3-2-1: On discovering what you love, the importance of apologies, and how to find happiness
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“Consistency enlarges ability.”
II.
“If you love them more than the fight, end the fight. An apology loses its warmth if it waits too long. Do it now, before the years turn cold.”
III.
“Before you discover what you love: fewer commitments, more experiments.
After you discover what you love: fewer experiments, more commitments.”
What Helps—and Hurts—Relationships Between School Boards and Superintendents
Strong collaboration between school boards and superintendents can be make or break for district leadership—but those relationships are too often hindered by hurdles like external political pressures, conflicts, and poorly defined roles.
Those sentiments emerged through interviews with 100 board members from 33 states by Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan website that tracks issues related to politics and elections, for a new qualitative report that explores the concerns and experiences of the most local of elected officials.
“The board-superintendent relationship is arguably the most critical factor in effective school governance,” said the Sept. 4 report, based on a series of interviews that started in 2024. “While many boards report successful collaboration, others face significant misalignment or political interference.”
Expert: School vouchers will create new money for K12
The greatest K12 financial “gamechanger” is not federal cuts to Medicaid nor the current financial freeze, but the latest school choice tax credit scholarship provision added to President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” In fact, it could mean billions in new money for K12 education.
Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab predicts the tax credit scholarship provision could ramp up to nearly $28 billion per year in funds for K12 schools.
As part of the provision, the bill creates an individual, dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $1,700 per individual taxpayer for contributions to state-approved, federally recognized nonprofits that provide scholarships for eligible children, starting Jan. 1, 2027. There’s also no cap on the total amount of donations, and states are required to opt into the program.
We’re Entering a New Phase of AI in Schools. How Are States Responding?
Artificial intelligence topped the list of state technology officials’ priorities for the first time, according to an annual survey released by the State Educational Technology Directors’ Association on Wednesday.
More than a quarter of respondents—26%—listed AI as their most pressing issue, compared to 18% in a similar survey conducted by SETDA last year. AI supplanted cybersecurity, which state leaders previously identified as their No. 1 concern.
About 1 in 5 state technology officials—21%—named cybersecurity as their highest priority, and 18% identified professional development and technology support for instruction as their top issues.
5 takeaways from another round of disappointing NAEP results
On Tuesday, the K-12 sector got yet another sobering reminder of the pandemic’s drastic, negative and far-reaching impact on student learning — a grim reality it has grappled with in the past few years.
As educators continue to address these impacts through learning recovery measures, the latest results for the Nation’s Report Card released Tuesday further illuminate the extent to which the COVID-19 left its mark.
According to the results released by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, high schoolers are graduating with weaker math and reading skills as the gap between higher and lower-performing students widens in most areas. The results also show that the pandemic impacted 8th grade science achievement.
Exclusive: Superintendent Churn Is Up, But More Districts Choose Women Leaders
ive years after the pandemic, superintendent turnover in the nation’s top 500 districts hasn’t settled down.
Leadership changed hands in 114 of those districts — 23% — within the past year, a jump from 20% the year before, according to data, shared exclusively with The 74, by the Superintendent Research Project from ILO Group, a consulting firm. The project — the only current publicly available resource on leadership turnover in the 500 largest districts — listed about 15% of districts replacing their superintendents prior to the pandemic.