Above: ICYMI from WIRED.
💥 Lots of questions (and at least one district decision) about Anthropic’s new “Claude for teachers” (Audrey Watters, Benjamin Riley, Joe Phillips)
💥 What would it take for ProPublica stories about public schools exposing kids to sexual predators to note that private schools fail to screen out problematic educators — and vice versa? An additional line of context would be enormously helpful.
💥 AEI’s new Absence Forecast “spits out a prediction of how likely it is that the student will become chronically absent on a scale of 0-100%.”
💥 That didn’t take long: Sally the sex robot is no longer slated for New York classrooms (NYT, Wellsville Sun).
Here’s the Friday newsletter, ICYMI: Deporting enrollment, Trump’s first high school visit, & a classroom sex robot: 🏆 Best Education Journalism of the Week 🏆 (7/24/2026)
Bethany Barnes on investigating school predators, Charol Shakeshaft on the Trump crackdown, and Susan Gonzalez on Interstellar. It’s Friday’s secret bonus section for paid subscribers, revealed to all:
Above: In this new interview, the Tampa Bay Times’ Bethany Barnes talks about the Local Matters newsletter and about her series of investigations into sexual misconduct by school staff both in Oregon and Florida. Click above or read the intro here.
PREDATOR REFLECTIONS: Asked about last week’s 20-district Trump administration crackdown on school predators, expert Charol Shakeshaft responded that she’s not at all surprised — but that there’s much more that needs to be done:
“I’m not surprised,” she wrote me in an email. “We had an earlier crackdown (early 2000s). Both of the crackdowns have come from Republicans. Teachers are more likely to vote for Democrats.” She’s a Democrat but she’s supportive of the effort, which she considers a public health and safety issue. “Up to 17% of students report being sexually abused by a school employee at some point(s) in their school career. That’s a lot of boundary crossing and abuse.” She calls for survey items about sexual misconduct on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey but notes that the Trump administration is limiting that information. “This administration has politicized youth health and development.”
ESSAYS: Here are the best essays, columns, and analysis of the week:
Why school districts can’t disrupt themselves (Michael B. Horn)
Stop Saying Kids Can’t Read (WIRED)
Schools Don’t Just Fail Kids Who Struggle. They Are Run by Kids Who Didn’t. (Joy of Learning)
Dear Alpha School: I Hope You’re Right (The Next 30 Years)
LinkedIn is Microsoft’s A.I. Hype Hole (Epostasy)
Above: “Me picking journalism as My Thing™ at 13 years old” (Chalkbeat’s Susan Gonzalez)
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