How the American education system actually works, the future of the LMS, and what AI demands of institutional leaders
WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, May 21, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Blackboard today announced the keynote speakers for its Building Blackboard Together conference (BbT 2026), bringing together three influential voices in education, technology, and institutional innovation to examine one of the most consequential questions facing higher education in the AI era: what it actually takes for institutional leaders to understand and lead the systems they are working inside.
BbT 2026 will open with a keynote address by David Labaree, Stanford professor emeritus and one of the most influential historians of American education. His books, including How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning, Someone Has to Fail, and A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education, are widely considered foundational to the modern understanding of school reform, the contested purposes of education, and the rise of American higher education.
The conference will also feature a fireside conversation between guest speaker and leading industry voice Matthew Pittinsky, Ph.D., and Lev Gonick, Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University.
Together, the sessions are designed for institutional leaders who need to leave Dallas with sharper thinking than they came in with, not just a product update. Labaree will set out the structural realities of the education system. Pittinsky and Gonick will pick up from there, exploring how technology can support real learning when it is built with those realities in mind.
In “Know It Before You Mess With It: How the American System of Education Works,” Labaree will draw on three decades of research to give institutional leaders a sociologist’s diagnostic view of the system they are working inside. He will lay out the three competing purposes American schools are asked to serve, why credentialing has come to dominate learning, why education absorbs reform rather than being transformed by it, and why efficiency and effectiveness are often at odds. Labaree will not tell the room what education should be. He will explain how it actually works.
Day two will feature “Learning management, at last,” a fireside conversation with Matthew Pittinsky and Lev Gonick. Pittinsky’s two-part series “The LMS at 30” is among the most creative, forward-looking arguments for how AI can finally change the LMS category itself. Gonick’s “The TechEd Revolution” series argues that we are moving from technology that supports teaching to technology that drives learning. Their conversation will explore what’s actually working in the AI era, what’s overhyped, and how institutions should plan for the next decade.
“Building Blackboard Together is about the conversations our community needs to be having right now, candid, sometimes challenging, and grounded in the work institutions are actually doing,” said Bruce Dahlgren, CEO of Blackboard. “We invited David Labaree to open BbT 2026 because for thirty years he has been explaining how the American education system actually works, and what that means for anyone trying to improve it. In the AI moment, that understanding matters more than ever, and the right people to apply it are not just the vendors building tools, they’re the educators doing the work.”
BbT 2026 will include programming across Blackboard’s product suite, including Blackboard LMS, Ally, Evaluate, and Institutional Effectiveness solutions. Designed as both a user conference and a community gathering, BbT 2026 will give attendees the opportunity to connect with peers, hear directly from leaders and product experts, and help shape what comes next.
Building Blackboard Together will take place July 13–15, 2026, at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX. Early Bird pricing is available through May 22. https://conference.blackboard.com/
About Blackboard
Blackboard delivers the digital environment for transformational teaching and learning. We serve thousands of institutions with the industry’s most AI-advanced LMS, Ally for accessibility, Evaluate for course effectiveness, and institutional effectiveness solutions that put educators and learners at the center. We’re an education company that builds technology. Learn more at blackboard.com.
Erin Mitchell
Blackboard
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