The Politics of Budgets: How Fourteen Districts Reduced Spending While Protecting Student Learning Experiences
Fiscal crises are no longer the exception for school districts; they’re the new normal. This report examines how 14 districts and charter networks cut costs while protecting student learning experiences. The report draws on case studies commissioned with colleagues from Afton Partners, Education Resource Strategies, and New Solutions K12, and is accompanied by four in-depth […]
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 […]
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 […]
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), […]
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 […]
Getting Beyond the Lightbulb Stage: Why AI Is Not Yet Transforming Education
New AI tools are entering the ed tech market every day. But how are they actually playing out in schools and classrooms? Drawing on semi-structured interviews with more than 50 stakeholders across ed tech, philanthropy, policy, teaching, and advocacy, this brief identifies the gaps between what AI developers are building and what students, teachers, and […]
The Reckoning: Addressing Oakland’s Literacy Crisis
Oakland Unified School District has spent the past five years trying to address a severe literacy crisis—one where most Black and Latine students were not reading at grade level. In 2020, The Oakland REACH and OUSD families pushed the district to adopt evidence-based reading instruction and commit to improving how literacy is taught across schools. […]
Navigating the Math Wars: A Practical Guide to the Divides and Debates Influencing Math Instruction
