Districts and AI: Early Adopters Focus More on Students in 2025-26
Introduction More Early Adopters are piloting systemwide AI strategies Early Adopters focus more on students, mostly with new tools Reimaginers keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI Districts must advance more coherent AI strategies for teaching and learning Across the country, the approach schools take towards Generative AI has changed: it’s moved from […]
A “Zero-Based Budgeting” Approach for High School Course Requirements in the Age of AI
For better or worse, AI, and especially chatbots associated with Large Language Models, are already changing the daily rhythms of education here and around the world. Organizations, including the Center on Reinventing Public Education, are providing critical guidance to schools and policymakers about how educators can best take advantage of AI’s opportunities (such as personalized […]
AI Is Moving Fast—But School Responses and Parent Opinions Are Not
This piece is a follow-up to this blog, published last year. AI is present in classrooms more than ever before, partly due to tech companies’ provision of professional learning for teachers and partly due to school districts’ large-scale purchases of AI software. Beyond helping educators save time and enhance student learning, AI has also given […]
Tragic Practices: Why Public Education Is Not Designed to Prioritize Efficiency, Innovation, or Results
The changing landscape of education under new federal legislation places heavy responsibility on states to create policies that ensure better student outcomes amid tight fiscal realities. States are rightly focused on how to improve reading, math, and career readiness in K-12 schools. They cannot do that, however, without a firm understanding of why making such […]
Request for Analysis: Unlocking Potential Data Center
More students than ever are being identified for special education. CRPE invites you to explore why using our new Unlocking Potential Data Center. In early 2025, the National Center on Education Statistics reported a record 7.9 million public school students identified with disabilities under IDEA. This continues a decades-long rise in students placed in special […]
Outmatched: Special Education Can’t Solve Problems Rooted in the Education Delivery System
In early 2025, the National Center for Education Statistics quietly announced a new record: 7.9 million public school students were identified with a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The new data capped off a decades-long trend towards increasing numbers of children being identified with disabilities and swept up into special education […]
Why School Choice Needs Market Enablers, Not Just Policies
Imagine a family—let’s call them the Carters—navigating their state’s school choice options. They live in a blue-collar, inner-ring suburban neighborhood with decent schools, but their second-grade son is struggling socially and academically at their public elementary school. The Carters are desperate to make a change. They wonder if a charter school, a nearby private school, […]
Making Room for What Matters: Innovative School Leaders Want Accountability, but With a Lighter Footprint
Across the country, school leaders are reimagining how students learn—designing models that are more engaging, effective, and connected to the world students are entering. But many say that today’s state accountability systems, while important for transparency and rigor, can make it harder to innovate. This report from the Canopy Project explores what 186 innovative school leaders say […]
Announcing CRPE’s Inaugural Think Forward Fellowship Cohort
The Center on Reinventing Public Education has announced its inaugural AI Fellowship Cohort, a group of visionary policymakers, system leaders, educators, researchers, funders, and tech experts who will collectively work to address the toughest challenges around AI in education. Education systems are at a critical crossroads with AI. New tools are emerging every day in […]
School Choice Without Sacrificing Education Quality: Experts Weigh In
Each spring, when families across Florida have the opportunity to apply for an education savings account—as more than 220,000 did this year—they’re met with an onslaught of options for how to use the state school choice subsidy. Suddenly, instead of their in-district options, they have more than 2,000 private schools at their fingertips, as well […]