Featured Articles

Ideas

Best Practices for AI Upskilling: Four Culture Building Strategies

As AI continues to grow in acceptance and use in the workplace the need for AI upskilling has become essential for employers who want to leverage the power of these new and exciting tools. Ho...

Marc Booker, Ph.D.

AI

From School Decline to Human‑Centered Renewal: 5 AI‑Driven Transitions

Schooling Reorganization Edtech Architecture Restructuring Teacher Role Refinement Expanded Human Intelligence Equity Curriculum Liquidity Across the country, schools are experiencing...

LeiLani Cauthen

Perspective

Three steps to a robust zero-trust architecture for K-12 schools this academic year

As the buzz around back-to-school season subsides and teachers and students fall into the rhythm of a new academic year, it’s time for K-12 administrators and district leaders to turn their a...

Charlie Sander

AI

The Age of AI Is Really the Age of the Learner

“There will be a shift in demand toward higher cognitive skills. Our research also finds a shift from activities that require only basic cognitive skills to those that use higher cognitive s...

Betsy Hill and Roger Stark

Perspective

AI & the K–12 National Revenue & Rising Bond Dependence: When Will the Indebted Model Shift?

The U.S. K–12 school system now commands nearly $880 billion in annual revenue from local, state, and federal sources. But despite the size of this financial base, districts are strapped: the e...

LC Staff Writer

AI

AI Orchestration Will Change Everything: Why Even SSO Firms Should Be Nervous

There is a shift underway in education technology that a lot of firms are not interpreting correctly yet. They still think the market is about software access. They still think the problem to...

LC Staff Writer

Research

What the Supreme Court Actually Required Was Individual Progress…

But Schools Build by Birth Year & Whole Group

LeiLani Cauthen

Share to Care

When Teachers Understand Math Differently, Students Learn Math Differently

When I look back on the past two decades I’ve spent at Leander ISD, I think about how much elementary instruction has changed. I’ve been a third-grade teacher, a reading specialist, instructi...

Jennifer Ruschhaupt

Thoughts

The Problem Isn’t Technology. It’s What We’re Training Children’s Brains to Do

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s recent testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation warning about the rapid expansion of EdTech and the explosion of student ...

Betsy Hill and Roger Stark

Perspective

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

Ideas

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

Share to Care

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

Innovation

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

Perspective

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

Ideas

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

Perspective

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

Thoughts

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

Thoughts

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

Perspective

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

Perspective

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


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
Discussing the issues of student absenteeism, staffing and privacy might seem like biting off more than one leader can chew, but they are related from an important perspective: managing transacti...
Three Near-Term Innovation Areas for K12
K12 human resources are crucial to utilizing the cloud successfully. Roles and responsibilities have all changed dramatically since the start of the pandemic, and a new trend to move to core co...
An Essential Audio Ingredient in Today’s Accessible Learning Environments
Today’s learning environments have changed markedly from just a couple years ago, prior to the pandemic. Tech devices are comprehensively in both the student and teacher hands, but are they missin...
The Gaps Remaining for District Digital Transition
Most administrators know there are still gaps remaining in their school or district’s digital transition. Recent studies including the 2021 Digital Transition Surveys for Administrators and Teache...
5 Steps to Fixing the Hidden Traffic of Records Management Overwhelming Schools
How come digital processes seem easier but are often harder to manage? A major shift to digital teaching and learning in schools has developed an additional digital traffic load for teachers and f...
From Chaos to Learning Recovery: Going from Manual-Digital All the Way to Efficiency
Seeing the Levels of Chaos Helps Anchor Bringing Order Schools and districts that recently lost 4 percent of students to alternatives continued to lose students in 2021 at an accelerated pace (no...