Apr 24, 2025
GenAI Will Not Make Students Smarter by David C. Phillips at The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. A recent study by Dr. Michael Gerlich “revealed a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, mediated by increased cognitive offloading.” Furthermore, “younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older participants.” Nor, according to Gerlich, are young people using “the cognitive resources freed up by AI for innovative tasks.” They’re passively consuming other content, mostly for entertainment. Read
Schools Don’t Know How Well Cell Phone Policies Are Working. You Can Help. by Angela Duckworth at After Babel. In classrooms across America, educators face a daily dilemma that didn't exist when I was a teacher: what to do about student cell phones…The debate rages on–with strong opinions on all sides–but in my view, we're missing something critical: data on which policies work best and for whom. As a psychologist who studies motivation and self-control, I believe we need evidence, not just intuition, to guide these important decisions. That's why starting today, educators can access Phones In Focus (phonesinfocus.org), a landmark survey of school phone policies across the nation. Read
The Joy of Inefficiency: Teaching My Kids How to Read by Nadya Williams at Institute for Family Studies. It is difficult to separate reading from relationships and the value of time—how we spend it and with whom. Yes, it is time spent so inefficiently, just holding this growing child on my lap and stewarding her love of books, learning, and family. Yet this time is a reminder that in a world of efficient machines, sometimes inefficiency is simply what it means to be truly, fully, and beautifully human. Read
Reframing Our Desire to Be Liked featuring Alvaro de Vicente at The HeightsCast. From rookie teachers to decades-long veterans, we can all feel that pull to be the “favorite teacher.” But what kind of frameworks should we keep in mind as we serve our students well? This week, Heights Headmaster Alvaro de Vicente unpacks the very human desire to be liked, the perils of seeking popularity, and what our students really need from us. Listen
To Think Bigger About Catholic Education, Start Thinking Smaller by Colleen Hroncich at The Federalist. Surveys show parents want these flexible, less-conventional educational options. Catholic parishes and schools are well-positioned to meet families’ changing needs by welcoming new educational providers into underutilized classrooms. While these options typically start small, they often grow as excitement spreads. But even if they remain small, they can have a powerful influence. Read
A HISTORY250™ Special - Imagining the Battle of Lexington by History250. Art is not history, but how we imagine events to have happened is often shaped by artistic depictions. Since depictions change over time, a history of how an event is imagined develops. This is the case with the Battle of Lexington that took place on April 19, 1775. Within a few days of the opening shots fired in the War for Independence, the first artistic rendering was made. Over the next century, artists offered competing depictions, sometimes representing competing eyewitness accounts. On the 250th Anniversary of the War’s first battle, we proudly present this HISTORY250 Special: Imagining the Battle of Lexington. Watch
U.S. Catholic Schools Report Indicates School Choice Programs on the Rise by Kate Quiñones at Catholic News Agency. In the 2024-2025 school year, there were 1.6 million Catholic school students and more than 150,000 professional staff members, with a student to teacher ratio of about 11 to 1. Nearly 40% of Catholic schools had a waiting list. This school year, 63 Catholic schools closed while 24 new Catholic schools opened. This is a slight increase in both closures and openings from last year but marks a continued break from the early 2000s trend, which averaged 130 Catholic school closures per year. Of the 5,852 Catholic schools in the United States, 31% use parental school choice programs. Read
Texas Tips the Scales: School Choice Now Covers Half of US Kids by Jason Bedrick at The Daily Signal. In a historic victory for educational freedom, the Texas House of Representatives finally passed a universal school choice bill—marking not just a win for families in the Lone Star State, but a watershed moment for the entire school choice movement. Once it clears the state senate and Gov. Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 2 into law, half of America’s children will live in states where they are eligible for educational choice programs, including 15 states with “universal” choice policies for which every K-12 student is eligible. Read
Ideas and Their Consequences by George Weigel at The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. At the intersection of forming Christian character and honing Christian intellects, the Catholic colleges and universities of the 21st century must prepare their students to grapple with these three facets of the civilizational crisis that is the dominant cultural fact of the Western world today: the metaphysical-epistemological crisis, the moral crisis, and the social crisis. Read
Throwback Thursday
Weaving Faith into Education with the President of Ignatius Press by Joshua Nelson at Catholic Exchange on July 17, 2024. Mark Brumley, the current President of Ignatius Press, is passionate about making sure a Catholic education goes beyond just memorization. He describes a unique approach which centers around four key themes (called “golden threads”) for communicating and interpreting our faith to younger generations: Salvation History, Christian Anthropology, Heroic Virtue and Character Formation, and Learning Through Discipleship. These themes come together to create a cohesive educational journey that aligns with Catholic Social Teaching and helps develop well-rounded individuals. Read |