Urban Assembly and Teach For America pilot AI tool to give teachers targeted classroom feedback

Project Cafe (Classroom Automated Feedback Environment) is being piloted across Urban Assembly schools in partnership with Teach For America New York to give teachers faster, data-informed coaching while keeping human coaches central to the process. The initiative uses AI to analyze classroom interactions and identify patterns—such as the ratio of open-ended to close-ended questions—to guide reflective conversations between teachers and instructional coaches.

"The Project Cafe actually stands for the Classroom Automated Feedback Environment," said David Adams, CEO of the Urban Assembly. "One of the problems we identified across our 22 schools was that teachers deserve more high-quality instructional feedback, but it is too expensive. This tool helps scale feedback so students get the best teachers in front of the classroom."

Alex Amaya, managing director of leadership development and a coach who works with teachers in the partnership, described how the tool surfaces actionable patterns. "They're able to recognize how many open-ended questions they're asking versus how many close-ended questions," Amaya said. "It gives us patterns that we can then talk about and address as an educator and a coach."

Tia Morris, executive director of Teach For America New York, emphasized trust and human-centered design in rollout. She said the program frames AI as a support for human interaction, not a replacement: coaches and teachers use the tool together rather than leaving teachers alone with a computer-generated score.

Pilots so far focus on four measures the partners are tracking: teacher efficacy (confidence), teacher effectiveness (practice), student learning outcomes and teacher retention. Adams said the partners plan to continue debriefing with school teams, gradually reduce supports as teachers build confidence, and expand access—with a goal of reaching more early-career teachers in the Teach For America pipeline.

The partners also highlighted professional-development features beyond Project Cafe, including tools such as Counselor GPT for postsecondary readiness and social-emotional learning supports. Adams pointed viewers to Urban Assembly materials and piloting updates at urbanassembly.org and to Teach For America New York resources at teachforamerica.org/NewYork.

Next steps: partners said they will keep piloting the tool in participating campuses, refine coaching workflows based on teacher feedback and assess outcomes across the four priority measures before wider scaling.