AI in school libraries report

A recent report examined K-12 teaching about AI. Some of the key recommendations are based more around how we assign and assess student work, rather than on AI as a specific technology. For example, the report suggested moving away from AI detectors or other adversarial approaches to assessment re-design and instead seeking more valid evidence of student understanding. 

Harris, C. et al. (2026). TeachingAbout.AI K-12 Field Report.  Teaching About. https://teachingabout.ai/report-for-the-k-12-field/

For Classroom Teachers

• Move from punishment to a restorative protocol for suspected AI misuse: conversation, redo opportunity, explicit teaching about the purpose of the assignment.
• Pilot Black Box Assessment in two or three units per grade band where the work has traditionally been a take-home product. Capture and credit the rough draft, the revision, and the rationale—not only the final paper.
• Use AI feedback as preparation for human feedback, not as a substitute. A chatbot can scaffold a first draft; only a teacher can tell a student what the work means and provide recognition.

For Principals and Instructional Leaders

• Reframe district planning documents from “AI policy” to “teaching and learning in an AI-mediated context.” The shift is not cosmetic; it changes what counts as a relevant solution and who needs to be in the room.
• Issue explicit, written permission from district leadership: this is the year we redesign. Specify what divergence is allowed, what evidence is requested, and what supports are available.
• Replace “AI ban” and “AI mandate” framings with explicit harm-reduction policies. Name the harms (engagement-driven design, parasocial bonding, deepfake abuse) and the mitigations.

For School Librarians

• Empower school librarians as in-house consultants on task redesign. Their co-teaching role across subject areas makes them well placed to coach colleagues through structural redesign one unit at a time.
• Use the LibraryReady.AI PreK–12 scope and sequence as a backbone. It is grade-banded, librarian-friendly, and built for exactly this work in all levels of classrooms.
• Treat school librarians as the in-district R&D unit. Their broad view across classrooms, their information-evaluation skills, and their relationship to the LibraryReady.AI scope and sequence make them ideal redesign partners.

Harris, C. et al. (2026). TeachingAbout.AI K-12 Field Report

Social-Emotional Learning Perspectives

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which students develop interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies. This report presents findings from teachers and principals surveyed. These educators addressed questions about the importance and value of SEL in schools, their approaches to promoting and measuring SEL, and their opinions regarding supports for improving SEL. The findings should be useful to developers of SEL-related resources and to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.

Key Findings

• Large majorities of principals described SEL as a top priority.
• Most educators rated a wide range of SEL skills as important; teachers tended to assign greater importance to SEL skills.
• Educators believed that SEL programs can improve student outcomes and school climate.
• Elementary educators tended to use programs and curricula; secondary school educators tended to use informal practices.
• Educators reported using a variety of strategies; positive behavior systems and trauma-informed practices were common.
• Majorities of educators reported receiving SEL training and that schools measured SEL.
• Many educators reported that having more time would improve their school's ability to address SEL. 

Hamilton, L., Doss, C., & Steiner, E. (2019).Teacher and principal perspectives on social and emotional learning in America's schools. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2991.html

Great Principals Retain Great Teachers

A new study finds that effective principals are not only skilled at keeping high-performing teachers—they also strategically don't retain the low performers. This study investigates strategic retention behaviors with longitudinal data from Tennessee. Using multiple measures of teacher and principal effectiveness, the study finds that indeed more effective principals see lower rates of teacher turnover, on average. Moreover, this lower turnover is concentrated among high-performing teachers. In contrast, turnover rates of the lowest-performing teachers, as measured by classroom observation scores, increase substantially under higher-rated principals. This pattern is more apparent in advantaged schools and schools with stable leadership.

Key findings include:

·       Highly rated principals succeed at keeping high-performing teachers while moving out low performers.

·       Lower turnover is concentrated among teachers with higher scores on classroom observation measures and higher student test-performance growth scores (also known as value-added scores).

·       Notably, highly rated principals appear to focus on just one performance measure—teacher observation scores—to identify low-performing teachers to move out.

·       Effective principals likely use informal means, such as “counseling out,” to remove low-performing teachers, rather than relying on administrative procedures. These teachers typically exit teaching rather than move to another school in the same district.

Grissom, J. A., & Bartanen, B. (2018). Strategic retention: Principal effectiveness and teacher turnover in multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. American Educational Research Journal. https://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831218797931

Technology Counts 2018 report

Technology Counts 2018 examines what principals are thinking and doing about some of the most vexing technology issues in their schools. Screen time concerns, social media behavior, personalized learning, and computer science trends are all now important elements of a principal’s job. School leaders are worried about technology. But they're also supporting its expanded use in schools. For example, School leaders worry about students and social media, but most don’t feel fully prepared to tackle the challenge.
Technology counts. (2018). Education Week.  https://www.edweek.org/media/school-leaders-and-technology-education-week-research.pdf

Principals on Student Learning

This section of the Brown Center Report offered an international perspective on the role of the school principal as an instructional leader. Principals’ responses to TIMSS surveys were examined at the national level, along with test scores in mathematics. Principals in three consistently high achieving countries—Finland, Hong Kong, and Japan—are especially reluctant to give advice. Principals in Korea, on the other hand, another perennially high achieving country, are more activist in this regard. U.S. principals of schools with a fourth grade (typically an elementary school) are about average in terms of giving instructional advice but register above the international average on activities related to school goals. American principals of schools with an eighth grade (typically a middle school) appear about average on all four surveyed activities.

Loveless, T. (2016). The 2016 Brown Center Report on American education: How well are American students learning?: With sections on reading and math in the Common Core era, tracking and advanced placement (AP), and principals as instructional leaders. Brown Center Report, 3(5), 1-36. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Brown-Center-Report-2016.pdf

Involvement by States in Principal Preparation

This survey is a first-of-its-kind effort to capture the current state of affairs in state principal preparation, licensure policy, principal tenure, and data collection on the output of these policies. This report explores how states are using their authority to increase the supply of effective principals focused on raising student achievement. The findings are based on self-reported data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report includes state policy recommendations to drive needed reforms and gives the educational community new insights on promising efforts by states to improve the supply of high-quality principals. This report, supplemented by the individual state snapshots and the state database, details the findings. It is hoped that these will be used to drive needed reforms and give state policymakers new insights on what their peers are doing to improve the supply of high quality leaders.

Briggs, K., Cheney, G. R., Davis, J., & Moll, K. A. (2013). Operating in the dark: What outdated state policies and data gaps mean for effective school leadership. Dallas, TX: George W. Bush Institute. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED560209.pdf