I’ve been making annual—and, often, inaccurate—education predictions for well over a decade now.
Why stop now?
Here’s what my crystal ball tells me for 2026. Let me know what you think and make your own predictions, too, by responding to me on Twitter (now X) @Larryferlazzo, on BlueSky larryferlazzo.bsky.social/, or via email at lferlazzo@educationweek.org.
1. The Trump administration will continue its campaign of kidnapping immigrants off the street and target more and more cities for its campaign. Under pressure from the White House to increase deportation numbers, ICE will escalate its actions and begin to systematically arrest parents and guardians who are either dropping off or picking up children from school. Despite steadfast defiance of ICE from schools and educator support for students and their families, chronic absenteeism will increase again, standardized-test scores will stop their recovery, and student mental health issues will skyrocket as a result.
2. The vast majority of Democrat-led states will choose to not participate in the federal tax-credit scholarship program after the final rules are issued and clearly outline what everyone who does not live in a fantasy world believes they will say: There is no way/no how the money can benefit public schools and will only hurt them.
3. As expected by many, efforts to transfer the work of the federal Department of Education to other agencies and departments will turn into a debacle. At least some of their functions will be returned to where they came from.
4. Efforts by the Trump administration to reduce or eliminate programs like Title I (supporting disadvantaged students) and Title III (supporting English learners) will be defeated in Congress and their funding maintained at existing levels.
5. President Donald Trump will issue an executive order overturning the Plyler ruling guaranteeing free public education for citizen and noncitizen students alike. If the Supreme Court rules against birth citizenship in the spring, you can bet the court will overturn Plyler no later than 2027. If the court rules for birth citizenship, then it’s even money if the court will overturn Plyler.
6. By the end of the year, many school districts will realize that they have to take a big step back from ubiquitous student laptop use. In addition, the districts that are going all-in on generative AI will realize they have made a massive mistake. A tech counterrevolution will begin.
7. I’ve always felt that all the time and resources poured into trying to “reclassify” English learners into “English-proficient” students has been the wrong priority. They tend to get reclassified far too soon, lose their needed extra support, and are ultimately less successful than they could have been. Studies completed this year provide evidence for those concerns, and in 2026, skepticism of the reclassification goal, and the processes to achieve it (including standardized assessments), will gain solid momentum.
8. Speaking of English learners, a very safe prediction is that the numbers of newcomer immigrant students will continue to decline—as they have this year and as they did during Trump’s first term. In 2026, districts with wise leadership and that embrace long-term planning will use their experienced EL teachers to provide support to long-term English learners and to train content teachers on how to support the newcomers being placed in their classes (since the numbers won’t be there any longer for separate newcomer classes). Alas, another safe prediction is that those districts will be in a very small minority and, most, instead, will either lay off experienced EL teachers or just have them teach other classes and parachute newcomers into regular classes with no additional support.
9. In addition to ICE’s attacks on immigrant communities, the Trump administration efforts to reduce SNAP benefits, increase health insurance costs, restrict the use of public benefits by lawfully present immigrants, and “disappear” transgender youth and adults will increase the pressure on schools to reassert their role as mediating institutions to advocate for and support students and their families. Transforming themselves into community schools has been a recent growing strategy many schools have taken to move in this direction, and that push will accelerate in the next year – even with federal funding cuts.
10. I borrow this last one from educator Bill Ivey every year. He predicts that “each and every school day will bring tens of thousands of reasons to celebrate in schools across the country.”
