Think Twice Weekly Report
AUGUST 2 - AUGUST 8, 2025
The Think Twice Weekly Report compiles public education-related policy reports, research and articles of interest to policymakers, educators and stakeholders. This list is not exhaustive but is meant to highlight recent reports that may be used to support or undermine the work of our subscribers in supporting public schools. We encourage you to take a moment to scan these reports and determine if they may be used by policy makers to assist or erode your mission.
Policy Reports
Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Education
Source: CRPE
Date: 8/6/25
AI Early Adopter Districts: The Promises and Challenges of Using AI to Transform Education
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how school districts plan instruction, support teachers, and engage students. AI has the potential to transform the education delivery model and address learning gaps-but without more support, guidance, and resources, it could have the opposite effect.
This study examines how 27 “Early Adopter” school districts approached systemic AI adoption during the 2024-25 school year. Drawing on surveys, focus groups, and interviews with district leaders, the report identifies key patterns in district behavior, barriers to adoption, and enabling conditions that support meaningful progress.
School Choice
Source: EdChoice
Date: 8/2/25
If You Build It This Way, They Will Come
Unsurprisingly, the proliferation of statewide school choice policies has resulted in increased student use. Most research on school choice policies examines the policies' effects on student outcomes. However, the policies are not uniform in design or in student take-up rates. Our team's exploratory study tracked initial enrollment rates in nearly all the existing school choice programs to identify the impact of specific design features on take-up rates in school choice initiatives, analyzing them through an economic market-based framework, from the demand side. We measured specific policy design elements to assess whether they determined enrollment rates. We also analyzed relevant state conditions for their impact on choice take-up rates.
School Choice
Source: Commonwealth Foundation
Date: 8/4/25
Persistently Dangerous Pennsylvania Public Schools
New analysis by the Commonwealth Foundation shows that Pennsylvania violates state and federal law by failing to identify persistently dangerous schools and neglecting to provide safe school choice alternatives for students attending dangerous schools. The analysis combines Right to Know (RTK) data, a 24-year longitudinal study on school safety, news reports, and government data.
School Closures
Source: Bellwether
Date: 8/1/25
Systems Under Strain: Warning Signs Pointing Toward a Rise in School Closures
Bellwether has previously documented the scope of enrollment declines across the country, highlighting declining birth rates as the primary driver, with interstate migration and shifting school choice policies and preferences also playing a role in some states. Between fiscal years (FY) 2022 and 2031, federal estimates project a 5.5% decline in the total number of students enrolled in public schools.
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This analysis draws on data from 9,300 districts across the country to identify and explore several leading indicators that, taken together, suggest school closures may become more frequent in the coming months and years. The analysis also includes indicators from each of the 9,300 districts.
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To better understand how districts are responding to these dynamics, this analysis also takes a closer look at 17 school districts across the country - diverse in size and geography - that are actively considering closures or consolidations. These district profiles detail the magnitude of enrollment declines, the budget pressures these districts are facing, and the school closure and consolidation deliberations they are engaged in.
This analysis concludes with key takeaways for district leaders, policymakers, and stakeholders as they confront the complex realities of planning for fewer students - and potentially, fewer schools - in the years ahead.
Teacher Education, Quality, and Professional Development
Source: AEI
Date: 8/7/25
The Achilles' Heel of Classical Education
Key Points
As new classical schools sprout nationwide, fueling a revival of liberal arts and virtues-based education, there is no reliable pipeline of trained teachers from which to recruit. Classical education demands an unusual synthesis: a teacher who is intellectually serious, well-versed in the great books, morally grounded, and pedagogically effective in techniques such as explicit instruction and Socratic seminars.
One increasingly common solution is recruiting “refugee teachers”-typically veterans of traditional public schools who have grown disillusioned with the K-12 system's ideological trends and bureaucratic constraints.
To address the classical teacher pipeline challenge, policymakers should remove credentialing barriers, and schools should expand teacher fellowship programs, recruit from a wider range of colleges and universities, invest in HR infrastructure, take advantage of graduate programs that form teacher-leaders, and seek out refugee teachers and mid-career switchers.
Reports Reviewed
GLC seeks to ensure that policy briefs impacting education reform are based on sound, credible academic research. Below are reviews conducted with GLC support.
Review of Apples to Apples: The Definitive Look at School Test Scores in Milwaukee and Wisconsin for 2024
Source: Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Reviewed by: Benjamin Shear, University of Colorado Boulder
A recent report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) examines publicly available test score data from Spring 2024 in Wisconsin to investigate the relative effectiveness and cost of school choice programs.
The report claims to provide evidence that private schools participating in the state's voucher programs and charter schools yield better academic results as compared with traditional public schools, but Benjamin Shear of the University of Colorado Boulder identifies several critical limitations in the data and analyses behind those claims. NEPC today published Professor Shear's review of WILL's Apples to Apples: The Definitive Look at School Test Scores in Milwaukee and Wisconsin for 2024.
What We're Reading
Research and articles that we want to highlight for subscribers as potential resources:
Illinois 1st state to require universal mental health screenings at schools
By: Anna Merod, K-12Dive
"Under the law, schools in the state will receive access to free screening tools and related technology to help districts provide annual screenings for students in grades 3-12 starting in the 2027-28 school year."
Pension Costs Are Draining School Budgets. Here's What States Can Do.
By: Chad Aldeman, CRPE
It's important to know what others may bring as research when attempting to change teacher retirement plans. This article from Reinventing Public Education offers "Both 401(k)s and cash balance plans are fully portable and don't backload benefits the way traditional pensions do. Moreover, states could convert account balances into annuities at retirement, which would offer predictable monthly payments to retirees just like traditional pensions."
Does Money Matter In Education
By: Bruce D. Baker, David Knight, Shanker Institute
"...a steady stream of new studies, using even better data and more advanced statistical methods, have been published. In this updated edition, we review this newer evidence. We find, put simply, that it has not only settled the question of whether money matters (it does), but has also let new light shine through on key details, including the kinds of investments that matter, who benefits most from them, and the impressive magnitude and consistency of their impact."
Teacher Shortages by Subjects Across States
By: Learning Policy Institute
This is one of several resources available from the Learning Policy Institute on the teacher shortage issue.
About the Think Twice think tank review project
The goal of the Think Twice project is to provide the public, policymakers and the press with timely academically sound reviews of selected think tank publications. The Think Twice project is funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. The reviews that are part of this project are expert third-party reviews produced by the National Education Policy Center.
About the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice
The Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice is an independent nonprofit organization supported by education stakeholders across the country. The mission of the Great Lakes Center is to support and disseminate high quality research and review of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for us by those who advocate for education reform.
