The Missing Piece in Math Reform: Identifying and Supporting Students with Dyscalculia
Dyscalculia is a neurological learning disability that makes numbers and math difficult—it’s the math equivalent of dyslexia and affects a similar share of students (3-8% of school-age children). But while dyslexia has decades of legislative mandates, screening requirements, specialist roles, and teacher preparation behind it, dyscalculia has almost none of that infrastructure. This brief explores […]
Charting New Paths: What AI-Enabled Transformation Looks Like in Four Early Adopter Districts
Most school districts are using AI cautiously, usually to save teachers and administrators time. But a small group of districts is doing something different: using it to rebuild how school works. CRPE’s early 2026 study of AI Early Adopters sorted districts into five categories, from Dabblers to Reimaginers. This brief follows up with four districts […]
Does Team-Based Teaching Improve Student Learning? Early Evidence from Arizona
The traditional American classroom has looked the same for a century: one teacher, one room, one roster. Critics have long argued that this model leaves teachers isolated, overburdened, and with limited opportunities for specialization, collaboration, or career growth. In response, school systems across the country are experimenting with new ways to organize teachers via strategic […]
Webinar Plus Q&A: Why Motivated District Leaders Pursue Incremental Change
CRPE’s recent report, The Transformation Gap: Why Motivated District Leaders Pursue Incremental Change, sparked rich conversation during our webinar and panel discussion on August 5, 2026. The audience Q&A was robust, and we didn’t get to all of the great questions. We wanted to share the webinar recording for anyone who could not attend, as […]
A Strategic Research Agenda for AI-Driven Transformation in Public Education
A new white paper from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) names our current reality: no shared measures of success, governance not keeping pace with the technology, and a market increasingly shaped by the priorities of ed-tech vendors. Generative AI carries real risk—”wicked problems” like data and identity theft, cognitive offloading, and threats to students’ […]
The Transformation Gap: Why Motivated District Leaders Pursue Incremental Change
School districts are struggling to create both equitable and fundamentally different outcomes for young people through incremental improvements. The alternative is transformational systems change, when school districts redefine their purpose and operations through a coherent strategy to ensure every school is a high-quality, empowering place for all students to thrive—but this remains rare. With support […]
Small Changes, Big Relief: How States Can Support School Districts While They Work Towards Strategic Leadership
State education agencies (SEAs) are being asked to do something they have rarely been asked to do before: lead. As the federal government’s influence over education recedes, leaving confusion in its wake, calls for guidance, clarity, and strategic direction are shifting to states. And they are shifting fast, to agencies that are often understaffed, under-resourced, […]
A Mile Wide, an Inch Deep: The State of Civic Learning in U.S. School Districts
As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, civic learning is having a moment—but new data suggest that more support is needed to move students from knowing the basics to participating in civics learning and practice within their communities. This brief is the first in a three-part series from the American School District Panel (ASDP), […]
Webinar: CRPE’s AI Early Adopter Research, 2026
As AI adoption accelerates across K–12 education, leaders are navigating a rapidly evolving and often fragmented landscape. This webinar, held on May 27, 2026, shares early insights from CRPE’s research on AI in school systems, state agencies, and the broader education ecosystem. It offers a synthesized view of what’s actually happening on the ground, where […]
Early Adopter Districts and AI: Strategic Pathways, System Strain, and the Conditions for Amplifying Transformation
School districts are making consequential AI decisions largely on their own—purchasing tools, training teachers, setting policies for student use, and trying to determine what responsible and effective adoption looks like. Without clear federal guidance or a reliable roadmap, what are the most advanced districts learning, and what does it reveal about what the field needs […]