Unfinished Business: What Must Come Next for Public Education, Five Years After Pandemic Shutdowns
The Current Crisis Five years after the pandemic disrupted education, public schools are still struggling to recover. Achievement gaps have widened, student performance is in decline, and many schools have reverted to an outdated, ineffective system that fails to meet today’s challenges. The pandemic exposed longstanding weaknesses in the education system—rigid structures, inequities, resistance to […]
Schools of Education Play a Critical Role in Fulfilling the Promise of AI
Observers have started to craft different narratives about where artificial intelligence (AI) will lead us, but we can’t know how the story will end. All we know for certain is that AI is rapidly transforming our world, from the classroom to the lab, the boardroom to the marketplace—and we humans aren’t ready. That’s especially true […]
Eliminating the Department of Education won’t fix education’s dysfunctions—but neither will denying they exist
Announcing a new forum for bold ideas to build momentum Proposals to eliminate the Department of Education (ED) have been a Republican talking point since Ronald Reagan first suggested it in the early 1980s. The Trump administration’s executive order to weaken the agency is just the latest attempt. While the stated goal is to cut […]
Chartering, revisited: A proven strategy for big-city schools
Post-pandemic, big city K-12 leaders are doing everything they can to strengthen their schools and meet student needs. However, the districts they lead are tapped out in terms of teacher and administrator capability, dollars, and political support. Urban school districts need to: Make school more engaging for students Flex to meet the needs of students […]
Embracing AI in Education Can Move Us Toward a New Era of Learning
For decades, students of color and those from low-income communities have faced persistent achievement gaps in our education system. Despite countless reform efforts, these students continue to encounter barriers to accessing high-quality, personalized instruction that builds critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Now, the emergence of generative AI represents an unprecedented opportunity to transform this inequitable […]
NAEP results come out tomorrow—but we already know what must happen next
Tomorrow’s release of the Nation’s Report Card will surely generate abundant hand-wringing among parents, policymakers, business leaders, and educators. While the fine-grained details deserve examination, we can already tell you what the headlines will say: American students are not receiving the educational opportunities they deserve, nor those that will enable them to thrive in an […]
What do parents know about Generative AI in schools?
Generative AI has led to a seismic shift in the U.S., with major implications for the present and future states of our societal systems and institutions. While these advancements could contribute to major learning gains in the classroom, they have also generated a great deal of uncertainty as educators, parents, and students grapple with the […]
Tear Down the Special Education Walls. All Students Will Gain
When you picture a student with a disability, what image comes to mind? Is it the student in a wheelchair? Do they have Down syndrome? Are they able to speak clearly? Often, when we think of students with disabilities, we think of children who look, sound, or behave differently from “typical kids.” However, what we […]
2025: The Year for Hard Truths and Bold Solutions
To CRPE followers, colleagues, and friends: Happy 2025! Longtime readers will know that CRPE prides ourselves on “thinking forward.” We do make straight-out predictions from time to time, but mostly, we look around the corner at looming trends, debates, and developments and consider what it would take to get the best outcomes possible for students. […]
So, How Did I Do? A Response to My 2024 Predictions on Education
Last February, I went out on a limb and made ten predictions about what we’d see this year in terms of policy and practice. At the time, I said: “Unlike cable news pundits, who rarely hold themselves accountable for their (often faulty) predictions, we will grade ourselves and report back at the end of the […]
