This week’s research update comes from Yuval Noah Harari, best known as the author of the blockbuster Sapiens. His newest book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House Publishing, 2024), provides perspective about how artificial intelligence is hardly new but is merely a reflection of the tendency of humans to create and sustain stories. AI, like Bitcoin, is only as useful as the willingness of people to believe it. It is easy for modern man to sneer at the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, and other myths, but we greedily soak up the truth myths from the internet. The book is a clarion call for critical thinking in our age. I know how incredibly busy you all are, and the book is available at Audible.com, a resource I always recommend to busy professionals.
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Research Wednesday | April 8, 2026
Uncomplicated Grading Reform
Contributing author: Dr. Emily FreelandIt is not surprising that in schools and districts, significant grading reform efforts often stall. Not because educators disagree with the need to reconsider current practices, but because the work becomes burdensome and overly complicated. Issues and disagreements arise when monitoring checklists multiply in length; reporting systems grow more complex, and fairness and accuracy give way to compliance.
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Research Wednesday | March 11, 2026
The Key to Secondary School Success: Getting 9th Grade Right
Contributing author: Dr. Douglas ReevesKaaron Andrews has studied the relationship between 9th-grade student performance, graduation, and subsequent post-secondary success. She is the Director of the Center for High School Success. When they increase on-track 9th-grade rates, they are 3-4 times more likely to graduate from high school. It is the single strongest predictor of high school success – more than race, socioeconomic status, or even 8th-grade test scores. She contends that high schools are programmed for disconnection – disconnected from their peer group and from teachers who often have 150 students with whom they struggle to have a relationship.
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Research Wednesday | March 4, 2026
Do Audiobooks Count as Reading?
Contributing author: Dr. Douglas ReevesWhile surveys indicate that more than 40% of U.S. adults think that listening to a book should not be regarded as genuine reading, Brian Bannon, Chief Librarian of the New York Public Library, disagrees in a November 23, 2025, article. He notes that while print circulation in the library has remained flat over the past five years, audiobook demand is up 65%.