As artificial intelligence usage in classrooms expands rapidly, school districts continue to face a tricky issue: The lack of clear standards for AI in K-12.
School districts around the country are exploring how the emerging technology can be used, but they’re also cautious about the risks — in particular data privacy, the accuracy of information, and transparency.
Currently, education companies seeking to bring AI products to market must rely on a hodgepodge of guidelines put forward by an assortment of organizations.
Meanwhile, districts have become increasingly vocal about the standards they require of AI vendors.
One of the latest efforts to bring some clarity to the K-12 marketplace in terms of AI products comes from the tech- and innovation-focused nonprofit Digital Promise.
In April, the nonprofit launched a certification tool for ed-tech companies to allow them to show that the AI in their product was developed “to reduce algorithmic bias, provide transparency about data collection and security … and equip educators with agency while engaging with AI outputs.” The credential is called the “Responsibly Designed AI” certification.
About This Insider
Mario Andrade is superintendent of Nashua Public Schools, where he arrived in 2022. His career in public education spans nearly 25 years, beginning as a special education teacher in Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1998. Since then, he has served as an assistant principal, principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent in Rhode Island and independent consultant for Learning Science International. He serves on several community, regional, and national boards, including national advisory committees through Digital Promise.
Digital Promise was created by an act of Congress in 2008 and launched a few years later. The organization focuses on pushing for innovations in schools through technology and creating new learning environments, among other strategies.
For the AI certification project, the nonprofit asked more than three dozen superintendents, school and district leaders, technologists, and AI researchers to participate in working group sessions to help come up with a criteria.
“As superintendents, we have to drive the marketplace to say, ‘We want to ensure that what you’re giving us is validated,’” said Mario Andrade, the superintendent of the roughly 10,000-student Nashua School District in New Hampshire. “We need to be stronger as school districts, and require vendors [of AI products] to be certified somewhere.”
Andrade was one of the superintendents involved in the development of Digital Promise’s AI certification.
His work with the nonprofit predates the AI certification effort, when he was superintendent at Bristol Warren Regional School District in Rhode Island. The 2,900-student district was selected to be part of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools, a national network of school systems intended to spearhead cutting edge learning practices.
EdWeek Market Brief spoke with Andrade about his work with Digital Promise, how it’s shaped technology usage at his district, and the push to get K-12 AI products certified.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you get involved with Digital Promise?
I’ve been fortunate enough to be a member of Digital Promise for these last nine years or so. This is my second district that was inducted into the League of Innovative Schools. And if you look back in 2016, early in my superintendent days, really the tech transformation then was around how to use Chromebooks in the classroom.
That seems like so long ago, but we followed a systemic approach to change as opposed to just buying Chromebooks.
Can you elaborate on what those systemic approaches looked like?
We focused the conversations around how this is going to change our teaching and learning, and what kind of professional development we need. How do we budget for the transition? I was really fortunate to get connected with the League of Innovative Schools, who were already having the same kind of conversation.
What was your current district’s biggest tech challenge when you started as superintendent?
Nashua School District, for the size of the district, I found that we were actually behind the curve. Even coming out of COVID, we were still not a 1-to-1 school district. Students didn’t have their own Chromebooks, especially at the secondary level.
We had to do professional development, and that was what really started our conversation around a technology plan and what a standardized classroom looks like from a technology point of view, using all types of technology, so that students can demonstrate proficiency in ways that they couldn’t do before with these tools.
How have things changed over the last couple of years?
We’ve made some investments in our technology to go 1-to-1 at our secondary schools, and it was really a redeployment of our resources. We had the Chromebooks in the district, but they weren’t in the hands of the students on a daily basis.
The work was really with our professional development to use technology in different ways. One key hire that we had in the last couple of years is a director of digital learning.
She has been the liaison between technology and curriculum to provide professional development support to [help] our teachers embed technology into their lessons. Even in 2022, you’d think all this would be a no-brainer. Ed tech isn’t a new concept, but we just weren’t using it in the right way.
Are you seeing a change in attitude from your teachers about using tech in the classroom?
The biggest evolution is really the mindset. I’ll use the last two years of conversation around AI as an example. We took a grassroots approach in doing some research and design on how we incorporate AI in the classroom and create policy.
We had about 50 teachers in a cohort focused on how they might use AI in the classroom. They developed lessons, they worked with kids, and they really worked out the bugs through asking essential questions on how we can use AI in areas like English and math
What was the result of the cohort’s work?
That [work] built their knowledge and understanding of AI — what it is and what it isn’t, and how might students use it in productive ways.
Through that kind of research, we had more and more teachers buy into the concept that AI can be in the classrooms and kids can use it for learning enhancement, as opposed to just cheating or writing a report for students.
How are you expanding the use of AI in your district now?
We’re not 100% across the district [in terms of AI usage]. We actually have some PD coming up. But by having those 50 teachers go through that research and design, we acknowledge that we’re exploring this area, and it isn’t going away. This past year we partnered with Yourway Learning [an AI platform for districts]. All of our secondary teachers have access to the platform, and they can put in their lesson plans, ask questions, and use that for lesson development.
Are teachers using the AI platform?
We saw some good usage. It is starting to scale now that more teachers are using AI to ask better questions around lesson development and planning. We’ll be having our all-admin retreat this summer and will be working with Yourway Learning for our administrators.
What about students in your districts — are they using AI?
We know what kids are using it [for] because we’ve done some focus groups with students. They’re exploring with it, whether it’s ChatGPT, or other tools. But they are using it.
It’s more than just purchasing things. We’re having much better conversations about teaching and learning and what the future of instruction looks like.
We’re learning through our teachers by having conversations about students’ processing skills, critical thinking, and problem solving. We know students might be using AI to help edit a paper or write some stuff.
We are actually looking at the process in which papers, or outcomes, were developed and if students are using the tools appropriately.
What’s the general sense you’re getting from teachers and admins when it comes to AI usage?
There’s still a lot of trepidation. We are not yet using AI to go deep, so I still think the trepidation is that students are going to use it to cut corners and to pass off work that’s not authentic.
I don’t think we’ve touched the power and capability of AI to actually get into critical thinking and deeper learning.
Looking back over the last couple of years, what are some takeaways from your district’s tech journey?
We’re making progress. I don’t think we ever reach our ultimate goal because in five years, it’s probably gonna be a different tool that we’re talking about.
It’s always going to be about how we are adapting. It’s more than just purchasing things. We’re having much better conversations about teaching and learning and what the future of instruction looks like as opposed to just ensuring we have enough Chromebooks and Wi-Fi spots.
What type of work were you doing with Digital Promise in regards to districts and AI products?
The work group was really tasked with trying to come up with a kind of a certification, like a badge, to acknowledge that an AI company is responsible — to make sure there were privacy safeguards in place, that the data they collect is unbiased.
I get a million emails daily, and have people advertising their products … saying ‘We’re the best AI out there.’
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From a superintendent’s point of view, how do you know whether what they’re pitching is valid or not? We wanted a trustworthy tool or certification that is going to validate whether an AI vendor is actually trustworthy.
Do you get the sense that AI vendors are going to buy into a voluntary certification process?
I think there’ll be a mixed feeling. It’s almost like data privacy agreements — not all companies want to sign off on a data privacy agreement for whatever reason. It’s going to take a little more momentum from superintendents to say”I want you to be certified.”
Would you bring an AI product into your district that is not certified or vouched for in some way?
I would say I’m hesitant. We are always looking for DPA agreements,, so we go through the contracts really carefully to make sure that those are in place.
I was fortunate enough to educate myself on some of these questions that I should be asking. Even if there’s no certification, we’re looking for what’s in the language of the contract that protects our students and other important data.