A two-year study of Khanmigo, the AI chatbot built into Khan Academy, found that low-performing middle schoolers in a Tennessee district engaged with it only about a third of the days they worked in the program, often using it for off-topic chatter or to extract answers outright. The Khan Academy group still posted faster math gains by year two, but researchers tied that progress to the platform's structure, not the AI, echoing Sal Khan's own read that the tutor is a "non-event" for most students. Khan Academy has already redesigned the interface in response, since the version tested made it too easy for students to skip the harder work instead of practicing through it.

Newark Public Schools' chronic absenteeism rate fell to 8.5% for 2025-26, the lowest in district history and well below the state's 14.4% average. Black students and students with disabilities posted the biggest gains, though homeless students remain far behind at 25%. Part of the drop traces back to a new state formula that now counts absences only after 90 days of enrollment instead of 45, on top of Newark reviving its attendance department. The turnaround leaned on family outreach, a truancy task force, and student-level dashboards, backed by incentives like gift cards and hockey tickets for consistent attendance.

Providence Superintendent Javier Montañez, who didn't learn to read until his junior year of high school due to undiagnosed dyslexia, now leads phonics lessons alongside teachers in kindergarten classrooms as part of the district's literacy turnaround. Providence standardized reading instruction districtwide under what it calls the Instructional Coherence Model, adding universal dyslexia screening, mandatory phonics training, and monthly classroom walk-throughs. Third-grade reading proficiency has climbed every year since 2021 to 24%, nearing pre-pandemic levels, and two of the district's highest-poverty elementary schools are now outperforming their poverty-adjusted expectations by more than double.

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education released a new AI framework for the more than 500 university programs that prepare over 90% of the nation's new teachers, calling for explicit training in AI ethics, classroom implementation, cognitive limitations like bias and hallucinations, and professional judgment. The group also wants states to let teacher candidates who object to AI on ethical grounds skip using it and still earn their credential, a provision that could clash with $1.7 billion in federal Title II grants now steering teacher prep programs toward AI integration. The framework sets no specific curriculum or standards, leaving individual programs to decide how much of it reaches new teachers before they hit a classroom.

States have rapidly expanded career pathway mandates over the past five years, but policy alone doesn't build the schedules, staffing, or training districts need to make them work. Common barriers include scheduling conflicts that force students to choose between graduation requirements and pathways, rural schools too small to offer multiple options, and students without strong reading, writing, and math skills struggling to succeed in career coursework. Louisiana's Jump Start program shows what real follow-through looks like, pairing its pathway mandate with counselor training, data systems, and employer partnerships. College enrollment among top-performing low-income and minority students has roughly doubled there over five years.

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