Over the past several months, the W/A Notes team has published exclusive, in-depth interviews with state superintendents making some of the most interesting moves in education, including Alabama’s Eric Mackey and Virginia’s Jenna Conway. We open this week’s edition with the next installment of this series.

Maryland's 4th grade reading ranking jumped 20 spots on NAEP in two years. But according to Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright, the real work is just getting started.

Wright, best known for her role in ushering in the “Mississippi Miracle,” came out of retirement because she saw potential in her home state, and knew Maryland’s children deserved a system aligned around their success.

In a W/A Notes exclusive, Superintendent Carey Wright discussed the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, the state's new assessment system, and what it looks like to build an education system that prioritizes student achievement.

CodePath, America’s largest provider of collegiate computer science education, is partnering with the tech giant Anthropic to launch a new fellowship program aimed at helping early-career professionals at nonprofits utilize AI to advance their missions.

Supported by a $150 million donation from Anthropic, the Claude Corps program will train and place 1,000 fellows at nonprofits across the U.S. to teach them how to leverage AI in their work. CodePath will serve as the program’s training partner, responsible for delivering training in the use of Anthropic’s large-language model, Claude, and providing ongoing mentorship to fellows throughout their year-long term.

In an interview with The Associated Press, CodePath CEO Michael Ellison said, “I think we need programs that are meeting folks where they are when you’re looking at the traditional late adopters—from nonprofits to governments, to schools… We’re putting humans into the organizations that serve the majority of Americans as a way to bring them along and bring our communities along.”

Claude Corps fellows will help nonprofits equip powerful AI tools and systems and teach their teams critical AI literacy skills. At least 400 nonprofits—including Code the Dream (Durham, NC), StriveTogether (Cincinnati, OH), and Year Up United (Boston, MA)—are expected to host fellows over the next 12 months. Host organizations will each receive a one-time $10,000 implementation grant, and access to Claude licenses and credits.

Jennifer Blatz, CEO and president of StriveTogether, shared that Claude Corps fellows will help her organization and its network more effectively utilize AI to more effectively assess the success of their programs, and open the door for humans to do more of the work they are uniquely equipped to do: “AI can help us work smarter, but trust building and community collaboration, that’s a deeply human part of the work… that’s not going away just because we use this tool.”

Applications for the fellowship opened on Wednesday. The first cohort will begin this fall, and subsequent cohorts will kick off in January and August 2027. Anthropic’s ambition is to expand Claude Corps beyond the initial 1,000 fellows after evaluating the success of the first year, and use it as a model for other initiatives internationally.

This week, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Kevin Salinger announced that scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) and state leaders, including a growing contingent of Democratic governors, will need to wait until the end of September for the full guidance on the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC) program.

Deputy Assistant Secretary Salinger did, however, offer an early look at key elements of what might be included in forthcoming Section 25F regulations, providing an initial roadmap for the operational and compliance requirements likely to shape implementation when the program goes live in January 2027. 

The Department’s guidance, which includes operational flexibilities for SGOs, should make it easier for more SGOs to participate in the program. But the preview also clarified that states wouldn’t have the ability to place “substantive SGO-specific requirements” beyond those in the federal law, which may deter participation from state leaders who were hoping for greater flexibility in shaping their programs. Indeed, Treasury’s position played a role in Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s announcement today that she will not participate in the program.

Additional key takeaways from Treasury’s sneak peek: 

The wait isn’t over for the stakeholders seeking clarity on the new federal program, but Treasury's preview offers insight of what lies ahead as states and SGOs prepare for the program's launch come January.

*In addressing the definition of “school” within the statute, Treasury also confirmed that public schools and schools “operated by a federally recognized Tribe or tribal organization” will qualify as schools.

The fourth annual Solutions Summit, co-hosted by Whiteboard Advisors and ISTE+ASCD, takes place Sunday, June 28 in Orlando, Florida, ahead of the co-located ISTELive and ASCD Annual Conference—bringing together education executives, product leaders, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs committed to driving meaningful innovation in teaching and learning. 

This year's programming will look at where AI in education is actually headed (with a keynote on reimagining human connection in the age of AI), feature candid conversations on product impact (including how to talk about evidence with education leaders and an evidence hackathon), and examine the market signals shaping the next era of edtech—funding shifts, compliance pressures, outcomes-based contracting, and what's emerging beyond the U.S. market. 

The Nation's Report Card delivered a split decision this week. New NAEP long-term trend results show 9-year-olds gaining ground in reading and math, with the biggest improvements coming from the lowest-performing students—a reversal of the pattern that defined the last decade. Officials pointed to the early-literacy push as a likely factor; more than 40 states have passed legislation on evidence-based reading instruction in the past five years. But 13-year-olds were flat, and their average reading score is no better than it was in 1971. "The lack of progress among 13-year-olds raises huge questions and ought to serve as a catalyst for change," said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. The survey data attached to the test may be the most striking part of the release: just 14% of 13-year-olds say they read for fun almost every day, down from 27% in 2012.

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities announced this week that it is leaving the Council of Recognized Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC), the association representing the nation's seven largest accreditors, as part of a broader effort to reposition itself as a national accreditor. Commission president Selena Grace cited the need to engage with a wider range of accreditor types and noted that C-RAC's structure made that difficult. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges also announced it is changing its name—dropping the regional identifier—effective September 1.

Both moves reflect the continued unwinding of the regional accreditation model, which formally began when geographic boundaries were eliminated in 2020. The current administration has proposed rules that would bar use of the term "regionally accredited" altogether, with broader draft regulations potentially taking effect in July 2027. Grace and the Northwest Commission are co-leading the Accreditor Leadership Roundtable, a coalition of a dozen accreditor types working to build a national dialogue on the future of accreditation. [The Chronicle of Higher Education, subscription model]

In Stanford Social Innovation Review, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor and W/A Senior Advisor Kaya Henderson argues that we no longer agree on what to teach, but we still run schools on a century-old structure that puts every decision in adult hands. Her fix: hand students some of that power. When she gathered DCPS students for the district's first student budget hearing, their clearest ask was for more rigorous coursework—something that years of adult hearings had never surfaced. She expanded AP access, and participation and pass rates both rose.

Check out W/A Jobs, which features 3,737 career opportunities from 318 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that caught our eye over the past week: