The Trump administration’s efforts to restrict Head Start’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and downsize the early childhood education program were dealt a blow Tuesday, after a federal judge in Washington state temporarily blocked actions taken by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year.
The preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Seattle says HHS’ anti-DEI warnings to Head Start providers puts them “in an impossible situation” where they cannot comply with the government’s DEI prohibitions while also fulfilling the program’s purpose, which is to provide early childhood education for historically underserved populations.
The temporary block also postpones mass office closures and layoffs at the Office of Head Start, which — together with the DEI ban — disrupted programs nationwide. The pause applies to programs nationwide, said attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is litigating the case.
Dive Insight:
The case was partly prompted by a letter sent to Head Start providers in March, which stated “The Office of Head Start will not approve the use of federal funding for any training and technical assistance (TTA) or other program expenditures that promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.”
The letter told recipients to “carefully review their annual funding application, including the budget and budget justification narrative, TTA plans, program goals, and any other supplemental materials to ensure they are in accordance with this change.”
Two weeks later, on April 1, 2025, HHS closed half of Head Start regional offices and laid off those staff, which left Head Start agencies in 23 states in the lurch, according to the original complaint filed in April by the ACLU.
After that, as Head Start programs had difficulty accessing federal grant funds that were already allocated to them and faced other funding issues, the programs were asked to certify that they did not promote DEI, accessibility or “discriminatory equity ideology.”
Head Start providers in Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin said in the court documents that the slew of federal changes “have started to dismantle the program piece by piece, resulting in what Head Start agency directors across the country describe as ‘chaos’ that impedes their ability to effectively continue running their programs.” Head Start programs were designed by Congress to provide services that reflect the needs of their communities and serve marginalized populations.
Head Start serves about 750,000 infants, toddlers and preschool children a year. More than 17,000 Head Start centers operate nationwide with the support of 250,000 staff, according to the National Head Start Association, which represents the program’s families, students and staff.
The court documents pausing the changes on Tuesday say that HHS returned one Wisconsin program director’s grant application and provided her a list of of 197 terms to exclude from applications, including but not limited to “Black,” “diversity,” “disability,” “women,” “tribal,” “equality,” “mental health” and “barrier.”
In another case in Washington, a program requested professional development on working with children with autism to support more than 10% of its enrolled children, “but they were forced to remove these plans along with the other ‘prohibited’ terms from applications as ‘a condition of grant renewal,’” the Tuesday court documents say.
“When a Head Start program has their funding withheld because of their efforts to provide effective education to children with autism, serve tribal members on a reservation, or treat all families with respect, it is an attack on the fundamental promise of the Head Start program — that even children who are furthest away from opportunity should be given the early education they need to succeed in school,” said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Head Start and Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, in a Jan. 7 statement.
HHS did not respond to K-12 Dive’s requests for comment.
Measures by the U.S. Department of Education to cut DEI from education or education-related services have also been successfully challenged.
Multiple rulings by federal judges last spring struck down the Education Department’s anti-DEI policy, which one judge said raises “the specter of a public ‘witch hunt’ that will sow fear and doubt among teachers.” That anti-DEI policy included an “End DEI portal” and a Title VI certification requirement, which was overturned.
Title VI protects students against racial discrimination and has typically been invoked to protect historically underserved races, but the Trump administration has used it to prohibit DEI initiatives, saying such measures discriminate against White people.
Colorado officials say money that helps 18,000 low-income families pay for child care could run out by Jan. 31 if federal officials don’t lift the freeze they’ve imposed on funding for several safety net programs in five Democrat-led states.
If that happens, some children could go without care and some parents would have to stay home from work. State lawmakers could cover such a funding gap temporarily, though Colorado is facing a significant budget crunch.
The Trump administration announced the freeze on $10 billion in child care and social services funding for Colorado, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York in a press release Monday.
In letters sent to the two Colorado agencies that run the affected programs, federal officials said they have “reason to believe that the State of Colorado is illicitly providing” benefits funded with federal dollars to “illegal aliens.”
The letters didn’t cite evidence for that claim and a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to questions from Chalkbeat about why federal officials are concerned about fraud in Colorado.
Spokespeople from both state departments said by email on Tuesday they’re not aware of any federal fraud investigations focused on the programs affected by the funding freeze.
The five-state funding freeze follows a federal crackdown in Minnesota after a right-wing YouTuber posted a video in late December alleging that Minneapolis child care centers run by Somali residents get federal funds but serve no children. It’s not clear why the other four states have gotten the same treatment as Minnesota, but all have Democratic governors who have clashed with President Donald Trump.
In a New Year’s Eve social media post, Trump called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis “the Scumbag Governor” and said Polis and another Colorado official should “rot in hell” for mistreating Tina Peters, a Trump supporter and former Mesa County clerk who’s serving a nine-year prison sentence for orchestrating a plot to breach election systems.
The federal freeze will affect three main funding streams in Colorado that together bring in about $317 million a year. They include $138 million for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood for child care subsidies for low-income families and a few other programs.
The subsidy program, known as the Colorado Child Care Assistance program, helps cover the cost of care for more than 27,000 children so parents can work or take classes. It’s mostly funded by the federal government with smaller contributions from states and counties.
The other two frozen funding streams go to the Colorado Department of Human Services and pay for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, and other programs.
In the letter to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, federal officials outlined new fiscal requirements the state will have to follow before the funding freeze is lifted. They include attendance documentation — without names or other personal identifiers — for children in the child care subsidy program.
A state fact sheet issued in response to the funding freeze said funding for the child care subsidy program would be depleted by Jan. 31. It also outlined several measures already in place to prevent fraud or waste, including state audits, monthly case reviews by county officials, and efforts to recover funds if improper payments are made.
The state said it is exploring “all options, including legal avenues” to keep the frozen funding flowing.
Six Democratic state lawmakers, most in leadership positions, released a statement Tuesday afternoon calling the funding freeze a callous move that will make life more expensive for working families.
“We stand ready to work with Governor Polis and partners in our federal delegation to resist this lawless effort to freeze funding, and we sincerely hope that our Republican colleagues will put politics aside, get serious about making life in Colorado more affordable, and put families first,” the statement said in part.
The statement was from Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie; Senate President James Coleman; House Majority Leader Monica Duran; Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez; Rep. Emily Sirota; and Sen. Judy Amabile.
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The European University Association (EUA), along with partners from across the European higher education sector are calling on policy makers to ensure an allocation of at least €60 billion for Erasmus+ in the EU’s next long-term budget.
Currently, the proposed budget sits at €40.8 billion for the period 2028-2034 but campaigners argue that this amount is not enough to fund “ambitious actions” that have been proposed for the next generation of the program.
EUA said that Europe now faces a “strategic choice” adding that “underinvestment in education would undermine the EU’s own political objectives”.
EUA secretary general Amanda Crowfoot commented: “When all factors, including inflation and new priorities, are taken into account, the proposed Erasmus+ budget for 2028-2034 would at best allow the program to continue as it is.
“However, it would not be able to fund enhanced and additional activities to underpin the Union of Skills and the European Education Area, as proposed by the European Commission.
“This means that there will not be enough to pay for more inclusive learning mobility nor properly funded alliances, let alone for the new scholarships in strategy priority fields. Education can make an invaluable contribution to the EU’s competitiveness agenda, but this requires concerted investment,” she explained.
In a joint letter by multiple partners – including the European Association for International Education, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), CESAER and many more – together representing thousands of higher education institutions, they make the case that Europe can only achieve its ambitions in education, skills and talent if Erasmus+ is “ambitiously resourced”.
They note Erasmus+ is one of Europe’s “most tangible success stories” and that such a significant “contribution to citizens’ lives and to Europe’s future needs investment that matches its proven impact”.
“For nearly 40 years, this popular flagship program has empowered millions of learners, strengthened institutional cooperation, deepened European integration and fostered global outreach,” the joint statement read.
It went on to argue that in a time of “heightened geopolitical tensions” the program “delivers long-term returns in skills, employability, innovation capacity and civic engagement”.
Education can make an invaluable contribution to the EU’s competitiveness agenda, but this requires concerted investment
Amanda Crowfoot, EUA secretary general
In December 2025, it was announced that the UK will rejoin Erasmus+ for the 2027/28 academic year, six years after leaving the scheme following Brexit.
As the voice of European universities, EUA worked closely with its UK members to advocate for their return to Erasmus+.
The agreement will mean UK students will be able to take part in the scheme without paying any extra fees from January 2027 and has been warmly welcomed by the international education sector. UK government modelling predicts that over 100,000 people in the UK could benefit from Erasmus+ within the first year of rejoining the scheme.
At the time, Josep M. Garrell, president of EUA, said that by restoring bridges between UK and European universities, the decision will “support student and staff mobility, cooperation between universities (including through the European Universities alliances) and joint policy development.”
The news prompted a wave of nostalgia across the sector as professionals, from the UK and elsewhere in Europe, reflected on the exchanges, encounters and opportunities that shaped their careers.
To the disquiet of many college fellows a memo from director of admissions Marcus Tomalin, argues that:
The best students from such schools arrive at Cambridge with expertise and interests that align well with the intellectual demands of Tripos courses
specifically including subjects including languages, music, and classics.
He recommends that the college develops a “targeted recruitment strategy” for UK independent schools that focus on these (and a handful of other) subjects where the university already sees more than 40 per cent of applications come from independent schools, and that these efforts are further reinforced by a specific concentration on specific schools that have “sent plausible applicants to Cambridge” in the past.
To be very clear, there is nothing in the memo to suggest that this will be done to the detriment of other students. And the interventions recommended – contacting the schools to let them know about what Trinity Hall offers for these subjects, creating webinars or other social media material for those subjects and alerting those schools – are hardly evidence of discriminatory behaviour.
Reading between the lines, this is less an effort to get more independent school kids into Cambridge and more an attempt to encourage the ones that are applying for these subjects anyway to consider Trinity Hall rather than one of the other 28 available colleges.
Applying for these courses
Music at Cambridge more generally is a very specialised endeavor. Applicants require either A level music or a grade 8 music qualification at merit or above, with those seeking to make a “strong application” recommended to add other A levels in English, history, mathematics, or (“ancient or modern”) languages. All this is on top of “general requirements” that include an acquaintance with the standard (classical) musical repertory, play to a grade 5 or above standard at the (piano) keyboard, and some basic knowledge of counterpoint.
Your application will include the submission of two school essays in music and two harmony exercises. If shortlisted for interview, you would be required to take a written assessment (harmonisation of a chorale melody, recognition of musical forms, and chord analysis). All this for a chance at one of the one to three places a year available at Trinity Hall.
For the three year course in classics you would instead need an A level in Latin (“if you do not study Latin but instead study Classical Greek, please contact us for advice”). There are between two and four places on the course available each year.
The other route mentioned in the memo, the four year modern and medieval languages course (incorporating a year abroad), is much larger than these more specialised subjects – with between six and eight places available every year at Trinity Hall. Candidates for this four year course need an A level in at least one of the languages they want to study, and a “strong application” would have another. A portion of the interview would be conducted in one of these languages.
By the numbers
I mention all this to illustrate just how few students these measures would potentially have an impact on. The numbers of students that would meet the entry requirements for these courses are vanishingly low – and the subset of those that would consider the course at this particular Cambridge college as their first choice is even lower.
In 2025 just two students applied to music at Trinity Hall (four were accepted, the college clearly topped up via the winter pool). Six applied to the three year classics programme (two offers, two acceptances), while twelve applied to modern and medieval languages (six offers, four acceptances).
Overall, Trinity Hall saw 617 applications in 2024 (the last year of data available at this resolution), made 139 offers, and accepted 107 students. This is at the lower end of Cambridge colleges For independent schools, the numbers were 118, 31, and 28 – for UK maintained (state) schools it was 281, 78, and 53. Less than ten of these state school acceptances were in the music, classics, or languages courses we are concerned with – based on a very low level of applications to these courses from such backgrounds (we’re facing the HESA-esque rounding to the nearest five for low numbers problem here).
A failure?
It would be tempting to make an argument that this represents a failure in access and participation. But it is also very possible that this is not a failing on behalf of the university. There are very few schools (independent or otherwise) that can prepare people for these particular entry requirements, and that’s before we get into family and social backgrounds that are able to support sustained musical practice, or learning multiple (ancient or modern) languages.
There has been no change to Trinity Hall’s widening participation policy. This modest additional activity is aimed at ensuring we get the best applications from talented students from all backgrounds. The college is very proud of the progress it has made in widening access. Average admissions from state schools at the college in the past 3 years has been 73 per cent and Trinity Hall admitted 20.4 per cent of its UK students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds last year, an increase on previous years.
Language about “reverse discrimination” is unhelpful. If there really is reverse discrimination a look at recruitment to these courses at Cambridge suggests it isn’t working very well. As applicant numbers are falling, to various degrees, for classics, languages, and (classical) music across the sector, Trinity Hall (like providers of all types) is looking to maximise recruitment by making an effort to encourage students already likely to apply – in this case, students almost certain to apply to Cambridge in the hope they would choose Trinity Hall rather than St John’s or Clare.
This is not a replacement for broader and more sustained work on access: it is simply evidence that recruitment pressures (and the linked financial pressures) are everywhere.
This prize-winning student podcast explores how faith and power — forces that can be used for good — may be misused for personal gain. The result is tragic.
A photo of the Guyanese rainforest superimposed on a map showing Guyana. (Image adapted from Canva/Getty Images)
This podcast, by high school student Catherine Dowuona-Addison, tied for third place in the 18th News Decoder Storytelling competition. The story was produced out of News Decoder’s school partnership program. Catherine is a student at SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana. Learn more about how News Decoder can work with your school.
The Jonestown massacre took place in northwest Guyana on 18 November 1978. Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple, an American religious cult, convinced 918 of his followers to take their own lives in what is the largest cult mass murder-suicide to date.
This tragedy is at the heart of a podcast submitted to News Decoder’s 18th Non-Fiction Storytelling Contest. Student Catherine Dowuona-Addison of SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana takes on the topic of the Jonestown massacre and explores how faith can be used for personal gain and lead to such tragedy.
The 20-minute podcast has been split into four parts. To read along with the podcast, click on the links to access the PDF transcripts.
Making a podcast.
Hear from Catherine about her experience of researching, writing and recording her podcast by watching the YouTube short (right)
Want to create your own podcast?
Check out News Decoder’s WePod Guide to Audio Storytelling, a mini podcast series and accompanying PDF booklet that covers the basics of how to create a podcast — everything from finding a story and crafting your piece to recording and editing your podcast.
Questions to consider:
1. What was the Jonestown massacre?
2. Why did Jim Jones and his followers move to Guyana?
3. What makes a cult a cult?
Catherine Dowuona-Addison is a student at SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College with a passion for crime and investigative journalism. She enjoys sharing stories through podcasts and mini-documentaries, shedding light on topics of equal opportunity and human rights abuses across the globe.
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Declining birthrates and growing competition from school choice threaten public school enrollment counts — and therefore school district budgets. Student data privacy concerns are on the rise and only complicated by the explosive rise in artificial intelligence tools and usage. And administrators are continuing to adjust to new policy priorities for curriculum, staffing and more under the second Trump administration. These are but a few of the challenges facing public schools in 2026.
As we head into a new calendar year — and the second half of the 2025-26 school year — here are six trends for K-12 leaders to watch.
Education funding faces pressure from multiple directions
Education funding will face pressures on several fronts in 2026, including strained state coffers, unpredictability in federal funding and competition for local dollars.
Marguerite Roza, director of Edunomics Lab and a research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, predicts flat but stable federal funding for schools in 2026.
Still, state and local education systems are bracing for more uncertainty when it comes to federal funding cycles, according to education researchers and professionals. Last summer, many states and districts were caught off guard when the Trump administration froze federal funding for multiple programs. Likewise, some states and districts worry about potential federal funding restrictions if their policies don’t align with the Trump administration’s priorities.
Roza said that while federal education funding in 2025 was “very drama-infused,” states were level-funded from the previous year, with allocations for Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — the two largest pots of federal K-12 money — distributed to states as usual.
And since Congress did not finalize a fiscal year 2026 budget for the U.S. Education Department in 2025, all eyes will be on actions to be taken before the next appropriations deadline on Jan. 30.
At the state level, a fall 2025 fiscal survey from the National Association of State Budget Officers found that 23 states projected general fund spending to decline or remain flat in FY 2026 budgets compared to FY 2025 levels.
This has school systems jockeying for state dollars against other state-supported programs like healthcare and public safety. “If districts were hoping for some big new investment from the states, I would say, ‘This is not your year,’” Roza said.
At the local level, shifting public school enrollment will influence allocations for per-pupil spending, leading to less funding fordistricts with declining enrollments. That drop in revenue means school systems will need to make tough decisions on closing or consolidating schools and shrinking their workforce, Roza said.
Closing schools is “hard for communities,” and localities will likely approach this in a variety of ways in 2026, Roza said.
Competition for students heats up
Several factors influencing shifts in public school enrollment will continue into the new year, including a shrinking population of young children and a growth in private school choice programs.
The public school versus private school choice debate will intensify as more states launch voucher programs in the 2026-27 school year that use taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition — and while a nationwide school choice program prepares for a 2027 launch.
Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, a nonprofit research and school choice advocacy organization, predicts more families will choose options that aren’t necessarily their neighborhood public school.
“There’s no doubt that the demand for choice has continued since COVID,” Enlow said.
The number of students participating in state-led universal private school choice programs has grown from about 64,000 in 2022-23 to 1.3 million in 2024-25, according to EdChoice. Still, most students — about 49.6 million — attend public schools, based on fall 2022 numbers, the most recently available federal data.
The large population of public school students is why federal and state investments are needed for public schools, according to private school choice opponents. Vouchers leave public schools with fewer resources to meet the needs of their students, which contributes to equity gaps, they say.
Opponents also say that private school choice programs lack transparency and accountability.
“Voucher students lose most of their legal protections under special education and civil rights laws, and voucher programs use public dollars to fund private schools that can and do discriminate against students and employees in ways that are not lawful in public schools, said a Dec. 18 letter from Public Funds Public Schools, a nonprofit advocating for investments and support for public schools. The letter sent to the Internal Revenue Service was in response to calls for public comments ahead of formal rulemaking for the national private school choice program.
Enlow and others predict that some Democratic-led states will join Republican-led states in opting into the national school choice program, which will fund certain expenses for both public and public schools. Those expenses could include tuition and fees, books and supplies, tutoring, payments for services for students with disabilities, computer equipment and internet, and transportation.
“Any traditional public school that says they can’t afford computers or transportation is not thinking how this program could help them,” Enlow said.
District leaders will navigate more teacher layoffs, retention challenges
As student enrollment in public schools is expected to continue declining, and thereby strain K-12 budgets in 2026, states and districts will have to “reimagine and redesign the teacher workforce” — looking at how to best use new technologies, what roles only teachers can fill, and “how to best attract, support and retain the most effective teacher workforce,” said Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, in an email to K-12 Dive.
More staff layoffs are likely as dropping enrollment leads to deeper district budget cuts, Peske said. This will force district leaders to reckon with any “reduction in force” policies that ignore teacher performance, she added.
Peske also predicted that shrinking state and local K-12 budgets will create more opportunities for districts to consider differentiated pay models — which compensate certain educators more than others — to attract and retain teachers in high-need schools, subjects and regions.
Some K-12 researchers have said declining enrollment and related budget cuts, alongside mass pandemic-era hiring of teachers supported by federal emergency aid funds, have led to a reversal in widespread teacher shortages.
But Paige Shoemaker DeMio, senior analyst for K-12 education policy at the Center for American Progress, said she expects district budget cuts to strain working conditions for teachers and retention rates to drop. Tighter budgets will mean less funding to support teachers, and more responsibilities will be put on their plate, which in turn will increase teacher burnout and drive educators out of classrooms, she said.
Uncertainty to persist as federal changes continue
Districts in 2025 already felt the pressure to change their diversity, equity, inclusion and LGBTQ+ policies after the Trump administration cracked down on race-based and sex-based initiatives. In many instances, the administration has attempted to strong-arm states and districts into complying with its policies by threatening the loss of federal funding. That tactic, rarely used under other administrations, is likely to continue under this one in 2026, civil rights enforcement experts said.
The departments of Education and Justice, for example, have suggested continued use of stringent compliance methods to enforce Title IX and Title VI, which protect students from discrimination based, respectively, on sex and race.
Federal policies are also impacting immigration enforcement on or around school grounds, pushing districts to consider virtual learning options and to offer know-your-rights training or legal counsel for families. The aggressive enforcement has affected students’ attendance, performance and sense of safety, district leaders have said.
In 2026, the trickle-down from federal policies to districts and students will likely continue to impact school operations, said Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, The School Superintendents Association.
“For traditional federal funding and policy processes, it’s been challenging for superintendents to determine what the ‘new normal’ is, compared to a one-time aberration or one-off,” Pudelski said. That’s making planning and preparation difficult for district leaders, she added.
“School district leaders are facing mounting uncertainty and should brace for more in 2026,” Pudelski added.
States will take reins on achievement and absenteeism
The new year will see schools doubling down on supports to raise achievement and lower chronic absenteeism, according to education researchers, professionals and nonprofit organizations.
The stubbornness of low achievement rates — as indicated by last year’s release of 4th and 8th grade math and reading results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress — means there will be continued momentum to drive scores up, according to education experts.
States will take the helm on much of this work, said Nakia Towns, president of Accelerate, a nonprofit organization that conducts research and provides grants for learning interventions. Some of those efforts will include ensuring that the use of high-quality curriculum materials is driving desired student outcomes, she said.
To that end, Towns predicts states will take more leadership in guiding districts toward outcomes-based contracting for academic resources like tutoring and professional development. They’ll be looking at “which interventions get you the best bang for your buck,” she said.
To help raise achievement and drive up student engagement, schools and districts will home in on strategies to combat chronic absenteeism by expanding real-world educational experiences and opportunities like career and technical education courses, internships and STEAM offerings, according to education experts.
District and school leaders also will monitor whether 2025’s shift in prohibiting student cell phone use during the school day will move the needle on achievement.
Additionally, education experts are watching out for how federal influence will impact academics under the Trump administration. That includes, for example, how the U.S. Department of Education will react to states’ requests for waivers for accountability measures under the Every Student Succeeds Act, according to education professionals and stakeholders.
During a Sept. 18 panel discussion at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education in Washington, D.C., several education leaders said they were open to state assessment flexibilities from the federal government, but they predicted states will want to retain accountability standards.
“I think for a state, accountability and accountability systems might be the most important lever that we have to drive academic results for kids in systems and schools,” said Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s superintendent of education, during the discussion.
Work remains for AI literacy, guidance and online protections
In 2025, Congress increasingly debated and explored federal policy solutions for protecting children and teens online, especially as newer artificial intelligence tools rapidly became available. Jeremy Roschelle, co-executive director of learning sciences research at Digital Promise, said he expects to see more legislative action on student online privacy and safety, especially at the federal level, in 2026.
“We need it,” Roschelle said. “I think people have lived through social media and the harmful effects there can be for youth, and there’s lots to worry about as we get even more powerful tools.”
Pati Ruiz, director of learning technology research at Digital Promise, said she’s hopeful that in 2026 there will be a greater focus on prioritizing teachers input when implementing AI tools in classrooms. That means more lessons on AI literacy for educators will roll out to help instructors critically and appropriately use AI tools, she said.
With at least 32 states having already released their own AI guidance for schools, Ruiz predicts that even more states will continue to put out K-12 recommendations on these tools. Ruiz added that she expects some states will update and revise their initial AI education guidance to be more comprehensive and useful for districts and schools, especially involving their responsible technology use policies.
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Dive Brief:
Iowa became the first state approved for a waiver for certain federal education regulations that will allow the state to have greater decision-making in academic programming and fiscal management, according to a Wednesday announcement by Iowa leaders and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
The state’s waiver allows the Iowa Department of Education to combine four federal funding streams into one and will reduce compliance costs by $8 million, according to a U.S. Department of Education statement announcing the waiver.
The application for waivers under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was announced last year and aligns with the Trump administration’s goal of reducing the federal education footprint. However, some policymakers and disability rights groups are concerned that the waivers would reduce state and district accountability for federal requirements and add to educational inequities.
Dive Insight:
At a press conference at Broadway Elementary School in Denison, Iowa, on Wednesday, McMahon praised the state’s ESEA waiver as the “groundbreaking first step that gives state leaders more control over federal education dollars.”
Iowa’s waiver applies to the state activities funds set-aside under:
Title II, Part A — Supporting effective instruction.
Title III, Part A — English language acquisition.
Title IV, Part A — Student support and academic enrichment.
Title IV, Part B — 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
ESEA, also known as the Every Student Succeeds Act — a decades-old law last updated by Congress in 2015 — details statewide K-12 accountability and assessment requirements, among other provisions. Other presidential administrations have offered and granted ESEA flexibilities.
The Education Department has also approved Iowa’s application for Ed-Flex authority, which allows the state to grant waivers to districts from certain federal requirements without first having to submit individual waiver requests to the federal Education Department.
“This approval cuts through federal red tape, eases compliance burdens for districts and empowers them to implement strategies that best meet the needs of their students,” McMahon said.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, speaking at the press conference, said the state is “confident that we can do even more by reallocating compliance resources. Iowa will begin shifting nearly $8 million and thousands of hours of staff time from bureaucracy to actually putting that expertise and those resources in the classroom.”
Specifically, the state wants to invest in increasing student achievement, building professional development resources, strengthening teacher recruitment and retention, supporting local ESEA flexibilities and modernizing fiscal reporting, according to Reynolds and McKenzie Snow, director of the Iowa Department of Education.
“States are best positioned to serve families, and we’re committed to reduce the barriers that stand in the way,” Reynolds said.
Even as the Education Department is working with six other states on waiver requests, there is opposition to these flexibilities from those concerned they potentially violate the intention of ESEA’s accountability framework, sidestep rules on funding formulas, and lead to a reduction of high standards for student performance.
In September, a coalition of 24 disability rights organizations urged the Education Department to deny any state or district requests to waive accountability and assessment requirements, because the standards help set high expectations for all students, including those receiving special education services.
“Any action to subvert federal law through waivers that illegally promote or support the block granting of ESSA funds would have lasting negative impacts on students, families, educators, and the future of millions of children with disabilities,” the coalition said in a letter to McMahon.
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The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to office brought unprecedented and far-reaching changes to the higher education sector, and 2026 is poised to continue the trend.
The conservative-led spending and tax bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is set to go into effect in July. But effects of the forthcoming policy changes, including how certain students can finance their college educations, are still in flux.
The Trump administration also looks poised to continue opening investigations into colleges as a means of gaining influence over the sector, putting higher ed leaders in a tight spot. And federal officials are likely to further restrict the ability of certain international students to study in the U.S.
All that comes as analysts predict a tough financial year ahead.
To help higher education leaders prepare for the year ahead, we’ve rounded up six trends we expect to shape the sector in 2026.
Enforcement actions against universities may escalate
The federal government under President Donald Trump last year launched a flurry of investigations into colleges, often suspending or canceling their federal research funding to pressure them into implementing vast policy changes. If the final days of 2025 offer any clue, the Trump administration doesn’t plan to slow down this tactic.
On Dec. 22, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Clery Act investigation into Brown University over the shooting on its campus earlier that month that left two dead and nine injured. The Clery Act requires federally funded colleges to warn their campuses of emergencies in a timely manner and provide support to victims of sexual assault, domestic and dating violence, and stalking.
“After two students were horrifically murdered at Brown University when a shooter opened fire in a campus building, the Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
The new investigation capped a year in which the Trump administration pursued probes against dozens of colleges over potential civil rights violations.
Notably, Brown is one of a handful of institutions that struck formal agreements with the administration to settle these investigations in 2025. But its July deal did not prevent the Education Department from opening a probe into Brown over its actions that occurred after the deal — and does not preclude more such activity from the Trump administration in the future.
And in its ongoing battle with Harvard University, the Trump administration has even threatened to take over patents for inventions made with the help of government research funding. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, but a federal judge blocked the move.
James Finkelstein, professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University, said he expects federal enforcement actions to ramp up in 2026.
“They’re going to weaponize almost every available tool, whether it’s Title VI investigations, adding new conditions to federal grants and contracts, reviewing tax exempt status, putting pressure on accreditors, [or] going after individual presidents,” Finkelstein said.
Will college boards stand up for their leaders?
In the latter half of 2025, the Trump administration tried a new tactic in its quest to reshape the higher education sector — pressuring college presidents to step down.
The U.S. Department of Justice successfully deployed this strategy in June, when then-University of Virginia President Jim Ryan abruptly resigned. He said he was leaving to avoid endangering federal funding for the university, which faced a Trump administration investigation into institutional diversity efforts pursued under his tenure.
Ryan was not alone. Following a short investigation, the U.S. Department of Education found George Mason University in violation of civil rights law and called out its president, Gregory Washington, for what it has described as illegal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Washington has pushed back on the Trump administration, calling the allegations a “legal fiction” through his attorney.
For its part, George Mason’s board said it would focus on its “fiduciary duty” to serve the best interests of the university. So far, the board — which has too few members to have a quorum — hasn’t announced any major actions.
Finkelstein said other colleges will experience what happened at UVA “unless you find real pushback on a campus and within a community, whether it’s faculty, students, alumni or civic leaders.”
“The boards themselves really are not going to be there to support presidents,” Finkelstein said, arguing that many boards “are being captured by governors and legislatures,” which in turn pack them “with political operatives.”
“Those aren’t really trustees who are going to defend presidents against these attacks,” Finkelstein said. “They’re really there to ensure that the institutions submit.”
As a case in point, Finkelstein pointed to the head of George Mason’s board, Charles Stimson. The lawyer had held several positions at The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that spearheaded the Project 2025 blueprint for Trump’s second term. He left the group in December.
Lindsey Burke, who previously led the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy and authored Project 2025’s chapter on education, served on George Mason’s board until she stepped down last year to take a position within the Education Department. Both Stimson and Burke were appointed to the George Mason board by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
“The boards are being built for compliance today,” Finkelstein said. “They’re not being built for independence.”
In Virginia, the ideological tilt of university boards may soon change following the Jan. 17 inauguration of Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat.
“The question is, in Virginia, will the pendulum swing too far the other way, and will Gov.-elect Spanberger try to balance the board by going to the other extreme?” Finkelstein said. “That doesn’t seem to be in her political nature, given her record. But who knows?”
Another year of college cuts?
Last year marked more downsizing for many U.S. colleges. But in addition to the now-perennial enrollment and inflation laments, many major universities slashed their ranks of staff and faculty to adapt financially to the torrent of policy changes brought on by the Trump administration.
The federal government disrupted research funding, targeted institutions with investigation and threats, and introduced obstacles to international student enrollment. Student loan caps, higher endowment taxes and other recent statutory changes could add further pressure to college budgets this year.
In its 2026 outlook for higher education, Moody’s Ratings estimated 3.5% growth overall in revenue for the higher education sector, down from 3.8% in 2025. Meanwhile, the credit rating agency forecast that costs would increase by 4.4%.S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings have similarly predicted a gloomy year ahead for colleges and universities, which could well mean more budget cuts.
“We are definitely expecting more expense control measures, and layoffs are certainly one of those,” said Patrick Ronk, a vice president and senior analyst with Moody’s. “Inflation is tempering, which is nice for the sector, but at the same time we see the revenue growth being more constrained.”
While more cuts may be ahead for large institutions trying to weather the political landscape and macro trends, Ronk pointed out many smaller colleges don’t have much wiggle room left in their budgets after enduring pandemic disruption and historic inflation.
“There’s not much left to cut” for those institutions, Ronk said. “A lot of these smaller liberal arts colleges have been downsizing for years.”
Not only that, but institutions are also under pressure to spend. Moody’s and other higher ed observers have pointed to a massive backlog of facility and capital needs that colleges can’t put off addressing forever.
“At some point you have to make the dorms look nicer,” Ronk said. He added that Moody’s analysts expect capital spending in higher ed to pick up in 2026, with a potential boost coming from lower interest rates as the Federal Reserve eases its inflation fight.
OBBA goes live
Republicans’ massive spending and tax bill that passed last summer, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, contained some of the most sweeping changes to federal higher ed policy in years. At the time, one policy leader in the sector described it as “akin to a Higher Education Act reauthorization,” referring to the primary federal law governing higher education and student aid last reauthorized in 2008.
Changes under OBBA include ending Grad PLUS loans — which became the largest new student aid program when Republicans created it two decades ago — and capping total student borrowing. Specifically, federal loans will tap out at $100,000 for graduate students and $200,000 for professional students. That latter cap has come under debate with the definition of “professional” up in the air, and some programs, including nursing, excluded.
OBBA also increased tax rates on the income of the wealthiest college endowments, expanded Pell Grants for accredited short-term programs, and developed a new accountability system that would cut off access to federal student loans for college programs whose graduates don’t meet earnings thresholds.
The new limits to student borrowing could have broad impacts on colleges. Many worry that the end of Grad PLUS and the new borrowing caps will reduce access to programs and lessen student demand. That, in turn, could weigh on colleges’ finances and drive some institutions to cut graduate programs.
Ronk said the loan system changes will likely deliver the heaviest financial impact for institutions under OBBA. But there are still many unknowns, including how private lenders will respond to the end of Grad PLUS and the start of the caps.
“It’s just a little uncertain how much the private market is going to step up, or how much the private market needs to step up,” Ronk said. For student loan caps, he said it remains unclear to what extent graduate program costs will run up against the borrowing limits.
Meanwhile, the endowment tax could amount to a hefty government payment, causing financial pain for a subset of institutions. Yale University, for example, in December announced budget measures and likely layoffs that leaders tied, in part, to a looming $300 million annual tax bill under the new law.
Yet, as Ronk noted, the tax will land hardest on colleges that typically have the highest credit ratings and the most resources and flexibility to weather the financial hit.
“Those happen to be the wealthiest institutions, with really sophisticated investment offices and really big donor bases,” Ronk said.
Ronk predicted their overall wealth would stay “pretty strong,” though he said the tax could lessen their operating activities due to lower endowment income.
Likewise, the new accountability system is not expected to have a massive impact on most colleges. Only 2% of programs are at risk of failing the earnings test, according to a recent analysis from the policy organization HEA Group of data released by the Education Department in late December.
The new accountability test is “going to put a lot more focus on specific programs and outcomes,” Ronk said. “If there is a greater scrutiny of post-grad outcomes for programs, that will lead to generally better student outcomes and benefits for the sector.”
Shifting policies for international students
Higher education is bracing for a 2026 decline in international enrollment, following a slew of Trump administration policies that have targeted foreign students and sought to clamp down on the visa programs that allow them to study at U.S. institutions.
The following week, a study from NAFSA: Association of International Educators found that polled colleges reported an average of 6% fewer new international students enrolling in bachelor’s programs and 19% fewer in master’s programs.
NAFSA is entering 2026 expecting to see “a sharp drop” in graduate degree enrollment among international students “due to the current administration’s policy decisions,” said Fanta Aw, the group’s executive director and CEO.
In Fitch Ratings’ “deteriorating” 2026 outlook for the higher ed sector, analysts predicted that last year’s federal policies would continue to weaken the international student pipeline to the U.S. For colleges, that could mean the further erosion of growth in tuition and fee revenue, the credit rating agency said.
Less than a month after Fitch issued its outlook, Trump expanded his travel ban to include 39 countries. Among the newly added is Nigeria, one of the top 10 countries of origin for international students in the U.S.
Higher ed experts say that even if foreign students have the chance to study here, they may not want to.
Neal McCluskey, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said prospective international students are increasingly seeing the U.S. as an unfriendly place for them to study.
And Aw said the U.S. can expect to lose students to “nations that have clear, consistent welcoming policies to attract, enroll, and retain international students.” She predicted an uptick in foreign enrollment in Asian and Middle Eastern countries, as well as in Western Europe.
“Unless we reverse course on current policies, we risk a major loss of talent and innovation along with social and economic benefits,” Aw said.
McCluskey noted one factor that could change the sector’s course — Trump’s comments regarding international students as “a good business decision.”
At times last year, Trump voiced support for international students during interviews and extemporaneous remarks. But those comments have stood in contrast to his policy priorities.
“It is possible he will increasingly take that position and work to ease obstacles to international enrollment,” McCluskey said. “But that is not reflected in current administration policy.”
Standardized test requirements in flux
A new round of colleges will return to requiring prospective students to submit standardized test scores with their applications this fall.
The University of Miami, for example, said last January it would require test scores from fall applicants for the first time since the pandemic. Ohio State University made a similar announcement in March.
COVID-19 shuttered testing sites across the country in 2020 and forced colleges that required SAT and ACT scores to go test optional. But a steady trickle of institutions — selective and well-known ones in particular — have since reinstated mandatory test scores.
Many officials have cited internal research that tied test scores to collegiate success and that found students held back scores they incorrectly believed would hurt their chances of being admitted.
Increasingly, conservative politicians have favored the testing metrics as well.
The Trump administration is seeking to incentivize high-profile colleges into adopting standardized testing requirements via the president’s wide-ranging compact. The compact — first offered to nine research institutions in the fall — would give priority for research and other federal funding in exchange for adopting numerous policy changes. Seven of the nine institutions have turned down the deal, while the other two have yet to comment publicly.
But Trump appears to have opened the compact up to all colleges since, with at least a few voicing interest. Two such institutions — New College of Florida and Valley Forge Military College — are currently test optional and would have to change their admissions structure should the president accept their signatures.
Whether due to institutional or external pressures, the switch from test optional to requiring scores seldom goes into effect right away.
Applicants to Cornell University will have to include test scores in their packet this fall, more than a year and half after the Ivy League institution said it would step away from test optional.
In October, Princeton University announced it would reinstate test score requirements for applicants in the 2027-28 admissions cycle, citing internal data that found students who submitted scores had stronger academic performances than those that didn’t. Prospective students applying this year will still be able to submit without scores should they so choose.
Some institutions are taking an even more tapered approach.
The University of Alabama System announced last month it would phase out its test-optional policy over the next few years. For the 2026-27 admissions cycle, applicants with GPAs below 3.0 will be required to submit either an ACT or SAT score. Test scores will be required of all applicants beginning in the 2027-28 cycle.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — College leaders face no shortage of challenges in the year ahead. They’re up against an uncertain federal policy landscape, challenges to international enrollment and, for some institutions, operating models that may no longer be working.
This week, top leaders attending the Council of Independent Colleges’ Presidents Institute — an annual gathering of hundreds of leaders of private nonprofit institutions — shared those woes and more with Higher Ed Dive.
They pointed to the end of Grad PLUS loans, which will be phased out starting this year. Graduate students will also soon face federal student lending caps of $100,000 for most programs and $200,000 for professional degrees.
The U.S. Department of Education hasn’t yet put out formal regulations that define which programs will be considered professional. But late last year, during a process called negotiated rulemaking, the agency reached consensus with a group of stakeholders on regulatory language that would exclude some major programs, such as graduate nursing degrees, from the higher lending caps.
Despite these challenges, college presidents also pointed to several opportunities such as focusing on workforce development, using artificial intelligence and striking partnerships with other institutions.
On the last front, a handful of private nonprofit colleges formalized plans to combine in the past couple of years.
Below, we’re rounding up responses from seven college presidents on what they see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in the year ahead.
Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
President: Bryon Grigsby
Institution: Moravian University, in Pennsylvania
HIGHER ED DIVE: What do you see as the biggest opportunity in the year ahead?
BRYON GRIGSBY: Workforce development is the biggest opportunity. We’re starting an aviation program, and it’s because aviation programs are in crisis right now. Pilots are needed. People work in the airlines, in the airports, air traffic controllers — we saw all the problems that were happening with that. This is just going to get worse over the next 10 years. So I think all of us are involved in workforce development — real, substantive workforce development for our communities.
What do you see as the biggest challenge?
GRIGSBY: Funding the workforce development. It costs an incredible amount of money to create pilots. And the federal government just restricted how much loans they can take out, which prevents people who want great jobs but don’t have rich families to be able to afford that.
We’re seeing that in the healthcare industry. You know, not counting nursing and [doctor of physical therapy degrees] and [physician associates programs] as professional programs damages the ability of those students to be able to get those jobs and to be contributing members to society.
I wish the federal government would see that we’re trying to solve the workforce. We need the funding for the students so they can solve that as well.
President: Valerie Kinloch
Institution: Johnson C. Smith University, in North Carolina
What do you see as the biggest opportunity in the year ahead?
VALERIE KINLOCH: The biggest opportunity is deepening partnerships with people across different types of institutions, thinking beyond where we are to think more nationally and globally about building those types of partnerships.
What do you see as the biggest challenge?
KINLOCH: I would say the biggest challenge is a lack of resources. To sustain the types of educational institutions that we know we should requires more resources, and not just finances, but also partnerships, talent, and I think those things are going to be really important.
President: Donald Taylor
Institution: University of Detroit Mercy
What do you see as the biggest challenge in the year ahead?
DONALD TAYLOR: We don’t really know ultimately what the federal financial aid budget is going to look like for next year. And now there’s talk about, maybe there’s going to be another government shutdown.
My biggest challenge right now is not knowing because half of our students are first generation. If the House budget ends up cutting Pell by 25% and they eliminate [Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program] and all these others, that’s going to significantly impact first-generation, low-income students.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity?
TAYLOR: There’s tremendous opportunity and willingness and interest by Congress, and all the way through the White House, about better leveraging and better understanding how we can utilize AI for efficiencies, for tutoring. There’s all kinds of possibilities in our sector. The thing that we were always criticized about was we’re way too slow. We’re like one of these giant tanker ships in Alaska — it takes forever to turn, but I think that’s changing.
President: Amy Novak
Institution: St. Ambrose University, in Iowa
What do you see as the biggest challenge in the year ahead?
AMY NOVAK: The unknown of the regulatory environment and certainly the impact it might have on graduate student loans. But I’m confident we’ll work our way through that and be able to make sure our students have access to the funds to secure their overall enrollment.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity?
NOVAK: For me,it is about partnerships, strategic alliances and thinking creatively about how higher education serves the populations that we know need to have higher education, and to do so in a way that reduces costs while expanding access and opportunity. I’m excited about the mergers, the acquisitions and the partnership opportunities that are really coming forward through discussions that we’re having among colleges.
President: David King
Institution: Ursuline College, in Ohio
What do you see as the biggest challenge in the year ahead?
DAVID KING: The biggest challenge, very simply stated, is our business model no longer is such that we can really meet the marketplace demands.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity?
KING: The opportunity is to think differently about a business model without moving away from the mission. That’s critical. Merger and acquisition is one answer to that question. How might we think differently about a business model as a way to sustain — not change — our mission, our core values, the objective of our students?
President: Todd Olson
Institution: Mount Mercy University, in Iowa
What do you see as the biggest challenge in the year ahead?
TODD OLSON: With the federal context in the U.S., there’s just a lot of complexity and some unknowns about how things will play out at a time when higher education remains really vital in our country, to our students and to our communities.
That’s the thing I’m probably most worried about — uncertainty around things like the Grad PLUS loan program, status of international students, access to higher education in the U.S. That constellation of issues seems like the biggest challenge.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity?
OLSON: As we’re coming together with another university in this strategic combination, we are really part of a move to reinvent what undergraduate education — and in some cases, graduate education — looks like in this country.
The chance to hold onto the shared Catholic mission that our two universities have, the chance to hold onto a central focus on the well-being and flourishing of our students, and at the same time, the chance to invent something brand new, and to take some bold steps as our economic conditions change, as our society changes, it is a privilege and a great opportunity to be part of a moment of reinvention. That is something I’m enthused about and optimistic about.
President: Walter Iwanenko Jr.
Institution: Gannon University, in Pennsylvania
What do you see as the biggest challenge in the year ahead?
WALTER IWANENKO JR.: About a quarter of our enrollment has been global students, and we’ve seen a significant drop, which is definitely hitting the budget and causing us to do some restructuring to adjust for the loss in revenue and student population. That’s a huge challenge.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity?
IWANENKO: With the change in demographics and the pressure on the traditional four-year experience, I think workforce, work-based learning, the two-year certification tech world — where traditional four-year institutions have maybe stayed out — I think there’s going to be an opportunity for institutions to start to dive into that world, to really try to diversify our student populations.
Teacher evaluations have been the subject of debate for decades. Breakthroughs have been attempted, but rarely sustained. Researchers have learned that context, transparency, and autonomy matter. What’s been missing is technology that enhances these at scale inside the evaluation process–not around it.
As an edtech executive in the AI era, I see exciting possibilities to bring new technology to bear on these factors in the longstanding dilemma of observing and rating teacher effectiveness.
At the most fundamental level, the goals are simple, just as they are in other professions: provide accountability, celebrate areas of strong performance, and identify where improvement is needed. However, K-12 education is a uniquely visible and important industry. Between 2000 and 2015, quality control in K-12 education became more complex, with states, foundations, and federal policy all shaping the definition and measurement of a “proficient” teacher.
For instance, today’s observation cycle might include pre- and post-observation conferences plus scheduled and unscheduled classroom visits. Due to the potential for bias in personal observation, more weight has been given to student achievement, but after critics highlighted problems with measuring teacher performance via standardized test scores, additional metrics and artifacts were included as well.
All of these changes have resulted in administrators spending more time on observation and evaluation, followed by copying notes between systems and drafting comments–rather than on timely, specific feedback that actually changes practice. “Even when I use Gemini or ChatGPT, I still spend 45 minutes rewriting to fit the district rubric,” one administrator noted.
“When I think about the evaluation landscape, two challenges rise to the surface,” said Dr. Quintin Shepherd, superintendent at Pflugerville Independent School District in Texas. “The first is the overwhelming volume of information evaluators must gather, interpret, and synthesize. The second is the persistent perception among teachers that evaluation is something being done to them rather than something being done for them. Both challenges point in the same direction: the need for a resource that gives evaluators more capacity and teachers more clarity, immediacy, and ownership. This is where AI becomes essential.”
What’s at stake
School leaders are under tremendous pressure. Time and resources are tight. Achieving benchmarks is non-negotiable. There’s plenty of data available to identify patterns and understand what’s working–but analyzing it is not easy when the data is housed in multiple platforms that may not interface with one another. Generic AI tools haven’t solved this.
For teachers, professional development opportunities abound, and student data is readily available. But often they don’t receive adequate instructional mentoring to ideate and try out new strategies.
Districts that have experimented with AI to provide automated feedback of transcribed recordings of instruction have found limited impact on teaching practices. Teachers report skepticism that the evolving tech tools are able to accurately assess what is happening in their classrooms. Recent randomized controlled trials show that automated feedback can move specific practices when teachers engage with it. But that’s exactly the challenge: Engagement is optional. Evaluations are not.
Teachers whose observations and evaluations are compromised or whose growth is stymied by lost opportunities for mentoring may lose out financially. For example, in Texas, the 2025-26 school year is the data capture period for the Teacher Incentive Allotment. This means fair and objective reviews are more important than ever for educators’ future earning potential.
For all of these reasons, the next wave of innovation has to live inside the required evaluation cycle, not off to the side as another “nice-to-have” tool.
Streamlining the process
My background at edtech companies has shown me how eager school leaders are to make data-informed decisions. But I know from countless conversations with administrators that they did not enter the education field to crunch numbers. They are motivated by seeing students thrive.
The breakthrough we need now is an AI-powered workspace that sits inside the evaluation system. Shepherd would like to see “AI that quietly assists with continuous evidence collection not through surveillance, but pattern recognition. It might analyze lesson materials for cognitive rigor, scan student work products to detect growth, or help teachers tag artifacts connected to standards.”
We have the technology to create a collaborative workspace that can be mapped to the district’s framework and used by administrators, coaches, support teams, and educators to capture notes from observations, link them to goals, provide guidance, share lesson artifacts, engage in feedback discussions, and track growth across cycles. After participating in a pilot of one such collaborative workspace, an evaluator said that “for the first time, I wasn’t rewriting my notes to make them fit the rubric. The system kept the feedback clear and instructional instead of just compliance-based.”
As a superintendent, Shepherd looks forward to AI support for helping make sense of complexity. “Evaluators juggle enormous qualitative loads: classroom culture, student engagement, instructional clarity, differentiation, formative assessment, and more. AI can act as a thinking partner, organizing trends, highlighting possible connections, identifying where to probe deeper, or offering research-based framing for feedback.”
The evaluation process will always be scrutinized, but what must change is whether it continues to drain time and trust or becomes a catalyst for better teaching. Shepherd expects the pace of adoption to pick up speed as the benefits for educators become clear: “Teachers will have access to immediate feedback loops and tools that help them analyze student work, reconsider lesson structures, or reflect on pacing and questioning. This strengthens professional agency and shifts evaluation from a compliance ritual to a growth process.”
Real leadership means moving beyond outdated processes and redesigning evaluation to center evidence, clarity, and authentic feedback. When evaluation stops being something to get through and becomes something that improves practice, we will finally see technology drive better teaching and learning.
Jena Draper, RefynED
Jena Draper is the CEO and founder of RefynED and a proven edtech entrepreneur who previously built CatchOn and led it through two successful acquisitions after reshaping how schools use data for instructional decision-making. She is now applying that same foresight to reinvent teacher evaluation as a catalyst for educator growth rather than compliance. Draper is recognized for turning systemic challenges into category-defining innovation that improves instructional practice at scale.
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