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Most-clicked story of the week:

U.S. 15-year-olds plummeted 14 points on reading since 2022 in the latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment. Speaking on results from the 2025 installment of the assessment, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the decline was equivalent to a seven-month loss in learning.

Still, U.S. students outpaced the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average on the reading portion of the exam, and higher than the average scores of 75 of the 89 participating countries. K-12 Dive took a closer look at the results to identify key takeaways school leaders should know.

AI’s expanding education footprint

• Special education experts and educators are pondering the role artificial intelligence may be playing in the growing number of complaints — a concern that led the Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education to issue a guide on ethical and practical ways AI can help parents advocate for children with disabilities. The center’s director, Melanie Reese, told K-12 Dive that state dispute resolution agencies say they are seeing complaints with hundreds of pages attached, inaccurate interpretations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and even due process filings with AI-hallucinated case law cited. 
• An agreement between the American Federation of Teachers, the United Federation of Teachers and Microsoft announced on Sept. 9 will hold the tech giant to a legally enforceable safety and privacy standard for AI in schools that use its products. The agreement prohibits Microsoft from using student and educator data to train AI models or from selling or using that data for advertising purposes, and it requires schools to have ultimate control over how the data is used, retained and erased. The deal also mandates strong security protections and for platforms to be designed in ways that avoid harmful or manipulative experiences for students.
• In the two years since adopting an AI tool, the Jordan School District in Utah has reportedly seen a 28% increase in students’ critical thinking skills and a doubling of higher-level reasoning across subjects and grade levels, according to a case study that analyzed nearly 14,000 student-to-AI “conversations” from 82 teachers. Jared Covili, the district’s digital teaching and learning administrator, said the district views AI as an opportunity rather than a problem and sees it as a tool to deepen student learning instead of simply improving teacher efficiency.

The latest on federal resources and data

• Amid its ongoing downsizing, the U.S. Department of Education announced the launch of a new Learning Agenda Playbook on Sept. 9 aimed at helping states take the lead on educational decision-making. The resource includes case studies, templates, guidance and other supports to help state education agencies set goals, measure progress and make financial investments in their initiatives. Kirsten Baesler, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the department, said the playbook will allow states “to ask and answer their own questions of issues and goals and matters that are most important to those states and local communities.”
• A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the number of students with disabilities who were educated in general education classrooms for 40% or more of the day grew 25% since the 2012-13 school year. But that detail is only part of the story, Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity, wrote in a K-12 Dive opinion piece. In context, she wrote, the population of students with disabilities grew 21%, meaning the pace of progress on students with disabilities learning in inclusive settings is only modestly ahead of the growing percentage of students with disabilities overall.