Most-clicked story of the week:
This week, K-12 Dive published its sixth annual spotlight on Rising Leaders in K-12 — a look at 10 standout assistant principals and assistant superintendents going the extra mile in their schools and districts.
Narrowing down the slew of nominations we received to just five people in each category was no easy task, but the educators spotlighted in the feature are thinking outside of the box and innovating on initiatives ranging from improving student interventions and supports to turning around entire school systems and bolstering culture.
The portion of the high school class of 2025 attending low-poverty schools who immediately went on to attend college, up from 73.1% of the class of 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The portion of graduates from high-poverty schools who went on to attend college also increased year-over-year from 50.8% to 51.2%.
The state of turnover in K-12
- New data from ILO Group finds superintendent turnover in the nation’s 500 largest school districts has declined to pre-pandemic levels. Among these districts, 87 — or 17.4% — experienced a leadership change between July 2025 and July 2026. That’s down from 23% in 2024-25 and 20% in 2023-24. Superintendent turnover was around 14% to 16% prior to the pandemic.
- While post-pandemic teacher turnover also steadily fell over a four-year period, research from Education Resource Strategies finds teachers working in high-poverty schools or special education are still more likely to leave than their peers. A six-state analysis by ERS found the average turnover rate for the teaching profession was 16% during the 2024-25 school year, and the largest portion of those who left their schools stopped teaching in their state and may have exited the profession entirely.
Federal policy developments
- A Trump administration proposal may spell the end of required employee demographic data tracking for school districts with 100 or more employees. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has required school districts to collect and report data on their employees’ race, ethnicity, sex and activity assignment classification since 1974 under EEO-5, or the Elementary-Secondary Staff Information Report. The proposed rule is expected to be finalized following the end of its public comment period last month.
- In a new court document filed Sept. 14 as part of New York v. McMahon, the more than 20 states and the District of Columbia — which sued the U.S. Department of Education last year following mass layoffs — alleged the agency is withholding over 1,000 documents related to how the reduction in force was planned and carried out. The department is said to have identified 1,212 documents during discovery, out of which approximately 1,072 were allegedly withheld in June.
- During two panel sessions at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education on Sept. 17, education leaders and policymakers expressed optimism and caution in regard to school choice initiatives while also praising the civic-minded nature of the nation’s students. “The thing about choice is it’s risk and opportunity, and it’s up to us to design to maximize the opportunity and minimize the risk,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. “I think the most important thing for state leaders to think about right now is to listen to families and to students about what they want, what they are missing, and try to respond to that.”
