This week, W/A Senior Advisor and former New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education Brian Bridges is filling in for Ben.

Last month, I participated in a panel at UNITE, the nation's largest gathering of HBCU leaders and experts, held in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of UNCF’s Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute, which I led for almost 9 years. It was a chance to reconnect with many of the researchers, advocates, and institutional leaders I worked alongside during my time at UNCF, and to see how far the Institute has come since then. It was also the setting for Dr. Michael Lomax's announcement that he would step down as president and CEO of UNCF, bringing to a close a tenure that fundamentally reshaped how HBCUs—and the students they serve—are understood.

For more than two decades as president and CEO of UNCF—and for decades before that as an elected official, civic leader, HBCU president and educator—Dr. Lomax has worked to elevate HBCUs in the national conversation. And when he arrived at UNCF in 2004, HBCUs were primarily framed through a lens of scarcity, nostalgia or crisis. Under his leadership, the conversation has begun to change. HBCUs are increasingly recognized for what they have always been: engines of economic mobility, civic leadership, and innovation that are, in many cases, punching far above their weight.

That shift did not happen by accident. It took years of institution- and coalition-building, advocacy and an insistence that supporting students also means strengthening, celebrating, investing in and gradually transforming the colleges that serve them. The next chapter for HBCUs cannot simply be about asking these institutions to do more with less, but instead, doing more with more (or doing more with what they so rightfully deserve). 

As Dr. Lomax prepares to pass the torch, his legacy is both indelible and unfinished. W/A Notes spoke with Dr. Lomax about how the national conversation around HBCUs has changed, the opportunities ahead and the charge he leaves for the leaders who come next.

Q: How has the national conversation around HBCUs changed during your tenure—and what do you believe drove that change?

Lomax: When I came to UNCF, I assumed people already understood the value of HBCUs. What I quickly realized was that we had to make the case all over again—not just with compelling stories, but with data, research and measurable outcomes. Over the past two decades, we've worked alongside our member institutions and many partners to demonstrate that HBCUs are extraordinary engines of opportunity, producing graduates who become leaders in business, government, education and every sector of American life.

That work has helped shift the conversation. HBCUs are no longer viewed simply through the lens of need or historical significance. Increasingly, they're recognized for their return on investment — their ability to drive economic mobility.

Q:What are the biggest opportunities facing the field as you pass the torch to a new generation? What is the greatest challenge that remains for the sector?

Lomax: We've seen unprecedented philanthropic support, greater public awareness and renewed confidence in HBCUs. The question now is how we turn that into lasting institutional strength. Some campuses are still recovering from decades of underinvestment, while others are positioned to become national leaders in research, innovation and workforce development. Our job is to help every institution move further along that journey.

The challenge is that higher education itself is facing enormous change. Artificial intelligence, demographic shifts and growing skepticism about the value of college are forcing every institution to rethink its role. HBCUs have always prepared students not only for jobs, but for lives of purpose and leadership. I believe that mission is more important now than ever. 

Q: You have consistently argued that supporting HBCUs requires investing not only in students, but also in institutional capacity. Why has that distinction been so important to your leadership?

Lomax: Scholarships change individual lives, and they'll always be central to our mission. But if we're serious about expanding opportunity, we also have to strengthen the institutions that educate those students. That means investing in endowments, technology, faculty, facilities, research capacity and leadership. Strong institutions create opportunities not just for today's students, but for generations to come. I'm especially proud that UNCF itself has embraced that philosophy. When I arrived, our endowment was roughly $60 million. Today it's more than half a billion dollars.

Q: What is one charge you would leave with the next generation of HBCU and higher education leaders?

Lomax: Never lose sight of why this work matters. There will always be political debates, economic pressures and changing technologies. Those things come and go. But our responsibility is to prepare students not only to earn a living, but to lead meaningful lives and strengthen their communities. We also can’t lose sight of the need to keep building coalitions. One of UNCF's greatest strengths has been our ability to work across political parties, across philanthropy and across sectors. When people see the impact HBCUs have in their own communities, support follows. Continue telling that story, continue innovating, and never stop believing in the transformative power of higher education.

Q: What comes next for Michael Lomax?

Lomax: My immediate focus is making sure UNCF is in the strongest possible position for the leader who comes next. Beyond that, I'd like to return to teaching. I've had the privilege of serving in many capacities throughout my career, but I've never stopped thinking of myself as a teacher. If I can continue contributing in that way, I'll consider myself very fortunate.

A new WestEd evaluation offers encouraging evidence that outcomes-based contracting can improve student outcomes while helping school districts and providers work more effectively together. [Education Week, subscription model] 

Why it matters: School districts spend roughly $100 billion annually on contracted services, second only to employee compensation. But traditional contracts generally pay providers for delivering a product or service - not for whether it works.

Driving the news: WestEd studied eight early-adopter districts in California, Florida, Mississippi and Texas that used outcomes-based contracts for tutoring and education technology.

The independent, multiyear evaluation was commissioned by the Center for Outcomes Based Contracting, which supported participating districts as they designed and implemented the agreements.

What they found: Every intervention that operated for its intended duration and had sufficient data for a rigorous causal analysis produced positive student results.

Zoom in: The benefits extended beyond student performance. District and provider leaders reported that outcomes-based contracts led to clearer expectations, stronger communication, more frequent use of data and a greater sense of mutual accountability.

By the numbers: Outcomes-based contracting has expanded from five completed contracts in 2022 to 46 in 2025. Eighty-seven education agencies have now engaged with the Center.

In the three interventions for which WestEd examined detailed payment data, approximately 35% to 37% of district spending depended on performance.

The sample is too small to draw broad conclusions about cost savings. But the findings suggest districts can incorporate performance incentives and more robust implementation support without necessarily paying a premium.

Yes, and: The evaluation also provides a roadmap for districts interested in adopting the model.

Successful partnerships clearly defined which students would participate, delivered the planned dosage over the intended period, involved school leaders and regularly used data to improve implementation.

What they're saying: WestEd concluded that OBC shows “considerable promise” as a strategy for improving student outcomes and strengthening district-provider relationships. Researchers also credited COBC's technical assistance with helping districts navigate the complex work of designing metrics, negotiating contracts and monitoring performance.

The bottom line: Outcomes-based contracting is doing more than changing how districts pay vendors. Early evidence suggests it can create the shared responsibility, transparency and implementation discipline needed to turn education investments into measurable results for students.

What's next: WestEd recommends studying the approach across more districts, providers and intervention types. That growing evidence base could help districts understand not only which programs work, but for which students, under what conditions and at what cost.

A bipartisan package aimed at protecting children from social media and artificial intelligence is headed to the Senate floor, setting up a showdown with the House over how far Congress should go in holding technology companies accountable. [POLITICO] 

The Senate Commerce Committee advanced four bills this week, including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require online platforms to provide safeguards for users under 17, strengthen parental controls, protect minors' data, and allow young users to opt out of personalized recommendation algorithms. [CNBC]

The centerpiece of the Senate bill is a "duty of care" provision requiring platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent and mitigate harms associated with their design features. Those harms include anxiety and depression, eating and substance-use disorders, suicidal behavior, sexual exploitation, physical violence, and online harassment.

The committee approved KOSA by voice vote. The bill has 76 Senate cosponsors and passed the full chamber 91-3 in 2024 before stalling in the House. [K-12 Dive]

The House-Senate Divide

The House passed its own kids' online-safety package in June, but it omitted the duty-of-care standard amid concerns that the provision could encourage platforms to restrict constitutionally protected speech. That omission is a nonstarter for KOSA's Senate sponsors.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who introduced the bill with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), called the House legislation "toothless" and a "pale imitation" of meaningful technology-industry accountability.

Civil-liberties organizations have raised similar concerns about the Senate version from the opposite direction. The Center for Democracy and Technology argues that its duty-of-care provision could incentivize censorship, threaten users' privacy, and disproportionately restrict information available to LGBTQ+ youth, young people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.

AI Safeguards Move Forward

The committee also advanced three measures addressing children's interactions with artificial intelligence:

What to Watch

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) expects the chamber to consider the bills as a package in September. But lawmakers will return from recess to a crowded calendar, including government-funding negotiations and the approaching midterm elections.

Even if the package clears the Senate, lawmakers will still need to reconcile the competing versions of KOSA. The central question is whether the House will accept a federal duty-of-care standard or whether the disagreement will once again prevent Congress from sending a kids' online-safety bill to the president.

For schools, the debate reaches beyond social media. The package reflects growing federal scrutiny of the AI chatbots and digital platforms students increasingly use inside and outside the classroom and could establish new expectations for parental oversight, age-appropriate design, and student data privacy.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) wants to replace the Head Start rulebook. This comes after the proposed (but not implemented) gutting of federal funds in last year’s White House budget. A new notice of proposed rulemaking would rescind the Head Start Program Performance Standards in their entirety — more than 1,400 provisions across federal regulations — and replace them with a single, consolidated Part 1301. This includes controversial requirements, including English-only instruction and weakened curriculum standards (see here and here). 

Why it matters: ACF says provisions duplicative of the Head Start Act are being removed from regulation, not from programs' obligations — statutory requirements on eligibility, governance, disability services, monitoring, and civil rights remain in effect regardless. Comments are due 60 days after the rule's scheduled publication.

What could change: 

Bottom Line: Regulations are not final yet, but critics warn the proposal will weaken standards through the new flexibilities. ACF’s defense rests on the $2.2B in cost savings their Regulatory Impact Analysis projects — which combines cost reductions and adjustments to each program’s administrative cap from 15% to 5%.

Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is launching a national education policy group, Empowering America’s Parents, with a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign urging Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states to participate in the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit. [NBC News] 

The program, enacted through last year’s tax and spending law, provides federal tax credits for donations to scholarship-granting organizations. Participating states can use the scholarships for private school tuition, tutoring, disability services and other K-12 expenses.

Why it matters: The campaign will test whether Republicans can turn a complicated federal tax incentive into a politically resonant parents’ rights issue. Youngkin’s team says its polling shows support rises once voters learn how the program works — but that public awareness remains low.

The big picture: Education helped propel Youngkin to the Virginia governor’s mansion in 2021. This new organization gives him a vehicle to take that message into presidential battleground states, pressure Democratic governors and maintain a national presence as the prospective 2028 Republican field takes shape.

NVIDIA and StudyFetch are offering K-12 districts free access to AI for All, a new course that adapts NVIDIA's Deep Learning Institute training into a classroom-ready format. High school students and teachers work through it side by side, learning how AI works, when to trust it, and how to use it responsibly, then building their first AI agent together. A personalized conversational tutor guides every student along the way. Licenses are free until all 250,000 are claimed. Districts planning for the coming school year should register now.

The College Transparency Act has fresh momentum after advancing 21-1 through the Senate HELP Committee, but its path to becoming law remains narrow. The bipartisan bill would create a secure federal system linking existing data to provide a more complete picture of enrollment, completion and post-college earnings — including for students who do not receive federal aid. With longtime champion Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) leaving office in five months, supporters are making a final push, likely by attaching the measure to broader legislation. But opposition from House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) over privacy concerns remains the central obstacle. The debate is especially timely as federal policy increasingly ties institutional accountability to graduates’ earnings while relying on data that omits significant portions of the student population. [Inside Higher Ed, subscription model]

Apprenticeships for America (AFA) and Education Northwest are fielding a new survey of the organizations that help employers start, run, and grow Registered Apprenticeship programs. The 10-minute survey covers five areas, including organizational role, services, funding and capacity, outcomes, and challenges ahead, and will inform the inaugural Apprenticeship Intermediaries Field Report.

Intermediaries take on wildly different roles across the apprenticeship ecosystem, from direct program sponsorship to employer engagement and technical assistance. Any organization that supports employers in starting, administering, or running Registered Apprenticeship programs is encouraged to participate, including workforce boards, community-based organizations, industry groups, and government agencies. AFA asks for one response per organization.

The field has never had a national baseline. This report aims to give researchers, policymakers, and practitioners a clearer view of who these organizations are and what it takes for them to scale.

Respondents receive a $50 discount code toward AFA membership and a shot at one of five free registrations to the 2027 AFA Summit. The survey will be open until September 4.

Check out W/A Jobs, which features 3,504 career opportunities from 322 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that caught our eye over the past week: