students they need more time and attention. But during our foundations block, which is an hour long, teachers have time to work with them one-on-one. And a teacher working with a student one-on-one on reading or whatever is like a luxury that like no other school has because that you can’t have them doing that. But when all the other kids are making great progress with AI, having a teacher spend that time, that luxurious time is actually possible.

AI’s Impact on Schooling

John Danner: So that’s the fundamental thesis is that we can do that in a way that that’s what our teachers are not doing and spending all their time preparing for and teaching during the day. And that allows us to kind of come up with a new curriculum. And I think actually, you know, you guys want to focus on AI and we should. I think the actual interesting question with schools is once you make the commitment that AI is going to do a lot of this basic instruction, then you’re confronted with the now what problem, which is like, oh gosh, what’s school for like moving forward? And I guess that’s, that’s what we’re kind of excited about is we’re in this super serious time of change for students. They’re not going to grow up to a world that we all experienced. You know, my daughter just got out of college. She was a pre-med, but didn’t really want to be a doctor. She gets out in the job market and gosh, there are no jobs.

And like all those other things that she learned along the way about hustle and, you know, you got to go put yourself out there and whatever played out and she found a job. But boy, like if you had just spent all your time in school, like learning algebra or whatever, she wouldn’t have done well. So, I think, you know, our point of view at Flourish is we, we talk about 3 things mainly, relationships. So these are middle schoolers. So how do you get along with other people? And we do an hour we call circles, which is really as kind of therapeutic as it might sound, where kids are sitting in a circle talking about their feelings, how other kids affect them, et cetera. And for many, many of our students, I’d say it’s pretty mind-blowing to actually understand how other people are thinking, you know, as you’re talking and saying things and stuff like that. Really powerful.

So relationships are a big piece. And then we talk about two others, superpowers and passions. So superpowers is kind of our word for what people have called soft skills. I hate the term soft skills because it’s kind of denigrating in a world of like standards-based instruction. Oh, that’s the other stuff that, you know, makes you a human, but it’s not nearly as important as high school chemistry or whatever. Like, we actually think it’s the opposite now that knowledge is pretty abundant and accessible, like the things that make you human are the more important things. So, do you have agency and curiosity and these other things that make you awesome? That’s important. And then the passion side is really, what do you want to do when you grow up? What are you excited about? What are your big interests? Which, you know, as you know, for upper-income families tends to happen at home.

You know, you’re sitting around the table or you go, you know, on a little family field trip or whatever, and kids are discovering lots of different things that they might be excited about. Happens a lot less in working class and lower income families. We’re purposefully mixed income. We took a page out of your book for that, Diane. I think that’s really the right way to do this. And so for our kids who are, you know, working class and lower income, we think like discovering, what the world is and what you might want to be in is super important, especially in middle, so that you kind of enter high school with some idea of like what you’re excited about and some kind of path you might want to pursue. Even if that changes, that’s OK, you’re not just kind of clueless showing up in high school, which, you know, a lot of kids are.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, super helpful, John. You know, one of the ways I’ve been trying to have conversations with people about what these sort of AI-native models will look like or can look like or do look like is I don’t want to have a conversation where we compare what they’re doing compared to like the old industrial model classroom, right, that’s like not useful to me.

John Danner: We’ve had that conversation. Yeah.

Diane Tavenner: So I keep using the sort of Rocketship and Summit because I know them the best of like best-in-class sort of personalized learning models that we were doing the very best we could at the time with the resources we had, and doing a lot of what you just described, right? Like, I’m assuming circles maybe comes out of Valor, which, you know, it has, you know. So like, a lot of that great stuff we were doing before. So what I’m really, and you’ve alluded to this, I think, with shifting Tier 1 instruction out of the classroom model and the AI is doing that. But let’s dig in a little bit deeper. Like, literally, what’s possible today that we just didn’t do 10 years ago and now we can do it? And what does that specifically look like in the model?

John Danner: I think the big change here is really one from point and click to conversational, right? Like, that was the eye-opener for me, really, you know, back in the ChatGPT moment was you kind of just immediately it became clear that a conversational agent would be able to kind of work through things with a student in so much better way than, you know, kind of what we all did with kind of edtech back in the day. So, you know, we all, we call it personalization, but there’s kind of a difference between a program more or less knowing where you are and what you need versus what an AI does, which is it knows everything. You know, like in Flourish, we more or less pour everything about a student into it. We have transcripts from everything students say. Like, the AI just is all-knowing about what’s happened with that student at the school. And so when it’s personalizing, it’s 100 or 1,000 times deeper level than like this basic categorization that edtech used to be able to do. So I think it’s much more aware of what students need. And I just think the mechanism of talking to a student conversationally is so much better than kind of navigating through a bunch of screens and the stuff we used to do.

Diane Tavenner: So I’m assuming then you’re building your own. It sounds like you’re building, you called it curriculum, but like that tier 1, because I have yet to see sort of off-the-shelf products that are really, that I would be like, yeah, they’re great. They can do the tier 1 instruction. Talk about what you’re building, what that looks like for middle school kids, you know.

John Danner: Yeah, right. And remember, we’re 6 months old, so anything I tell you is like total work in progress. But, you know, we’ve got good people and we’re working pretty hard on it. So the, you know, the fundamental idea, so I’ll tell you where we started with this and then kind of where we are now. We kind of had this idea that we’d have an agent on our side that was very good at sending kids to the right place to get the right help, right? So kind of like a hybrid between the old ed tech world and kind of this AI-driven world. And we pretty quickly discovered the kind of things that we had discovered at Rocketship, or I’m sure you did at Summit, which is there’s so much friction and stuff involved in manipulating another program. It’s like basically not worth it. And so that probably took a couple months for us to just realize like this is a waste of time.

Tutoring via Adaptive Dialogue

John Danner: And so really the way our system works today is as a student, I’ll tell you today and then where we hope to be in 2 months. So today, the way it works is that we have kind of a pre-assessment where we’re looking for what a student knows. Based on what they know, they enter a conversation with our AI. We often will have a 1 or 2 minute video of like just what that thing is, kind of an old edtech type thing, right? Just because I think a framing is often helpful for a new concept, but that the majority of the real instruction is kind of this dialogue between the AI and the student on like, OK, well, let’s talk about, you know, two-digit addition just for lack of anything better. Here’s a problem, you know, solve this problem for me, tell me how you’re doing it. And then basically just digging in as the student doesn’t get it. And it’s so easy to prompt for, I mean, you know, Zeal, my third company, the math tutoring company, we had figured out all the misconceptions that every student has in math. And so when you prompt an AI with that, OK, here are the 10 likely things that a student’s going to do wrong, when they’re doing two-digit math, it just goes, oh, OK, that’s it, and then it goes deep there, right? So if you think about it, it’s very fluid.

It’s very much what a human tutor would do in that case. They’re kind of responding in real time to what that student’s doing and going, oh geez, you don’t really understand how to carry the tens place, so let’s go deeper there or whatever. So that interaction with the AI happens, and then we go out and post-assess. And so the student’s kind of manipulating where they want to go and what they want to do through that process. Where we’re going, where I hope to be in a couple months, is that that’s all, all the pre- and post-assessment is kind of gone. We’re finding that the AI through that dialogue has just as good an understanding of what that student is capable of doing as kind of any formal assessment process. And it’s much more natural to just have the students sit down with the AI, you know, when they start and talk about what they want to work on. And then, you know, kind of the AI drills into that and shows them a video and does things like that.

So I think it could feel quite a bit like, you know, a student showing up at a tutoring center and that tutor kind of just working with them. It feels like that’s going to work. But that’s where we’re at with it.

Diane Tavenner: Is that voice or are they typing or both?

John Danner: We’re doing typing now. We’d love to do voice. We started there and we really worked hard on it. I would say that the biggest problem with voice for us is that we have never figured out the kind of noisy classroom problem. Very hopeful that somebody does because of the issue, you know, even if you’re off in a corner of a classroom or even outside in the hallway, the AI hears everything. And so it you know, and if you think about it, like when you’re in one of these sessions, the AI hears something and somehow inserts that in the conversation. That’s just weird. It kind of ruins the whole flow.

So it’s easier with middle schoolers to do kind of a text-based one right now. But I, you know, what I’ve told the team is I think the main interface for AI will probably be audio at some point. Like it’s just the most natural way. And so as the industry kind of builds better and better models for that, I hope that this problem gets solved and we can go to audio.

Diane Tavenner: That makes sense to me. And do you then have a knowledge graph underneath that? So even though the students sort of like flowing where it makes sense to them, at the end of the day, you have kind of the macro plan of where you want them to go.

John Danner: And yeah, so we built a super elaborate one for Zeal and unfortunately are more or less rebuilding it now for all of our stuff. Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, as you guys know, the real challenge with AI is often that it’s so good in the moment at these things, but you kind of have to bring it back to reality sometimes. And so, you know, having a prompt that says, hey, pull the knowledge graph and see what’s the most important thing to work on is helpful. It’s kind of like this, you know, savant type tutor that can help a kid in the moment with anything, but kind of loses the picture of like what’s the most important thing to do. So you kind of have to bring it back.

And I think the knowledge is the way to do that.

Diane Tavenner: John, how does this connect with, I know you’re very committed to project-based learning and sort of that approach, which you know that I am as well. And, you know, it sounds a little bit like what you’re describing. You know, at Summit Learning, we have the playlists where you were doing the content knowledge. What you’re describing, I think, is a stronger version of that and what AI can do. How are you connecting it to the projects? What’s the intersection there? What’s going on there? And are you using AI in the projects?

John Danner: Yeah, the answer to the second is definitely yes. And let’s talk about that in a second. So we have a theory as a, as a school system, that’s probably the opposite, at least the opposite of like my alma mater. I’ve been talking to Bellarmine. It’s my alma mater in San Jose, talking to teachers about that. And, you know, AI is a problem for a lot of schools and teachers, right? Like it’s the cheating and stuff like that. We have basically the opposite approach, which is like, assume any kid can use anything that will help them read, write, understand, research better, and then like uplevel what you’re teaching so that you assume that yes, everybody’s writing is going to be perfect now. Don’t worry about that.

That’s not your job anymore. So with projects, you know, the link really is when you’re in a project, you’re trying to apply knowledge to build something to do something. And it’s extremely common to not understand something well enough to do that well. And so you need to go off and kind of research and understand it. So the link that will exist that doesn’t exist yet, which I’d like to see, is foundations lives in its own block right now at Flourish, but we’d like foundations to be accessible kind of basically all the time for students so that that’s the main way that you research as well through kind of an AI interface. So that’s the ideal. Right now what happens is that a student kind of struggles, they go off and use Gemini or something for things. And then we know, you know, the AI knows because it’s paying attention to the project and what’s going on.

‘Oh, this student struggled with this,’ and then in Foundation that kind of bubbles to the top the next day. But like, why wait? Like, just make it real time. If a student’s struggling with something, just go ahead and do it. We do have to figure out kind of the, you know, the tier 1 versus tier 2 of this. Like, if a student’s really struggling and they’ve got a real issue and you just wipe out project time doing that, that doesn’t feel right either. So we’re gonna have to figure out like what level of intervention happens if, you know, they’re still not getting it. But certainly at least the tier 1, like, oh, I just don’t know about this, let’s learn more, should happen through that Foundation system, we think.

Diane Tavenner: That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Tell me about what the educator is doing in these times.

John Danner: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the most important thing really is And I know for many, many teachers, the concern is, gosh, well, maybe you just don’t need me anymore or something. And that’s just completely not true. I mean, I noticed this at Rocketship, you know, people go into teaching because they love kids. That’s like, you know, that’s the common thing that you always hear. Some people go into teaching because they want to be content experts, but not that many, at least at kind of elementary and middle, like, it’s still really driven by like, I really wanna connect with kids and be with kids, not like I wanna be the best reading teacher or whatever. And so, you know, when you kind of push a lot of this like content knowledge and instruction to AI, what really happens is a little bit of like what I was describing with tier 2 and tier 3 during that time where a teacher now has a lot of time. So, you know, a lot of the stuff is going on. Project-based learning is nice that way.

Building Teacher-Student Connections

John Danner: Kids are working on things, which feels kind of like a big Montessori classroom or whatever, where like everybody’s being industrious and getting things done. But like, you know, the question is always, OK, so like what’s the best and highest use for the teacher at that point? So I think, you know, our opinion in general is kind of building trusted relationships is the most important thing you can do as a teacher, right? Like anytime you think about teachers that affected you, it’s because for whatever reason they spent the extra time to kind of get to know you, understand what you were going through, and like became kind of a trusted friend and advisor. And I think buying time back to allow teachers to do more of that is by far the highest value. Of course, interventions and things like that are awesome. Having students reach to do higher-order thinking once they’ve finished a project, all that’s great, but I think it’s all in kind of service of making that connection between our teacher and our students such that the student is more excited and interested to, you know, learn and think with that teacher about other things, you know, especially with superpowers and passions and things like that. Like, we have it, I’ll just brief aside, you know, we have these report cards that have superpowers on them. And so they say things like, you know, organization or self-awareness or whatever. So you can imagine our parent-teacher conferences are pretty amazing because while a parent is like, yeah, I don’t really know much about middle school math and frankly don’t care that much.

Boy, when you bring up self-awareness or something like that, they can go on for a long time. And so you have these really deep discussions about these kinds of things and kids by middle school, certainly in high school, they’re not really listening to their parents about these things very much. They’re kind of sick of hearing this. So I really do think schools have a way better chance of kind of influencing how children are doing these things, especially around superpowers and passions. But that requires trust and trust, you know, it’s hard to build. So we think that the best thing for teachers to be doing is kind of like getting into deeper conversations with students and talking to them about like, you know, what their interests are, what they like. And building that in the hope that they have influence over that student’s trajectory.

Michael Horn: Well, so, John, I think this actually is perfect translation into the other thing that AI is doing to free up teacher time for that, which is, as I understand it, at least from, from what you’ve written, is that you have this AI coach that is quite involved in the project-based learning piece of this equation. And I think two distinct ways. So, maybe talk about that.

John Danner: Yeah, I mean, again, work in progress, so I’m not super happy with how it’s being involved right now, but I’ll tell you what I want it to be doing well. So I think that, you know, and Diane, you live this, that the real challenge with project-based learning is there’s kind of like this huge amount of really mechanical stuff that happens in project-based learning, whereas students are confused about what they’re doing, or they’re tired and not motivated, or whatever, and you watch project-based classrooms and like actually like 80% of the teacher time is like walking around doing that stuff where they’re like, come on, Joey, let’s get going, you know, blah, blah, blah. Which of course there will still be some of that, but to what extent can you create a really awesome thought partner that kind of does a lot of those things? Like, hey, Joey, you know, what we need to focus on here is this. Have you thought about, like, you know, kind of re-engaging the way a good teacher does. Because if you can free them of a bunch of that kind of, you know, really mechanical time, I think not only does it free time, it also like kind of frees your mind up as a teacher to kind of think deeper and like look for relationships and, you know, these kind of things that we really want teachers to do. So I think that’s a big piece of what we’re hoping that this coach does. The other thing it really does for us, and you asked about this before as well, Diane, is it listens. So we’ve got mics all over the place, students are talking, it’s all anonymized, but basically the system knows what bucket to throw all the comments that students are making, etc.

Teaching Soft Skills

John Danner: And when you think about like superpowers, these soft skills. One of the other difficult things in that kind of curriculum and approach is like, and you see it in kind of SEL-type schools all the time, it kind of devolves into like playtime sometimes where it’s not as rigorous. And what AI can really do there is by looking for evidence of, you know, perseverance, for example, when did the student show that they didn’t just stop, they kind of asked the next question and kept going? Like when the AI can provide those examples in each student’s kind of superpowers report card of those things and the teacher can review it, that is so helpful because, you know, when it comes to like pushing for students to improve in these areas. Teachers really have to know, like, kind of where everybody is, where is John on these different skills, where should I focus. And so helping to provide data so that teachers can do that is, is really, really important. I would say it’s pretty good. Like, here’s one thing that kind of surprised me, we did this like a month and a half ago, the AI assessing these, we have 24 of these superpowers across all the students in the school. And we did the AI-rated students on a scale of 1 to 5, and then 3 teachers rated those same students.

And it was only off from kind of the lead teacher by about 10%. So like you know, that to me, that’s like, it’s close enough. It’s kind of like stuff where it’s like, you’re probably right, like a super expert teacher can absolutely do a little bit better. But like, we kind of want to get it to the point where the teacher’s like, yeah, you know, I pretty much trust this. I’ll look at the evidence, but more or less, it says that, OK, like, what should I do about that?

Diane Tavenner: And John, that assessment from the AI was just sort of that natural capture of all they’re doing and assessing based on, yeah, to me, like, then assessment is a no-brainer. That should, I think it’s a conflict of interest for teachers to be assessing, quite frankly, but that’s another conversation. But,.

John Danner: I mean, the other point here, right, is that when you do assessment that way, I think it’s both more valid and stops taking classroom time, right? It just happens naturally. And that’s how it happens in the real world too. It’s not like you sit down and.

Michael Horn: You go, right, we don’t stop and say, now here’s your time.

John Danner: You don’t give somebody a 5-question assessment. 6 months or so. It’s crazy.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, yeah. So, can I just play back to you what I think you’re just, saying, just to make sure I’m getting a real picture of what’s happening or what you are moving towards happening? And you’ve only been at it for 6 months, but you’re making pretty quick progress, it sounds like. So this, like, if I’m a student in my project time, and we all know this happens a lot, there’s some kids who, like, literally, you know, the teacher’s bumblebeeing around, and every time the teacher bumblebees around, maybe I’m productive for that moment, but then the teacher bumblebees away, and then I’m kind of playing or I’m whatever. But AI knows what I’m doing in those in-between times, and so I’m getting some sort of feed or feedback of some sort, and the teacher’s seeing it, my family’s maybe seeing it, of like, hey, this is what’s going on in your time, and so we’re going to hold the mirror up, give you some feedback, tell you like, this is the stuff you could be doing to be more productive. Is that kind of what you’re describing? And If so,

John Danner: Yeah, we’re all going to have that. So this is another thing, like one of the things we think about a lot at Flourish is like, is this different than the real world’s going to be or the same? And I think we all basically need that. Like, you know, if you had a voice that was kind of going like, John, what are you doing? You’ve been doom scrolling. You know, like it’d be pretty helpful, really.

Diane Tavenner: Well, one of the big conversations is about motivation, right? And like, oh, you can’t, you have to like motivate kids to use the technology to learn. But actually, I think you’re flipping the script here and saying like, no, the technology is like literally helping, young people be motivated because someone’s paying attention and they’re noticing what they’re doing and they’re giving them feedback on it. And you know,

Feedback and Rewards Drive Success

John Danner: The feedback thing is the important thing. It’s like basically if something’s giving you feedback, like even if the feedback’s not perfect, it’s so much better than not getting feedback. You know, like the classroom where everybody’s got their hand up and they’re just waiting for the teacher to call. Like that’s a bad place to be. So now you’ve basically got this continuous loop. The other thing I would say that I think is just almost for free in this world is, you know, the gaming world has figured out a lot of things that they do when you’re doing a pretty basic task to play the game, and you might not be that excited about it, but like, you know, they’re setting up rewards. We use badges, um, you know, so like an example is you might do 2 or 3 different projects, and by doing those 2 or 3 different projects that was built up to a badge. And so the badge is kind of hanging out there and some other student in the class got it.

And so you want it and things like that. And, and those like really kind of basic game things are very helpful at different times during the day, right? Like we kind of all need a little bit of push. We’re very conscious of intrinsic versus extrinsic. motivation. And so like projects are a good example where the default is intrinsic. We want students to be kind of working on that project because they’re interested in that, because they want to do it. But there are definitely times where the AI is paying attention and kind of prompting and even, you know, doing some rewarding and things like that is actually quite helpful for them to kind of persevere.

Diane Tavenner: John, I want to talk to you about, I think you’re the perfect person to talk to about this. So one of the things I hear out there a lot is like, oh, the hyperscalers are just going to build this. Like, number one. Number two, most schools and school systems have zero ability to actually build what you’re building. So you’re sort of this unique person because you sit at the intersection of like opening, operating schools and the ability to build sophisticated technology. Is that, are the hyperscalers going to build what you’re building? Like, are you, like, how do you think about the building of the technology here for schools?

John Danner: Yeah, I mean, we’d be pretty happy if the hyperscalers built it, first of all. We’re, you know, so I think that the main challenge over the next 20 years in education is going to be how quickly do we move to a world where students are living in the current world as opposed to the, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. Like, and, and so these basic things we’re doing like foundations, I think it’s important for students to live in that world now. And so what does it take school systems to move towards that world? I know that your approach at Summit, our approach at Rocketship in the beginnings of the edtech world were, hey, let’s just build these kind of basic model schools and hopefully people will come visit and go, oh gosh, you know, that doesn’t look too bad. Like I could probably do that as well. So I think a lot of the point of Flourish is creating this proof point where people can come and see and go, huh, that, that actually works well, and it’s definitely not dehumanizing. I see the teacher interactions with the students as being more human, um, than my classroom. So I think that’s like actually our point, our reason for being is to kind of be that model.

And, you know, we’ll build a network and we’ll get as big as we can, but, but really kind of purposefully influencing school leaders, district leaders, state leaders to think about, like, you know, what they could do as well. On the technology side, I’m generally of the opinion that a lot of this will get easier and easier for everybody who’s not at the foundation level over time. I will say, like, there are some exceptions to that. So, like, with Project Read, with phonemes and graphemes. When you’re doing kind of deeper reading stuff, they may get there. I mean, the AIs may know everything at some point, but like there’s not a super strong reason for them to get there earlier. So there are pockets like that that probably will be specialized for longer. But, you know, as a school, it’s just better for us the faster all of that becomes a commodity.

And the more we can just, you know, get off-the-shelf stuff, like there’s no real joy in building all of this stuff. And for the change to happen, we don’t want people to have to think about all this stuff, really.

Diane Tavenner: No, I have to ask about scale because your point that the faster we can get kids to be living in today’s world versus the old world suggests that we need to scale as quickly as possible for that to happen, to get as many kids there. You and I both bear a lot of scars around different efforts to scale both mortar schools and influence type things. This time you’ve gone with a microschool network. What’s your, you had grand ambitions with Rocketship and clearly Rocketship’s great and Preston’s done an amazing job since you left, but it never reached sort of the scale that I think you originally hoped. What is your thinking now? Why microschools?

John Danner: Yeah, I mean, you know, putting it like just putting it bluntly, I think politics killed charter schools more or less. Like, you know, you look at most high-performing charter schools, they tend to look more and more like the districts that host them. You know, they actually, like, I look at RocketShips around the country. They actually look as much like the district they’re hosted by as they look like RocketShips sometimes. You know, it’s like, ’cause you know, your authorizer authorizes you and they have a lot of influence. So it was kind of like this cool experiment that at the beginning probably created a lot of innovation and then over time kind of has this like bringing it back to the, you know, kind of what the districts are doing. I think that microschools, certainly microschools, are starting in a very different place, you know, where the way I think about charters is the compromise happened right at the beginning. Where we would like to receive public funding and for that we will like to fit into the system.

Whereas the microschool movement kind of started with a different point where the stronger position was taken early on when the laws were formed that like these things are independent. They’re way more like private schools than they are like district schools. And of course, there will be some influence from states and others on that, but nowhere near like, you know, what we saw in the charter world where it was like, you know, I remember the story I always tell is Rocketship had specialized teachers for math and reading in elementary school, which was not normal at all. And I was just tortured for years by districts over this. You know, the main thing was like, no, it’s, you know, a student needs one trusted adult, you know, when they’re that age. And if they have two, it’s going to like, you know, all fall apart, which was, of course, total bogusness. But I had to go through that anyway. Like, you know, that was just time of my life spent arguing something silly.

Whereas with microschools, you just don’t have to argue that. So I think the big question is, what will be the ultimate, like, kind of political destiny of microschools? Will they get capped in the way that charters did? Will they somehow kind of get influenced in a way they aren’t now? Right now they’re pretty great. I mean, you know, you basically build a school that parents and students love and, and you build the curriculum and the program you want. That’s nice. Something you would have enjoyed, Diane.

Reimagining Teachers’ Roles

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s tempting. I will say Michael’s always so kind because when we start talking schools, I just take over. So he’s being so patient. The thing that’s coming to me, and maybe this will lead us to wrap up, is, you know, you and I both taught, and were passionate about teaching. And as you start talking about politics, one of the sort of sad elements of that politics to me is I think teachers get involved in kind of, or, you know, blocking some of these changes, a lot out of fear, a lot of out of like but my identity is teaching a classroom of students and writing great curriculum and like doing all, you know, being a hero. And I think what you’re offering is a new identity for a teacher that might actually be more aligned with why they got into it in the beginning, which is instead of judging myself by the quality of my classroom instruction, I’m like literally focused on every single kid learning and growing and, you know, in your words, flourishing, right? It’s such a profound

John Danner: In general, I think that professions that go in the direction of being more human, where the human elements are like the differentiator, they’re going to do so much better. So I, you know, wrote a piece on this. I just think, you know, while most parents would not have counseled their kids to become teachers in the last 20 years, I think that conversation is likely to change because I think it’s going to be both a more enjoyable job and probably more resilient to kind of the whole AI apocalypse than most jobs.

Michael Horn: Agreed.

John Danner: Yeah.

Michael Horn: I think that is a good place to part us. But John, I feel like we have like 10 other questions like sitting in our dock that we could have dug in with you. But let’s pivot. This is fascinating. It’s really cool to see what you’re building and hear both the frustrations, but also frankly, the North Star for where it’s going. And one day maybe Massachusetts will have you here. But I’ll pray for now. But let’s pivot.

This season of Class Disrupted is sponsored by Learner Studio, a nonprofit motivated by one question. What will young people need to be inspired and prepared to flourish in the age of AI as individuals, in careers and for civil thriving? Learner Studio is sponsoring this season on AI in Education. Because in this critical moment, we need more than just hype. We need authentic conversations asking the right questions from a place of real curiosity and learning. You can learn more about Learners Studio’s mission and the innovators who inspire them at www.learnerstudio.org.

We have this section that we always talk about things we’re reading, watching, listening to. We try to do outside of work. People track us on this stuff. Diane and I occasionally fail. I’m going to fail today. So you can go wherever you want.

John Danner: So, yeah. I’m rereading the Culture series, Iain Banks, right now. So my brother works for Tesla and Tesla just, as you probably heard, kind of made this transition where they knocked off the Model S and Model X and are building robots. So he’s building robots right now. So that makes it much more personal to me that like the future is coming soon, and so, you know, I’ve always been a science fiction reader, but, but I think one of the cheat codes in Silicon Valley is like the amount of science fiction consumed equals your ability to be comfortable with like what’s coming. So yeah, culture series.

Michael Horn: Good rec, good rec.

Diane, what’s on your list? You said you’re cheating.

Diane Tavenner: So, I’m cheating, I’m failing today. Sorry. Ted Dintersmith has his latest book out and sent it along. I couldn’t resist. The title is very provocative. It’s called Aftermath: The Life-Changing Math That Schools Won’t Teach You. And, you know, this is really, you know, for those who don’t remember, Ted, like, goes hard on the things we’re doing wrong and really tries to bring public awareness to them. And, I think lots of us have been concerned about how math is taught and not taught and whatnot for a long time.

So, that’s what this one’s about.

Michael Horn: I have an email from him in my inbox to send him my address, so I will do it after this conversation, uh, so he could send it to me as well. But, I’m also cheating. I’ve been really interested in, not just how schools start doing new things, but how do they stop doing old things? Like, they are just really bad. And it’s not just schools, by the way. Like, all organizations are really bad at deimplementing or pruning, like, old things that don’t make sense anymore, whether they’re bad habits or frankly habits that just aren’t fit for the current age. So I’ve started, like, trying to read some of the academic literature and just learn about that. And there’s a book, Making Room for Impact: A Deimplementation Guide for Educators, by Aaron Hamilton, John Hattie, and Dylan William. And so I’m just cresting the end of that book right now, and, and then looking at all the healthcare studies that they’re citing.

And I haven’t decided if I’m going to read those, but that’s where I am right now.

Diane Tavenner: So is it a recommend, Michael, or no?

Michael Horn: I mean, it’s, it’s like a, it’s a deep workbook, right, on the topic, um, is what I would say. So like, if you’re a school and you’re trying to work through this, definitely dive into it. I was more interested in like, who’s, who’s thought about, like, how do you de-implement? How do you prune, right? And because there’s just not a lot of conversation except for educators griping about it. And so I wanted to learn more and it was a good starting point. So huge thanks, John, again for joining us. We appreciate it. Really check out his Substack as well if you want to just sort of follow along on the journey, I guess is what I would say. And we’ll watch as Flourish opens two more in Arizona in August and keep up the good work.

We appreciate you. And for all of our listeners, keep the emails, notes coming. We love it. We learn a lot from it as well, and it inspires us on our future topics. And so, as always, thanks for joining us on Class Disrupted. We’ll see you next time.

This episode is sponsored by LearnerStudio.

Thousands of California school employees have received preliminary pink slips in recent weeks as districts scrabble to close budget gaps caused by falling enrollment and rising costs. Most went to school administrators and classified school staff, such as clerks, administrative assistants and paraeducators.

Districts were complying with a ��them to send preliminary pink slips by March 15 to any employee who could potentially lose their job before the beginning of the next school year. Many of the notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given — as districts make decisions about seniority.��

This year the layoffs have taken a dramatic turn as district leaders increasingly target classified and central office staff to balance budgets.

School districts have lost both average daily attendance funding, due to declining enrollment, and federal Covid dollars. At the same time, districts are paying more for pensions, health care, supplies and special education. 

“You have some large school districts and even some mid-sized and smaller school districts that are in complete financial crisis right now, and on the verge of insolvency or going into receivership,” said Troy Flint, chief information officer for the California School Boards Association. “When the deficit is so great you almost have to make hatchet-type cuts.”

District offices in the crosshairs

District staff are being targeted by some districts. In Sacramento City Unified, everyone working in the district office, including the interim superintendent, was issued a pink slip.  and are also planning to make major cuts to their central offices. 

“The board directive, ever since we declared the deficit, has been pretty clear: Whatever cuts we have to make, keep them as far away from the classroom as possible,” said Brian Heap, Sacramento City Unified’s chief communications officer. 

District officials can’t say how many employees at the Serna Center – Sacramento City Unified’s headquarters – will ultimately lose their jobs until they complete a plan to restructure the office, Heap said.

“We have to have somebody running payroll. We have to have somebody in the business office. We have to have somebody in our academic office,” Heap said. “But what does that look like? That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Sacramento City Unified officials have announced they will send layoff notices to 800 employees, most who are classified employees, to help reduce a $134 million budget deficit.

“I’m certainly nervous,” said Heap, who also received a pink slip. “I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

The Los Angeles Unified in February to issue 3,200 layoff notices, including 657 to central office staff and other centrally funded classified positions. The layoffs, expected to actually result in 650 lost jobs, are estimated to save the district about $250 million. The district is facing an $877 million deficit next school year and $443 million the following school year, according to board materials.

Oakland Unified could  of its central office staff along with counselors, case managers, attendance clerks, community school managers and other support staff to make up $21 million of an estimated $103 million deficit, according to media reports. The to issue a total of 421 preliminary layoff notices and reduce the hours of 144 employees, according to Oaklandside.

Nonteaching jobs often cut first

Classified staff are often targeted for layoffs for practical and political reasons, Flint said.

“They [districts] try to concentrate layoffs among classified staff and administrative personnel simply because teachers have the most direct impact on student experience and academic achievement, and because teachers — as the school employees who are most well known to parents and the community — generally are the most sympathetic profession in the education field,” Flint said.

The California School Employees Association, which represents about 240,000 of the state’s K-12 classified school support staff, reported that at least 2,700 pink slips had been issued to its members by the state’s March 15 deadline. An additional 519 members received notices that their hours would be reduced and another 254, with jobs funded by federal dollars, were given 60-day layoff notices, according to a union report issued on March 6. 

Districts should make sure they have cut every possible expense before they start removing staff from school campuses, said CSEA President Adam Weinberger, who works in the Perris Union High School District in Riverside County. 

“When classified employees are laid off, students lose more than services; they lose trusted adults in their lives — bus drivers, educators, custodians and office staff who build relationships with our students. And those connections are essential to a safe and supported learning environment,” Weinberger said.

California school boards also approved layoff notices for administrative staff and workers represented by other unions, including members of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 50,000 classified school employees in California districts including Sacramento City Unified. SEIU officials could not be reached to provide information about the number of members who received layoff notices.

Teachers did not get off unscathed

Even with efforts to shield teachers from layoffs, more than 1,900 pink slips were sent to members of the California Teachers Association by March 13, according to the union. The union represents teachers, librarians, school healthcare workers and school counselors. Last year about  received notices.

The pink slips are being issued at the same time that many bargaining units of the CTA and other unions are negotiating with their school districts for new contracts, most asking for higher salaries and improved benefits.

San Diego Unified approved a contract with its teachers early this year that prohibits the district from laying off teachers or other certificated staff for the 2026-27 school year. Instead, the district sent layoff notices to 133 classified school support staff, according to the CSEA.

San Diego Unified board member Sabrina Bazzo said she is proud of the decision not to cut teachers, saying it’s not what is best for students.

There are still many districts laying off large numbers of teachers, as well as classified support staff.

According to the CSEA, Long Beach Unified officials planned to send pink slips to 515 teachers and other credentialed staff, 15 to managers and 54 to support staff. Santa Clara Unified planned to send pink slips to 113 credentialed staff and 49 to classified workers. Antioch Unified approved a resolution reducing its credentialed staff by 104 positions and its classified staff by at least 193 positions, according to a union report.

Pasadena Unified indicated it had also issued 161 pink slips to its credentialed employees and 240 to classified school support staff.

“The reductions are significant and affect every school and department in our district,” said Pasadena Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco in a statement. “We are living within our fiscal reality, as difficult as it is, to protect student learning, the district’s long-term ability to serve future generations, and local control.”

Annual ritual causes anxiety

Many have called the annual ritual disruptive to schools and demoralizing to the employees who receive them.

“Our members are working paycheck to paycheck, and they’re looking for stability,” Weinberger said. “I know we have many members that get one every year and, then they’re rescinded and that creates instability in their lives.”

Eventually, those employees begin to look for other, more stable, jobs to ensure they can provide for their families, he said.

EdSource reporter Mallika Seshadri contributed to this report.

In 2009, the federal government launched a remarkable educational experiment. Effective teachers were paid large bonuses ($30,000, adjusted for inflation, over two years) to move into a low-performing, high-poverty school.

This reflected the moment’s zeitgeist: use test scores to identify the best teachers (and also the worst). This so-called Talent Transfer Initiative worked, according to a : Test scores rose by 3 to 5 percentile points among students taught by transferring educators. It was an example of the tangible benefits of having an excellent teacher.

Yet the story does not end there. A group of researchers recently this study and offered an intriguing twist. If the transferring teachers remained as effective as they had been in their prior school, test scores would have risen even more.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

But in fact, in their new schools, these great teachers transformed into merely pretty good teachers. This reflects a profound and sometimes underappreciated fact about teacher performance: It’s not just about the inherent skills of an individual. It’s also about the school environment.

“Teacher effectiveness is dynamic,” says Matthew Kraft, a Brown University professor and coauthor of the new paper. “Teaching is a team sport.”

The study is important because there’s been a vacuum in policy efforts to improve teacher quality since the 2010s. The bevy of teacher evaluation laws during that period produced little in the way of overall student learning gains, according to a coauthored by Kraft. Teachers are still very important, though. This new study is one small step in understanding how to .

In the original study, the researchers recruited 10 large districts. Some low-performing schools within each district got the chance to hire highly effective teachers with the lure of large bonuses; other schools did not. Genuine experiments like this are rare in education.

The study relied on “value-added” scores, which are statistical estimates of how much an individual teacher contributes to classroomwide test score gains. These measures were when used to evaluate teachers, but remain widely used by academics for research purposes. Teachers were eligible for the transfer bonus if they were in the top fifth of value-added scores within their grade and subject.

The study was done through the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Department of Education that has since been gutted by the Trump administration. Its future .

Ultimately, 80 top teachers took the bonus and switched schools. In their new jobs, though, these teachers’ performance fell from the 85th percentile districtwide to the 66th percentile. (And for stats nerds, no, this probably wasn’t just regression to the mean.) So what happened?

Teachers’ context had dramatically changed. They reported lower student motivation and more behavior problems. Many more students were from low-income families, and their incoming test scores were lower. The value-added measure accounts for differences in student population, so it wasn’t inevitable that transferring teachers’ performance would fall. Teachers may simply have been less equipped and experienced for the challenges in their new schools.

Some of the challenges may have come from the schools themselves. Teachers reported having fewer resources and less autonomy over their classrooms compared to their prior school.

Other research has found that teachers perform better when they they like, when they work with and when their school is . Teachers also when they’re teaching the same grade or the same group of students as in years past. Years of teaching experience , too.

This adds nuance to the common sentiment that a child’s individual teacher is the most important in-school factor affecting learning. It’s really the teacher plus the various contexts that make it more or less likely that the teacher will succeed.

Teachers are not in multiple senses. They cannot be simply moved around to different schools or classrooms or grades and expected to perform. “We need to move beyond thinking about teacher effectiveness as a fixed characteristic,” says Kraft.

Yet it’s not precisely clear how policymakers can take advantage of this insight. Yes, teachers do better in schools with strong leadership, good collaboration with colleagues, and support for handling student behavior challenges. Making sure all these things are in place is the tough part.

This new study hardly means that policymakers should give up on trying to use pay to get good teachers in high-poverty schools. The original Talent Transfer Initiative didn’t work as well as it might have, but it did make a difference. Kraft says it may have worked even better if the money was sustained over time and went toward retaining top teachers already working in those schools.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Working in high schools, for example, I had never heard of “,” or the body of evidence against teaching young readers to use “contextual and syntactic clues” instead of phonics. But this research explained why the 17-year-old student who read “indignant” as “indifferent” continued to struggle when I instructed him to look at the letters in the word again.

 It also made sense that excessive was harmful and that having a in a random subject didn’t necessarily make someone a better teacher. I was glad to learn that researchers cared about these issues and that educational leaders could rely on serious evidence to inform their policies. 

I was also open to being persuaded by the evidence. As an English language arts teacher, I’d repeatedly been told that it didn’t really matter what books students were reading as long as they were learning the right skills. Research demonstrating the crucial role of content knowledge, however, cast my classroom experiences in a new light. I don’t regret introducing my students to engaging young adult novels, but I do wish we had spent more time on “classic” texts. 

But what never sat right with me was the research community’s prevalent view that a teacher’s experience didn’t make much difference after the first few years. Some decades ago, several empirical studies failed to detect significant gains after three to five years of teaching. What emerged from these findings was an oversimplified narrative that teachers’ abilities simply plateau after the initial learning curve. “Once somebody has taught for three years,” Bill Gates, “their teaching quality does not change thereafter.” 

Of course, some teachers stop improving. That’s true of professionals in any field. But the idea that most teachers are as effective after 15 years on the job as they are after three to five is entirely at odds with my experience. 

During my six years as a high school teacher — with a backdrop of six years teaching college undergrads — I felt myself improve in myriad ways. Some of the biggest changes were indeed during the first few years. Early feedback from supervisors helped me foster more substantive discussions and better align my end-of-class assessments to the learning objectives. 

But other things took more time. I developed organizational systems that worked for me. I continued to refine my approach with students, finding that balance between approachable and serious. I got better at anticipating student misconceptions and knowing which explanations would be most likely to land. 

The most experienced teachers whom I observed also did these things — and many more that are tough to reduce to a single sentence. Having been in the classroom longer, they had simply encountered more situations to inform their decision-making in the present. 

Students getting heated arguing in class? Based on what had (and hadn’t) worked before, highly experienced teachers smoothly de-escalated. Revisiting related ideas across course units? Years of familiarity with the curriculum helped them notice patterns, understand student perceptions, and weave together content. Possible red flags around new behaviors or trends? These teachers had longstanding relationships with staff and faculty across the school, equipping them to communicate questions and concerns efficiently and often nipping problems in the bud as a result. 

Reflecting these realities, recent empirical research complicates the longstanding three-to-five-year-plateau narrative. As detailed in from the Learning Policy Institute and my own organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, teachers improve most quickly in their first few years, but they continue to improve for up to two decades into their careers. 

This doesn’t mean that every experienced teacher will be better than every new-ish colleague, but rather that teachers tend to improve compared to their own prior performance. All this is especially true when teachers work in collaborative environments (can confirm!) and have consistent teaching assignments (sounds dreamy!). 

So what does that mean in practical terms? 

For administrators and policymakers, the biggest takeaway is that it’s worthwhile to ensure quality mentorships, professional learning and opportunities for collaboration. Where feasible, it makes sense to keep teachers with the same course assignments. Rotating grade levels might give teachers a breadth of knowledge, for example, but they’re going to be better equipped to educate students if they have a depth of course-specific knowledge. 

Perhaps most challenging to address is the unfortunate reality that the highest-need schools tend to have. There’s no silver bullet to address this complex phenomenon, but evidence suggests that improving, offering and creating career ladders can each help. 

Schools are complex places, and ultimately, no single study or perspective is adequate to guide policymaking. In the new year, education leaders should use insights from both research and practice to support teacher growth and retention and, in turn, improve student outcomes.

My son shows me it’s possible to discover something remarkable when we expand what we consider possible. Yet in education, a system with 73% public dissatisfaction and just , we hit walls repeatedly.

This inertia contributes to our current moment: steep declines in reading and math proficiency since 2019, unfilled or filled by uncertified teachers, and growing numbers abandoning public education.

Contrast this with artificial intelligence’s current trajectory.

AI faces massive uncertainty. Nobody knows where it leads or which approaches will prove most valuable. Ethical questions around bias, privacy and accountability remain unresolved.

Yet despite uncertainty — or because of it — nearly every industry is doubling down. Four major tech firms planned for 2025 alone. AI adoption surged from of organizations in one year, with expecting AI to transform their businesses by 2030.

This is a gold rush. Entire ecosystems are seeing transformational potential and refusing to be left behind. Organizations invest not despite uncertainty, but because standing still carries greater risk.

There’s much we can learn from the AI-fueled momentum.

To be clear, this isn’t an argument about AI’s merits. This is a conversation about what becomes possible when people come together around shared aspirations to restore hope, agency and possibility to education. AI’s approach reveals five guiding principles that education leaders should follow:

1. Set a Bold Vision: AI leaders speak in radical terms. Education needs such bold aspirations, not five percent improvements. Talk about 100% access, 100% thriving, 100% success. Young people are leading by demanding approaches that honoring their agency, desire for belonging, and broad aspirations. We need to follow their lead.

2. Play the Long Game: Companies make massive investments for transformation they may not see for years. Education must embrace the same long-term thinking: investing in teacher development programs that mature over years, reimagining curricula for students’ distant futures, building systems that support sustainable excellence over immediate political wins.

3. Don’t Fear Mistakes: AI adoption is rife with failure and course corrections. Despite rapid belief and investment, . Yet companies continue experimenting, learning, adjusting and trying again because they understand that innovation requires iteration. Education must take bold swings, have honest debriefs when things fall flat, adjust and move forward.

4. Democratize Access: AI reached globally in 2025. While quality varies and significant disparities exist, fundamental access has been opened up in ways that seemed impossible just years ago. When it comes to transformative change in education, every child deserves high-quality teachers, engaging curriculum and flourishing environments.

5. Own the Story, and Pass the Mic: Every day, AI gains new ambassadors among everyday people, inspiring others to jump in. The most powerful education stories come from young people discovering breakthroughs during light bulb moments, from parents seeing children thrive, from teachers witnessing walls coming down and possibilities surpassing imagination. We need to pass the mic, creating platforms for students to share what meaningful learning looks like, which will unlock aspirational stories that shift the system.

None of this is possible without student engagement. When students have voice and agency, believe in learning’s relevance and feel supported, transformative outcomes follow. As CEO of Our Turn, I was privileged to be part of efforts that inspired leaders and institutions across the country to invest in student engagement as a core strategy. : all eight measures of school engagement tracked by Gallup reached their highest levels in 2025. This is an opportunity to build positive momentum; consistently demonstrates engagement relates to academic achievement, post-secondary readiness, critical thinking, persistence and enhanced mental health.

Student engagement is the foundation from which all other educational outcomes flow. When we center student voice, we go from improving schools to galvanizing the next generation of engaged citizens and leaders our democracy desperately needs.

High-quality teachers are also essential. Over are filled by uncertified teachers, with 45,500 unfilled. Teachers earn than similarly educated professionals. About result from teachers leaving due to low salaries, difficult conditions or inadequate support.

Programs like prove what’s possible: over 90% of new teachers returned after 2023-24, versus just under 80% citywide. We must create conditions where teaching is sustainable and honored through higher salaries, better working conditions, meaningful professional development and cultures that value educators as professionals.

Investing in teacher quality is fundamental to workforce development, economic competitiveness and ensuring every child has access to excellent instruction. When we frame this as both a moral imperative and an economic necessity, we create the coalition necessary for lasting change.

Finally, transformation must focus on skill development. The workforce young people are entering demands more than technical knowledge; it requires integrated capabilities for navigating complexity, building authentic relationships and creating meaningful change.

At , we’ve worked with foundations and organizations to develop leadership skills that result in greater innovation and impact. Our goals: young people more engaged in school and communities, and companies reporting greater levels of innovation, impact and financial sustainability.

The appeal here is undeniable. Workforce development consistently ranks among the top priorities across political divides. Given the rapid rate of change in our culture and economy, we need to develop skills for careers that don’t yet exist, for challenges we can’t yet imagine, for a world that demands creativity, adaptability and resilience.

The AI gold rush shows what’s possible when we set bold visions, invest for the long term, embrace learning from failure, democratize access and amplify voices closest to transformation.Our children, like my son drawing superheroes on worksheet backs, are in chrysalis moments. The choice is ours: remain paralyzed by complexity or channel the same urgency, investment and unity of purpose driving the AI revolution. We know what works: student engagement, quality teachers and future-ready skills. The question isn’t whether we have solutions. It’s whether we have courage to pursue them.

Here at The 74, we chronicled the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and its cuts to crucial department staffing, education research and funding. We wrote about immigration crackdowns that spurred concerned families to keep children home from school (or leave the country altogether), significant changes in vaccination recommendations, efforts to remove crucial protections for students and a broader push for school choice and religious instruction in schools, among other things. And we did much more than just cover that news; our team dug further to help explain what these changes mean to school districts, teachers, parents and – most importantly – children. 

At the same time, other storylines were playing out. A big one was literacy. Testing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress painted a dismal picture of America’s children’s ability to read. But there were some encouraging signs, especially in the South. Separately, our team created an interactive database that compares literacy versus poverty rates in 10,000 districts and 42,000 schools to discover where educators are beating the odds. (We will be continuing to feature these Bright Spots in the new year.)

We also took a close look at teacher pay, special education and the challenges teachers and parents face as they grapple with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. And, with the launch of our zero2eight vertical, we expanded our coverage to include the crucial issues facing early child care and education. 

It has been a busy year and this list only scratches the surface of the great work the team at The 74 produced. We hope you take the time to read (and share) these memorable and impactful stories.

The Justice, the Professor and the Friendship That Could Rattle a Pivotal Religious Charter School Case

By Linda Jacobson

Long before the case over an Oklahoma Catholic charter school reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Nicole Stelle Garnett and Amy Coney Barrett were close friends and neighbors. Some observers say that friendship is the reason Justice Barrett recused herself from what could be the most significant ruling to affect schools in decades, writes Linda Jacobson in one of The 74’s most widely read (and shared) stories of the year, co-published with The Guardian. Barrett’s recusal ultimately led to a rare tie in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Related

Why Are So Few Kids Reading for Pleasure?

By Greg Toppo

Over the past two generations, the proportion of young people who “never or hardly ever” read for fun has quadrupled. What’s going on? Digital distraction and social networking seem likely culprits, but it might not be that simple. Could young people be reading less because they got lousy reading instruction? The 74’s Greg Toppo explores young people’s changing relationship with books, showing that the problem is complex and may require a deep commitment to doing things differently.

Related

Kept in the Dark: Meet the Hired Guns Who Make Sure School Cyberattacks Stay Hidden

By Mark Keierleber

As schools nationwide face an onslaught of cyberattacks, education leaders have employed a pervasive pattern of obfuscation that leaves the real victims in the dark, The 74’s Mark Keierleber reveals in an investigation copublished with WIRED. His in-depth analysis chronicles more than 300 school cyberattacks since 2020 and exposes the degree to which educators provide false assurances to students, parents and staff about the security of their sensitive information. Meanwhile, consultants and lawyers steer “privileged investigations,” which keep key details hidden from the public. 

Related

Bright Spots: These Schools Are Beating the Odds in Teaching Kids to Read

Analysis by Chad Aldeman; Interactive by Eamonn Fitzmaurice

Early reading is highly predictive of later-life outcomes, and there’s often a strong correlation between a school’s poverty level and its reading proficiency rate. But around the country, exceptional schools are beating the odds. Contributor Chad Aldeman and The 74’s art and technology director Eamonn Fitzmaurice crunched the numbers for 10,000 districts, 42,000 schools and 3 million kids to find the schools that are best at teaching kids to read, and plotted the results on an interactive map, allowing you to discover whether your school is a Bright Spot. 

Related: 

‘Going for Blood’: With Half of Its Staff Cut, Many Wonder How Ed Dept. Will Function

By Linda Jacobson, Amanda Geduld and Mark Keierleber

One of the biggest education stories of 2025 documented efforts to dismantle the Department of Education under the Trump administration. In March, a nighttime purge of Ed Department staff left deep cuts to programs long critical to its mission, from investigating complaints of student discrimination to measuring academic performance. At the time, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the elimination of more than 1,300 employees, meaning that, along with buyouts and early retirements, the department would be reduced to roughly half the size it was when President Donald Trump took office just eight weeks earlier. 

Related

Before Special Ed, There Was the School-to-Asylum Pipeline. This Lawsuit Helped End It 

By Beth Hawkins 

In 1971, parents of children confined in a notorious state “school” for disabled people tapped a young lawyer willing to take pie-in-the-sky cases to court. They had no idea the attorney’s brother was locked up there. The settlement he won went on to form the basis for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, guaranteeing children with disabilities the right to an education. Through incredible narratives and archival photos, The 74’s Beth Hawkins lays out the improbable backstory of how the law – now 50 years old – came to be and how its fate is now uncertain. 

Related 

As Immigrant Students Flee in Fear of ICE Raids, Teachers Offer Heartfelt Gifts

By Jo Napolitano

A soccer ball covered in signatures from classmates. A handwritten letter telling a child of their worth. A T-shirt bearing a school emblem meant to remind a former student how much they were loved in a place they once called home. Teachers handed out these mementos after hearing their students planned to leave the country to avoid being deported. “It’s nothing big, but [a signed T-shirt] was a treasure to him to have the physical signatures of his dearest friends and teachers to take with him,” one Philadelphia teacher told The 74’s Jo Napolitano. 

Related 

RFK Jr. Could Pull Many Levers to Hinder Childhood Immunization as HHS Head

By Amanda Geduld

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a conspiracy theorist who “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” — was tapped by President Donald Trump to run the Department of Health and Human Services, with vast influence over vaccine research, funding and rhetoric. Prior to his confirmation, The 74’s Amanda Geduld spoke with experts who called the child health implications “dire” and predicted a fresh round in the school culture wars over mandatory vaccines for students. One law professor pointed out that school boards “can’t change the policies, but they might say, ‘We don’t support these policies. Not in our school district. No way, no how.’”

Related:

Many Young Adults Barely Literate, Yet Earned a High School Diploma

By Jessika Harkay

The numbers are staggering: One in four young adults in the U.S. is functionally illiterate – yet more than half earned high school diplomas. In 2023, a total of about five million young adults could understand the basic meaning of short texts but could not analyze long reading materials, according to an analysis by the American Institute of Research. At the same time, the share of young adults earning diplomas increased significantly. “We know that over 20% of (young adults) that get their high school diploma do not have the skills commensurate with that,” Sharon Bonney, chief executive officer of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education, a national adult education nonprofit, told The 74’s Jessika Harkay. “So, when we have this ‘’ agenda, but people can’t read, write, speak the language or do math, they can’t get good jobs and better jobs. They can’t be skilled up.”  

Related 

The South Surges Academically in Alternative View of National Exam

By Kevin Mahnken

According to an analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a raft of mostly Southern states — Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and others — can boast the highest math and English scores anywhere in the country. There’s just one catch, The 74’s Kevin Mahnken explained. That new educational hierarchy is only visible when researchers adjust for the demographics in each state. In other words, after accounting for the uneven distribution of low-income and minority families, special-needs students, and English learners, the nation’s K–12 hierarchy looks wildly different. 

Related

School Spending Is Up. Teacher Pay Isn’t. See What’s Happening in 8,900 Districts

Analysis by Chad Aldeman; Interactive by Eamonn Fitzmaurice

In districts nationwide, school spending has skyrocketed — in Los Angeles, for example, it’s up 108% from 2002 to 2022. But L.A’s teachers have seen a meager 5% salary increase during that time. In fact, teacher salaries nationally have hovered around an inflation-adjusted $70,000 for decades, lagging behind not only per-pupil spending, but earnings of other college-educated workers. Contributor Chad Aldeman and The 74’s art and technology director, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, document this disconnect in a series of interactive charts. See what’s happening in nearly 8,900 districts.

Related

Another AI Side Effect: Erosion of Student-Teacher Trust

By Greg Toppo

As AI colonizes school assignments, a small but growing body of research suggests it’s eroding trust between teachers and students. It’s making school more transactional and forcing teachers to rely on unreliable AI detectors that create mutual suspicion. The 74’s Greg Toppo explains how that dynamic is damaging student-teacher relationships, with students feeling surveilled and teachers losing faith in student work. Experts suggest returning to the fundamentals: handwritten assignments, in-class work, blue-book essays and addressing root causes of cheating through better course design and intrinsic motivation.

Related 

For Students With Disabilities, Suspension Not Just a Matter of Race and Gender — But Geography

By Amanda Geduld 

An exclusive analysis by The 74’s Amanda Geduld of federal data revealed stark disparities among students already subject to disproportionate punishment in school — not only by race and gender but also geography. Some 15% of special education students in South Carolina faced out-of-school suspensions for up to 10 days in the 2022-2023 school year — nearly twice the national average and more than any other state in the nation. Meanwhile, students with the same disabilities were the least likely to be excluded from school if they lived in California or Vermont.

Shut Out: High School Students Learn About Careers — But Can’t Try One That Pays 

By Patrick O’Donnell

Schools and businesses have prioritized teaching students about careers they might pursue, but they rarely take the next step and let students try them. Though career days, job shadowing and field trips to businesses are common, fewer than 5% of students have a chance at an internship or apprenticeship while in high school. “We still have a long way to go to provide more opportunity for young people,” career training advocate Julie Lammers told The 74’s Patrick O’Donnell.

Related

For Decades, the Feds Were the Last, Best Hope for Special Ed Kids. What Happens Now?

By Lauren Wagner and Beth Hawkins 

When it wrote the laws protecting children with disabilities, Congress tried to make it simple for parents to act when schools weren’t delivering. But the paths for complaining have never been as easy — or effective — as intended. Now, the threat of federal intervention, the ultimate backstop, is collapsing. The 74’s Lauren Wagner and Beth Hawkins crunched the numbers and found big disparities in how complaints get resolved. 

Related: 

The Massachusetts Teen Who Held PowerSchool Ransom Was a ‘Sophisticated’ Cybercriminal, Prosecutors Say

By Mark Keierleber

When The 74’s Mark Keierleber knocked on Matthew Lane’s door in August, the 19-year-old college student seemed an unlikely figure to have pulled off what’s considered the largest exposure of private student data in history. Lane was known as a soft-spoken gamer and skilled computer programmer, but open-source reporting, threat intelligence research and a federal sentencing memo show him to be a “sophisticated” cybercriminal. After pleading guilty to the 2024 PowerSchool hack, Lane was sentenced to four years in federal prison and $4 million in restitution.

Related:

30 Years Without a Real Raise: New York’s Early Intervention Pay Crisis

By Sarah Carr

Emily Lengen has been a special education teacher for the New York State Early Intervention Program since the 1990s. She loves her work, but is distraught about remaining in what might be the only profession in New York that hasn’t gotten a real raise in three decades. “As a 30-year veteran with a master’s degree, I am working twice as hard as when I started in early intervention, and making less now,” Lengen tells  zero2eight’s Carr.

Related

Some 15 Years After Disastrous Debut, Common Core Math Endures in Many States

By Jo Napolitano 

The once-derided standards have proven their staying power, with many states holding onto the original version or some close iteration, The 74’s Jo Napolitano reports. Despite early complaints from teachers and parents and fierce political opposition from the left and the right, Common Core math has withstood three presidents and more recent revamps to state curriculum. And while critics say it failed to boost student achievement — math scores have dropped nationally since it was adopted in 2010 —  advocates say it did something far more important: provide an on-ramp to algebra. 

Related 

No Idea Too Radical: Inside New Orleans’ Dramatic K-12 Turnaround After Katrina 

By Beth Hawkins 

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina forced the wholesale reboot of New Orleans schools — by most measures, among the worst in the country in 2005. Two decades later, education researchers and the city’s civic leaders have released comprehensive data outlining what worked to get rapid academic growth for kids, how preschoolers and college students are doing and where racial inequities persist. Beth Hawkins uses highlights from the research to tell the story of the singular reform. You can read (and listen) to our other coverage on the 20th anniversary of Katrina here.    

Related

The California Mom at the Center of Trump’s Crackdown on School Gender Policies

By Linda Jacobson 

A California mother spent three years battling a school district that supported her child’s social transition from female to male. Her story is now at the heart of the Trump administration’s push to clamp down on schools that conceal changes in students’ gender identity from parents. Some say students’ well-being could be at risk if educators are forced to get parents’ permission before using different names and pronouns. But one attorney told The 74’s Linda Jacobson that officials can’t “by default assume that every parent … is going to reject and hurt their children.” 

Related

Strapped for Cash: Districts OK Union Raises, But Don’t Have the Money to Fund Them

By Lauren Wagner 

Several school districts across the U.S. had to borrow money or renegotiate teacher contracts over the summer after budget shortfalls left them without enough funding to pay for agreed-upon raises, The 74’s Lauren Wagner discovered. Philadelphia Public Schools approved $1.5 billion in borrowing, while districts in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Baltimore County, Maryland, rescinded teacher pay hikes. Chicago Public Schools considered delaying pay bumps in its union contract to address a $734 million deficit. “Contracts are not optional documents,” Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates wrote in a letter to the school board.  

Related

From Screen Time to ‘Green Time’: Going Outside to Support Student Well-Being 

By Jessika Harkay

As cell phone bans are widely underway this year in schools nationwide, there’s a question of what else to do in the effort to aid student mental health and re-engage kids back in the classroom, The 74’s Jessika Harkay reports. Some experts believe one next step may be to incorporate outside time into the school day (a.k.a. “green time’) for older students. While some schools have developed full programming, research shows 15 to 30 minutes outside can have big benefits, too.

Related 

How LAUSD School Zones Perpetuate Educational Inequality, Ignoring ‘Redlining’ Past 

By Ben Chapman

School attendance zones are meant to provide Los Angeles families with strong options for their children’s education. But a growing number of critics say the outdated school zones of LAUSD reinforce educational inequality by locking needy students out of a good education. Some of these enrollment zones match racist redlining maps of the 1930s that were used to deny housing loans in Black neighborhoods. “The district doesn’t want to touch those lines, because families overpaid for homes within them,” says local parent and researcher Tim DeRoche

Related:

LifeWise’s Big Red Bus Is Driving Thorny Questions About Church and State

By Linda Jacobson

Lifewise Academy is a fast-growing program that allows students to leave school during the day for religious instruction and is the most visible example of an evangelical Christian movement to require districts to participate. But as LifeWise and similar programs spread, opposition is increasing among those who say releasing students during the day is disruptive and crosses the line between church and state. “It’s insulting,” one former teacher told The 74’s Linda Jacobson about watching students miss his class once a week to attend LifeWise.

Related:

With Bees, Drones & Ancient Technology, New Mexico Schools Engage Students to Save Precious Water for the Next Generation

By Beth Hawkins 

This year, the Rio Grande ran dry in Albuquerque — a climate-change fueled event of particular interest to students at a high school a few blocks from the river. Students at Rio Grande High School and three lower-grades schools that share its sustainable agriculture focus live on neighborhood farms. Lessons combining cutting-edge technology and centuries-old conservation techniques are real-life relevant — and key to the region’s survival.

Related

TOPEKA — Turner Elementary School teacher Lexcee Oddo is recognized as a highly skilled, family-focused and whole-brain educator who taught second-graders before focusing on students learning English as a second language.

Those traits of educational devotion made her Kansas’ latest recipient of a $25,000 Milken Educator Award, which was presented Thursday during a surprise schoolwide assembly in Kansas City, Kansas.

“Drawing from her curriculum knowledge and classroom experience, Lexcee helps students shine by building confidence, a passion for learning and a determination to achieve their goals. She is a valued teacher leader, mentor and trainer, and we are so proud to honor her,” said Jennifer Fuller, vice president of the Milken Educator Awards program and a Texas recipient of the honor in 2017.

Fuller said Oddo’s approach to driving excellence among Turner Elementary’s English language learners incorporated both compassion and kindness.

Oddo earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education at Kansas State University in 2018. Two years ago, she completed a master’s degree in education administration at Emporia State University.

Oddo was the sole Kansas recipient of a Milken Educator Award in 2025-2026. She was the state’s 74th since Kansas joined the program in 1992.

Nationally, Oddo and 29 other educators coast-to-coast were selected to be honored this academic year. They join a group of more than 3,000 K-12 teachers, principals and specialists singled out for recognition through a program established in 1987 by philanthropist Lowell Milken.

“Talented educators play a critical role in preparing students to move successfully to the next stage of learning and life,” Milken said. “For 39 years, the Milken Educator Awards have been calling attention in a very public way to the essential work of educators — all in an effort to attract and retain high-quality talent to the teaching profession.”

The objective has been to highlight educators while in early- or mid-career for what they achieved and for the promise each possessed. Nominated educators don’t receive notice of their candidacy, and awards are presented at events organized to surprise winners. No mandate for a winner’s use of the $25,000 prize existed, but some spend money on their children’s or their own education, to finance dream field trips or establish scholarships.

The Milken Foundation said Oddo was known for creating a learning environment where multilingual learners were empowered to grow in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Her prescription for student success blended high expectations, individualized support and a sense of purpose, the foundation said.

Oddo, who serves as a first-year buddy to new teachers, relied on student assessments to refine instruction and provide real-time interventions. She performed this work with a “culture of joy and collective efficacy” that led to consistent student advances, the foundation said.

The foundation said Oddo was regarded as a whole-brain teacher who valued academic strength and social-emotional development of students. She hosted student recognition assemblies and an after-school tutoring designed to support students’ academic goals, the foundation said.

“Lexcee represents the best of Kansas education,” said Randy Watson, commissioner at the Kansas State Department of Education. “She believes every child can learn and creates a classroom where high expectations and meaningful support help students thrive. Her leadership strengthens her colleagues, and the trust she builds with families reflects her deep commitment to every student’s success.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.

North Carolina’s , which allows highly effective teachers to receive salary supplements for teaching additional students or supporting other teachers, is having positive effects on math and science test scores, according to an presented by NC State University’s at the State Board of Education meeting last week.

Since 2016, the ATR initiative has allowed districts to create new career pathways and provide salary supplements for highly effective teachers — or Advanced Teachers — who mentor and support other educators while still teaching part of the day. Their roles include Adult Leadership teachers, who lead small teams and receive at least $10,000 supplements, and Classroom Excellence teachers, who take on larger student loads and receive a minimum of $3,000 supplements. 

Those in adult leadership roles teach for at least 30% of the day, lead a team of 3-8 classroom teachers, and share responsibility for the performance of all those teachers’ students. Classroom excellence teachers are responsible for at least 20% more students than before they enter the role.

“Our ATR program was designed to allow highly effective classroom educators to reach more students and to support the professional growth of educators,” said Dr. Callie Edwards, the program’s lead evaluator, at the State Board of Education meeting last Wednesday. “ATR aims to improve the quality of classroom instruction, the recruitment and retention of teachers, as well as ultimately impact student academic achievement.”

In the 2024-25 school year, 26 districts operated ATR programs across 400 schools — 56% of which were elementary schools — employing 1,494 Advanced Teachers who supported nearly 4,000 classroom teachers statewide, according to the evaluation. Edwards said that 88% of Adult Leadership teachers received at least $10,000, and 85% of Classroom Excellence teachers received $3,000 or more.

Statistical analysis of the 2023-24 school year’s data found that students in ATR schools outperformed their peers in non-ATR schools in math and science, showing statistically significant learning gains. 

“Across the various programs I’ve evaluated, these are positive results — especially in math and science — where the impact of ATR is equivalent to about a month of extra learning for students,” said Dr. Lam Pham, the leading quantitative evaluator. “The results in ELA are positive but not statistically significant, which has been consistent for the last three years,” Pham said, referring to English Language Arts.

These effects on math and science grow over time, . Math scores improved throughout schools’ first six years of ATR implementation — though they are no longer significant by the seventh year of implementation, . For science scores, statistically significant gains began in the fifth year after schools began implementing ATR.

Additionally, math teachers in ATR schools reported higher EVAAS growth scores than their peers in comparable schools.

Teachers in ATR schools also reported feeling like they have more time to do their work compared to teachers in non-ATR schools.

This year’s report featured data on teachers supported by ATR teachers for the first time. The evaluation found no positive effects on test scores for students taught by supported teachers compared to students taught by teachers who are not in the program. The researchers also found no effect on turnover levels for teachers supported by Advanced Teachers. However, the report says additional years of data will be necessary to verify if those effects appear over time.  

The evaluation recommended that principals in ATR schools should foster collaboration and communicate strategically about the program with staff, beginning during Advanced Teachers’ hiring and onboarding.

“It’s important to integrate ATR into those processes,” Edwards told the Board. “That means introducing Advanced Teachers to new staff and making collaboration, especially mentoring and coaching, a structured part of the day.”

Edwards said these practices have been adopted in some schools, but principals reported needing more time and support to build collaboration opportunities into the school schedule.

The report also urges district administrators to coordinate with Beginning Teacher (BT) programs, advertise ATR in recruitment materials, and improve their data collection practices. It also calls on state leaders to standardize the program to ensure consistency across participating districts.

“Districts need standardized messaging, professional learning opportunities, and technical assistance to support implementation,” Edwards said. “The state can also create more opportunities for districts to share what’s working with one another and expand the evaluation beyond test scores to capture things like classroom engagement, social, emotional development, and feedback from teachers and principals.”

The evaluators also said “there’s more to do” to expand the program in western North Carolina after Board members raised concerns about uneven participation across the state’s regions.

2026-27 participants

After the Friday Institute’s presentation, Board members from Dr. Thomas R. Tomberlin, senior director of educator preparation, licensure, and performance.

Tomberlin said DPI received 15 proposals representing 22 districts. These proposals have been evaluated by seven independent evaluators, Tomberlin said. The Board had to choose the program’s next participants by Oct. 15 to comply with a legislative requirement. 

The state can only allocate $911,349 for new implementation grants in 2026-27 — less than one-sixth of the funding required to fund all applications. That level of funding is “very low” compared to previous years, Tomberlin said. In the 2023-25 state budget, for these supplements in each year of the biennium.

Tomberlin recommended that the Board approve the three highest-scoring proposals for the 2026-27 fiscal year, and fund these districts at 85% of their request. If the Board approves this recommendation, the state would still have $37,981 in planning funds left over for districts approved during the 2026 proposal cycle.

Tomberlin said districts are already struggling to pay for the program’s salary supplements. The Friday Institute’s report showed that, despite the high median supplements, some districts are offering supplements as little as $1,000.

“Some districts are not able to pay the full $10,000 because they have more ATR teachers than the funding that we can give them in terms of those allotments,” Tomberlin said. “And we had requested the General Assembly, I think, an additional $14 million to cover those supplements, and we didn’t get any.”

The this session included funds to expand the ATR program over the biennium, while the . The General Assembly has not yet passed a comprehensive state budget, and its funding.

Tomberlin said DPI would be in touch with the three districts to verify if they can proceed with the program despite limited funding.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

Taken at face-value, these are all admirable efforts to rectify America’s teaching and learning crisis – where students are and subjects and only would recommend the profession to future generations of teachers. But if we’re serious about building a strong and sustainable teacher workforce capable of accelerating student learning, we need to step back and ask a more fundamental question: How do we end the revolving door of underqualified teachers working with our students?

This is a question my colleagues and I at Deans for Impact have grappled with over the past decade. 

We’ve seen states expand scholarships for aspiring teachers. We’ve seen investments in residency programs that provide longer culminating clinical experiences. We’ve seen calls for better alignment to evidence-based instructional methods. We’ve seen programs mobilize aspiring teachers as tutors. Each of these is important. But too often, the impact is shallow and short-lived. 

Scholarships get people into programs but not the right ones. Residency programs remain prohibitively expensive for many. Requirements and accountability to new standards don’t shift practice on their own. Programs worked but were funded by one-time investments without appropriately planning for financial sustainability. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

Through our work with states, educator-preparation programs, and schools nationwide, four conditions rise to the top when designing pathways that deliver: 

• Instructionally-focused: Pathways should be aligned to the scientific evidence of how students learn 
  
• Practice-based: Pathways should fully prepare teachers for the broad range of realities of the classroom.
  
• Accessible: Pathways should be affordable and supportive so that all who aspire to teach can enter and complete quality preparation
  
• Innovative & Responsive: Pathways must continuously evolve to meet local needs and emerging research.

When taken together, these four conditions can create a holistic system that better prepares teachers, sustains them in the profession, and, most importantly, accelerates outcomes for students. The aim of DFI’s is to chart a course of action policy leaders can take to ensure all pathways are affordable and high-quality. 

In communities across the country, we are beginning to see efforts that move beyond piecemeal fixes toward more holistic reform efforts that bolster these four conditions.

In Louisiana, the recommendations made and adopted by the statewide Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Recovery Task Force helped modernize entry into educator-preparation programs, strengthened mentor teacher support, expanded scholarships for aspiring teachers, and built momentum for the state’s first . These policy changes, paired with new investments in high-impact tutoring and a longstanding commitment to ensuring all students access grade-level content, have helped bolster the pipeline of teachers and drive growth in student learning.

In the most recent NAEP results, Louisiana was one of only two states to surpass pre-pandemic reading performance. It was also one of just a few states to experience an increase in the number of individuals enrolling to become new teachers. Thanks to these new policies, aspiring educators don’t have to find themselves in a situation like , a Mississippi college student who chose social work over his dream of becoming a teacher because he couldn’t pass an entry exam.

In Indiana, the University of Notre Dame’s trains high-impact tutors, many of whom are on track to become teachers, on principles of cognitive science and equips them to deliver literacy instruction aligned to the state’s new science-of-reading standards. For example, Alliance for Catholic Education Teaching Fellow said she feels much better equipped for the realities of the classroom because of her experience as a Tutor-ND tutor. 

These efforts are reinforced by statewide requirements that preparation programs align literacy instruction with research-based approaches, ensuring that aspiring teachers are prepared to deliver rigorous, effective instruction. These mutually reinforcing efforts recently contributed to the state’s largest year-over-year growth in third grade literacy rates on . 

Other states are also leading the way. From HB2 in Texas to strategic staffing in Arizona, these examples of policy and practice working in tandem point the way forward. School communities in Texas will now have flexible funding to prepare talent in quality pathways that address specific workforce needs. Arizona schools are rethinking the role and work of teachers in ways that make teaching more attractive, collaborative and effective. Together, these examples show what happens when we ditch fragmented, one-off investments and embrace building a foundation of what works.  

Teacher preparation can no longer be an afterthought. The talent, ideas, and innovations we need are already here. What’s been missing is a system designed to connect them. By focusing on making pathways instructionally focused, practice-based, accessible, innovative and responsive, policymakers and advocates can build and scale pipelines of teachers with the skills needed to ensure every student succeeds. 

The talk was about a big, take-home essay, and Liang, then a sophomore at a Bay Area high school, recalled that it covered the basics: the rubric for grading as well as suggestions for how to use generative AI to keep students honest: They should use it as a “thinking partner” and brainstorming tool.

As he listened, Liang glanced around the classroom and saw that several classmates, laptops open, had already leaped ahead several steps, generating entire drafts of their essays.

Liang said his generation doesn’t engage in moral hand-wringing about AI. “For us, it’s simply a tool that enables us not to have to think for ourselves.”

But with AI’s awesome power comes a side effect that many would rather not consider: It’s killing the trust between teachers and students. 

When students can cheaply and easily outsource their work, he said, why value a teacher’s feedback? And when teachers, relying on sometimes unreliable AI-detection software, believe their students are taking such major shortcuts, the relationship erodes further.

It’s an issue that researchers are just beginning to study, with results that suggest an imminent shakeup in student-teacher relationships: AI, they say, is forcing teachers to rethink how they think about students, assessments and, to a larger extent, learning itself. 

If you ask Liang, now a junior and an experienced — he has penned pieces for The Hill, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and the conservative Daily Wire — AI has already made school more transactional, stripping many students of their desire to learn in favor of simply completing assignments. 

“The incentive system for students is to just get points,” he said in an interview. 

While much of the attention of the past few years has focused on how teachers can detect AI-generated work and put a stop to it, a few researchers are beginning to look at how AI affects student-teacher relationships.

Researcher Jiahui Luo of the Education University of Hong Kong that college students in many cases resent the lack of “two-way transparency” around AI. While they’re required to declare their AI use and even submit chat records in a few cases, Luo wrote, the same level of transparency “is often not observed from the teachers.” That produces a “low-trust environment,” where students feel unsafe to freely explore AI.

In 2024, after being asked by colleagues at Drexel University to help resolve an AI cheating case, researcher , who teaches in the university’s , analyzed college students’ , spanning December 2022 to June 2023, shortly after Open AI unleashed ChatGPT onto the world. He found that many students were beginning to feel the technology was testing the trust they felt from instructors, in many cases eroding it — even if they didn’t rely on AI.

While many students said instructors trusted them and would offer them the benefit of the doubt in suspected cases of AI cheating, others were surprised when they were accused nonetheless. That damaged the trust relationship.

For many, it meant they’d have to work on future assignments “defensively,” Gorichanaz wrote, anticipating cheating accusations. One student even suggested, “Screen recording is a good idea, since the teacher probably won’t have as much trust from now on.” Another complained that their instructor now implicitly trusted AI plagiarism detectors “more than she trusts us.”

In an interview, Gorichanaz said instructors’ trust in AI detectors is a big problem. “That’s the tool that we’re being told is effective, and yet it’s creating this situation of mutual distrust and suspicion, and it makes nobody like each other. It’s like, ‘This is not a good environment.’”

For Gorichanaz, the biggest problem is that AI detectors simply aren’t that reliable — for one thing, they are more likely to flag the papers of English language learners as being written by AI, he said. In one Stanford University , they “consistently” misclassified non-native English writing samples as AI-generated, while accurately identifying the provenance of writing samples by native English speakers.

“We know that there are these kinds of biases in the AI detectors,” Gorichanaz said. That potentially puts “a seed of doubt” in the instructor’s mind, when they should simply be using other ways to guide students’ writing. “So I think it’s worse than just not using them at all.” 

‘It is an enormous wedge in the relationship’

Liz Shulman, an English teacher at Evanston Township High School near Chicago, recently had an experience similar to Liang’s: One of her students covertly relied on AI to help write an essay on Romeo and Juliet, but forgot to delete part of the prompt he’d used. Next to the essay’s title were the words, “Make it sound like an average ninth-grader.”

Asked about it, the student simply shrugged, Shulman recalled in she co-authored with Liang.

In an interview, Shulman said that just three weeks into the new school year, in late August, she had already had to sit down with another student who used AI for an assignment. “I pretty much have to assume that students are going to use it,” she said. “It is an enormous wedge in the relationship, which is so important to build, especially this time of the year.”

Her take: School has transformed since 2020’s long COVID lockdowns, with students recalibrating their expectations. It’s less relational, she said, and “much more transactional.” 

During lockdowns, she said, Google “infiltrated every classroom in America — it was how we pushed out documents to students.” Five years later, if students miss a class because of illness, their “instinct” now is simply to check , the widely used management tool, “rather than coming to me and say, ‘Hey, I was sick. What did we do?’”

That’s a bitter pill for an English teacher who aspires to shift students’ worldviews and beliefs — and who relies heavily on in-class discussions.

“That’s not something you can push out on a Google doc,” Shulman said. “That takes place in the classroom.”

In a sense, she said, AI is contracting where learning can reliably take place: If students can simply turn off their thinking at home and rely on AI tools to complete assignments, that leaves the classroom as the sole place where learning occurs. 

“Because of AI, are we only going to ‘do school’ while we’re in school?” she asked. 

‘We forget all the stuff we learned before’

Accounts of teachers resigned to students cheating with AI are “concerning” and stand in contrast to what a solid body of research says about the importance of teacher agency, said , senior vice president for Innovation and Impact at the Carnegie Foundation.

Teachers, she said, “are not just in a classroom delivering instruction — they’re part of a community. Really wonderful school and system leaders recognize that, and they involve them. They’re engaged in decision making. They have that agency.”

One of the main principles of Carnegie’s , a blueprint for improving secondary education, includes a “culture of trust,” suggesting that schools nurture supportive learning and “positive relationships” for students and educators.

“Education is a deeply social process,” Stafford-Brizard said. “Teaching and learning are social, and schools are social, and so everyone contributing to those can rely on that science of relational trust, the science of relationships. We can pull from that as intentionally as we pull from the science of reading.”

Gorichanaz, the Drexel scholar, said that for all of its newness, generative AI presents educators with what’s really an old challenge: How to understand and prevent cheating. 

“We have this tendency to think AI changed the entire world, and everything’s different and revolutionized and so on,” he said. “But it’s just another step. We forget all the stuff we learned before.”

Specifically, research going back identifies four key reasons why students cheat: They don’t understand the relevance of an assignment to their life, they’re under time pressure, or intimidated by its high stakes, or they don’t feel equipped to succeed.

Even in the age of AI, said Gorichanaz, teachers can lessen the allure of taking shortcuts by solving for these conditions — figuring out, for instance, how to intrinsically motivate students to study by helping them connect with the material for its own sake. They can also help students see how an assignment will help them succeed in a future career. And they can design courses that prioritize deeper learning and competence. 

To alleviate testing pressure, teachers can make assignments more low-stakes and break them up into smaller pieces. They can also give students more opportunities in the classroom to practice the skills and review the knowledge being tested.

And teachers should talk openly about academic honesty and the ethics of cheating.

“I’ve found in my own teaching that if you approach your assignments in that way, then you don’t always have to be the police,” he said. Students are “more incentivized, just by the system, to not cheat.”

With writing, teachers can ask students to submit smaller “checkpoint” assignments, such as outlines and handwritten notes and drafts that classmates can review and comment on. They can also rely more on oral exams and handwritten blue book assignments. 

Shulman, the Chicago-area English teacher, said she and her colleagues are not only moving back to blue books, but to doing “a lot more on paper than we ever used to.” They’re asking students to close their laptops in class and assigning less work to be completed outside of class. 

As for Liang, the high school junior, he said his new English teacher expects all assignments to come in hand-written. But he also noted that a few teachers have fallen under the spell of ChatGPT themselves, using it for class presentations. As one teacher last spring clicked through a slide show, he said, “It was glaringly obvious, because all kids are AI experts, and they can just instantly sniff it out.” 

He added, “There was a palpable feeling of distrust in the room.”

Two decades after Hurricane Katrina, the legacy of New Orleans’ radical education experiment is still contested. Was it a success? The final episode of Where the Schools Went grapples with this question head on.

Doug Harris, chair of Tulane University’s Department of Economics and founding director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, has led the team studying the city’s schools for years. Their findings show both real progress and persistent gaps: higher graduation rates, more students going to college, stronger test scores, but uneven results and questions about whether the momentum can last. 

We talk with Doug about how to make sense of this data and what lessons other cities might take from it:

But of course, data can only go so far. In the second half of this episode, we return to voices you’ve heard from throughout Where the Schools Went to test those findings. 

Chris Stewart reflects on how New Orleans became the center of a national fight over education policy, with critics and champions battling on social media and in statehouses over whether the “system of schools” model would spread. 

Former principal and school founder Alexina Medley, who led a school both before and after Katrina, describes her pride in how far the city has come, but also cautions that the impact of COVID means it now faces a new crossroads. 

Dana Peterson, CEO of New Schools for New Orleans, calls accountability the city’s greatest legacy while cautioning that progress should not be mistaken for success. 

And John White, the former state superintendent, argues that the deepest lesson is about the importance of coherence and its ability to empower educators, hold them to clear standards, and resource schools fairly.

Finally, I share some of my own reflections. As a veteran of the education wars who left school leadership burned out, I found that reporting for this series helped me to reconnect with the purpose of schools and the people who run them. This story, and the city of New Orleans more broadly, offers a lesson not only in how to build better schools, but also in how to practice a better kind of politics.

Listen to the final episode above. 

Where the Schools Went is a five-part podcast series from The Branch, produced in partnership with The 74 and MeidasTouch. Listen at or .

But the conditions under which English teachers work are detrimental to the cause – and while book bans are in the news, the top-down pressure to measure up on test scores is a more pervasive, more longstanding culprit. Last year, we asked high school English teachers to describe their literature curriculum in a national questionnaire we plan to publish soon. From responses representing 48 states, we heard a lot of the following: “soul-deadening”; “only that which students will see on the test” and “too [determined] by test scores.”

These sentiments certainly aren’t new. In a similar questionnaire distributed in 1911, teachers described English class as “deadening,” focused on “memory instead of thinking,” and demanding “cramming for examination.” 

Teaching to the test is as old as English itself – as a secondary school subject, that is. Teachers have questioned the premise for just as long because too many have experienced a radical disconnect between how they are asked or required to teach and the pleasure that reading brings them.

High school English was first established as a test-driven subject around the turn of the 20th Century. Even at a time when relatively few Americans attended college, English class was oriented around building students’ mastery of now-obscure literary works that they would encounter on the College Entrance Exam. 

The development of the Scholastic Aptitude Test in 1926 and the growth of standardized testing since No Child Left Behind have only solidified what was always true: As much as we think of reading as a social, cultural, even “spiritual” experience, English class has been shaped by credential culture.

Throughout, many teachers felt that preparing students for college was too limited a goal; their mission was to prepare students for life. They believed that studying literature was an invaluable source of social and emotional development, preparing adolescents for adulthood and for citizenship. It provided them with “vicarious experience”: Through reading, young people saw other points of view, worked through challenging problems, and grappled with complex issues. 

Indeed, a national study conducted in 1933 asked teachers to rank their “aims” in literature instruction. They listed “vicarious experience” first, “preparation for college” last.

The results might not look that different today. Ask an English teacher what brought her to the profession, and a love of reading is likely to top the list. What is different today is the  unmatched pressure to prepare students for a constant cycle of state and national examinations and for college credentialing. 

Increasingly, English teachers are compelled to use online curriculum packages that mimic the examinations themselves, composed largely of excerpts from literary and “informational” texts instead of the whole books that were more the norm in previous generations. “Vicarious experience” has less purchase in contemporary academic standards than ever. 

Credentialing, however, does not equal preparing. Very few higher education skills map neatly onto standardized exams, especially in the humanities. As English professors, we can tell you that an enjoyment of reading – not just a toleration of it – is a key academic capacity. It produces better writers, more creative thinkers, and students less likely to need AI to express their ideas effectively.

Yet we haven’t given K-12 teachers the structure or freedom to treat reading enjoyment as a skill. The data from our national survey suggests that English teachers and their students find the system deflating. 

 “Our district adopted a disjointed, excerpt-heavy curriculum two years ago,” a Washington teacher shared, “and it is doing real damage to students’ interest in reading.” 

From Tennessee, a teacher added: “I understand there are state guidelines and protocols, but it seems as if we are teaching the children from a script. They are willing to be more engaged and can have a better understanding when we can teach them things that are relatable to them.”

And from Oregon, another tells us that because “state testing is strictly excerpts,” the district initially discouraged “teaching whole novels.”  It changed course only after students’ exam scores improved. 

Withholding books from students is especially inhumane when we consider that the best tool for improved academic performance – students learn more when they become . Yet by the time they graduate from high school, many students  master test-taking skills but lose the window for learning to enjoy reading.

Teachers tell us that the problem is not attitudinal but structural. An education technocracy that consists of test making agencies, curriculum providers, and policy makers is squeezing out enjoyment, teacher autonomy and student agency. 

To reverse this trend, we must consider what reading experiences we are providing our students. Instead of the self-defeating cycle of test-preparation and testing, we should take courage, loosen the grip on standardization, and let teachers recreate the sort of experiences with literature that once made us, and them, into readers.

As students returned to class earlier this month, Hawaiʻi schools reported the lowest number of teacher vacancies the state has seen in more than five years. As of last week, only 73 teacher positions were unfilled, compared to more than 1,000 in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But schools are employing a growing number of unlicensed teachers, also known as emergency hires, to fill those vacancies. Last August, Hawaiʻi schools started the year with 670 emergency hires, an 80% increase from four years ago. 

Emergency hires can work in schools for up to three years but must make progress toward earning their licenses. 

The recent increase in emergency hires partly stems from state efforts to put more teachers in classrooms, including increasing pay for unlicensed educators in 2023. But while  that emergency hires tend to have higher retention rates, they may also be less effective than licensed teachers, who typically have more training and classroom experience.

While the Hawaiʻi teacher licensing board  in schools, it doesn’t publish regular data on how many of these teachers go on to earn their teacher licenses and continue working in public schools here.    

Even so, principals and researchers say hiring unlicensed teachers is better than leaving positions vacant, which can leave schools scrambling for substitutes. The state has also explored other options to , like raising teacher pay and bringing in workers from the Philippines, but some solutions may only be temporary. 

“There’s a united front to attract qualified educators that are already certified,” said Chris Sanita, principal at Hāna High and Elementary. “I think it’s a larger state issue on housing and affordability.” 

A Growing Population

In 2018, Brandon Galarita began teaching at Ke’elikōlani Middle School as an emergency hire, hoping to build on his experience as a substitute teacher and use his college degree in English. While the pay was low, Galarita said, working full-time as an emergency hire allowed him to earn a living while also completing the requirements for a teacher license. 

“At least it starts building a teacher if they want to go into education,” said Galarita, who earned his license from the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa in 2020. “I would hope that the influx of emergency hires will result in more teachers that are staying in the profession.” 

Osa Tui Jr., president of the state teachers’ union, said he attributes the big jump in emergency hires to the pay raise they received two years ago. Currently, emergency hires earn about $50,300 a year, compared to $38,500 previously. 

“These numbers reflect exactly what we were hoping to accomplish,” Tui said. 

The state has encouraged prospective educators, including emergency hires, to earn their licenses through the Grow Our Own initiative at UH Mānoa, which helps cover the costs of tuition for teacher preparation programs. Teachers who complete the program and earn their licenses must work in public schools for at least three years. 

Emergency hire numbers don’t always reflect teachers’ progress toward earning their licenses, said Waiʻanae Intermediate School Principal John Wataoka. While he has around 11 emergency hires on staff this year, only one of the teachers has yet to complete a teacher preparation program.

The rest have finished their training but are waiting to take a licensing exam or haven’t received the results of their final tests yet, Wataoka said. 

“Right now, it’s just a waiting game,” he said. 

But a recent study of emergency hires entering Massachusetts schools during the pandemic suggests that unlicensed teachers may be less effective than other educators. Students taught by emergency hires tended to have lower math and science test scores compared to their peers,  from the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. 

Jonathon Medeiros, a teacher at Kauaʻi High School and vice president of the Hawaiʻi Education Association, said he understands parents’ possible concerns about emergency hires and the quality of education students are receiving. But it’s still preferable to have an emergency hire in a classroom than a substitute — or nobody at all.

In the past, Medeiros said, students were occasionally sent to the library or cafeteria for study hall when there weren’t enough educators to teach every class and the state faced a shortage of substitute teachers. 

Unlike emergency hires, DOE doesn’t require  to have a college degree.   

“We all want skilled, caring, talented teachers who are from the community and committed to their schools,” Medeiros said. “How do we make sure we get those people in every single classroom is the key question.”

Expanding The Pool

While the boost in emergency hire pay has attracted more teachers to public schools, the state is still searching for other solutions to increase the hiring pool. 

At Waiʻanae Intermediate, Wataoka said he’s hired seven international teachers to fill staff positions over the past two years. The J-1 visa program, which DOE has participated in since 2019, allows teachers from other countries, primarily the Philippines, to teach in the state for up to five years. 

This year, the department hired around 100 new teachers through the visa program, Superintendent Keith Hayashi said in a Board of Education meeting earlier this month. International teachers’ interest in working in Hawaiʻi is comparable to past years, he said, despite concerns that participation could drop after Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents  of teachers from the Philippines last spring. 

On Maui, Sanita said he’s also seeing the impact of the bonuses introduced for teachers in hard-to-fill positions five years ago. While it’s difficult to attract people to Hāna — a town with limited housing and no stop signs – the $8,000 bonus for remote schools helps retain teachers who would otherwise struggle with the high cost of living, Sanita said.   

“The differentials have really helped people, our teachers in Hana, not to have five different side hustles,” Sanita said. “They can actually teach and make ends meet.” 

The bonuses have also incentivized teachers to remain at Waiʻanae Intermediate even when they face long commutes from other parts of the island, Wataoka said. While the Leeward Coast has the greatest concentration of new teachers in the state, the $8,000 bonus has helped experienced teachers cover the cost of gas to West Oʻahu and remain at Waiʻanae Intermediate.

But despite more retention measures in place, the department saw a jump in the number of teachers leaving schools last year. Over 1,200 teachers voluntarily resigned or retired from DOE in the 2023-24 school year, compared to roughly 1,000 the year before.

Tui said there’s no single answer as to why the number of teachers leaving schools jumped. In some cases, teachers may have felt more comfortable changing jobs after the pandemic as they faced less uncertainty in the job market, he said. 

This year, educators continuing to work in public schools will receive a 3% pay raise, with some veteran teachers receiving a larger raise of around 7%. While the pay increase will encourage teachers to stay in schools longer, Tui said, it’s possible the state will see a wave of educators retiring after three years as they qualify for higher state pensions. 

For teachers hired before 2012, the state uses their three highest years of pay to determine their pensions. 

“We have to make sure that we can get people into the profession that we can recruit to handle a drop off like that,” Tui said. 

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Before Hurricane Katrina, teaching in New Orleans was more than a job. It was a pathway to the middle class; a profession led by veteran Black educators with deep roots in the city and protected by one of the South’s most powerful teachers’ unions. The United Teachers of New Orleans had fought for higher pay, stronger benefits, and job security. But those protections also made it hard to remove ineffective teachers and left principals with little control over who worked in their buildings.

After the storm, the entire teaching force was dismissed. More than 7,000 educators lost their jobs in a single stroke, many learning the news from the evening broadcast. 

The layoffs wiped out decades of experience and dealt a heavy blow to the city’s Black middle class. Some of those educators came back, determined to reopen their schools under extraordinary conditions. At Warren Easton Charter High School, staff taught on the second and third floors while the first floor remained under water. Still, the majority of dismissed educators never taught in the city again.

Into the gap came a wave of new recruits, many in their twenties, many white, and often from outside Louisiana. Programs like Teach For America promised energy and results. Principals could now hire quickly, replace teachers just as fast, and push for immediate improvement. 

Some schools thrived under the new flexibility. Others struggled with constant turnover and cultural gaps between teachers and the communities they served.

Today, the city’s teaching force is more diverse and more local than it was in the years after the storm. Yet a new challenge looms: how to attract and keep enough teachers willing to do the hard, often unglamorous work of helping students succeed. In the third episode of Where the Schools Went, you will hear from veteran educators, school leaders, and newcomers about how the city rebuilt its classrooms, what was gained, what was lost, and why the question of who teaches still shapes the future of its schools.

Listen to episode three above, and watch for the next chapter debuting Sep. 2. 

Where the Schools Went is a five-part podcast series from The Branch, produced in partnership with The 74 and MeidasTouch. Listen at or .

They racked up credit card debt, borrowed money from relatives, and ate frozen dinners.

Now, after , the Education Department has begun sending payments to soon-to-be-teachers who were counting on the money to cover living expenses over the summer while they trained to enter the city’s public schools.

Members of the NYC Teaching Fellows expected to be paid up to $4,500 in installments during the summer program, which quickly trains career changers and recent college graduates to fill hard-to-staff positions in the city’s public schools. Nearly 1,000 people participated this year, about double the number compared with last year, as the city races to comply with a state class size mandate that will require than usual every year.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Education officials initially indicated that participants would be paid periodically during the seven-week program to help offset living expenses, according to a recording of a webinar obtained by Chalkbeat. But when the program wound down during the last week of July, the payments still hadn’t arrived.

Several fellows complained about the delays, and the Education Department responded with vague messages that did little to clarify the timeline. City officials eventually told fellows they would begin issuing checks on Aug 1., meaning participants would not receive them until after they completed their training.

“They just kept saying, ‘Expect an update,’” said Kimba Williams, a 44-year-old former case manager for a foster care agency who participated in the program this summer. “They waited until the whole program was over.”

, the Teaching Fellows program has long been a key pipeline for attracting educators into high-need schools and is also designed to help diversify the teaching force. About were hired through the program, which offers a faster track into city classrooms that skirts the traditional certification process.

Williams, who is slated to teach at a Bronx middle school this fall, joined the fellows program because he wanted to be a positive role model for Black boys. Research students of color have better outcomes when they are in classrooms with teachers who look like them.

As the weeks ticked by without any sign of a paycheck, he maxed out his credit cards, took on $2,500 in debt, and canceled a trip to visit his daughter in North Carolina because he couldn’t afford the travel. He was expecting a stipend of about $3,700.

“It makes it hard to live a normal life,” Williams said. “At times you may not know where your next meal is coming from and that’s not fair to put anyone through.”

The training experience — which involves learning how to devise lessons, manage classrooms, and teach summer school students under close supervision — was positive except for the lack of payment, Williams said.

A check finally arrived on Aug. 11, more than a week after the program ended. Williams plans to use some of the money to drive his daughter to college.

City officials eventually blamed the delays on a “transition to a new payment structure that was required for us to remain in compliance with tax regulations,” according to an email some teaching fellows received at the end of July.

“While the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality has been working tirelessly to issue this payment as soon as possible, we deeply apologize for the delay caused by this transition and appreciate your patience and understanding,” the message continued.

After this story was published, Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull wrote in an email that “all payments have been issued” and noted that the city would “quickly identify and resolve any outstanding issues to ensure every Fellow is paid in full.”

Some fellows, however, said they are still waiting to be paid.

One participant, who previously worked as an accountant, said he borrowed $6,500 from relatives to pay for rent and groceries this summer. The delays have strained some of those relationships.

“They’re asking, ‘When are you going to be able to pay?’” said the fellow, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I can’t tell them because I haven’t received it.”

City officials warned fellows in a late July message that lost checks could take months to reissue.

Some experts that starting a new career in debt could mean they wind up leaving the public school system sooner, as teachers often make less than peers with similar experience and credentials. The former accountant said the experience has made him second guess his decision to change careers.

“People are not going to want to stay in a profession if you’re not going to be treated with respect,” he said.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of . .

Ah, a new school year. Crisp backpacks, gleaming sneakers, pressed uniforms and, of course, the collective rage of parents and teachers over school supply lists. How long they are. What’s on them. And who should foot the bill for pencils and paper, but also Clorox wipes and Kleenex. 

This year, though, those conversations, which typically clog up social media feeds as summer rolls to a close, have a new dimension. At a time when prices are creeping back up and public education is witnessing some of the steepest funding cuts in American history, the school supplies debate is a window into how families and workers are faring. 

“It’s not our job to supply all other students’ school supplies,” one mom on TikTok. “We pay taxes for that. The school should be funded to supply pencils and erasers and construction paper.” The video was then stitched together by another creator who added flashing headlines over the mom’s words: “Trump signs executive order to begin dismantling Education Department, raising questions for students and parents.” 

“I don’t have money to help Sally, John, Lucy,” . “Baby, my money, what I spend on for my kids is just for my kids. We don’t have the money to be trying to help other households…I feel like people who are in a position to help, I’m pretty sure they don’t mind helping, but it’s a lot of us that can only do for our kids.”

Teachers have spent the past couple of weeks countering. A middle school teacher in Memphis has for her response to frustrated parents: “Just so we’re clear, I’m expected to take a bullet for little Johnny and his classmates, but little Johnny’s mother does not see it fit to provide for the community with some Clorox wipes, some tissues, maybe an extra pack of pencils — that’s what we’re going with right now? I have to make the ultimate sacrifice for the community — the school — but little Johnny’s mother does not think that she has to make any sacrifices for the community.” 

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the debate is “exhibit A of the defunding of public schools and as a result the creation of a divisiveness that shouldn’t be there.” 

Of course parents are upset, she said. “They pay taxes, they’re like, ‘Why doesn’t the funding cover it?’” Meanwhile for teachers, the pressure is on them to fill in the gaps. “What other employee is told to basically fund their own job?” Weingarten said.

President Donald Trump has made it a priority to dismantle the Department of Education, a move Republicans as far back as Ronald Reagan have been calling for as part of an effort to remove the federal government from education, leaving curriculum and funding decisions to states and local school districts. 

Already, the Education Department’s role isn’t to dictate what is taught in schools but to dole out financial aid to college students, conduct research on education, enforce anti-discrimination laws and fund Title I K-12 schools in communities with the most need. Cutting the department will have direct consequences on discretionary funding at those Title I schools. How much schools spend on school supplies varies by district, but some . 

Since the start of the year, the Trump administration has at the Education Department. Then in June, it announced it would for the upcoming school year, money that had already been allocated by Congress to go out July 1 for summer and after-school programs, as well as reading and math support and other assistance for migrant students. Then, at the end of July, following significant pressure from numerous groups, the administration reversed its decision and released the funds. 

The political ping-pong forced school districts to take money from their discretionary spending budgets to ensure summer school stayed open. That meant dipping into funding for supplies, Weingarten said. 

Meanwhile, teachers, particularly at Title I schools, are going into the year with less support, facing potentially larger class sizes, limited counseling support for students and other challenges. About of teachers already use their own money to cover school supplies and other classroom needs — and those expenses are only going up. 

“Think about those educators who are taking money out of their own pockets, trying to stretch their own family’s budget, and at the same time how they’re feeling about the reality that their students are coming back to school and the schools have fewer resources,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union. 

It’s an “affordability crisis,” Weingarten added — and that’s what’s playing out on social media. 

Inflation has started to pick back up and Trump’s tariffs of 10 percent or more on nearly all countries went into effect on August 1, raising the cost of everyday goods, particularly electronics and clothing. In July, a key measure that looks at inflation without volatile food and energy costs , indicating companies are starting to pass tariff increases on to consumers. have indicated they will start to raise prices, and economists are warning that larger increases are on the horizon. 

All of it is affecting how parents approach back-to-school shopping this year. 

Data from found that families planned to shrink their back-to-school budgets to an average of about $858 from $874 last year. About half of shoppers were starting their shopping earlier this year, specifically to avoid markups from tariffs. During Amazon’s Prime Day event July 8 to 11, sales of school supplies (backpacks, lunchboxes, binders, calculators and kids’ apparel) were up over last year, according to Adobe Analytics. One U.S. News survey from late July found of parents are concerned about rising back-to-school prices due to tariffs. 

“A lot of these more or less low-cost, mass-produced items are just simply not made in the U.S. so there are necessarily going to be price hikes on things like pencils and crayons and backpacks and things we just don’t make here anymore,” said Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank. “We are not going to move pencil factories back to the United States.”

The debate over school supplies is not all happening in a vacuum, either. passed by Congress will reshape family budgets and require families to put more money into health care and groceries — and away from things like school supplies.

“When all of us are feeling squeezed at the grocery store, at the bank, at day care — it’s no wonder that frustrations are boiling over,” said Sondra Goldschein, the executive director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, in a statement to The 19th. “With school starting in the fall, can you blame teachers and parents — neither of whom should be on the hook for such expensive school supplies — for looking at each other and wondering who can possibly afford another hit to their family’s budget?”

Low-income families, predominantly families of color, will feel the squeeze the most both in their own budgets and cuts to school budgets. for the poorest families and Black workers, who have faced the brunt of cuts to government jobs, including many diversity, equity and inclusion positions, have seen in the past four months. 

Ailen Arreaza, the executive director of ParentsTogether, a national nonprofit that works to engage parents politically, said all of it is leading to a sense of uncertainty and instability among parents as the school year begins. 

This, Arreaza said, is what shouldn’t get lost in the discourse: “What we hear from parents time and time again is that they love their teachers. The issue here is not teachers versus parents. The real problem is the slashing of education budgets and the rising costs.” 

This year, many parents are also recognizing that. Now, alongside the angry videos are dozens others like this one that a mother posted on TikTok at the end of July:

“As a parent of an upcoming third grader, nothing has pissed me off more recently than watching all of these parents have to make videos about these mile-long school lists: five boxes of Kleenex, three bottles of hand sanitizers, two the three-bottle Clorox wipes. Y’all want loose leaf paper, pens, pencils, markers, crayons, construction paper, and then have the nerve to say, ‘Don’t put your kid’s name on none of the supplies,’” . 

“But what really takes my anger over the edge is the fact that you did not ask for nothing for yourself, baby. What do you want? As a teacher that is about to have my children from August to May for seven, eight hours a day you can have whatever you like. I’m [the rapper] T.I. You can have whatever you like.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — Those who knew Melissa Evon the best “laughed really hard” at the thought of her teaching family and consumer sciences, formerly known as home economics.

By her own admission, the Elgin High School teacher is not the best cook. Her first attempt to sew ended with a broken sewing machine and her mother declaring, “You can buy your clothes from now on.”

Still, Evon’s work in family and consumer sciences won her the 2025 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year award on Friday. Yes, her students practice cooking and sewing, but they also learn how to open a bank account, file taxes, apply for scholarships, register to vote and change a tire — lessons she said “get kids ready to be adults.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

“Even though most of my career was (teaching) history, government and geography, the opportunity to teach those real life skills has just been a phenomenal experience,” Evon told Oklahoma Voice.

After graduating from Mustang High School and Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Evon started her teaching career in 1992 at Elgin Public Schools just north of Lawton. She’s now entering her 27th year in education, a career that included stints in other states while her husband served in the Air Force and a break after her son was born.

No matter the state, the grade level or the subject, “I’m convinced I teach the world’s greatest kids,” she said.

Her family later returned to Oklahoma where Evon said she received a great education in public schools and was confident her son would, too.

Over the course of her career, before and after leaving the state, she won Elgin Teacher of the Year three times, district Superintendent Nathaniel Meraz said.

So, Meraz said he was “ecstatic” but not shocked that Evon won the award at the state level.

“There would be nobody better than her,” Meraz said. “They may be as good as her. They may be up there with her. But she is in that company of the top teachers.”

Like all winners of Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, Evon will spend a year out of the classroom to travel the state as an ambassador of the teaching profession. She said her focus will be encouraging teachers to stay in education at a time when Oklahoma struggles to keep experienced educators in the classroom.

Evon herself at times questioned whether to continue teaching, she said. In those moments, she drew upon mantras that are now the core of her Teacher of the Year platform: “See the light” by looking for the good in every day and “be the light for your kids.”

She also told herself to “get out of the boat,” another way of saying “take a leap of faith.”

Two years ago, she realized she needed a change if she were to stay in education. She wanted to return to the high-school level after years of teaching seventh-grade social studies.

The only opening at the high school, though, was family and consumer sciences. Accepting the job was a “get out of the boat and take a leap of faith moment,” she said.

“I think teachers have to be willing to do that when we get stuck,” Evon said. “Get out of the boat. Sometimes that’s changing your curriculum. Sometimes it might be more like what I did, changing what you teach. Maybe it’s changing grade levels, changing subjects, changing something you’ve always done, tweaking that idea.”

Since then, she’s taught classes focused on interpersonal communication, parenting, financial literacy and career opportunities. She said her students are preparing to become adults, lead families and grow into productive citizens.

And, sure, they learn cooking and sewing along the way.

“I’m getting to teach those things, and I know that what I do matters,” Evon said. “They come back and tell me that.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

But I’m here to change your perception.

About 4,500 Wyomingites call Buffalo home. My school, Cloud Peak Elementary, serves 225 students in grades 3 to 5, more than a third of them from low-income families. We have the equivalent of 19 full-time teachers and one full-time school counselor.

Before becoming principal of Cloud Peak, I’d taught in this building. I’d walked alongside teachers as the district reading coach. I knew the strengths of our staff, the heart of our students, and the potential within our walls. That familiarity became one of our greatest assets as we set out to transform the way we support every learner.

I didn’t design our school-wide intervention and extension model myself, but I had a front-row seat to its beginnings. Now, I have the honor of helping it evolve. I believe what we’ve built is not just working — it’s something other schools can do, too.

According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 31% of fourth-grade students performed at or above the proficient level in reading. The conclusion? Across the country, we’re falling short when it comes to reading instruction.

Until two years ago, Cloud Peak used a “traditional” intervention model. We identified the lowest performing students as “struggling readers.” They all received the same intervention regardless of their skill gaps. Does that sound like your school or district?

At the time, we didn’t have a systematic approach to ensure that interventions targeted the students who needed them most. While teachers were doing their best with the tools they had, there was no consistent way to measure if what they were doing was working — or if some students were slipping through the cracks. High-achieving students weren’t always given opportunities to extend their learning, and struggling students didn’t always receive the intensive support they needed.

We set up professional learning communities (PLCs) — groups of educators who work collaboratively to improve teaching and learning for all students — and received intensive training on using data to collaborate on innovative solutions.

We looked at our data and introduced diagnostic measures to identify specific skill gaps interfering with students’ reading ability, followed by diagnostic assessments to home in on targeted interventions. Then, we got to work.

In a small school, it takes every single staff member to run a successful intervention and enrichment program; one of our proudest accomplishments is investing in our support staff. Paraprofessionals are full members of our instructional teams, attending every professional learning opportunity and participating in PLCs. Several have completed Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) traing, along with almost all of our certified teachers. That’s not common — but it should be.

Our most powerful shift was carving out a dedicated intervention and extension block, which we call “Reading I&E.” Every third, fourth, and fifth grader receives daily targeted reading instruction — support or enrichment — in addition to regular core reading instruction. Each grade level holds I&E at a different time, so our entire staff can support it. Even I teach when I can — whether it’s stepping in briefly, modeling a lesson, or leading enrichment. It’s a clear reminder that every adult in our building is a reading teacher.

While traditional models might offer intervention a couple of days a week to the lowest performing readers, we do intervention and enrichment every day for every student. Since I&E is built into our master schedule, students aren’t pulled out of science or social studies class for intervention.

These I&E blocks are non-negotiable. They reflect our belief that all children deserve instruction tailored to their needs. Learning to read is that important because it unlocks every other type of learning.

Reading I&E instruction is deeply responsive. We group students based on data and regroup them every three weeks using curriculum-based and state assessments and benchmarks. Teachers, interventionists, and paraprofessionals sit together to review the data. We reflect, regroup, and make adjustments. Our weekly PLCs build on that work, helping us stay aligned, share strategies, and get better together.

In fifth grade, for instance, all students read novels, but their experience varies greatly depending on their needs. Enrichment for stronger readers includes book talks, character interviews, and story mapping. Intervention for others includes vocabulary, explicit decoding support, and structured scaffolds to boost comprehension.

No one is stuck in a label. Every student constantly learns and grows with the support or enrichment they need.

Since introducing Reading I&E, we’ve seen improvement in student outcomes. Our first group of students to experience this model made remarkable gains — moving from 5.4% below the state average on the third-grade assessment to 11.2% above the state average just two years later as fifth graders.

Looking at third-graders at the end of this school year, 100% showed growth and improved their correct-word-per-minute scores; 82% scored proficient in reading. We decreased the share of students flagged as “at risk” in reading skills by three percentage points, and we increased students who scored “advanced” by five percentage points.

Plus, fluency scores improved across all grade levels. More importantly, our students are transferring skills from instruction to real-world reading tasks. That’s the goal.

This journey hasn’t just changed how we teach — it’s changed how we think. Instead of saying what we used to do was wrong, we simply say, “We’ve found something that works even better.”

We’re still learning. Right now, we’re working to refine our common formative assessments so they align tightly with our instruction. In Grade 3, we’re also identifying students who’ve mastered foundational skills so we can transition them into more advanced reading work. It’s a good challenge to have: How do we best serve kids who are ready to stretch?

I’m sharing our story because our model is replicable, and it works. It engages educators and meets students exactly where they are — even if that changes over time. For us, having students who don’t learn how to read is simply not an option. You don’t need a magic curriculum or a huge grant. You just need to be willing to think differently.

Next week, the unpopular teacher licensure test, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment, will be officially retired and replaced with a literacy performance assessment to ensure educators are prepared to teach students to read.

The Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) has been a major hurdle for teacher candidates for years. About a third of all the teacher candidates who took the test failed the first time, according to����collected between 2012 and 2017. Critics have also said that the test is outdated and has added to the state’s teacher shortage.

The literacy performance assessment that replaces the RICA reflects an increased focus on foundational reading skills, including phonics. California, and many other states, are moving from teaching children to recognize words by sight to teaching them to decode words by sounding them out in an effort to boost literacy.

Mandated by , the literacy assessment reflects new standards that include support for struggling readers, English learners and pupils with exceptional needs, incorporating the  for the first time.

“We believe the literacy TPA will help ensure that new teachers demonstrate a strong grasp of evidence-based literacy instruction — an essential step toward improving reading outcomes for California’s students,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, a nonprofit education advocacy organization.

Literacy test on schedule

Erin Sullivan, director of the Professional Services Division of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the literacy performance assessment is ready for its July 1 launch.

“We’ve been field-testing literacy performance assessments with, obviously, the multiple- and the single-subject candidates, but also the various specialist candidates, including visual impairment and deaf and hard of hearing,” Sullivan said. 

California teacher candidates must pass one of three performance assessments approved by the commission before earning a preliminary credential: the California Teaching Performance Assessment , the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment ( or the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers ().

A performance assessment allows teachers to demonstrate their competence by submitting evidence of their instructional practice through video clips and written reflections on their practice. 

“It’s very different,” said Kathy Futterman, an adjunct professor in teacher education at California State University, East Bay. “The RICA is an online test that has multiple-choice questions, versus the LPA — the performance assessment — which has candidates design and create three to five lesson plans. Then, they have to videotape portions of those lesson plans, and then they have to analyze and reflect on how those lessons went.”

Field tests went well

, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing board is expected to hear a report on the field test results, approve the passing score standards for the literacy cycle of the performance assessment and formally adopt the new test.

All but one of the 280 teacher candidates who took the new CalTPA literacy assessment during field testing passed, according to the report. Passing rates were lower on the FAST, with 51 of 59 passing on the first attempt, and on the edTPA with 192 of 242 passing.

 Cal State East Bay was one of the universities that piloted the test over the last two years. 

“It’s more hands-on and obviously with real students, so in that regard I think it was very helpful,” Futterman said.

State could offer flexibility

Upcoming budget trailer bills are expected to offer some flexibility to teacher candidates who haven’t yet passed the RICA, Sullivan said. 

The commission is asking state leaders to allow candidates who have passed the CalTPA and other required assessments, except the RICA, to be allowed to continue taking the test through October, when the state contract for the RICA expires, she said.

“We are looking forward to putting RICA to bed and moving on to the literacy performance assessment, but … we don’t want to leave anybody stranded on RICA island,” Sullivan said.

The commission has approved the Foundations of Reading examination as an alternative for a small group of teachers with special circumstances, including those who would have completed all credential requirements except the RICA by June 30, but the test may not be the best option for them, Sullivan said.

“It’s just a very different exam,” Sullivan said. “It’s a national exam. And while the commission looked at it and said, ‘We think this will work for our California candidates,’ it’s not the best-case scenario. So, trying to get these folks to pass the RICA and giving them every opportunity to do that until really it just goes away, that’s kind of what we’re looking at.”

The Foundations of Reading exam, by Pearson, is used by . It assesses whether a teacher is proficient in literacy instruction, including developing phonics and decoding skills, as well as offering a strong literature, language and comprehension component with a balance of oral and written language, according to the commission’s website.

Teacher candidates who were allowed to earn a preliminary credential without passing the RICA during the Covid-19 pandemic; teachers with single-subject credentials, who want to earn a multiple-subject credential; and educators who completed teacher preparation in another country and/or as a part of the Peace Corps are also eligible to take the Foundations of Reading examination.

The Foundations of Reading test has been rated as strong by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

State focus on phonics

SB 488 was followed by a revision of the Literacy Standard and Teaching Performance Expectations for teachers, which outlined effective literacy instruction for students.

California state leaders have recently taken additional steps to ensure foundational reading skills are being taught in classrooms. On June 5, Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed that the state budget will include hundreds of millions of dollars to fund legislation needed to achieve a comprehensive to early literacy.

, which passed the Assembly with a unanimous 75-0 vote that same day, would move the state’s schools toward adopting evidence-based literacy instruction, also known as the science of reading or structured literacy. 

One thing is clear: Federal and local decisions continue to be made without the voices of teachers who know students and classrooms best.

That’s why we, as part of a group of 17 public school teachers from across the country, did what the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon have not: We asked educators what they think. Through , we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 public school teachers, with additional oversamples of 300 teachers of color and 300 Gen Z teachers, to understand their views on the future of education.

The message is clear: Teachers reject the Trump administration’s education agenda. Seventy percent oppose dismantling the Education Department, and only 29% feel optimistic about its impact on schools, with 51% expressing outright concern. There’s still time to change the trajectory of public education, but that window is closing. What we do next matters.

Of course, many of these challenges predate the current administration. Slow and steady declines in teacher satisfaction — only 19% recommending the profession to others —

make clear that public education’s challenges are deep and systemic. What gives us hope is that teachers have practical, powerful solutions that can transform the profession.

Teachers are optimistic about investments in high-quality instructional materials and professional development, especially in literacy and math. Eighty-five percent say their districts support implementation, a marked improvement from last year. Yet, with 81% still relying on material beyond the established curriculum, district and state leaders must sustain this momentum to address

Many educators we surveyed also support collaborative staffing models. Nearly three-quarters of teachers agree with approaches like co-teaching and team teaching to strengthen professional collaboration. Many also call for expanded use of support staff, such as tutors and paraprofessionals, to further address students’ needs. At a time when the profession continues to struggle with morale and retention, these alternative teaching models — which eschew the one-teacher, once-classroom model in place for centuries — offer a clear and promising pathway toward improved student outcomes.  

And while still new, the transformative power of AI in the classroom is quickly gaining traction. The number of teachers who believe AI can positively transform teaching and learning more than doubled in the past year, from 14% to 30%. Yet, only 48% report clear school AI policies, highlighting an urgent need for professional development. 

Viewed together, the results point to a broader, more meaningful takeaway: Teachers are ready for change and ready to lead that change. Whether it’s transforming the profession with high-quality instructional materials and aligned professional supports, innovations in staffing, or technology in the classroom, educators are embracing what works best for a modern classroom.

However, realizing the future that teachers envision requires leaders at every level to listen, starting at the top. It’s time leaders like President Trump and Secretary McMahon listen to educators and start giving them a seat at the table when decisions are made about their classrooms. Teaching in 2025 may be a paradox, but one thing is certain: when educators are heard, we can reimagine education, not dismantle it. 

The authors are part of the National Teacher Leader Council, a two-year cohort of 17 teachers from across six local chapters of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy organization that ensures educators have a leading voice in shaping policies.��

On paper, that seemed like the right approach. But in reality, it left too many students behind — and failed to challenge others who were ready to move forward.

So, we decided to do something bold.

Ellis Elementary, followed by several other Rockford schools, started grouping students by reading ability instead of by grade. It wasn’t seamless. It wasn’t easy. But it was necessary. And the results have been worth every bit of effort.

Coming out of COVID, our students’ learning gaps were wide — and getting wider. The urgency was impossible to ignore. As teachers, we were trying everything we could to meet the needs of all our students, but our one-size-fits-all structure just wasn’t working.

Teaching whole-group lessons to a class of students who varied drastically in their reading skills meant instruction often landed in the middle — reaching few, if any, with the depth they needed.

It became clear: Our diverse learners needed diverse instruction. That shift in mindset was the beginning of everything.

As we began exploring the science of reading, we saw the potential to align our practices with how children actually learn to read. But more importantly, our teachers were ready. There was an energy and openness at Ellis that I’ll never forget. Everyone understood that what we had been doing wasn’t enough — and they were eager for change.

You may have heard about this strategy on a recent episode of the popular podcast “,” which highlights East Elementary in Steubenville, Ohio.

Here’s how it works at my school: Every morning, for 45 minutes, all students in grades K–2 receive Tier 1 instruction using Reading Horizons. That’s 14 classrooms running simultaneously, including general education teachers and interventionists.

To begin, we administer a spelling inventory aligned to the Reading Horizons scope and sequence. Based on those results, we create skill-based groups — regardless of students’ ages or grade levels. Groups range from letters and sounds coupled with phonemic awareness (more foundational), all the way to multisyllabic decoding and comprehension strategies (more advanced).

If your school isn’t ready to jump right into grouping by skill-level across grades, a possible first step is grouping by skill-level across same-grade classrooms, e.g., re-arrange all 1st grade students for foundational reading instruction. In this model, first-grade classrooms would “shuffle” to one classroom that focuses on more foundational concepts and moves slower, while another moves faster and brings in more authentic text.

But, at Ellis Elementary, we’ve gone all in on regrouping by skill level, regardless of grade. We have 5-year-olds and 7-year-olds learning side by side, because that’s where they are in their reading journey.

Nobody learns at exactly the same pace. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s powerful.

As the instructional coach, I coordinate our skill groups, support teachers during instruction, and lead progress monitoring. We developed RH Checkpoints: simple assessments where students read and write words after each lesson to demonstrate their understanding.

We don’t move on if a group isn’t showing mastery. We pause. We support. And sometimes, we shift students into a group that’s a better fit.

This model has been a game-changer for our teachers. When they step into their English Language Arts block, they teach skills that every student in the room is ready for. There’s no guessing. No watering down instruction. It’s focused, intentional, and impactful.

And the students? They now see themselves as readers. They’re more confident, more engaged, and more successful.Teachers are happier. Students are thriving.

Grouping by ability isn’t without its challenges. Yes, it was messy at first. Yes, there were growing pains. But we committed to flexibility and collaboration. We moved beyond the idea that a teacher is responsible only for the students assigned to their classroom. Instead, we adopted a collective mentality:

All Ellis students are our students. With enough time, we found a rhythm.

There are some logistical hurdles when you mix age groups, especially for our most vulnerable learners. To address this, we try to keep groups small and ensure we have strong behavior support in place. But in four years of doing this work, we’ve never encountered a problem we couldn’t solve with a little creativity and a team mindset.

The results we’re seeing go beyond test scores, though those have improved as well. Since the post-COVID low point in 2021, third-grade, end-of-year oral reading proficiency has risen by 18 percentage points, including an 8-point gain this school year alone. The number of students identified as at-risk has dropped by 25 points, with 19 of those points occurring this year.

Even more compelling: In one class, 72% of students who began the year labeled “at-risk” have reached or exceeded the end-of-year proficiency benchmark. While that outcome represents a single class, we’re seeing similar outcomes across the board.

Here’s what I’d tell any school thinking about making this shift:

● It will feel chaotic at first. Stick with it.

● Rules and procedures are critical. Set them early.

● Everyone must be on board. From students to administration

● Be ready to regroup. Mid-year reassessment is key.

● Let the data guide you. Not assumptions. Not classrooms. Not grade levels.

This approach has created a culture where every adult is responsible for every student’s success, where no child is held back or left behind because of their age and where reading instruction is the best part of the day.

We’ve made ability-based grouping our new normal. And we’ve never looked back.

The board unanimously last month — and now the district is putting together a preliminary plan, with a deadline of February, 2026 to produce a package of new parental benefits.

Board Member , who represents , which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, is the sponsor and a co-author of the resolution.

She said it’s about time the nation’s second-largest district treats its workforce of more than 70,000 employees, including thousands of working moms like her, more fairly.

“Parents are spending the vast majority of their paycheck on rent and childcare, and a little bit left over for food and gas and other bills,” said Ortiz-Franklin, a former LAUSD teacher who has two young children. “It’s really affecting people’s livelihood.”

The resolution, which was co-sponsored by board members Karla Griego and Kelly Gonez, includes provisions for the district to support family planning, pregnancy, parental leave and childcare. 

The district is beginning with a demographic study to determine which employees have families, or are planning to, and identify areas of need. The study will also assess the costs of expanding leave for new parents.

The district has contracts with unions that govern pay and benefits for its employees and is  currently negotiating a new contract with the city’s teachers union, which is also for parents.

Ortiz-Franklin said new parents who work for L.A. Unified currently face an impossible choice: pay for childcare for their family or pay other household expenses. The cost of high-quality childcare in L.A., she said, exceeds the income of many LAUSD employees.

She said teachers and other LAUSD workers are ineligible for the state’s disability insurance program, which offers partially paid leave of up to 16 weeks for new parents. Teachers and other LAUSD employees are exempt from the state’s family leave programs because the district’s benefits programs predated those of the state. 

Often, Ortiz-Franklin said, district employees have to use their limited sick days to take parental leave, leading many teachers and other school staffers to time their pregnancies so they give birth during the summer months, when they are off anyway.

In addition to calling for leave for pregnant employees, the resolution also calls on LAUSD to:

• Provide more access to reproductive healthcare, including fertility treatments.
• Create dedicated spaces for lactation at all district schools and offices.
• Help employees enroll their children in LAUSD schools near where they work.

LAUSD officials are now working on a plan to provide these new benefits, Ortiz Franklin said, with some of the new services coming online in the current school year.

Maya Suzuki Daniels, a teacher at San Pedro High School and a mother to a kindergartner and an infant, said the district needs to do more to support working parents like her.  

Suzuki Daniels said she’s spent up to $1,600 a month for childcare, putting financial stress on her family while she’s trying to work full time and raise young children.

“I exhausted all of my sick time, and I now am paying for their child care through personal loans,” Daniels said, “which I’m told is very typical and normal for a working teacher. That sucks.”