Think Twice Weekly Report

 
OCTOBER 18 - OCTOBER 24, 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


Absenteeism

Source: AEI
Date: 10/20/25
Why Were You Absent? Students' Reasons for Missing School Before and After the Pandemic

In the United States, chronic absenteeism-defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year-dramatically increased during the pandemic and remains stubbornly high, affecting nearly a quarter of K-12 students.1 Reducing absences is a nationwide priority, with 17 states pledging to reduce chronic absenteeism by 50 percent in the next five years.2 Achieving this goal requires tackling the underlying causes of absenteeism. An important source of data on why students are absent can be found in the reasons students themselves report.

 

In this report, we leverage data from Rhode Island to analyze the percentage of students in grades three through 12 who have reported particular reasons for their absences and evaluate how that percentage has changed over time. In particular, we focus on changes that occurred between the pre-pandemic (2019-20) and post-pandemic (2023-24) school years. We also examine how the prevalence of reasons differed across students by gender and race and ethnicity and across schools by achievement levels and proportions of students in poverty, minority students, and chronically absent students.

Absenteeism

Source: AEI
Date: 10/22/25
What Stories Does Daily Attendance Tell? Student Attendance Patterns Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Concern over student attendance has intensified since the pandemic, when chronic absenteeism rose sharply and has now only partially receded. Using daily attendance records covering all students in Rhode Island (2016-24) and Indiana (2020-24), we examine attendance patterns beneath headline rates, specifically regarding seasonality and holidays, day-of-the-week variation, multiday absence streaks, and the acuteness or persistence of missed days. .


Accountability

Source: CRPE
Date: 10/22/25
Making Room for What Matters: Innovative School Leaders Want Accountability, but With a Lighter Footprint

Across the country, school leaders are reimagining how students learn-designing models that are more engaging, effective, and connected to the world students are entering. But many say that today's state accountability systems, while important for transparency and rigor, can make it harder to innovate.

 

This report from the Canopy Project explores what 186 innovative school leaders say about how accountability systems affect their work and what they hope to see in the future. The findings shed light on how state and federal policymakers can uphold high standards while giving schools the flexibility to create new learning environments that work for every student.

K-12 Education

Source: EdChoice
Date: 10/24/25
Teachers and K-12 Education: National Polling Report October 2025

As the 2025 school year gets underway, we took teachers' pulse on a slate of issues profoundly affecting K-12 education and found the year is off to a rocky start.

 

Our new survey reveals teachers are concerned about political pressure, artificial intelligence, and more as they set foot in classrooms again this fall.

 

Meanwhile, teachers still strongly support school choice.

Reading Instruction / Student Achievement

Source: CAP
Date: 10/23/25
How Changes to Fourth-Grade Reading Standards and Research-Backed Approaches Can Improve Reading Achievement

Four states-Alabama, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Mississippi-have shown that adopting more rigorous literacy standards and scientific approaches to reading instruction can help reverse the decline in reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

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 Productive Struggle: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Learning, Effort, and Youth Development in Education

Source: Bellwether
Reviewed by: Thomas M. Philip, University of California, Berkeley

A recent report from Bellwether considers the role of generative AI (GenAI) in education, posing the question: When does the ease afforded by GenAI enable deeper learning, and when is ease merely a shortcut with hidden costs?

Education policy researcher Ryan Pfleger reviewed Let's Get Ready! Educating All Americans for Success and found the report's usefulness to be undermined by its unsupported focus on economic competitiveness as the central measure of educational endeavors.