The Trump administration's rhetoric about returning power to the states has triggered a wave of interest in, well, states. But watching the broader education ecosystem suddenly “discover” states has felt a bit like watching TikTok-obsessed middle schoolers convince themselves they invented hacky sack.

At W/A, we've seen this movie before. In fact, the firm that would ultimately become W/A grew out of a remarkably similar moment.

In the early 2000s, scholars and policy hands described what they saw as the “new federalism”: a devolution of influence from Washington back to statehouses that took shape across 16 successive years of former governors in the White House. First Clinton. Then Bush. Both had run states. Both understood, in ways that federal policymakers often don't, where the real levers of policy actually sit.

And when it comes to education, states don't tend to sit around waiting for permission from Washington.

Long before there was a national standards and assessment movement, there was a state-based shift toward standards and accountability—not because of a federal mandate, but because states understood the fundamental connection between education, opportunity, and economic competitiveness. The urgency, too, originated from statehouses and governors, who have always been far more proximate to the immediate needs, realities, and concerns of learners, employers, parents, and educators

The Charlottesville Education Summit of 1989 was, after all, a governors' project—convened by former President George H.W. Bush and organized by then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in his role as chair of the National Governors Association. The summit placed "responsibility for this system squarely in the hands of state leaders,” and from it emerged six National Education Goals—a product of governors who had spent years watching their states' economies lag behind the demands of a changing workforce.

Clinton took the goals formulated by governors at the summit with him to the White House, where they served as inspiration for his administration’s education policy priorities. Once again, federal policy evolved from state experience, not the other way around.

Years later, NCLB was packaged and branded federally, but its DNA was state-grown. Jeb Bush's Florida reforms demonstrated that choice, accountability, and transparency could move the needle on student achievement. In a recent interview with Michael Horn, he reflected on the ways in which states are now learning from each other as new types of choice programs emerge. 

Many of NCLB’s architects had prior state experience and federalist instincts. Margaret Spellings, long before her appointment as secretary, brought a state-level perspective to bear on her crucial White House role after serving as George W. Bush’s senior advisor on education policy while he was still the governor of Texas. 

During the Obama era, when the department was led by a big-city superintendent turned Secretary of Education and later a former education commissioner, federal education policy was likewise predicated on state primacy—whether it said so out loud or not. Race to the Top was a competition among states. The Obama administration’s waiver program handed states an off-ramp from NCLB's more untenable requirements with the goal of fueling innovation.

In recent years we’ve seen that sometimes, when Washington steps back, states step up. The "Southern Surge” is the result of consistent, courageous, and sustained leadership at the state level. As AEI's Rick Hess put it: "A decade ago, would you have guessed that the nation would be looking to Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee to serve as our K-12 torchbearers?" Mississippi is now the only state in the country to show gains across all performance levels over the last decade.

This isn't just a K-12 story, either. Ohio and Tennessee’s performance-based funding models for higher education (which ties state appropriations for colleges and universities to student outcomes like retention and degree completion) is precisely the kind of innovation that emerges when states are empowered to experiment. 

More than half of states have now adopted some version of performance-based funding for higher education, not because Washington told them to, but because they saw the logic. Today, these models have evolved considerably, with many now focused beyond just college completion and on workforce and career outcomes—a move the federal government is just now embracing, with institutions set to be on the hook for workforce earnings starting July 1.

To be sure, the concept of states rights in education has a troubled history that long predates the early aughts. And federal investments, regulation, and research have played (and, IMHO, should continue to play) an important role. 

But states are, and always have been, the most powerful force in American education because they actually have to live with its consequences. The question for this moment isn't whether states can handle the responsibility. History has already answered that. The question is whether they'll wield their power wisely—and whether the rest of us are paying close enough attention.

One more thing: The W/A team will be at the Education Writers Association National Seminar in Baltimore next week (June 2–5). If you're going to be there, drop us a note. We'd love to meet up.

The federal funding story has dominated headlines for the past year, including stories on delayed Title funding, block grant proposals, and moving programs to other agencies (to name a few). It deserves attention. But for most district leaders, the harder, slower-moving problem is making ends meet with declining budgets from state and local dollars. 

Enrollment is down. Costs are up. State funding formulas weren't built for what's happening. And there's very little runway left to adjust.

Demographers have been sounding this alarm since at least 2014. Birth rates declined steadily after the Great Recession, and school-age populations were always going to follow. Most state funding systems knew this was coming. Many districts did too.

Yet, many agencies have been slow to respond and manage costs. One of the clearest indicators of fiscal distress is the gap between lost enrollment revenue and rising personnel costs. A Whiteboard Advisors analysis of NCES data comparing changes in staffing and enrollment shows that many of the largest agencies are losing revenue due to declining enrollments while increasing their personnel costs, putting them in a foreseeable predicament.

Then there's the newcomer collapse. Miami-Dade typically enrolls around 15,000-20,000 first-time U.S. students in a given year. This year, it enrolled a few thousand—an estimated 85%+ drop. LAUSD has seen its newcomer population fall by more than 20% over two years. New York City is reporting similar pressures. These aren’t marginal shifts; newcomer students are part of the enrollment base that district budgets are built around.

The fiscal consequences are already arriving. Houston ISD is projecting $50-60 million in annual state funding losses if trends hold, and has already moved to mitigate these losses by cutting over 300 staff positions and is further recommending the closure of 12 schools.

Even districts maintaining enrollments are getting squeezed from other directions.

Diesel prices alone are forcing real-time budget revisions. Yakima, Washington paid $3.84 per gallon for diesel last school year. By late April, it was $6.30, putting the 16,000-student district $100,000 over budget on transportation. A recent survey of 188 district leaders found 40% have already adjusted bus routes; 12% have cut planned summer instruction. If prices hold, leaders are anticipating cuts to extracurriculars, facilities maintenance, and noninstructional staffing.

And while budgets tighten, the vendor pitches are accelerating. Chalkbeat’s Lily Altavena asked five superintendents to share every sales pitch that landed in their inboxes on a single day in March. The result—"transformative experiences," "research-backed answers," unsolicited calendar invites—is a vivid picture of an AI marketing arms race aimed squarely at leaders who don't have money to spend.

As W/A SVP and Co-Director of Research David DeSchyver wrote in March, last year's federal funding disruptions—the July 2025 formula freeze, the ESSER liquidation fight, the OMB grant pause—were destabilizing. Most of the dollars eventually came through, and Congress held the line on core formula funding in the FY2026 appropriations.

The next inflection point is July 1, 2026. If federal formula fund disbursements arrive on time, as expected, and districts can move forward with carry-over for remaining federal dollars into the fall, it will be a meaningful stabilizer heading into a difficult year.

The average superintendent tenure is now below four years. That churn makes long-term decision-making harder and means district leaders often walk in the door facing a structural imbalance between declining revenue and rising costs. With limited time and resources to try and fix it.

This week, the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking committee reached consensus on what is arguably the most contentious rulemaking yet in this Trump administration.

Notably: The AIM regulations are the first set of rules to move forward in the Trump administration that are not associated with the statutory changes made by Congress through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (The One Big Beautiful Bill Act included provisions that catalyzed the recently finalized RISE regulations and Workforce Pell rules, along with the proposed AHEAD institutional accountability regulations.)

The consensus draft of the accreditation regulations carries many of the priorities highlighted in President Trump’s April 2025 executive order on accreditation, including new regulatory provisions designed to limit “unlawful preferences” at institutions for students, staff, or contractors based on “race, color, national origin, or sex, including in admissions, hiring, and the selection of contracts.”

Mirroring the executive order, the proposed regulations would also require accrediting agencies to evaluate whether institutions have a policy “designed to support, promote, and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas amongst faculty.”  The proposed regulations would also shorten the timeline to recognition for new accreditors and are intended to create more competition among existing accreditors.

Additionally, the committee reached consensus on proposed regulations that could have significant impacts on both accreditors and the institutions that must now align with the new standards. These include:

ED will now send the draft regulations to the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. Once OIRA completes its review, ED will publish the draft regulations as a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register for a public comment period of not less than 30 days. 

Since the AIM Committee reached consensus on the draft regulations, ED will publish the draft regulations largely as agreed to by the AIM committee (barring any contradictions with existing law that OIRA finds in its review and minor technical changes). In the three recent sets of rules ED has crafted, it has taken roughly 12 to 15 weeks for ED to publish a NRPM after the committee reached consensus.

After the public comment period, ED will review public comments and can make any further changes to the regulations as it sees fit based on received comments and, from there, will issue the final set of regulations as a “final rule” in the Federal Register. There is no set timeline for the publication of the regulations as a final rule but the HEA generally requires that any regulations affecting Title IV student aid be published as a final rule by November of the year before they go into effect. In this case, 

ED will need to publish the final rule by November 1 for them to go into effect by July of 2027.

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.

On May 19, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) officially published new regulations governing the federal Workforce Pell program. As we’ve covered previously, the creation of these rules has been a nearly year-long process initiated following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act/Working Families Tax Cut Act in July 2025. As part of that law, Congress mandated the creation of a federal Workforce Pell program that allows individuals to use Pell grants for short-term training programs.

The national wave of cellphone and screen time policy shows no signs of slowing. Our updated tracker now shows 43 states with policies that restrict the use of cellphones in schools and six with enacted screen time legislation—and several more states and districts are in active implementation mode ahead of July 1 deadlines.

As we've written in recent months, the challenge for edtech isn't just the pace of policy, but the absence of a credible constituency to engage, push back, or even define what the debate is actually about.

Last August, TIME named AFT president Randi Weingarten to its TIME100 AI list, recognizing her for launching the National Academy for AI Instruction—a $23 million teacher-training partnership with Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI. "If you have a new technology that is as transformational as the printing press, shame on you if you hide from it," she said at the time. But this week, in a speech titled "Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands On," Weingarten called for banning student-facing AI in elementary schools, screens before third grade, and "social companion" chatbots until age 16; and a new tax on Big Tech earnings. 

Check out W/A Jobs, which features 3,784 career opportunities from 318 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that caught our eye over the past week: