Learner Studio Pilots Summer Program on Human Skills for the Age of AI

This summer, Learner Studio piloted a bold idea: what if high school students learned not just how to use AI, but how to use it ethically and in service of their communities? With support from partners including DSST Public Schools, Boston Public Schools, City Year, Local Civics, and Learning Heroes, the program invited young people in Boston and Denver to explore “humanics”—the skills of collaboration, empathy, and civic engagement—alongside the rise of artificial intelligence.

The students didn’t just sit in classrooms. They mapped community assets, debated AI’s role in society, and used design thinking to imagine the futures they want to build. Through GIS mapping, AI-powered empathy interviews, and civic simulations, they practiced how to balance technological tools with human connection. As one student put it: “We don’t want AI to take over, we just want to live alongside it.”

Learner Studio’s July 2025 report, Human Skills in the Age of AI, underscores why this matters. Research shows that young people who develop critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills are better prepared for careers, civic life, and leadership. Yet these abilities are too often treated as extras, not essentials. The pilot showed that when students combine curiosity with civic purpose and creativity, they not only build confidence but also learn how to use emerging technology responsibly.

This work connects to a broader national conversation about reinventing high school. At SXSW EDU 2025, a panel hosted by the Walton Family Foundation brought together educators, edtech innovators, and leaders—including Learner Studio co-founder Babak Mostaghimi—to explore how high schools must evolve to meet the demands of the 21st century. The conversation spotlighted competency-based learning, networks of innovative schools, and new models that make high school more relevant, engaging, and future-ready. Learner Studio’s summer pilot is one example of those ideas in action: students preparing for college, career, and civic life by blending human skills with technological fluency.

And this summer was only the beginning. Learner Studio, alongside educators, nonprofits, and thought partners nationwide, is working to scale programs that strengthen human skills alongside AI literacy. The goal isn’t to train students to compete with machines, but to thrive alongside them—and to shape a future where AI becomes a tool for we, not just me.

BPC Launches Commission on the American Workforce to Tackle Human Capital Crisis

The Waypoint team is proud to celebrate the launch of the Bipartisan Policy Center Commission on the American Workforce, which will develop a national strategy to strengthen the workforce, expand economic opportunity, and ensure that individual Americans and our country as a whole can remain competitive.

America’s success is fueled by our population’s collective skills, knowledge, and experience – our human capital. The Commission, chaired by former Governors Bill Haslam (R-TN) and Deval Patrick (D-MA), will consider urgent challenges that threaten these assets, including low student proficiency, stagnating college enrollment, barriers to employment, and a widespread skills mismatch between employers and the unemployed.

To this end, BPC has established four expert working groups to focus on critical areas: Elementary and Secondary Education, Postsecondary Pathways, Workers and the Workforce, and Worker Supports. We at Waypoint are thrilled to facilitate the Elementary and Secondary Education group and collaborate with the nation’s leading experts to explore the federal role in K-12 education. For more details, see the BPC Commission on the American Workforce press release

US Chamber of Commerce Foundation

America’s business community has a huge stake in the success of our students. As long-time partners to the US Chamber of Commerce foundation, we provide ongoing thought partnership and strategic counsel to the K-12 education team and contribute to the organization’s well-known Business Leads Fellowship Program, which trains business leaders to be education champions in their communities. The program currently includes over 400 current participants and alumni who serve as powerful advocates for education in their communities.

Beginning in 2022 and ending in 2023, the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation embarked on an ambitious effort to imagine the future of how we use assessments and hold our education system accountable.

The effort contributed to the field in several ways:

  • A Working Group, which included thought leaders with diverse perspectives informed by decades of experience in our education system. The Working Group spent time hearing from other experts in the field and wrestling with tradeoffs inherent in assessment and accountability policy and practice.
  • A report, authored by Dr. Dan Goldhaber and Dr. Michael DeArmond, revealed what we know and do not know about the last 20 years of education reform.
  • A Design Challenge, which awarded six winners with innovative thinking around how we improve public school accountability.

In addition, state, regional, and local chambers of commerce are important partners to the public education systems in their states and communities. For this reason, the Chamber Foundation also created a School Board Discussion Guide to help enable those productive conversations.

Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research – Education Recovery Scorecard

During the 2022-23 school year, students in many states made historic gains in math and reading following unprecedented learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, research from the Education Recovery Scorecard shows that they made up only one-third of the pandemic loss in math and one-quarter of the loss in reading. 

The Education Recovery Scorecard, a collaboration between Dr. Thomas Kane, Faculty Director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and Dr. Sean Reardon at the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, tracks math and reading achievement for individual districts in 30 states. The findings inspire both urgency and hope: urgency, because, as of Spring 2023 testing, students in 17 states remained more than a third of a grade level behind 2019 levels in math and students in 14 states remained more than a third of a grade level behind in reading. Hope, because the new data do, for the first time, highlight communities that have made substantial progress toward catching up. Drs. Kane and Reardon lead the national dialogue surrounding pandemic-induced learning loss and provide unparalleled insights to guide academic recovery efforts.

Coverage of the Education Recovery Scorecard includes more than 1,582 state and local press stories have been published covering the results across the country. National news coverage of their research includes:

Learning Heroes –
Go Beyond Grades Campaign

Families and teachers want real conversations about student progress. Go Beyond Grades is a national public awareness campaign that sounds the alarm about the gap between what parents think about their child’s learning and real student achievement scores. 

Created in spring 2023, Go Beyond Grades juxtaposes parent perceptions about their child’s learning and real student achievement scores, and connects families with local academic resources. It has touched down in Boston, Chicago, the District of Columbia, Houston, New York City, Sacramento County, St. Louis, and continues to spread to new communities across the country, such as Ft. Worth and rural Texas.

Almost 9 in 10 parents nationally think their children are on grade level, despite a steady stream of data that shows the reality of declining student achievement. Nationally, only around one-third of students are on grade level in reading and math. How is this possible? Learning Heroes’ research has shown that parents rely on report card grades as their primary source of information, and around 8 in 10 parents say their kids receive B’s or better.

Teachers say the number one way for parents to know how their child is achieving is to ask the teacher. So, we’re asking parents to go beyond grades by exploring our free tips and tools, and by teaming up with their child’s teachers.

Nationally, Go Beyond Grades has reached 82 million people through billboards in English and Spanish in our target communities; 346.8 million through the media and 34.2 million through digital ads; and 150,000 through our websites. Go Beyond Grades has touched down in Boston, Chicago, the District of Columbia, Houston, New York City, Sacramento, and St. Louis, and continues to spread to new communities across the country.

Featured news coverage:
National funders:
  • Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin and Griffin Catalyst (Spring and Summer 2023, Fall 2023)
  • Overdeck Family Foundation (Spring and Summer 2023)
  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Spring and Summer 2023)
  • Clear Channel Outdoor (in-kind support, Spring and Summer 2023)