Tag: reading

  • NAEP scores for class of 2024 show major declines, with fewer students college ready

    NAEP scores for class of 2024 show major declines, with fewer students college ready

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    Students from the class of 2024 had historically low scores on a major national test administered just months before they graduated.

    Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, released September 9, show scores for 12th graders declined in math and reading for all but the highest performing students, as well as widening gaps between high and low performers in math. More than half of these students reported being accepted into a four-year college, but the test results indicate that many of them are not academically prepared for college, officials said.

    “This means these students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago, and this is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. “We have seen progress before on NAEP, including greater percentages of students meeting the NAEP proficient level. We cannot lose sight of what is possible when we use valuable data like NAEP to drive change and improve learning in U.S. schools.”

    These results reflect similar trends seen in fourth and eighth grade NAEP results released in January, as well as eighth grade science results also released Tuesday.

    In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the results show that federal involvement has not improved education, and that states should take more control.

    “If America is going to remain globally competitive, students must be able to read proficiently, think critically, and graduate equipped to solve complex problems,” she said. “We owe it to them to do better.”

    The students who took this test were in eighth grade in March of 2020 and experienced a highly disrupted freshman year of high school because of the pandemic. Those who went to college would now be entering their sophomore year.

    Roughly 19,300 students took the math test and 24,300 students took the reading test between January and March of 2024.

    The math test measures students’ knowledge in four areas: number properties and operations; measurement and geometry; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and algebra. The average score was the lowest it has been since 2005, and 45% of students scored below the NAEP Basic level, even as fewer students scored at NAEP Proficient or above.

    NAEP Proficient typically represents a higher bar than grade-level proficiency as measured on state- and district-level standardized tests. A student scoring in the proficient range might be able to pick the correct algebraic formula for a particular scenario or solve a two-dimensional geometric problem. A student scoring at the basic level likely would be able to determine probability from a simple table or find the population of an area when given the population density.

    Only students in the 90th percentile — the highest achieving students — didn’t see a decline, and the gap between high- and low-performing students in math was higher than on all previous assessments.

    This gap between high and low performers appeared before the pandemic, but has widened in most grade levels and subject areas since. The causes are not entirely clear but might reflect changes in how schools approach teaching as well as challenges outside the classroom.

    Testing officials estimate that 33% of students from the class of 2024 were ready for college-level math, down from 37% in 2019, even as more students said they intended to go to college.

    In reading, students similarly posted lower average scores than on any previous assessment, with only the highest performing students not seeing a decline.

    The reading test measures students’ comprehension of both literary and informational texts and requires students to interpret texts and demonstrate critical thinking skills, as well as understand the plain meaning of the words.

    A student scoring at the basic level likely would understand the purpose of a persuasive essay, for example, or the reaction of a potential audience, while a students scoring at the proficient level would be able to describe why the author made certain rhetorical choices.

    Roughly 32% of students scored below NAEP Basic, 12 percentage points higher than students in 1992, while fewer students scored above NAEP Proficient. An estimated 35% of students were ready for college-level work, down from 37% in 2019.

    In a survey attached to the test, students in 2024 were more likely to report having missed three or more days of school in the previous month than their counterparts in 2019. Students who miss more school typically score lower on NAEP and other tests. Higher performing students were more likely to say they missed no days of school in the previous month.

    Students in 2024 were less likely to report taking pre-calculus, though the rates of students taking both calculus and algebra II were similar in 2019 and 2024. Students reported less confidence in their math abilities than their 2019 counterparts, though students in 2024 were actually less likely to say they didn’t enjoy math.

    Students also reported lower confidence in their reading abilities. At the same time, higher percentages of students than in 2024 reported that their teachers asked them to do more sophisticated tasks, such as identifying evidence in a piece of persuasive writing, and fewer students reported a low interest in reading.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    For more news on national assessments, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub.

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  • WEEKEND READING: Money’s Too Tight (to Mention) – Universities and students are on a knife edge as the party conference season and the new academic year kick off in earnest, by Nick Hillman (HEPI Director)

    WEEKEND READING: Money’s Too Tight (to Mention) – Universities and students are on a knife edge as the party conference season and the new academic year kick off in earnest, by Nick Hillman (HEPI Director)

    • As policymakers look ahead to the bigger party conferences and students and staff ready themselves for the new academic year*, HEPI Director Nick Hillman takes a look ahead. [* Except in Scotland, where it has already begun.]
    • Information on HEPI’s own party conference events is available here.

    Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)

    When the Coalition Government for which I worked tripled tuition fees for undergraduate study to £9,000 back in 2012, it was a big and unpopular change. But it represented a real increase in support for higher education that led to real increases in the quality of the student experience, with improvements to staffing, facilities and student support services.

    Because the fee rise shifted costs from taxpayers to graduates via progressive student loans, it enabled another fundamental change: the removal of student number caps in England. No longer would universities be forced to turn away ambitious applicants that they wanted to recruit. It was the final realisation of the principle that underlined the Robbins report of 1963: ‘courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.’ A higher proportion of students enrolled on their first-choice place. (It never ceases to amaze me how many people wish to return to a world in which your children and mine have unwarranted obstacles reimposed between them and attaining the degree they want.)

    But back in 2012, no one in their wildest dreams thought the new fee level would be frozen for most of the next decade and more. After all, the fee rise was implemented using the Higher Education Act (2004), which had enabled Tony Blair to introduce the current model of tuition fees, and the Blair / Brown Governments to raise fees each year without any fuss.

    Yet the political ructions caused by introducing £9,000 fees in 2012 made policymakers timid. Towards the end of the Conservatives’ time in office, Ministers bizarrely sought to make a virtue of their pusillanimity. Even as inflation was biting, the Minister for Higher Education (Rob Halfon) said raising fees was ‘not going to happen, not in a million years’.

    The result has been a crisis in funding for higher education institutions that has changed their priorities. Top-end universities have looked to increase their income via more and higher (uncapped) fees from international students – hardly surprising, when an international student taking a three-year degree is worth £69,000 a year more than a home student! They have also sought to tempt UK students away from slightly less prestigious institutions.

    Meanwhile, newer universities have been even more entrepreneurial. Limited in their ability to recruit lots of international students, they have instead shifted towards franchising, whereby other organisations pay them for the privilege of teaching their degrees.

    Universities in the middle have had a particularly tough time. Most notably, many universities originally founded in the expansionary post-Robbins environment are struggling today. (It has been suggested that the tie-up between Kent and Greenwich is partly borne of necessity.) Plus with no fees for home students, Scottish universities have been hurting even more than those elsewhere.

    Even though recruiting more people from overseas and large-scale franchising have helped some institutions to keep the wolf from the door, Ministers have condemned both. The UK Home Office want fewer international students and England’s Department for Education have promised new legislation to tackle the growth in franchising. (Six months ago, Bridget Phillipson wrote in the Sunday Times, ‘I will also bring forward new legislation at the first available opportunity to ensure the Office for Students has tough new powers to intervene quickly and robustly to protect public money’.)

    No British university has ever gone bust but, as financial advisers know, the past can be a sorry guide to the future. When asked, Ministers say they would accept the closure of a university or two. But a university is usually a big local employer, a big supporter of local civic life and a source of local pride – and money. Most have been built up from public funds.

    Closing a university would not just risk local upset. It would reduce confidence, including among those who lend to universities, and could even risk a domino effect, as people lose faith in the system as a whole, thereby putting the reputation of UK education at risk. So there are good reasons why, for example, Dundee University is currently being bailed out, even if it comes with a distinct whiff of moral hazard.

    Bills, Bills, Bills

    Students are hurting just as much as institutions. Contrary to the expectations of years gone by, the proportion of school leavers proceeding to higher education is barely rising. There is likely more than one cause, including negative rhetoric about universities from across the political spectrum and a false sense that degree apprenticeships for school leavers are plentiful.

    Perhaps most significantly, maintenance support for students is nothing like enough. There are three big problems.

    1. The standard maximum maintenance support in England is now worth a little over £10,000, which is just half the amount students need.
    2. Parents are expected to support their student offspring but they are not officially told how much they should contribute.
    3. England’s household income threshold at which state-based maintenance support begins to be reduced has not increased for over 15 years. At £25,000, it is lower than the income of a single-earner household on the minimum wage.

    As a result, according to the HEPI / Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey, over two-thirds of students now undertake paid employment during term time, often at a number of hours that negatively affects their studies. These students are limited in their ability to take part in extra-curricular activities, for they are time poor as well as strapped for cash.

    An increase in maintenance support is long overdue, just as an increase in tuition fees for home students is long overdue. But we could also perhaps help students help themselves by providing better information in advance about student life. In particular, given the epidemic of loneliness among young people, we should remind them that you are more likely to be lonely if your room is plush but you do not have enough money left over for a social life than if your living arrangements are basic but your social life is lively.

    The Masterplan

    The Government came to office claiming to have a plan for tackling the country’s challenges. But more than a year on, the fog has not cleared on their plans for higher education. Patience is now wearing gossamer thin. As Chris Parr of Research Professional put it on Friday, ‘Still we wait.’ As far as we can discern from what we know, it seems universities will be expected to do more for less – on civic engagement, access and economic growth.

    Higher education institutions have made it clear, including through Universities UK’s Blueprint, that they are keen to play their part in national renewal. But it is not only the financial squeeze that limits their room for manoeuvre. Political chaos as well as the geography of Whitehall threaten the institutional autonomy that has been the key ingredient of UK universities’ success.

    Unlike in the past, there are different regulators, Ministers and Departments for the teaching and learning functions of universities on the one hand and their research functions on the other, meaning coordinated oversight is missing. The latest machinery of government changes risk another dog’s dinner, as ‘skills’ continue to bounce around Whitehall, newly residing for now (but who knows for how long) in the Department for Work and Pensions. Meanwhile, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is thought to have less regard for university-based research than for research conducted elsewhere, at least in contrast to the past.

    Moreover, each of the two Ministers with oversight of higher education institutions (Baroness Smith and Lord Vallance) are newly split across two Whitehall departments, with one foot in each. This sort of approach tends to be a recipe for chaos. (As I saw close up during my own time in Whitehall, split Ministers usually reside primarily in just one of their two departments, the one where their main Private Office is situated.) 

    The choice now is clear. If Ministers want to direct universities more than their predecessors, then they need to fund them accordingly. But if Ministers want universities to play to their own self-defined strategies in these fast-changing times, then they should reduce the barriers limiting their capacity to behave more entrepreneurially.

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  • Strengthening family engagement to support the science of reading

    Strengthening family engagement to support the science of reading

    Key points:

    While most teachers are eager to implement the science of reading, many lack the time and tools to connect these practices to home-based support, according to a new national survey from Lexia, a Cambium Learning Group brand.

    The 2025 Back-to-School Teacher Survey, with input from more than 1,500 K–12 educators nationwide, points to an opportunity for district leaders to work in concert with teachers to provide families with the science of reading-based literacy resources they need to support student reading success.

    Key insights from the survey include:

    • 60 percent of teachers are either fully trained or interested in learning more about the science of reading
    • Only 15 percent currently provide parents with structured, evidence-based literacy activities
    • 79 percent of teachers cite time constraints and parents’ work schedules as top barriers to family engagement
    • Just 10 percent report that their schools offer comprehensive family literacy programs
    • Teachers overwhelmingly want in-person workshops and video tutorials to help parents support reading at home

    “Teachers know that parental involvement can accelerate literacy and they’re eager for ways to strengthen those connections,” said Lexia President Nick Gaehde. “This data highlights how districts can continue to build on momentum in this new school year by offering scalable, multilingual, and flexible family engagement strategies that align with the science of reading.”

    Teachers also called for:

    • Better technology tools for consistent school-to-home communication
    • Greater multilingual support to serve diverse communities
    • Professional learning that includes family engagement training

    Gaehde concluded, “Lexia’s survey reflects the continued national emphasis on Structured Literacy and shows that equipping families is essential to driving lasting student outcomes. At Lexia we’re committed to partnering with districts and teachers to strengthen the school-to-home connection. By giving educators practical tools and data-driven insights, we help teachers and families work together–ensuring every child has the literacy support they need to thrive.”

    The complete findings are available in a new report, From Classroom to Living Room: Exploring Parental Involvement in K–12 Literacy. District leaders can also download the accompanying infographic, “What District Leaders Need To Know: 5 Key Findings About Family Engagement and Literacy,” which highlights the most pressing data points and strategic opportunities for improving school-to-home literacy connections.

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  • Weekend Reading: Is it time to stop using the term ‘non-traditional student’? 

    Weekend Reading: Is it time to stop using the term ‘non-traditional student’? 

    Author:
    HEPI Guest Post

    Published:

    This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Dr Steve Briggs, Director of Learning, Teaching and Libraries, University of Bedfordshire 

    In the context of UK higher education, the terms ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ are widely used when describing students – as apparent in recent blog posts published by HEPI. In this blog, I consider why the continued use of such terminology may become increasingly problematic and what might be a viable alternative.   

    Who are ‘traditional’ students?  

    The Cambridge dictionary defines ‘traditional’ as: 

    Following or belonging to the customs of ways of behaving that have continued in a group of people of society for a long time without changing. 

    As such, one can infer that the criterion for traditional students is that they will share established characteristics that have been fixed for a significant period.  
     

    The stereotypical traditional student 

    In the 1970s and 1980s, university students were generally young adults who left home and moved to a new city or town to study. They would routinely live with other students on or near to campus. Many would be able to undertake studies without needing to work and would have significant time available to spend on campus and engage in clubs, societies, sports teams and other social activities. In 2025, many commentators will cite this profile as being synonymous with a traditional student.  

    The rise of the non-traditional student   

    In the context of the UK, the term ‘non-traditional student’ has been widely used to differentiate learners who do not adhere to the aforementioned traditional student convention. Examples of characteristics seen to make a student non-traditional include: 

    • Commuting to university, rather than living on campus 
    • Being over the age of 21  
    • Having parental and/or caring responsibilities 
    • Hailing from a lower socio-economic background 
    • Being the first-in-family to study at university 
    • Having had experience of the care system 

    Such individuals are often time-poor but commitment-rich and in turn have very limited availability to spend on campus outside of scheduled sessions. The use of the non-traditional label has been used increasingly since the advent of widening participation in the 1990s. 

    Perceptions of traditional are not fixed  

    The concept of a traditional student is time-bound. For example, pre-1900, there was a small number of ancient universities in the UK and relatively very low numbers of students. Increased numbers of universities opening during the 1900s meant that more individuals were able to study at university, many of whom would be labelled as non-traditional relative to those pre-1900. However, the same group has since then been re-defined as traditional relative to those who studied in the 1990s.  

    Over the last twenty-five years non-traditional characteristics have become increasingly common amongst the student population. For example, in 2025, HESA reported that over half of students were from IMD quintiles 1 and 2, and the vast majority of students are now over the age of 20. Following previous trends, there will come a point, potentially in the not-too-distant future, whereby the current generation of non-traditional students will become viewed as traditional. The cyclical process will then likely start again with a new conceptualisation of what is non-traditional.  

    More nuanced classification options 

    Given the time-bound nature of both traditional and non-traditional characteristics I suggest that higher education commentators should consider the use of more exact terminology when discussing student cohorts. I suggest two options: 

    • By decade: Student groups could be framed in terms of decades, for example the demographic and characteristics of students of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s, etc. Such an approach could work well if there was stability over a decade however, the impact of social or global events (such as a recession, government policy or pandemic) may mean within a decade those studying within higher education could change markedly. For example, the significant impact of governmental immigration policy changes on the recruitment of international students studying in the UK during the mid-2020s.  
    • Create generational names: Since 1950, there have been five main birth generations: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha. Each generation has shared characteristics synonymous with being born during that period. Analogously, specific generations could be defined in terms of university students. Each generation would have a distinctive name and characteristics common amongst most members studying at university during that specific window of time. The use of student generational names would offer flexibility to account for periods of stability that lasted longer than ten years and could also accommodate sudden changes to the profile of student cohorts.  

    I personally favour the use of generational names given the greater flexibility. I see this as necessary given the turbulence and change experienced within the higher education sector over the last decade. For instance, I propose that the pandemic was a catalyst for the emergence of a new generation of students, a defining characteristic of which being greater experience in remote communicating and learning online.  

    Putting into practice 

    As a starter for ten, I suggest seven generations of English students over the last 150 years. A caricature for each is provided – these are intended to be illustrative of generational difference rather than exhaustive: 

    • Ancient Generation (pre-1900): A student would study at one of the ancient universities in the UK. Students were mainly from the upper social class, and a fraction of the population attended university. Those attending university would be financially supported by personal networks.  
    • Redbrick Generation (circa 1900-1945): Most students studied at an ancient or redbrick university. Students continued to be mainly from the upper social class, and in turn a small percentage of the population attended university. 
    • Post-World War Two Generation (circa 1946-1989): As the number of universities progressively expanded, students had greater geographic access to higher education. Students could access maintenance grants to cover the cost of living whilst studying. This allowed students to readily engage in activities alongside their studies.  
    • Widening Participation Generation (circa 1990 – 1997): The number of universities significantly increased following the integration of polytechnics. Concentrated efforts were made to expand access to higher education and the percentage of students from previously underrepresented groups increased. In addition to maintenance grants, students were able to access low-cost student loans.  
    • Tuition Fee Generation (circa 1998 – 2014): The widening participation imperative remained but students now paid a tuition fee to study. Choice of where to study remained limited by student number caps. Maintenance grants were abolished and replaced with student loans. As fees progressively increased more students found they needed to undertake work whilst studying.  
    • Free Market Generation (circa 2015 – 2019): Widening participation remained a priority. The student number cap is removed, and many universities actively expand the availability of places. Students have unprecedented choice in terms of where to study at university. Tuition fees and living costs remain a challenge for many students and numbers working whilst studying remains very high.  
    • Pandemic Generation (circa 2020 – current): The pandemic results in a sudden and seismic shift to online education across schools, colleges and universities. This results in students have new experiences and expectations related to online and blended learning. Cost of living increases following the pandemic resulted in more student facing financial hardships in turn resulting in many spending less time on campus. Demand for mental health and well-being support increases.  

    Analogous to birth generations, I would see that other interpretations of higher education student generation names could emerge through research outputs, thought pieces or social events as opposed to being determined by a single group or professional body. Influential think tanks like HEPI could play a key role in providing platforms for such discussion. 

    I foresee there potentially being variations in proposed student generational definitions (as is the case with birth generations) but if all are clearly defined, these would all be invaluable for higher education commentators when discussing longitudinal changes in cohorts over time.

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  • English Teachers Work to Instill the Joy of Reading. Testing Gets in the Way – The 74

    English Teachers Work to Instill the Joy of Reading. Testing Gets in the Way – The 74


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    A new national study shows that Americans’ rates of reading for pleasure have declined radically over the first quarter of this century and that recreational reading can be linked to school achievement, career compensation and growth, civic engagement, and health. Learning how to enjoy reading – not literacy proficiency – isn’t just for hobbyists, it’s a necessary life skill. 

    But the conditions under which English teachers work are detrimental to the cause – and while book bans are in the news, the top-down pressure to measure up on test scores is a more pervasive, more longstanding culprit. Last year, we asked high school English teachers to describe their literature curriculum in a national questionnaire we plan to publish soon. From responses representing 48 states, we heard a lot of the following: “soul-deadening”; “only that which students will see on the test” and “too [determined] by test scores.”

    These sentiments certainly aren’t new. In a similar questionnaire distributed in 1911, teachers described English class as “deadening,” focused on “memory instead of thinking,” and demanding “cramming for examination.” 

    Teaching to the test is as old as English itself – as a secondary school subject, that is. Teachers have questioned the premise for just as long because too many have experienced a radical disconnect between how they are asked or required to teach and the pleasure that reading brings them.

    High school English was first established as a test-driven subject around the turn of the 20th Century. Even at a time when relatively few Americans attended college, English class was oriented around building students’ mastery of now-obscure literary works that they would encounter on the College Entrance Exam. 

    The development of the Scholastic Aptitude Test in 1926 and the growth of standardized testing since No Child Left Behind have only solidified what was always true: As much as we think of reading as a social, cultural, even “spiritual” experience, English class has been shaped by credential culture.

    Throughout, many teachers felt that preparing students for college was too limited a goal; their mission was to prepare students for life. They believed that studying literature was an invaluable source of social and emotional development, preparing adolescents for adulthood and for citizenship. It provided them with “vicarious experience”: Through reading, young people saw other points of view, worked through challenging problems, and grappled with complex issues. 

    Indeed, a national study conducted in 1933 asked teachers to rank their “aims” in literature instruction. They listed “vicarious experience” first, “preparation for college” last.

    The results might not look that different today. Ask an English teacher what brought her to the profession, and a love of reading is likely to top the list. What is different today is the  unmatched pressure to prepare students for a constant cycle of state and national examinations and for college credentialing. 

    Increasingly, English teachers are compelled to use online curriculum packages that mimic the examinations themselves, composed largely of excerpts from literary and “informational” texts instead of the whole books that were more the norm in previous generations. “Vicarious experience” has less purchase in contemporary academic standards than ever. 

    Credentialing, however, does not equal preparing. Very few higher education skills map neatly onto standardized exams, especially in the humanities. As English professors, we can tell you that an enjoyment of reading – not just a toleration of it – is a key academic capacity. It produces better writers, more creative thinkers, and students less likely to need AI to express their ideas effectively.

    Yet we haven’t given K-12 teachers the structure or freedom to treat reading enjoyment as a skill. The data from our national survey suggests that English teachers and their students find the system deflating. 

     “Our district adopted a disjointed, excerpt-heavy curriculum two years ago,” a Washington teacher shared, “and it is doing real damage to students’ interest in reading.” 

    From Tennessee, a teacher added: “I understand there are state guidelines and protocols, but it seems as if we are teaching the children from a script. They are willing to be more engaged and can have a better understanding when we can teach them things that are relatable to them.”

    And from Oregon, another tells us that because “state testing is strictly excerpts,” the district initially discouraged “teaching whole novels.”  It changed course only after students’ exam scores improved. 

    Withholding books from students is especially inhumane when we consider that the best tool for improved academic performance is engagement – students learn more when they become engrossed in stories. Yet by the time they graduate from high school, many students  master test-taking skills but lose the window for learning to enjoy reading.

    Teachers tell us that the problem is not attitudinal but structural. An education technocracy that consists of test making agencies, curriculum providers, and policy makers is squeezing out enjoyment, teacher autonomy and student agency. 

    To reverse this trend, we must consider what reading experiences we are providing our students. Instead of the self-defeating cycle of test-preparation and testing, we should take courage, loosen the grip on standardization, and let teachers recreate the sort of experiences with literature that once made us, and them, into readers.


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  • Weekend Reading: Provoking changes in higher education, some reflections on governance 

    Weekend Reading: Provoking changes in higher education, some reflections on governance 

    • This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Professor Nigel Savage. Nigel was awarded his PhD in 1980 for research into corporate governance and held several chief executive and non-executive posts in the public and private sectors, including Board membership of HEFCE and non-executive director of Fletchers solicitors.
    • On Tuesday, HEPI and Cambridge University Press & Assessment will be hosting the UK launch of the OECD’s Education at a Glance. On Wednesday, we will be hosting a webinar on students’ cost of living with TechnologyOne – for more information on booking a free place, see here. 

    Universities are facing the ‘perfect storm’ of challenges from several areas, not least financial and strategic sustainability, at a time when the government has many more competing priorities for scarce public resources. The situation is going to get much worse in the medium term as financial pressures rightly stimulate calls for greater accountability and a consequent erosion of the sector’s perceived and much-prized autonomy. The only way forward in the short term must therefore be for the sector itself to provoke change by Boards and non-executive directors (NEDs), assuming a more active role in challenging orthodoxy in much the same way as NEDs in the private sector. 

    The new Chair of the OfS, Edward Peck, has an unenviable in-tray. What the sector needs, alongside his appointment, is a greater degree of external insight to shake up the balance of power within the traditional governance model. I’ve worked for most of my life in higher education and the legal sector and have often been struck by the similarities in terms of management and governance issues. The legal services market has moved on somewhat from when it displayed an inherent resistance to change, a tendency to look to each other for solutions rather than externally and a blind faith that only lawyers operating within the partnership model could manage the business. Universities are still in a time warp typified by the fact that most of the organisations that purport to contribute to change by offering ‘partnerships’, guidance, consultancy or codes of practice are funded from within the sector and unlikely to recommend radical change or depart from sector orthodoxy.  

    Another lesson that could be learned from the legal services market is the greater use of external know-how and resources. Some thirty years ago, the Practical Law Company achieved considerable success by working with the best lawyers from a range of successful firms to create high-quality authored legal resources and software tools which were licensed to firms. Hitherto, that would have been regarded by the profession as relinquishing control over their crown jewels, eroding professional integrity, not to mention autonomy. The result was that lawyers were able to work more efficiently with enhanced productivity and greater confidence, focusing on providing solutions to clients’ complex problems. There is no reason why that model shouldn’t deliver similar outcomes within the higher education sector. Collaborative know-how would produce research outputs that inform teaching and learning with the added advantage that they are based on practice rather than recycled material from another academic in the form of a textbook. There are now over one hundred law schools in the UK each developing their own teaching and learning materials at a considerable cost and with varying degrees of quality. I see no reason why such a model could not deliver significant cost savings across disciplines and free staff time to focus on the delivery of teaching and learning innovation. 

    At one level there is no incentive to change, especially given the prevailing veil of protection provided by current interpretations of academic autonomy. I cannot speak for other disciplines, but given the stagnation in leadership of legal education, the legal services market is currently better served by employers than higher education. In part the issue is one of culture typified by the sector’s attitude to AI, as one commentator recently remarked, ‘universities are more concerned about AI, rather than with it …’. There is more debate about students using it as a vehicle for cheating or copyright issues than as a vehicle to enhance teaching and learning and create a seamless transition into the workplace. In general, technology in higher education is not embraced transformatively but defensively. 

    I was one of the few independent Board members of HEFCE (2002-08) and chaired the Audit and Risk Committee. As part of our engagement, we instigated a series of case study seminars for chairs and members of institutional audit committees with no members of their executive team present. The programme was much appreciated but we were surprised by the relatively low level of awareness of key risks, issues around internal audit and accountability and lack of engagement in terms of quality assurance. It’s interesting that many of the issues on the risk register then are a variation of the same issues that confront universities today. The impact of technology, an increasingly competitive environment, funding especially over-reliance on overseas income, changes in public policy, globalisation and students as consumers of higher education services.  

    Most of the above are issues that every global business model, regardless of ownership structure, sector, or location, has had to confront over the same timescale, without the level of resources available to higher education. Indeed, some universities have confronted them very well. So why is it that a growing number of universities are manifestly failing to address these issues when they should have been painfully aware of them for years? We are already seeing the likely next generation of entirely predictable risks in the growing number of institutions rushing to set up campuses in London and, worse still, in India and the Middle East at a time when they are barely sustainable. Will such initiatives deliver medium-term revenue growth, or are they merely off-balance-sheet Vice Chancellor vanity projects? And why are they not more aggressively challenged by NEDs? 

    Governance – culture change  

    There needs to be something of a culture change in the balance of power as between executive and non-executive roles. It is governance that dictates the rules of the game, especially in the relationship between the CEO (in most cases the Vice-Chancellor or Principal) and Chair. Government and the regulator need to be more prescriptive rather than rely on consultative services provided by those bodies that are part of a self-regulatory model. Anyone who doubts the need for change should read the Scottish Funding Council’s investigative report on Dundee University, which represents a massive failure of management and governance. Cultural issues were not the primary cause of the financial collapse at Dundee, but as observed in the report, ‘aspects of the culture of the institution … , may however have facilitated or been associated with a lack of transparency and of the limited challenge to the prevailing discourse on financial matters’ 

    Action in the following areas would assist in generating such a culture change: 

    1. There is significant evidence that smaller boards outperform larger ones. A study by Bain (some years ago) suggests the ideal size of a board should be seven and each additional member beyond that results in a decline in effectiveness. I am not sure where that leaves the higher education sector since most large university boards are approaching the early twenties and can have less to do with governance and become more a matter of crowd control. This issue must also be viewed in the context of the structure below the Board in terms of Senate and Academic Board which has substantial staff and student representation. Large boards are more expensive to service and absorb a greater degree of resource and complexity to manage. Size also creates the impression that the body is consultative rather than at the pinnacle of decision-making. In recent years, changes in management structures may have exacerbated the position with the trend towards the appointment of Presidents, Provosts and COOs with a wide range of reporting lines, all of whom aspire to a seat on the board. This trend has the capacity to blur the lines between the executive and non-executive functions and, worse still, further increase the size of the board. The Vice Chancellor should be the only formal member of the executive on the Board as opposed to attending as an observer. The Dundee review recognised that a University Secretary may have dual reporting lines to the Chair and Vice Chancellor, which can create conflicts of interest, ‘care should be taken to ensure the primary responsibility is always to the Chair’. 
    1. Reducing the size of Boards would also mean that resources could be released to remunerate NEDs. Some institutions already embrace this policy in respect of Board chairs and committees. The whole process, including appointments, should be professionalised to ensure that appointees have proven experience as a senior executive or non-executive. It’s not surprising that universities are failing to hold Vice Chancellors to account if membership of the Board is based, at least in part, on the criterion that ‘no previous experience is required’. In recent months it seems to be votes of no confidence from the staff rather than governing bodies which decide the fate of an incompetent Vice Chancellor. The larger institutions now have turnovers of over £1.5 billion plus. Membership of such a Board is not a role for the inexperienced using an appointment as ‘net practice’ to build a NED portfolio or an elder statesperson looking to top off their career with a gong. Should all else fail there is always the standard ultimate requirement to deter cross sector appointments ‘ideally we are looking for a candidate with a background in or closely related to higher education…’.  
    1. The increasing use of head-hunters may also be a factor. The appointment of NEDs, particularly a new chair, should be a matter entirely for the Nominations Committee. The Vice Chancellor should be consulted within the process but not be directly involved and the head-hunters should be accountable to the Nominations Committee. One of the fundamental roles of a NED is to contribute to holding the executives ‘feet to the fire’ when necessary. A distinguished Yale commentator observed some years ago ‘I’m always amazed at how common groupthink is in corporate boardrooms. Directors are, almost without exception … comfortable with power. But if you put them into a group that discourages dissent, they nearly always start to conform.’ This is particularly so if they have been recruited under the criteria that they are ‘team players’ which is normally code for they will not ‘rock the boat’ 
    1. Overseeing internal audit (IA) is a vital part of maintaining the integrity of a seamless governance model. The head of IA must be free from interference in determining the scope, process and communication of outputs. It is still the case that in some universities the head of internal audit reports directly to either the CFO or COO with a notional reporting line to the chair of the audit committee. This represents a classic case of marking your own homework and should no longer be tolerated. There is a real danger of undue influence when IA reports into the finance function, not the chair of audit committee. Unlike the external audit where there is a specified remit, internal audit can look at any area which is felt appropriate as directed by the board, including the prevailing culture and effectiveness of risk management. If the external auditor is satisfied that the IA is appropriately funded, competent and sufficiently objective and quality assured, they can rely on it.  I suspect however that this is another area clouded by the mists of institutional autonomy and external auditors will seldom feel sufficiently confident to place reliance on IA data. There would however be an additional cost placed on such reliance attached to the audit fee. 

    Conclusion  

    Although the Office for Students (OfS) is beginning to engage more directly with providers given the emerging financial environment, they are theoretically hide-bound by the statutory institutional autonomy that universities enjoy. They ‘will not provide advice to providers on how they should run their organisation. Providers should look to other sources, for example to sector bodies, for such advice and support.’ Surely in such circumstances a regulator should be suggesting that they seek advice from their own Board or externally rather than organisations that are not independent and consist largely of retired senior executives from the sector. I can imagine the outcry if such a model was replicated in the private sector if a board were asleep at the wheel. 

    Institutions are required to have ‘adequate and effective management and governance arrangements.’ Therein lies the problem. In a culture based on the presumption of autonomy, it’s very difficult to provoke change based on a standard so low as ‘adequacy’ and advice from the sector. There are many interpretations of autonomy, but the concept is too often used as a defensive comfort blanket to resist change or, worse still, justify the executives’ vanity projects.  

    The current regulatory regime, based in part on a self-regulatory model, is somewhat naïve and reminiscent of that which prevailed many years ago in respect of company regulation in the private sector and contributed to the debate on the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’. For example, the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) code declares that the code ‘is not compulsory, governing bodies can determine based on the advice of the executive which parts of the code apply to them …’ There is no longer a need for an annual Head of Internal Audit Report and the OfS no longer require submission of the Annual Report of an institution’s Audit Committee. Indeed, there is nothing in the guidance any more compelling registered providers to have an Audit Committee. 

    Within this benign regulatory environment, the sector has received substantial funding on a headcount basis at a time when they should have been preparing for wholly predictable changes. Boards should be looking much more clearly on value for money issues. They continue to create massive Super Faculties which are unmanageable, stifle innovation and leave staff isolated. Decision-making processes are attenuated, and there is hostility to learning from external sources that are well ahead in confronting and managing change. There has been a proliferation of roles and reporting lines at the top with very little focus on efficient delivery at the coal face but fragmentation in terms of leadership. 

    Sadly, the position is even worse in Scotland where legislative changes in 2016 made the appointment process and composition of Boards even larger and more cumbersome and much less effective decision makers, hence the Dundee fiasco. 

    The current governance culture encouraged by the legislation and embraced by the sector and the regulators creates the impression that the sector should be treated differently from any other sector. In my experience, the fundamental role of NEDs is the same irrespective of the corporate status: to appoint and monitor the performance of the executive and to sign off on the strategy and rigorously monitor performance, delivery structures, risk and compliance. Legal status will shape strategy in terms of charitable status or shareholder value in the private sector but that’s no justification to deter NEDs from carrying out the primary role of holding the CEO’s feet to the fire and continuously monitoring and measuring executive performance. The way forward may be to engage them more directly within the structures of the institution, taking care that they don’t cross the line into the executive function.  

    I operated as a CEO in the sector for twenty years and a NED on both side of the fence. In my NED roles I have always operated by asking questions and seeking clarity on issues that I wouldn’t want raised if I were the CEO!  

    Nigel Savage    

    I am grateful to James Aston (BDO) the leading independent authority on HE governance, for a couple of stimulating conversations on some of the issues. 

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  • Antiracist Reading Survey for College Writing Teachers

    Antiracist Reading Survey for College Writing Teachers

    Paul T. Corrigan teaches at The University of Tampa. He is currently writing a book on teaching literature. He has published on teaching and learning in TheAtlantic.com, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, College Teaching, Pedagogy, Reader, The Teaching Professor, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and other venues. He has a PhD from the University of South Florida and a MA from North Carolina State University. More at paultcorrigan.com. Follow on Twitter at @teachingcollege.



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  • Weekend Reading: Rethinking the Role of Place in UK Higher Education Policy

    Weekend Reading: Rethinking the Role of Place in UK Higher Education Policy

    • This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by John Goddard OBE, Emeritus Professor of Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University.

    In a HEPI note prompted by a Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) conference, Nick Hillman asked: Should the seminal Robbins report inform the forthcoming post-16 strategy? He referenced the point made by Professor Robson of SKOPE about the need ‘to encourage place-based approaches … and replace competition with coordination.’ As Nick points out, the challenge of place and coordination are not new, but as I will argue, these are not being confronted by policymakers right now.

    The Robbins’ report led to new universities being established. But these were in county towns and as we observe in our volume on The University and the City, overlook the growing urban crisis of that period. The Education Reform Act of 1988 severed the link between polytechnics and local government. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which allowed polytechnics to apply for university status, had the Government’s desired impact of reducing the unit cost of higher education and moving the UK instantly up the OECD rankings in terms of participation in higher education. But it also signalled a further disconnection with cities. The creation of new universities in the 1970s to meet a 50% participation rate was also unplanned in geographical terms. So, unlike many countries, the UK has not had a plan for the geography of higher let alone further education.

    Indeed, UK higher education policy and practice has ignored the lessons of history as well as being geographically blind. It has not been sensitive to the different local contexts where universities operate and the evolution of these institutions and places through time.

    It is important to remember that locally endowed proto-universities like Newcastle, Sheffield and Birmingham supported late 19th-century urban industrialisation and the health of the workforce. They also played a role in building local soft infrastructure, including facilitating discourse around the role of science and the arts in business and society. This was also a time in which new municipal government structures were being formed. In short, universities helped build the local state and create what the British Academy now calls social and cultural infrastructure, in which universities play a key role

    These founding principles became embedded in the DNA of some institutions. For example, in 1943, the Earl Grey Memorial lecturer in King’s College Newcastle noted,

    Ideal Universities… should be an organic part of regional existence in its public aspects, and a pervading influence in its private life. …Universities to be thus integrated in the community, must be sensitive to what is going on in the realm of business and industry, of practical local affairs, of social adaptation and development, as well as in the realm of speculative thought and abstract research.

    In the later 20th century, most so-called redbrick universities turned their back on place as the central state took on direct funding of higher education and research and did not prioritise the local role of universities. But this was challenged by the Royal Commission on the Future of Higher Education in 1997, chaired by Lord Dearing. He noted that: ‘As part of the compact we envisage between HE and society, each institution should be clear about its mission in relation to local communities and regions.’ For him, this ‘compact’ was wide-ranging, had a strong local dimension and was one where the university’s contribution to ‘the economy’ could not be separated from the wider society in which it was embedded.

    Many of Dearing’s ideas were subsequently incorporated into the work of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) that were established in 1989 to promote economic development and regeneration, improve business competitiveness, and reduce regional disparities. This included investment, (matched by European regional funds ) into university-related research and cultural facilities. These capital and recurrent investments contributed to ‘place making’ and university links with business and the arts. For example, the former Newcastle brewery site was purchased by Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council and RDA, which they named ‘Science Central’. The partnership was incorporated as Newcastle Science City Ltd., a company limited by guarantee with its own CEO and independent board. The organisation’s portfolio included:

    Support for business, facilitating the creation of new enterprises drawing on the scientific capabilities of the region’s universities and work with local schools and communities, particularly focussed on promoting science education in deprived areas.

    The initiatives recognised the role that universities could play in their places by building ‘quadruple helix partnerships’ between universities, business, local and central government and the community and voluntary sectors.

    But from 2008, with the onset of public austerity, a focus on national competitiveness and a rolling back of the boundaries of the state, we saw the abolition of the RDAs in 2012, the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships with more limited powers and resources and a cutting back on non-statutory local government activities, notably for economic development. My 2009 NESTA provocation Reinventing the Civic University was a reminder that universities had to go back to their roots and challenge broader geo-political trends, including globalisation and the creation of university research excellence hierarchies that mirrored city hierarchies.

    Marketisation was subsequently embedded into law in the 2017 Higher Education Act. This abolished the Higher Education Funding Council for England and its network of regional consultants working with formal university associations. The act unleashed competition regulated via the Office for Students (OfS) and supported by an enhanced discipline-based research excellence funding scheme. Both were place blind. Some of us raised the possibility of the financial collapse of universities in less prosperous places where they were so-called ‘anchor institutions’

    It was a recognition of this place blindness that contributed to the case for the establishment of the Civic University Commission, chaired by the late Lord Kerslake. The Commission argued that the public – nationally and locally – needed to understand better the specific benefits that universities can bring in response to the question: ‘We have a university here, but what is it doing for us? Institutions that were ultimately publicly funded needed to be locally accountable given our place-based system of governance – parliamentary constituencies and local authorities.

    For the Commission, accountability meant something different from a top-down compliance regime. Rather, sensitive and voluntary commitments made between a diverse set of actors to one another, whose collective powers and resources could impact local economic and social deficiencies

    The Commission therefore proposed that universities wishing to play a civic role should prepare Civic University Agreements, co-created and signed by other key partners and embracing local accountability. Strategic analysis to shape agreements should lead to a financial plan that brings together locally the many top-down and geographically blind funding streams that universities receive from across Whitehall – for quality research, for health and wellbeing, for business support, for higher-level skills and for culture.

    Some of these national funds now need to be ring-fenced to help universities work with partners to meet local needs and opportunities, including building capacity for collaborative working within an area. As the Secretary of State for Education has suggested in her letter to VCs, this might include a slice of core formulaic Quality Research (QR) funding. Such processes would be preferable to the ad-hoc interventions that have hitherto failed to establish long-term trust between universities and the community. At the same time, a place dimension could be included in the regulation of the domestic student marketplace. This could all form part of a compact or contract between universities and the state which enshrined a responsibility to serve the local public good.

    Going forward, I would argue that the coincidence of multiple crises across the world has far-reaching implications that universities cannot ignore. Indeed, if they do not step up to the plate and assert their civic role as anchor institutions in their places, their very existence may be at stake. The issues are well set out in this Learning Planet Institute Manifesto for the Planetary Mission of the University.

    Reading this Manifesto should help policy makers and institutional leaders in the UK recognise that the current financial crisis facing universities is an outward and visible sign of deeper threats, not least those arising from popularism and being fanned by Donald Trump. And popularism has its roots in the experience of people in left behind places.

    Therefore, Government support for the role of universities in their communities is not only beneficial to them but also to society at large. To respect institutional autonomy, this requires the right incentives (sticks and carrots). For example, universities throughout England could be required to support the Government’s plans for devolution as part of the compact I suggest. Questions to be answered by the Departments for Education; for Housing, Communities and Local Government and for Science, Innovation and Technology working TOGETHER could include:

    • What structures need to be put in place inside and outside of universities to facilitate joint working between universities and Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs)?
    • How should universities be included in upcoming Devolution Deals?
    • How might these differ between MCAs at different stages of development and different levels of prosperity?
    • How should universities link their work with business, with the community and the priorities of MCAs for inclusive growth and with the Industrial Strategy White paper?
    • How should Combined Authorities work with different universities and colleges in their area to meet skills gaps?
    • How can areas without MCAs work with universities to deliver equivalent outcomes?

    In summary, universities must recognise that they are part of the problem identified by populism, but can contribute to solutions through purposive local actions supported by the government.

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  • Weekend Reading: From AI prohibition to integration – or why universities must pick up the pace

    Weekend Reading: From AI prohibition to integration – or why universities must pick up the pace

    • This HEPI guest blog was kindly authored by Mary Curnock Cook CBE, who chairs the Dyson Institute and is a Trustee at HEPI, and Bess Brennan, Chief of University Partnerships with Cadmus, which is running a series of collaborative events with UK university leaders about the challenges and opportunities of generative AI in higher education.

    Are universities super tankers, drifting slowly through the ocean while students are speedboats, zipping around them? That was one of the most arresting images from the recent Kings x Cadmus Teaching and Learning Forum and captured a central theme running through the Forum: the mismatch between the pace of technological and social change facing universities and the slow speed of institutional adaptation when it comes to AI.

    Yet the forum also highlighted a fundamental change in how higher education institutions are approaching AI in assessment – moving from a reactive, punitive stance to one of proactive partnership, a shift from AI prohibition to integration. As speaker after speaker acknowledged, the sector’s initial approach of trying to detect and prevent AI use has been shown to be both futile and counterproductive. As one speaker noted, ‘we cannot stop students using AI. We cannot detect it. So we have to redefine assessment.’

    From left to right: Mary Curnock Cook, Professor Andrew Turner, Professor Parama Chaudhury, Professor Timothy Thompson. Source: Cadmus

    This reality has forced some institutions to completely reconceptualise their relationship with AI technology in order to work with the tide rather than against it. Where AI was viewed as a threat to academic integrity, educators are beginning to see it as an inevitable part of the learning landscape that calls for thoughtful integration, not least so that students are equipped for change and the AI-driven workplace. For example, Coventry University has responded by moving its assessment entirely to a coursework-based approach, except where there are Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body (PSRB) requirements, and explicitly allows the use of AI, in most cases, to assist. 

    Imperial College’s approach exemplifies this new thinking with its principle of using AI “to think with you and not for you.” This approach recognises AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement for human cognition, fundamentally changing how universities structure learning experiences. The shift requires moving from output-focused assessment to process-based evaluation, where students must demonstrate their thinking journey alongside their final products.

    Like many universities, Imperial is also concerned about equity of access to AI. As a baseline it offers enterprise access to a foundational LLM with firewalled data, Copilot, which ringfences the data within the institution. But it also has a multi-LLM portal pilot, which includes ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and DeepSeek, acting as an AI sandpit to help instil a culture of thinking of the LLMs as different tools to be experimented with – users can switch between them and ask them the same question to see the variation in results. Meanwhile, LSE has partnered with Anthropic to offer all students free access to Anthropic’s Claude for Education, which helps students by guiding their reasoning process, rather than simply providing answers.

    Practical implementation challenges

    This transition to integration requires practical frameworks that many institutions are still developing. A speaker voiced the sector’s uncertainty as: ‘We do not know the next development – we didn’t see this one coming.’ This unpredictability leads to what was termed ‘seeking safety in policy’ – a tendency to over-regulate when the real need is for adaptive frameworks.

    The challenge of moving beyond traffic light systems (red/amber/green classifications for AI use) emerged repeatedly. These systems, while intuitive, often leave educators and students in the ambiguous amber zone without clear guidance: ‘everyone falls in the middle. You cannot do the red stuff but how do you enforce that? What do we really mean by the green stuff?’ Instead, some institutions are moving towards assessment-specific guidance that explicitly states when and how AI can be used for each task.

    Cultural and systemic transformation

    This technological shift demands profound cultural change within institutions. As one participant observed, ‘Culture change is being driven by students. Academics may not want to change but they no longer have a choice if they’re getting assessments written by AI – or they don’t know if the assessments are written by AI’. The pace of student adoption is outstripping institutional adaptation, creating tension between established academic practices and emerging student behaviours – those speedboats and super tankers again.

    However, while the magnitude of the challenge calls for institutional-scale change and moving beyond individual innovations to systemic transformation, super tankers don’t turn quickly.

    Strategic approaches to change at scale

    Several institutions shared their successful strategies for managing large-scale change. The key appears to be starting with early adopters and building momentum through demonstrated success. As Cadmus founder Herk Kailis noted, change champions are: ‘the best people who are keeping the sector evolving and growing – and we need to get behind them as there aren’t that many of them.’ Imperial’s approach of appointing ‘AI futurists’ in each faculty demonstrates how institutions can systematically seed innovation while maintaining a connection to disciplinary expertise.

    Another speaker observed that successful change requires ‘recognising the challenges and concerns of academic colleagues, bringing them together, supporting colleagues in making the changes they want.’ At Maynooth University, incentives for staff, such as fellowships and promotion pathway changes, rather than mandates, draws on the notion that ‘you can’t herd cats but you can move their food’.

    Cross-institutional collaboration

    The forum emphasised that institutional change cannot happen in isolation. The complexity of stakeholder groups – from faculty leads to central teams to students and student-facing services – requires sophisticated engagement strategies. As one participant noted about successful technology implementation: ‘Pilots don’t work if they are isolated with one stakeholder group. You need buy-in from all the groups.’

    The call for sector-wide collaboration extends beyond individual institutions to include professional bodies, regulatory frameworks and quality assurance processes – QA must also keep up with the pace of change. PSRBs, in particular, were singled out as a blocker to change.

    International networking is also important. For example, UCL is working with Digital Intelligence International Development Education Alliance (DI-IDEA) from Peking University, which is experimenting with AI in education in innovative and accelerated ways.

    Building sustainable change

    Perhaps most importantly, the forum recognised that sustainable institutional change requires long-term commitment and resource allocation, and this imperative could arguably not have come at a more difficult time for many HE institutions. The observation that ‘There’s never been a greater need and appetite from staff to engage with this at a time when resourcing in the sector is a real problem’ highlights the tension between ambition and capacity that many institutions face.

    However, the success stories shared – such as Birmingham City University’s Cadmus implementation saving 735.2 hours of academic staff time while improving student outcomes – demonstrate that institutional change, while challenging, can deliver measurable benefits for both educators and learners when implemented thoughtfully and systematically.

    Three recommended actions from the forum

    1. Address systemic inequalities, not just assessment design

    Research from the University of Manchester shared at the conference showed that 95% of differential attainment stems from factors beyond assessment itself – cultural awareness, digital poverty, caring responsibilities and lack of representation.

    Action: Take a holistic approach to student success that addresses the whole student experience, implements universal design principles, and recognises that some students are ‘rolling loaded dice’ in the academic game of privilege. Don’t assume assessment reform alone will solve equity issues.

    2. Reduce high-stakes assessment

    Traditional exam-heavy models risk perpetuating inequalities and don’t reflect workplace realities. Multiple lower-stakes assessments can support deeper learning and may be more equitable.

    Action: Systematically reduce reliance on high-stakes exams in favour of diverse and more authentic assessment methods. This helps to address both AI challenges and equity concerns while better preparing students for their futures.

    3. Co-create with students as partners

    Students are driving the pace of change – they are already using AI. They need to be partners in designing solutions, not just recipients of policies.

    Action: Involve students in co-designing assessments, rubrics and AI policies. Create bi-directional dialogue about learning experiences and empower students to share learning strategies. Build trust through transparency and genuine partnership.

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  • PRINCIPAL VOICE: Inviting families into our classrooms slashed absenteeism and raised reading levels

    PRINCIPAL VOICE: Inviting families into our classrooms slashed absenteeism and raised reading levels

    Two years ago, I bought each of the teachers at Hamilton Elementary in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood a blue chair. I told them to put it in the back of their classrooms, and that if a parent or caregiver wanted to visit to see how their children are learning — no matter what the reason — that this would be a dedicated space for them.

    I may have earned some exaggerated eye-rolls from educators that day. After all, I can appreciate the disruption to learning that classroom visitors can sometimes cause, especially among excitable elementary schoolers.

    But school is our home, and it is our responsibility to invite families into our home and welcome them. And this was a necessary olive branch, my way of saying to families: “From here on out, things are going to be different.”

    And they were. They also can be different at other schools, because the benefits of family engagement go well beyond student achievement.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Research has long shown that when parents and caregivers are involved and engaged with their children’s education — whether that’s by attending parent-teacher conferences or participating in school events — student achievement, motivation and social-emotional well-being increase.

    Parent involvement with reading activities has a positive impact on reading achievement, language comprehension, expressive language skills and level of attention in the classroom, according to the National Literacy Trust.

    Research also shows that educators enjoy increased job satisfaction and are more likely to keep teaching at the school, families enjoy stronger relationships with their children and feel less isolated, and even school districts themselves become better places to live and raise children.

    None of this was the case when we returned to normalcy following Covid. Just 13 percent of students were reading on grade level, and 37 percent were chronically absent. I knew right away that before we even attempted to tackle academics, we needed to engage families and make them feel deeply connected and committed to the community I envisioned building here.

    Today, 45 percent of students are reading at grade-level, and chronic absenteeism, at 12 percent on the most recent official numbers, is down to 10 percent in our own tracking, with a goal of pushing it down to 8 percent in 2025-26.

    But it wasn’t easy given the distrust that had boiled over during the pandemic, with families skeptical of our ability to effectively support their children and school staff feeling defensive and exhausted.

    It was clear to me that families weren’t excited to send their kids to school, didn’t feel informed about what was happening on our campus and, moreover, didn’t feel comfortable — let alone capable — of communicating their needs to us.

    Complicating matters further was the need to share information across many languages other than English, which can make relationship-building and communicating expectations difficult.

    Roughly half of our students are English learners, and while the majority of their families are Spanish-speakers, there are growing populations of students whose first languages are Haitian-Creole, Pashto and Vietnamese.

    Related: What the research says about the best way to engage parents

    The first thing I did was establish open communication with parents using ClassDojo, a mobile app that gives families an easy, intuitive central access point to our teachers and staff, automatically translates all messages into parents’ native languages and allows us to share stories about what is happening in school.

    It became an easy way to build trust and collaboration between families and staff.

    Creating that type of visibility was key to breaking down walls between us. And in those early days, we didn’t post about literacy, math or anything related to academics. Instead, we focused solely on attendance and getting families to come inside the school as much as possible.

    We focused on relationship-building activities and joyful learning. We hosted after-school art classes and monthly family Fridays, when families could come to school to engage in a fun activity.

    We organized a Halloween costume drive with candy and fun games for kids; we hosted a Read Across America event where we passed out Play-Doh; and we organized other low-stakes events at school, rooted in building a partnership between home and school.

    Again, our goal wasn’t learning during these meet-ups. It was all in service of building trust and creating meaningful relationships with students and their families.

    Once we had the foundation in place, we added a focus on academics — though we rooted that learning in family engagement, too. For example, our schoolwide focus last year was phonics, so we sent activities home for families to complete with their children that were tied specifically to concepts the students needed reinforced, based on their individual assessments, like long vowel patterns and sight words.

    These activities were taught by the students and their teachers to family members during conferences.

    Beyond helping students, the exercise challenged a false narrative so many families had assumed — that they either didn’t know enough about what was happening in school to help, weren’t confident enough to help or didn’t have enough time.

    Today, the atmosphere at Hamilton feels radically different than when I first walked through the doors. When we first started hosting Family Fridays, about 10 family members and their children showed up.

    Now, we have roughly 200 caregivers at every meet-up. Families run most of the community-based initiatives at the school — from a boutique where families can shop among donated clothes twice a month, to a food distribution center, to a book club, English classes and a monthly meet-up where families can socialize.

    When district leaders visit, they’re always impressed by the participation. I tell them, if you care about family engagement, it has to be so deeply embedded into the system that people don’t have a choice but to do it.

    That’s why I’m constantly thinking about how to center family engagement in staff meetings, in attendance meetings, in literacy and math plans, in behavioral and counseling plans and in meetings about school procedures and budgets.

    It’s a strategy that not only involves families but also supports academic achievement and student well-being. For me, family engagement is the ultimate strategy for academics.

    Sometimes in the K-12 world we keep outreach and academics separate, but in reality, engagement is the key that unlocks our ability to hit academic goals and create a joyful school community.

    Dr. Brittany Daley is the principal of Hamilton Elementary School in San Diego, California.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about family engagement was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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