Think Twice Weekly Report

march 7, 2026 - MARCH 13, 2026

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


Staffing, Finance, and Operations

Source: Annenberg EdExchange
Date: February 2026
Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives

"We examine how performance changes when teachers transfer across very different school contexts. The Talent Transfer Initiative program created a rare natural experiment to study such transfers by randomly assigning low-achieving schools the ability to offer high-performing teachers at higher-achieving schools a $20,000 transfer stipend. Forecast tests show that these high-performing teachers' prior value added is only moderately predictive of their effectiveness in low-achieving schools. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we estimate that incentivized-transfer teachers' value added dropped by 0.12 student standard deviations. This decline appears to be driven by lower match quality, negative indirect school effects, and the loss of student-specific human capital."

Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Education

Source: CRPE
Date: 3/12/26
States and AI: An Early Look at How Early Adopters Are Approaching AI in Education

As AI use expands in schools, states are beginning to define their role-often without clear federal direction. What actions are they taking, and how are they approaching AI integration in K-12 education?

 

CRPE's new State AI Early Adopter Database compiles publicly available information on AI-related actions across 20 early adopter states in 2024 and 2025, including guidance, legislation, professional learning initiatives, pilot programs, and partnerships.

 

This brief offers an initial, non-evaluative scan of the landscape, documenting how Early Adopter states are navigating AI amid uncertainty, limited capacity, and a rapidly evolving policy environment.

Education and the Workplace

Source: Pioneer Institute
Date: 3/10/26
Fewer Students, Greater Demand: How Regionalization Can Strengthen Massachusetts Schools

Massachusetts faces a growing challenge: K-12 public school enrollment is declining, while the state's workforce continues to expand. How can smaller school districts maintain robust educational programs and meet the talent needs of the Massachusetts economy?

 

Our new study, Fewer Students, Greater Demand: What Massachusetts Can Learn from Its Regionalized Vocational-Technical High Schools, explores lessons from the Commonwealth's regional voc-tech schools-schools that have remained resilient and even grown despite statewide enrollment declines.

School Leadership and Management

Source: Ed Trust
Date: 3/12/26
Examining State Education Agency Perspectives on School Improvement Supports

School improvement has been called many things: complex, daunting, elusive. While this may be true, at its core, school improvement, hard as it may be, is an equity imperative. The nation's lowest-performing schools disproportionately serve students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, due to deep-seated inequities and centuries of systemic underinvestment.

 

State education agencies are central to this challenge. They hold both the responsibility and the leverage to drive improvement efforts by investing resources, dismantling barriers, and championing long-term, systemwide change. This is the only way to deliver on the currently unfulfilled promise that accountability designations unlock meaningful support for identified schools, and to shift the perception away from accountability designations signifying punitive labels.

Student Achievement

Source: WILL
Date: 3/13/26
Beyond Race: What Really Drives Wisconsin's Achievement Gap,

A new report from WILL examines why Wisconsin has some of the largest academic achievement gaps between Black and white students in the nation-and finds that poverty, family structure, and early literacy explain much of the disparity.

Teacher Employment and Retention

Source: AEI
Date: 3/9/26
The Right Way to Boost Teacher Diversity

Key Points The left's approach to promoting teacher diversity is problematic, but that does not mean we should dismiss the goal of increasing teacher diversity. We should encourage schools and districts to affirmatively recruit and hire teachers whose lived experiences match those of the students they will teach. Schools, districts, and states should tear down the walls that are keeping great teachers out of the classroom and recruit teachers who embrace a high-expectations attitude.

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 A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect

Source: Brookings Institution
Reviewed by: William R. Penuel, University of Colorado Boulder

A recent Brookings Institution report synthesizes findings from a year-long study of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, concluding that its potential harms to young people's learning and development currently outweigh its benefits.

In his review of A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect, University of Colorado Boulder professor William R. Penuel found it to be a useful tool to anticipate potential benefits and harms of AI but found it weaker in offering any clear blueprint for changing the trajectory of AI in education.



What We're Reading


Research and articles that we want to highlight for subscribers as potential resources:



The Wage Calculator from the Economic Policy Institute

By: Economic Policy Institute

"Do you feel like your pay isn't keeping up? It's not your fault. Since the 1970s, U.S. workers' wages have lagged farther and farther behind productivity growth. This was not inevitable: Corporate interests have advanced policies to suppress workers' wage growth in order to increase profits and pay for the ultrarich...the Wage Calculator shows how much higher your pay could be if wages had kept up with productivity since 1979. "


Family Budget Calculator

By: Economic Policy Institute

"Affordability is about whether most families earn enough to pay for decent shelter, food, high-quality child care, transportation, health care, and life's other necessities. How much does a modest but adequate lifestyle cost in your county or metropolitan area? Find out with the Family Budget Calculator."


Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems

By: School Finance Data

A comparison of states and districts in terms of not only how much they spend, but also whether that funding is adequate for students from all backgrounds to achieve common outcome goals from the Al Shanker Institute, University of Miami and Rutgers.


State Tax Watch 2026

By: ITEP

"ITEP tracks tax discussions in legislatures across the country and uses our unique data capacity to analyze the revenue, distributional, and racial and ethnic impacts of many of these proposals. This page is frequently updated with the latest tax news from each state. "


Education Groups Push $2.5 Billion Plan to Rebuild Teacher Preparation

By: Sarah D. Sparks, EducationWeek

"Education groups led by the nation's main membership organization for teacher colleges are calling for a large congressional investment in overhauling and rebuilding federal support for teacher-preparation pipelines, following years of disruption from falling enrollment in teacher prep and upheaval in existing federal programs."