Leading Through Learning

What makes reading fun? Is it starting a new book in a beloved series? Identifying deeply with a character’s experience? A new platform created by a community of educators is helping young readers find their reading identity to build motivation and confidence as they develop foundational literacy skills.

What is, and is not, working in today’s schools? What should school look like in 2045? How would you bring that vision to life in your community? High school students from across New York City spent their spring break tackling these questions as part of the first cohort of the Carnegie Future of School Institute hosted by the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University. Through this free learning experience, young people worked with peers from different schools, backgrounds, and communities to design their vision for the future of school. 

On a recent evening in the Bronx, an eighth grader demonstrated for a roomful of parents how to use ChatGPT to break down an Algebra problem. For many parents, most of whom said they have struggled to help their children with their math homework, this was the first time they were using Artificial Intelligence (AI)  to support their children’s learning. This workshop was the first in a series of Family AI Nights co-hosted by the Center for Educational Innovation and CPRL. The workshops are part of CPRL’s ongoing effort to strengthen tech-powered school-family partnerships in New York…

Technology is changing the education landscape and creating an opportunity to engage families in their children’s learning. Listen in on a conversation at SXSW EDU among staff from CPRL, NYC Public Schools, Robin Hood Learning + Tech Fund, and The GIANT Room on how schools, systems and organizations are using AI and other ed tech to strengthen school-family partnerships and support student learning. 

At CPRL, 2024 was another year of helping leaders across the education sector rethink not just what they are doing, but how they are doing it to better serve each and every student. 

Over the course of the year, we worked with dozens of ed sector partners from across the U.S. to grapple with some of the biggest challenges in public education. At the same time we grew the pool of public sector leaders by 65 aspiring leaders from an interdisciplinary group of 18 professional schools in law, policy, education, business, and data science, as part of our intensive semester-long equity-focused…

100 of our partners – school system leaders, leaders of nonprofit support and advocacy organizations, funders, and other supporters – joined us for a memorable evening of celebration and connection. Columbia Law School Dean Daniel Abebe and Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Angélica Infante-Green were there to share their own insights, experiences, and visions for the future of public education. These continued partnerships are critical for driving meaningful change, fueled by a powerful formula of relationships, innovative thinking, and collective…

In the last year, more than 500 New York City public school students have worked with classmates, a multidisciplinary team of artists, educators, and writers, and AI, to devise games and books that bring to life characters with special powers and identities as part of GIANT Room. The organization is exploring different ways of providing a platform for amplifying student and family voices in the educational design process. In short, they are creating the next generation of collaborative designers. 

Since 2020, CPRL has worked with Lawrence Public Schools (LPS) in Massachusetts to create a framework to guide its school improvement work. As one of the lowest performing districts in the state, LPS was put into receivership in 2011. The district set out to transform from a highly centralized management structure to a new model that creates and maintains operational and performance ground rules and standards and grants school leaders with school-level autonomy to meet those standards. LPS engaged CPRL to lead a process for developing a School Autonomy Framework to help the district better…

High schools are where futures are made, where teens build skills and develop mindsets to prepare them for young adulthood, college, jobs, and community life. Over the next month, about 3 million young people across the U.S. will take their next steps toward their future as they get their high school diplomas. As we send them off, we wonder, have we set them up for success? How can we ensure that the young people coming up behind them get what they need from their high school experiences?

“It is amazing that the systems that we entrust with managing our own children’s learning are terrible at learning themselves.” So Harvard University economist Tom Kane bluntly and accurately framed a core impediment to meaningful advances in student learning across the country. Central to this quandary is that many educators still don’t know which interventions are working for which students and why. To accelerate and make sustained progress and ensure we are spending limited funds efficiently and effectively, we need to redesign systems to learn. 

Why do different school systems using the same strategies get wildly disparate results? CPRL co-founder Ayeola Kinlaw facilitated a powerful conversation at SXSW EDU with national, district, and school leaders on how their systems are getting strong outcomes by using CPRL's research-based leadership approach. Amiee Winchester of Baltimore City Public Schools, Chris Thorn of Partners in School Innovation, and Joyce Randall of the Network for College Success in Chicago shared stories of how they treat daily operations as chances to get ever better and have seen results. 

For the last several months, dozens of practitioners have been learning with and from each other how to devise strategies for measuring the impact of their partnerships with families through tech-infused learning and communication. Leaning on CPRL's Leading Through Learning Playbook, they are identifying what people, policies, and conditions will drive forward or inhibit their work. Central to this is determining how to integrate measurement fully and seamlessly into their teams’ daily work. In its effort to advance childhood literacy, Start Lighthouse is taking an innovative approach to…