2026 Reagan Institute Summit on Education

American education is at an inflection point. When President Reagan commissioned A Nation at Risk in 1983, it sounded an alarm that galvanized the country: the foundations of American education were eroding and the cost of inaction was too high. That same urgency is needed today. Artificial intelligence is reshaping every sector of the economy, political divisions have made honest policy conversations increasingly rare, and a generation of young Americans is asking whether the system was built for them at all. To make good on our promises to the next generation, we must answer a simple yet fundamental question at the heart of policymaking: What is the purpose of education? At the ninth annual Reagan Institute Summit on Education, leaders from across the political spectrum will come together to wrestle with this question so that we can move forward with solutions that work for every student, every family, and every community. RISE 2026 will serve as a forum for the kind of frank, bipartisan dialogue that this moment demands. Panels will explore the purpose of education through the following lenses: Establishing a responsible, productive, engaged citizenry; Supporting a child’s individual academic pursuit of knowledge and skills; Preparing America’s youth for productive careers and economic success in the age of rapid technological development; Serving as a rite of passage into American adulthood; Expanding human potential.