As AI reshapes the world and our schools, this report suggests student experience surveys can provide real-time impact data that correlates with long-term outcomes and can help schools redesign learning faster

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 15, 2025 / Transcend, a national nonprofit that works with communities to create and spread extraordinary learning for all students, has released the report Beyond "Fine": How Students Really Feel About School and Why It Matters, analyzing more than 70,000 student responses to their validated Leaps Student Voice Survey. The survey data reveals that:

• How students experience school is significantly associated with a range of important outcomes including test scores, GPA, attendance, and disciplinary incidents.

• Students who report better school experiences achieve better outcomes.

• Students at schools which regularly seek and incorporate student feedback into how they "do" school have more positive school experiences and outcomes than the norm.

"AI is re-writing the world we live in, yet step into most schools, and you'll see a different story: rigid schedules, siloed subjects, and little space for relevance or real-world connections," says Aylon Samouha, CEO of Transcend. "Transcend's Beyond Fine report shows us that many students are feeling locked in place by their learning experiences, and they're asking, ‘How is this preparing me for what's next?' By understanding how students experience school and what's important to them, educators can gather near-term data to fuel rapid improvement, giving more students the strong academic and behavioral outcomes they deserve."

Beyond "Fine": How Students Really Feel About School and Why It Matters finds that:

• Students who report higher quality learning experiences perform better on key learning and behavioral outcomes.

• Most students report that they are not having great experiences in school. School feels irrelevant, boring, and offers them few opportunities to take charge of their learning.

• The longer students spend in school, the less they like it. Middle and high school students are particularly dissatisfied with their school experiences.

• Innovative communities across the country are adopting new models that create extraordinary learning experiences. Many schools and districts with strong student experiences and outcomes feature design choices that differ from the "traditional" approach to school.

The report highlights successful examples of schools using student experience feedback to drive improvement:

• A Massachusetts school cut chronic absenteeism from 28% to 12% by adapting to student feedback.

• A North Dakota school adopted student-advocated "studios" to make instruction feel more relevant to the real world, growing from 18% of students reporting school felt relevant pre-studio to 89%.

Because student experience data is highly responsive to changes in instruction and culture, listening tools like Transcend's Leaps Survey allow educators to make decisions about data-driven improvement in ways that important, but lagging, outcomes cannot. While it can take months or years for interventions by a school or district to influence standardized assessment scores, the Beyond Fine report suggests that educators do not need to wait that long to test impact±or make informed changes to learning.

SOURCE: Transcend