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Getting down to facts: Education policy at scale
| Stanford Graduate School of Education
For Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) Professor Susanna Loeb, the work of bringing an incoming governor up to speed on the state’s education system begins with a listening tour.
“There are a billion different things you could look at in education,” Loeb told School’s In co-hosts GSE Senior Lecturer Denise Pope and GSE Dean Dan Schwartz. “We started by talking to a whole range of policymakers, advocacy groups, families to get a sense of where the interest was. From there, I put together a research agenda to answer some of those questions.”
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California’s public schools need better oversight and guidance from the state
Finally, 13 years after the Local Control Funding Formula came into being, its shortcomings in accountability have been recognized in a massive study of California’s public school system, titled Getting Down to Facts, issued this month by Stanford University.
It explored many aspects of the system other than Brown’s handiwork, but it leaves no doubt that subsidiarity hasn’t worked well.
“California has many accountability tools and data systems, but they are not well connected to one another or to clear guidance and support” for schools and educators, Susanna Loeb, director of the study, says in her summary.
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Landmark research dissects California’s public education system
| EdSource
Called “Getting Down to Facts,” the research project comes at what Stanford education professor and project director Susanna Loeb calls “an inflection point” for California education. In a 40-page summary of 55 technical reports and 22 research briefs, Loeb writes that the findings arrive amid major shifts: the election of a new governor and state superintendent of instruction, the retreat of the federal government’s oversight and education-funding responsibilities, and the emergence of new technologies and their impact on the classroom and the workplace. Together, she said, these changes require the schools to respond to new conditions.
Getting Down to Facts is “designed to help Californians understand the condition of the state’s education system and the policy choices needed to improve it.
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Toward a Stronger Next Generation of California Education
California is at an inflection point in education. Over the past two decades, the state has built stronger foundations through more equitable school funding, stronger standards and assessments, expanded early childhood education, improved data systems, and investments in community schools, early literacy, and the educator workforce. Yet California now faces a different question: whether those stronger foundations can support a public education system prepared for a very different future. Work is changing quickly, student engagement and well-being remain fragile after the pandemic, and federal commitments to civil rights, student welfare, and accountability have become less certain. California’s role has become more consequential as states carry greater responsibility for protecting educational opportunity and advancing equity. California’s central challenge is whether it can connect its ambitions, policies, supports, and institutions into a system that delivers strong learning opportunities consistently for students across the state. -
Some students get tutoring but end up as ‘intervention lifers.’ This common sense tactic could help
Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator’s review of tutoring research notes that alignment seems like it would be good practice but doesn’t have a strong research base. Jackson, research manager at the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting, said she wanted to address that gap with a randomized controlled trial.
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From Hype to Evidence: The Data on AI and Learning
| ASU News
Hale said that according to an ASU survey of 1,000 undergraduates, students are using AI as a 2 a.m. study buddy, to build flashcards and even design their own bots.
Loeb noted that concerns about using AI to cheat is the wrong thing to be focused on, and that assignments can be tailored to reduce the risk.
"I do think we have to change how we're thinking about it and give assignments where you learn. It's gotten so easy to create badly designed assignments that we have to change that," Loeb said.
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Anthropic hires Sofia Wilson to support K-12 AI expansion in US schools
Anthropic has appointed Sofia Wilson to support its US K-12 education initiatives, as the company increases its focus on deploying AI tools in schools and education systems.
Wilson announced the move in a LinkedIn post, where she said: “This week I joined Anthropic to support our US K-12 education initiatives. Our goal is to ensure every kid has access to a world-class education, regardless of zip code.”
She joins Anthropic’s Beneficial Deployments team, where she will work on expanding access to AI in education and supporting implementation across schools, educators, and partners. The move signals continued activity from AI providers in positioning their tools within formal education settings, particularly in the US K-12 sector.
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