Featured Articles
When Students Don't Show Up, Everyone Pays
There is a number that keeps me up at night. Not a test score or a budget figure, though those matter too. It is the number of students who were enrolled in our schools last September and hav...
Dr. Atiya Y. Perkins
From Star Wars to Startups: How Two LA Seniors Made Yondr Obsolete
At Milken Community School in Los Angeles, the 2024 school year began with a familiar sound: the clicking of magnetic locks. The administration had spent nearly $30,000 investing in Yondr p...
Doug Cauthen
Your Students Won't Be Nervous on Test Day If You Do This First
Every school year, districts across the country invest in instructional tools with the hope of improving standardized test scores. And every year, many of those tools sit underutilized while ...
Dr. Jessica Constant
The Student Loan Rules Just Changed: Here’s What Borrowers/Families Need to Know
Student loans have always been complicated. But starting in the 2026–27 academic year, they’re about to get even more so. New federal rules tied to legislation passed last year will signific...
Dr. Shaan Patel
Attendance as Culture: What the Data Tells Us About Improving Attendance for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students
Good news in K-12 is worth celebrating. Here is some: districts that treat chronic absenteeism as a culture challenge rather than a compliance problem are seeing real, measurable gains among th...
Dr. Kara Stern
From Firefighting to Foresight: What Schools Must Do Next to Support Student Wellbeing in a Digital-First World
With nearly half (47%) of U.S. school leaders reporting online safety incidents weekly or daily, protecting students goes hand-in-hand with managing their digital experiences. Educators are ...
Harrison Parker
The 99.5% Question: Why Reaching Almost Every Family Still Isn’t Enough
The morning we launched our new districtwide communication platform, I stood in a school car line and watched parents slow down to read the yard signs. Some even rolled down their windows to ...
Claudette Smith
From Content to Capacity: Rethinking Education for the Brain Economy
Since at least the 1960s, the connection between education and economic outcomes has been the subject of substantial research—both theoretical and empirical. Economists have long demonstrated...
Betsy Hill and Roger Stark
We Thought We Were Communicating Well — Until We Looked at What Families Experienced
If you are a district leader and not communicating well, you will not be effective. Communication is foundational. Every superintendent and principal understands that. But what I’ve come to r...
Dr. Brian Prybil
Data Shows You the Attendance Pattern. Students Show You What to Fix.
Early in my career, I shadowed a 10th grader for an entire school day. By third period, I understood chronic absenteeism in a way no dashboard ever taught me: I was so monumentally bored that...
Dr. Kara Stern
What Just Happened: Edtech Collided with the Old Order
The nation’s second‑largest school district is bracing for a system‑wide shutdown on April 14, after United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and two other major unions announced they will strike if ...
LeiLani Cauthen
Bio-Machine AI vs. Humanity’s 4 Nested Fields of Intelligence
In one of the most astonishing scientific developments of our time , researchers have crossed a threshold once thought impossible: they have taken living biological brain cells from human...
LeiLani Cauthen
Relationships First: How a Human-Centered Approach Helped Bring Students Back to School
Across the country, school leaders are grappling with chronic absenteeism, a challenge that threatens not only individual student success, but the stability of our school systems and local com...
Dr. Josha Talison
2026 Trends & Predictions in Multilingual Literacy: Part Two — Building Sustainable, Equitable Systems
In Part One of this series , I explored how multilingual literacy is being reshaped through workforce alignment, English-plus policy shifts, linguistically responsive structured literacy, em...
José Viana, Ed.D.
How K–12 Leaders Can Drive Digital Transformation While Keeping People at the Center
As edtech grows more complex, school and district leaders must shift from managing tools to leading with vision. Here are three ways to do it well.
Dr. Matthew Joseph
Updating the Teacher Role to Stop School Decline
By design, K–12 schools were built for a world of scarce information and stable jobs. AI upends both The bottleneck is the operating system of schooling—especially how we define the teacher’s ...
LC Staff
Using a Year-Long College Essay Process to Help Students Find their Authentic Voice
At the boarding school where I work, our four college counselors guide 123 seniors through one of the most challenging parts of the college application process: the personal essay. The challe...
Shana Russell
4 New Schooling Imperatives for the Age of Omni AI: Why They Matter and How to Start
The Case for a New Foundation K–12 is colliding with a once‑in‑a‑century shift. Point solutions and isolated “AI tools” can’t resolve chronic problems—staffing shortages, enrollment erosion,...
LeiLani Cauthen
Courage as a Leadership Imperative in Public Education
Public education is operating in a moment of sustained volatility. A variety of political and ideological factors have fundamentally altered the leadership landscape for school systems. In th...
Dr. Luvelle Brown, Ed.D.
6 Key Factors for K-12 Leaders to Evaluate Classroom Tech in 2026
As we're heading into 2026, K-12 administrators have a tough job ahead: figuring out which classroom tech actually helps kids learn versus what just looks shiny and impressive. I'...
Lia Sanderson
Featured Papers
The Learning Counsel presents journals, papers and briefs on critical topics in Digital Education.
Most will require registration in order to access them, but they are all free.
Addressing Crises in School Absenteeism, Staffing and Privacy: Using a human touch tech solution
Three Near-Term Innovation Areas for K12
An Essential Audio Ingredient in Today’s Accessible Learning Environments
The Gaps Remaining for District Digital Transition
5 Steps to Fixing the Hidden Traffic of Records Management Overwhelming Schools
From Chaos to Learning Recovery: Going from Manual-Digital All the Way to Efficiency
