Back by Popular Demand - Taking It Further - Cut Through the Chaos of Curriculum Adoption with Real-World Insights

The following transcript has been edited for readability. Timestamps have been removed and minor transcription errors corrected. Speaker comments and context have been preserved.

Opening Remarks

Rich Portelance

Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us for Thriving Amid Uncertainty Part Two. We're talking about state strategies, vendor success, and the future of curriculum adoptions. Today, we're really pleased to bring back two of our guests, Ji Soo Song from SETDA (State Educational Technology Directors Association) and Jill Pierce from TETA (Tennessee Educational Technology Association). And we're also going to be joined by Gina Faulk from EdGate today. We'll be starting up in just a few minutes. So hang tight as the rest of our audience comes in.  We'll start up at two minutes after the hour. So, just hang tight.

And before we get started, I want to mention to everyone that I'm excited to announce that in December, mark your calendars for December 17th, 2025, we will be talking about redefining the standards and skills for the future, what it means to have a “Portrait of a Graduate”, what that framework entails, and how that's shaping the next generation of ST state standards. We'll be joined by Hillary Rinaldi, who was with us last December as well. And we'll have some other exciting guests on that next webinar. So stay tuned, and please mark your calendars. It should be an exciting conversation.

And now we're going to get going with today's conversation, which is really a deeper dive into what we talked about last month: thriving amid uncertainty, what state strategies look like, vendor success, and the future of curriculum adoptions. Joining us today are Ji Soo Song, Jill Pierce, and Gina Faulk from EdGate. They will be sharing with us how leading publishers and edtech companies are using the ExACT platform to advance standards management, to align content, to streamline workflows, and to stay ahead of the changing state requirements, as well as, you know, how edtech is changing with AI cybersecurity, CTE, and data privacy. 

We have a lot to cover today, so I'm going to ask each of our guests to introduce themselves quickly, and then we'll dive right into some of the questions. Why don't we start with Jill Pierce, and then we'll go to Ji Soo, and then to Gina. 

Jill Pierce

Good afternoon. Thanks, Rich. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I’m Jill Pierce, and I'm the executive director of the Tennessee Education Technology Association (TETA). It's an organization that has been around for 30 years. We work with edtech in K-12 schools and higher ed. The organization works a lot in all the areas you just mentioned. We're also one of the premier providers for training and working with our Superintendents Association. 

Just a little bit about me, it's pretty easy to tell I'm from the South. My accent pretty well gives me away, but I was also a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in a school district for 30 years. So, that's it. I'll take it back to you, Rich. 

Rich Portelance

Well, thank you very much. Ji Soo? 

Ji Soo Song

All right. Thanks for inviting me to speak again today to this audience. I’m Ji Soo, and I’m the director of projects and initiatives at SETDA (State Educational Technology Directors Association), and formerly with the Office of Educational Technology at the US Department of Education. If you're unfamiliar with SETDA, we're a professional association that represents state edtech and digital learning leaders from roughly around 40 member states, as well as affiliate and corporate member organizations that share our mission. And TETA is one of our affiliate members, as well. 

We regularly convene our members to exchange promising practices when it comes to edtech policy development and implementation. We also conduct research and advocacy on behalf of our members. We also led the development of the 2024 national edtech plan. So happy to be here today. 

Rich Portelance

Thank you. And Gina? 

Gina Faulk

Hi, I'm Gina Faulk. I'm the general manager here at EdGate. I am mostly focusing on business development and partnerships, and I have the pleasure of being able to work with many of our clients. Our clients include edtech companies, publishers, both traditional print publishers as well as online publishers, nonprofit organizations, and states as well. 

So, the crux of what we do here at EdGate, and I should note that we've been around for 27 years now, is that we focus on aligning content to standards. We also have a huge bank of standards that we license out to companies. So, we're at over, I think, close to 7 million standards today. So, those are all academic standards, the learning outcomes that teachers use in the classroom. We've got all kinds of tools, and we'll touch on some of those today to help companies get their content aligned to standards. 

Rich Portelance

Thank you. And as always, I'm Richard Porterance. I'm your host today, and excited to have these exceptional panelists with us to cover some of the topics. And just a point of note, if you're on the call, if you have a question, please throw it into the Q&A box. We'll get to that at the end unless it's relevant at the moment, where we can fit it in and I'll try to ask the question. But please do submit your questions. We always get to them one way or another, and you know we appreciate the feedback. 

Discussion

Rich Portelance

So, we're going to get started with Ji Soo. The last time that we spoke, you highlighted how states are increasingly taking the lead in guiding adoption decisions. So Jill, how does that look on the ground in Tennessee specifically? Are you seeing unevenness across the districts as well? 

Jill Pierce

It depends. I think when you talk about guiding initiatives, like on curriculum specifically, Tennessee's is unique. I think Oklahoma and we have a couple of options. So, every five to seven years, the state sends out a curriculum based on a particular subject. So, it may be based on the math standards, those kinds of things. And then the district can do an evaluation. They'll have approved four to five different vendors for that particular curriculum. Let's just say reading is one of those, and then that district will go and evaluate those choices that the states already said are aligned to our curriculum and to our state standards.  

Tennessee has a rule that a district can formally request an alternative, which is kind of unique if those things from the state to buy some other type of curriculum. So, as we start looking, when you talk about professional learning alignment, you know, states are increasingly linking their curriculum adoption with their professional development, promoting curriculum-based learning, and integrating both the content knowledge and the teaching strategies all in one. 

So, basically, in Tennessee, we're seeing the same things that a lot of others, but the district also with the state, can decide not to do that curriculum. We see that a lot in the math because they don't think math changes a lot. So they may keep the same adoption and not spend that money on that particular thing. So, it really behooves, and I hate even using that word, a vendor to really look at what their particular curriculum or their product provides for that district that would be different, that would help them doing their strategies. 

Rich Portelance

Thank you for that. I'm going to point this next one at Ji Soo. How have states evolved their role in guiding curriculum for edtech adoption? 

Ji Soo Song

I wish Mindy Fiscus from the last webinar was here because she would definitely know the best as the resident state leader on the previous panel. But from my perspective, right, they've become a lot more hands-on as state attrition agencies, becoming more than just a body that grant funds pass through, right? They're producing guidance on what districts should be looking for. They're creating tools so that districts are able to more carefully evaluate the impact of their tools on student outcomes. They're publishing open data to help districts guide some of their decisions as well. 

And you can actually see some examples of some of those roles that states are playing in the final section of SETDA's edtech procurement guide, which you can find on https://setda.info/edtechprocurementguide. Hopefully, that URL is simple enough that folks can just type it in all lowercase. So, we highlight actions from Connecticut, from Oregon, from Illinois, around the stuff that they've been doing as the agencies to create different tools, provide guidance and publish data to help those district-level decisions. 

Rich Portelance

And Jill, do you see local leaders and biases that are affecting these adoption decisions? 

Jill Pierce

Sure. The unfortunate thing for a lot of us, bias plays in everything. So, when you see some district leaders will favor tools they've used before, and they'll favor strong vendor relationships.  I think that plays into some of that. Also, sometimes, you got to be very careful because it can lead into fragmented adoptions, and under-utilized software and things like that if they're if they if they do have a bias for those particular things. I'm not saying necessarily they're bad, but you always have to weigh your biases against what's best for that student in that district when you're talking about spending the money. So, as long as they keep that in the front of them, and the vendor uses those languages, too, it's about the student; a lot of times, you can overcome those. 

I do think, though, when we have like surges like we've just had with the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding surge, a lot of districts went ahead and bought some things. They were trying to do what's best for the student, but maybe they had not spent the time that you would usually see with a typical adoption, because the funds had to be spent within this particular time. Some districts did a really good job with that. So when you start thinking about bias, it's always about how it's going to affect that student. And so I do think you've got to keep those things in the front. You also need to look at visibility and your data gaps with that too. Bias can also if you don't have the right data on the information for what you're buying, that's a biggie, because a lot of people are going to say, “Where's your data for buying this?” So, I do think that another thing is making sure that the vendor and the person who's leading the vision in the district is also pushing the data that comes from buying that particular curriculum or product when they start looking at that in the edtech brown. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. And are you seeing, and maybe you're not, but Ji Soo does, so this is an open question. Are there emergency state frameworks or policies that are helping districts navigate these shifts?

Jill Pierce

Well, I was just going to say, SETDA has a state edtech trends framework that they send out that helps districts and states look at. And that's an annual report that comes out, and it has like the key priorities. I think this year is about AI adoption, cybersecurity, and digital citizenship, which are all important. I'll say that before we get into the others. I'll let Ji Soo take the others, but being a person formerly from a district and a person who works with districts all over the state, that's a huge one to use to their advantage. And I'll let Ji Soo talk about a couple of the others. 

Ji Soo Song

Yeah, thanks so much for shouting out the trench report. Yeah, we just published that update a couple of weeks ago, the 2025 survey. So, you can take a look at that on the SETDA website. As far as other frameworks go, I would definitely point to the five edtech quality indicators that we talked about during our last time; the safe, evidence-based, inclusive, usable, and interoperable indicators that we're trying to push vendors to use as they describe their products, as well as states to look for these indicators as they're coordinating with vendors. So, I definitely encourage folks to check out that framework, which should be openly licensed for folks to use that language. 

Really, the goal of these indicators is to give states and districts some shared language again as they vet different tools before going into contracting. So, I think familiarizing yourself with that framework will be to your advantage. 

Gina Faulk

And then I'll just jump in and say, Rich, that at EdGate, we also have a whole page dedicated to making everyone aware of upcoming standards. So, we have a feed constantly running every week, showing what's changed, and that includes future standards that are not even implemented yet. So, we're giving visibility into the standards that have changed in New Jersey for math. So, if you want them, here they are. There are links we can provide that provide that information. But I can put that link in the chat, but we are looking out for the next couple of years and feeding in all of those future standards frameworks. 

Rich Portelance

And that's part of the resource section of the website, correct? 

Gina Faulk

Yes. Yes. 

Jill Pierce

Rich, I would add one other thing. Any person needs to also look at state-level guidance, because there are a lot of new laws going into effect and some new frameworks that the each state may implement. 

So, like, and I'll use AI because that's the big subject right now. You may want to look and see if there's state-level guidance on AI and device use because that's a new one. We just talked about that in a meeting Ji Soo and I were in just recently, and because there are a lot of new things. So, if you want to be on top of things, you also need to know what the state-level guidance is on those particular things, too, before you go in and talk to a district. That's being very proactive to make sure that you've got those answers before they're asked of you.

Rich Portelance

No, that makes a lot of sense. And I do have to apologize because I forgot to announce at the beginning that Mindy Fiscus from Illinois, who was with us for the first conversation, wasn't able to make it back today. So, we wish her well, and I'm sure we're going to see her again in the future. But, she added a great deal of interest because Indiana handles things slightly differently than Tennessee, and so there was a nice juxtaposition of different states handling some of these adoptions in unique ways. 

But, you know, we are talking about where the states fall in terms of a spectrum of centralized versus decentralized control. Ji Soo, do you have, you know, SETDA is a broader organization that influences many states. Do you see some differences or pockets that are starting to build up as some of this decentralization is occurring? 

Ji Soo Song

So, I mentioned this during last month's webinar, part one, but yeah, I kind of raised an eyebrow when someone tells me that their state is unique because they're a local control state. All states are local control to some degree, right? Although some may be more than others, right? It's also very context-specific. So, it's hard to categorize this group of states as being centralized and this group of states as being decentralized, right? Some states might do some more centralized purchasing if they have to budget for it or have a specific charge from their legislature or governor. For example, we saw that during the pandemic, Mississippi led some bulk purchasing of devices and laptops for districts, and configured them centrally so that they were ready to deploy right away with their districts with the right software and the security features, right? So, it's really hard to sort of categorize one state as being one or the other. All states are locally controlled to some degree, and there are different political contexts that play into it as well. 

Rich Portelance

Let's kick over a little bit to adoptions in a fragmented environment. We've heard that procurement looks very different from one state to another, right, Jill? Tennessee has the local choice, but with state guidance, and many states are involved in evolving similar hybrid models. 

How should vendors navigate it? So, you know, trying to get a little bit more specific about this topic of decentralized versus centralized. Jill, what advice do you have for aligning vendor pitches to real district needs rather than focusing on just the features?

Jill Pierce

Well, one, I think it's going to be very important. I always say Tennessee is a hybrid, but I agree with Ji Soo. I think most states are hybrid. Even with some states, certain things are centralized, certain things the state may say, "Hey, here's your choices. Pick one." But they've narrowed it down for you. In some cases, they're like, "Okay, as long as it has these indicators, you pick what you want, and then you've got some free choice there." And I think that's the way it is with most states, especially in the edtech realm. 

The big thing is making sure that you balance your approach, because depending on if it's something that the state says, "We recommend these nine vendors." Well, the district's still going to have to go through a process at which one fits their best needs for that student, or for that admin product that's going to save them time, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. But I think you got to lead with your outcomes, not features. So, in that particular case, if I've got a product, it's about student outcomes. Then basically, I don't want it to throw features at me. I want them to tell me what that does and how long it takes a student to see growth. 

One of the big questions that a lot of vendors forget to ask is how long it takes to implement and to give them teacher support? How long does it take a teacher to implement that from there? Because here's the deal. It may be a great product, and it does great student outcomes, but if it is very convoluted for a teacher to use, they're not going to use it in their classroom. And so you've got to make sure that you're addressing those things up front. How long is it going to take us to implement? When a teacher's trained, how long is it going to be to train? So, you want to do that. 

You also need to understand your local context. So you want to make sure you know the district goes. I think in the last webinar, I talked about, you know, doing a little research before you talk to districts, to say, have they done a recent adoption? Is this product going to be something they already have? Well, chances are, you may be wasting your time unless you can come in and say, "Why would you need to change at this point?" And a lot of things with rural districts, they may also prioritize offline access or low-bandwidth tools for their students who are in rural areas. I'm in a rural area of Tennessee, and even with the great things that have happened with broadband getting to rural households, there are still a lot of households that don't have it. So, being able to give that student options is one of the things, and again, tools that will work with existing platforms. There are a lot of districts that are using single sign-on platforms. So being able to answer those questions and being able to integrate with their student management system. So, it's not going to be a lot of tasks to get that up and running in time. 

Again, I'm talking specifically about edtech tools, providing your evidence, and then what that professional learning is. I know it's a little long, but a lot of those things make a big difference when you're walking in the door that you can answer before, so that you can even get an audience with a district about certain things like that. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. So, you know, when you're looking at those rural districts and figuring out how to use the tools, on the other side of it, how can they leverage consortia to strengthen their procurement process? Are there things that they can do from that angle? 

Jill Pierce

In Tennessee, it's a little tougher. A lot of times, that's done through just several districts. We have, this is unique to Tennessee, we actually have a law that if a district does an RFP (request for proposal), they have everything listed on that, and they award it, as long as they've got language on the back end that other districts can buy off of it and the awarded vendor says yes, it basically becomes like a state contract and other districts can buy off of it. That was put in years ago when I was still a CTO. So, you know, knowing about laws that can help you as a vendor. That would be one for rural districts. A lot of us would get together, and one of us would do an RFP on a product that we want after we did an evaluation, and then other districts would buy off of it. There are a lot of states that have specific laws by that, and a lot of times you can find out very easily by checking, you know, looking at the district and seeing if other people are buying. A lot of those a lot of great vendors take advantage of those particular laws that are on the books to help make it easy for districts, because we all have rules that we have to follow. There are federal guidelines on purchasing; there's a certain amount that has to be done as an RFP. So, anything that helps with that process is going to be beneficial even for rural. 

I mean, and I'm not just talking rural. I mean, you've got small city systems too that have to take advantage of that because they don't have the buying power. But also sharing evaluations. And I do think it's important that if you have a really great story with the district on outcomes and those kinds of things, presenting in front of other districts with that district holds real value to other districts. It's great. You can come to me as a vendor and talk, but at the end of the day, if you bring me another district that I respect because they're doing a good job and they're using your product, and they can talk about it, that gives a big push. That's a very good way to share how that product's doing well.

Rich Portelance

So, if we take the vendor side, and you're looking at trying to become interoperable, Gina, what are you seeing from the publisher side in terms of what those edtech providers are doing to improve the alignment quality, so they can be interoperable?  

Gina Faulk

EdGate has always actually, when we're doing alignments from content to standards, we've always provided that data at the end. It's open. We don't lock our clients into a GUID. We let them see the text of the standard. So, we've always done that. So, if they choose to walk away and go use that alignment in the future, they can do that. 

But we also belong to the 1EdTech consortium. So we are a member of 1EdTech. So when we are aligning content to standards, we can also provide our clients with the 1EdTech case IDs. Those are the interoperable identifiers. So, each of those identifiers stands for a specific standard across the states, so that if they want to sell to a specific district that's using an LMS, and they're using those case IDs, that will be understandable. So, it used to be that you could standards would all have different GUIDs or IDs. So, an LMS wouldn't necessarily understand that ID. So, by using these case IDs, it allows for interoperability across the board. So, that's one of the main things that EdGate has been doing. And of course, not locking in our clients to a GUID that's not understandable once it leaves our system. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. Very good. Thank you for talking about that. I want to talk a little bit about AI, cybersecurity, and career readiness. We touched on that in the last webinar, and it was a topic that I think there was a lot more exploration to do. 

Ji Soo, are AI literacy frameworks emerging nationally, and how should vendors support them? 

Ji Soo Song

Yeah. So, I'm going to start off with the data from the state attempt survey that Jill mentioned. We published that a couple of weeks ago, and a question that we ask every year is “What is the number one priority and what is the number one initiative at the state education agency?” 

It used to be cybersecurity for the last three years. Now, it's AI, right, and more than 30 states have released some level of guidance for AI use and building AI literacy. Our colleagues over at the Center for Democracy and Technology has conducted an analysis of these guidance documents, and it seems to be a lot of focus on you know what are the promising approaches with AI and K12 education, what are the potential risks, and some emphasis on human oversight of AI-generated outputs, right. 

And this moment definitely feels, you know, different from other innovations like VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), XR (Extended Reality), and blockchain, with how fast you know the federal and state governments are moving in this space. The Department of Education has signaled flexibilities, and even some of their grant programs, to focus on AI literacy. And a lot of different organizations are coming up with their AI literacy competency frameworks. You can think about the TeachAI framework or the Digital Promise framework, right? And there are proposals up on the hill to allow states to define formal academic standards in AI literacy. So, we'll likely, you know, see additional momentum in the next few years, continuing to refine these competencies, and maybe even adopt them at the state level. But as you all know, standards updates in any state are a very slow-moving process. So, we'll have to see how fast that gets done. 

So, going back to your question, what can vendors do? Really, partner with districts in the necessary capacity building. We're about to release some research in the coming weeks that shows that a lot of AI-related professional development is just tool operations training, right? It's one and done. I was a formal classroom education educator myself. Usually, it's like a 30-minute thing before the school day starts or after the school day ends, right? So, how might vendors support districts in creating some sustained job-embedded opportunities for educators to build their knowledge about AI products, AI literacy skills, and how they can support their instructional goals? I think that sort of baseline capacity building should be the number one support that vendors can provide to educators at this moment. 

Rich Portelance

Excellent, and Jill, anything specific to Tennessee in terms of AI adoption at the district level? As Ji Soo said, it's probably going to take a little while, but you guys have got to be thinking about it. 

Jill Pierce

Well, we do have a state law that was put in effect, and we're starting to see those policies come up. The biggest thing with AI that is one of the biggest concerns from an educator standpoint, the first thing you hear is how that AI is going to affect their current process of education, and what they do with their work. So, a lot of teachers are concerned with that. So, I do think the biggest thing for a lot of that is to make sure that we're training teachers. 

Looking at professional development, I know we've been working with our Superintendent’s Association and with school leaders on how important it is for teachers to understand how AI works. A lot of schools are going and buying plagiarism detection tools. The problem is that with a lot of those, it's going to show up as AI-positive in most of the assignments. Even if you're not using AI. We're actively working with some schools. I do think that being able to answer how your AI works in your product, what those things are, and knowing if the district has an AI policy to see how stringent they are, because districts have to follow state law, but here in Tennessee, and what we're seeing in other states, it's not so strict that they can't use it. 

The other thing is that we have a lot of products that they may already have adopted, that if they're adding AI to it and it's just becoming part of that daily thing, we have to know. One of the things that I think is very important is asking vendors to make sure that if they add AI to an existing product or to a product add-on, that they're following the federal guidelines like FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), and that they can sign a digital privacy agreement with their AI enhancement. So, I do think that those are kind of things that we'll see. 

I don't think there's a state right now that doesn't have some type of state law on AI, but it is far-reaching, because everything's slow-going. And as we see this technology advance, it's going to be even more important that we're being smart about it, and I think the biggest area for a lot of us is going to be the cybersecurity area. I think that's where a lot of schools have questions about the AI. Is it following federal guidelines? Is it following state guidelines? And how secure is that? Is that going to make problems with cybersecurity on my network? 

Rich Portelance

Well, we're going to get to cybersecurity in a second. I do want to ask this. I think this is actually a really good question. Gina, because we have a lot of discussions internally about AI being used within the ExACT product. I know a lot of vendors are starting to apply AI, and there's speculation as to, you know, the level and the degree to which people are applying it. How is it being used in the standards alignment process and content tagging, and how does that help publishers and vendors respond faster to policy changes or framework changes? 

Gina Faulk

Yeah. So far at EdGate, what we've been doing is that we've been using AI in a couple of different ways. One of the ways is that we developed this tool quite a few years ago, and it relies on some AI. It's basically a suggestion tool. So, you can load up your metadata into the EdGate platform, and our system will evaluate the metadata automatically, then suggest the most applicable concepts or standards to be applied to that piece of content. Whether that's a lesson, or a video, or whatever it might be. It's all based on the metadata. 

Then, the other way we're starting to use it is with the comparisons and the analysis between state or international standards. So, say if you want to compare the Texas standards to Australian standards for some reason, maybe you want to branch out and sell internationally. Our system will do an analysis that is basically a semantic comparison, but it compares those two sets of standards, and it will show you your gaps and where you might need to build more content in order to meet those gaps. So, we are starting to use it within our own products. 

The other thing I wanted to comment on was that sometimes we do contracts for states. Whether that might be a third-party review, for instance. There are several states that require a third-party review of how the content meets the standards. But, in looking at some of the contracts more closely and the conditions that you must work under for some of the states, I have noticed things, like Jill was saying, about the standards requirements. So, some of the standards that you might need to meet are the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) standards, or the ISO/IEC (International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission) standards. Of course, there's language around how any confidential information used cannot be fed into generative AI, even if it's anonymized. 

The other things I noticed in looking at the state contracts were that there still has to be human oversight and checks for bias. One state requires quarterly training around AI. Language about the security of generative AI and human oversight is very important, along with ensuring that the output is accurate and free of bias. And one thing that kind of made me smile a little bit was just like, when you use AI, you cannot use AI in decision-making. So, sort of like, oh, what does that mean? Contractors shall not allow generative AI to make decisions or judgments in performance of the contract. It's like, wow, we've gotten that far that you can't let it do that. That makes sense. But yeah, we're seeing it all over the place. Whether that's thinking about our own products, how we're using AI, how we'll be securing the content, looking at state contracts, and what we need to know when we're working on a state contract. 

So, it all makes sense, but I think we're going to see more and more of that as we see states requiring third-party reviews and having to make sure that our team is up on all of the language and the training to do those reviews. 

Jill Pierce

Rich, if I may. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say there are a couple of emerging things that Cosen has, like a general AI readiness checklist that is being used by districts, kind of like for AI integration. So that's a good way to start, to look if you fall within that checklist as far as that goes. And then also looking at districts that are now including AI policy alignment, data privacy compliance appliance, and their procurement reviews. So, most of that stuff is public. With those particular things, those are good ways to get ahead of the game if you're looking at a new product and you have generative AI in your product. 

Rich Portelance

Jill, before you mentioned cybersecurity, and, you know, kind of going hand-in-hand, it was a precursor to AI to some extent, but it doesn't go away, right? Cybersecurity is something that is ever-present now. There are certainly different requirements in place at the district, state, and national levels. 

So I'm curious, Ji Soo, on the national level, are there any initiatives, such as FCC (Federal Communications Commission) pilots, that are helping states address cybersecurity and education at this point? 

Ji Soo Song

Right, so, in the previous administration, the FCC allowed some flexibilities to allow districts to pilot some cybersecurity supports with E-Rate funds, right? That typically funds school connectivity initiatives, but they allow some flexibility towards cybersecurity as well. I know the FCC removed off-campus related flexibilities last week, but so far, the cybersecurity pilot seems to be protected. But we'll have to see how this goes. But with any sort of pilot, there's the inevitable question around, like when the pilot ends, what's next, right? So we published a report earlier this year called the Universal Connectivity Imperative with our members, and we asked federal leaders to at least commit to carefully examining the impact of that cybersecurity pilot in the future, so that sustained support can be determined thereafter. 

We also reemphasized that to Congress when the Universal Service Fund Working Group opened up comments around the future of E-Rate and the Universal Service Fund. So, we'll have to keep up on how this work sort of evolves over the next several years. 

Rich Portelance

And Jill, how are districts balancing cybersecurity needs with some of the limited budget?

Jill Pierce

I think the first thing is that districts are looking at two things now. Typically, when they're purchasing something, you have the service agreement, which has all of your commercial language in it. And then districts are also making sure that a vendor can sign a data privacy agreement. And a lot of that has to do with, it's outside of that commercial language, where the data rests, what do you do inside if there's a breach, those kinds of things. It's more preventative in the sense that it helps if something does happen, that they have some recourse there. 

The other thing that I think that we're seeing with a lot of districts is that they're coming together and talking about things they can do as a whole. Not necessarily as far as purchase, but the questions they ask. So, they're helping each other. Like just yesterday, I had some districts, you know, Tennessee is kind of a wide state. We're kind of broken down into three regions. We have monthly meetings, and they talk about things in cybersecurity. So, being able to offer training as a district, then districts getting together to share ideas and things that they're using that are inexpensive, and things that maybe they already have available to them, but they didn't know how to implement, and using the knowledge from another district to do that. So we're seeing a lot of that happening. 

We're also including our vendors. So, a lot of our vendors that come to those meetings, they'll sit down, and they can provide some of their guidance there too, because you know, school districts in a lot of cases do not have the personnel to do all the cybersecurity stuff that they need. And we talk a lot about small and rural districts, but it's really everywhere. I mean, it's a very competitive industry. It's very hard to keep people in that K-12 environment. So, we have to have ways that we can communicate and do that. And so, depending on vendors to bring their expertise to the table and things that we can do from there is a big thing. 

But, I think the biggest thing we've seen in Tennessee, and that I've also helped a couple of other states with, is this type of community training about things that maybe you didn't know that you need to know on cybersecurity, and then using those vendors for information and for guidance where they have bigger pockets than that district does. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. Thank you very much. It kind of leads me into, you know, conversations about cybersecurity advances and becoming more mature. What we're doing in terms of, you know, keeping on technology trends, CTE coding, and creativity tools, there also have to be certain frameworks. 

Ji Soo, are states embedding career readiness and digital literacy into their new frameworks, or what's happening there? 

Ji Soo Song

Yeah, we see a lot more focus on workforce readiness, I think, happening at the state level. Actually, in the State Edtech Trends Report that we published a couple of weeks ago, we highlighted one of those states, Alabama, with its access program. Typically, Korean technical education was offered for in-person only at the state, but with increased sort of connectivity across the state, Alabama has really been trying to break some old barriers. So, the access program now offers 23 CTE courses with six fully virtual pathways that are designed with the University of Alabama and some industry partners over there, and that's been able to successfully reduce the cost for a lot of rural students who may have had to travel to some centralized tech centers to access this coursework. We were talking to the program director over there, and it seems like the program currently serves around 28,000 students in the state, but the state is committing to expanding the budget to support this program. So, yes, to answer your question, we see a trend towards workforce readiness and career readiness initiatives at the state level. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. Jill, I'm going to change the question here, and if you can't answer, it's okay. We can try to get to it later, but Joyce Whippy, who's on the webinar, asked a question in the Q&A, and it seems to fit. And I'm not sure if you have the answer, maybe Ji Soo does, but she asked if we could address state-level educational services agencies like the BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), the ESCs (Educational Service Centers), IUs (Intermediate Units), etc., in terms of procurement process, alignments, and implementation. Any help there? 

Jill Pierce

The problem is that in states like Tennessee, we don't have both these or district offices. A lot of states don't. Some states do. You take states like where Mindy Fiscus is at, they actually have an entity that's state employees, but they run their edtech program. So that's very different depending on the state. In New York, they have BOCES, which are regional district offices where they can do some of those things. When you're talking specifically about that, I think a lot of it is… here in Tennessee, it's about us getting the districts together. Like I talked about a while ago, I don't want to repeat myself, but when you start looking at other types of procurement, it's all about utilizing what that particular state has, knowing what those state laws are, and knowing what your caps are on procurement. 

So, I'll use Tennessee as an example because I know it well. In most districts in the state, most public school districts in the state of Tennessee, you have to do an RFP if it's over $25,000. So, that's a formal RFP that, if it's in advance of that. Now, if you had a district that already had a contract that they put that language I talked about earlier on there, then that district could buy off of that without doing a formal RFP if it's over that amount. So, it's really important as a vendor to know what the state laws are. It's also good if you've already got it involved there that you make sure that the district, once you’re in there, can put that language in there so other districts can buy off of it. And then looking at also federal cooperative agreements. So, for us, that's what we have to use. There are several federal cooperative agreements that districts can buy off of. I hope that answers Joyce's question, but that's kind of where we fall there. 

Rich Portelance

I think that's really helpful. And I'm curious, Gina, from your point of view, I know you're building up CTE standards within the EdGate repository, right? So, there are thousands or millions of CTE standards out there. And you're putting them in because there's more and more demand. Are you seeing things specific to some of these agencies now? 

Gina Faulk

Yeah, we did start putting them in years ago. They're really hard to keep up with because they are huge and they are changed all the time. So, it's been the hardest area to keep up with, but one of the things that we've done is we've put many of the CTE updated standards in, and we're able to run standards comparisons against them. So that's how we're currently using them. If a company comes to us and wants us to align their content to standards, they could align to one state and then see across the board how they compare to other states. 

But your question, I think, was more about… say it again? How the agencies are approaching them? 

Rich Portelance

Yeah. Are some of these agencies coming to groups like EdGate to do alignments for CTE standards today? Are you seeing a trend up to do alignments to CTE standards? 

Gina Faulk

There's definitely an interest. It kind of goes up and down in waves, depending on if CTE is the news. Now that it's in the news that there's going to be more funding for CTE, we've gotten a lot more inquiries about CTE. It also seems like people are looking to secure that funding right now, looking for grants, looking for how they can align their content to those standards, or states looking for help and how they can get their CTE in a more manageable state. So, for instance, a lot of those CTE standards might be sitting around in PDFs, or they're outdated. They need to be updated. So, we've heard about organizations looking to digitize them and use them more readily than they're currently able to be used. 

Rich Portelance

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Let's kind of talk a little bit about, you know, how we're going to continue to build trust as the states take control of some of these policies and frameworks. Ji Soo, you know, I know SETDA is an important and influential association. Are there other associations that people should be following or specific publications that you'd recommend to stay current with? 

Ji Soo Song

Yeah. And I know Rich, you and I talked about these organizations during our prep call a couple of weeks ago, but I'll shout out, you know, a couple of our partner organizations that do a really good job. Each network plays a unique role, and I think it's good to get acquainted with all of them. 

You know the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), right? They convene some local CIOs and CTOs who advise on a lot of local procurement and edtech implementation policy. The Council of Chief State School Officers, it's not just the state chiefs that are part of their membership. Their IMAC group convenes state CIOs and CTOs that work alongside our state edtech directors in providing guidance and advising policy. We also have the seven organizations, including SETDA, that formed the Edtech Quality Collaborative, that have committed to promoting the five tech quality indicators, which are, again, safe, evidence-based, inclusive, usable, and interoperable. And many of those organizations in the Collaborative offer certifications and badges that are aligned to these indicators to help vendors, you know, show that they are, you know, promoting and aligning to these indicators. 

So, my recommendation to vendor solutions providers is to engage with, you know, as many networks as possible because we're always in conversation with one another about who we should be on the lookout for. For many of our corporate members, even, were recommendations directly from one of these organizations. So, I think it's good to be, you know, well acquainted with who's who in the association space because again, we're always talking with one another about up-and-coming stars, folks to watch out for, and you know, some innovations that are happening in this space. 

Rich Portelance

I think that's really great. You know, especially with the decentralization, having these local alliances is going to be more and more critical to the individuals and to the districts. And if you're in a decision-making process, understanding who those agencies are, if you want to be able to get into specific states or districts, you need to know the consortia. 

Back many years ago, I was part of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools Technology Commission (CAIS Technology Commission), and we helped vendors assimilate into the schools and also conducted audits of each school's infrastructure, which was really important. So the schools rely on the agency, and the vendors rely on the agency as that joining force to be able to understand what's going on, and how to apply the technology. So I think we're seeing that same kind of thing today. 

Jill, any local organizations or frameworks that carry the most weight in influencing adoption decisions from where you come from?

Jill Pierce 

Well, I wouldn't necessarily… I mean, it's very important that organizations are a little self- serving too. Organizations like ours and the Superintendents Association. We work with the data supervisors, and we work with the Principals' Association. All of us are all promoting different areas of education in the state of Tennessee. So, it's very important that we talk about things that work. I do think that with vendors going in knowing which of those associations to be part of and to get information from, if you're in edtech, it would be us. Almost every state has an organization like us, and that's a good way to get involved, to know what's going on, and know what districts are more progressive. A lot of times, when you’re making a decision about vendors, when you're looking, I get that you want to sell to anybody you can, but getting in with the right district that you know is respected, and people know that they are progressive and they use their standards correctly, and they do the right things by students. 

A lot of times, you can find those things out. Obviously, Ji Soo already talked about how our organization is aligned with SETDA and CoSN. Knowing who those organizations are nationally aligned with can also be beneficial because you know that they're being progressive in that edtech market. So I do think that those things help because they may not necessarily influence that decision, because a lot of that has to be done properly with RFPs and different things like that. But it does help that vendor to know which organizations maybe to partner with to get their word out, and things like that, to get in front of school districts as far as that, because there's a trust with that organization. 

Rich Portelance

Yeah. And Gina, you know, as we're talking about that transparency component, I'm curious with EdGate's ExACT system, you know, are there any kind of reports or things that can be generated that would help a vendor to build more transparent and accurate alignment data so that they can build credibility with states? 

Gina Faulk

Yeah, one of the things that we do that I think is very popular and is very helpful is that we're doing the alignment, or our client is doing the alignment using EdGates tools, and then we have something called a correlation user interface. It's basically an iframe that sits on our client's site. So, if you’re the publisher “ABC” of ELA (English Language Arts) content, you would have this iframe sitting on your site so that teachers or decision makers at the district can instantly go in and see how that company's content aligns to standards at any given moment across all states. So, you could be a teacher sitting in California or a teacher sitting in New York, and either way, you're able to pull up the standards alignments in real-time, and that includes, say, a New York standard changed, we're instantly capturing that change, and then their content will automatically realign to that particular standard that's been updated. So, the language might have been slightly tweaked, and we're capturing that. So, that's probably the most transparent way to get your alignments across to your customers. It's just it's already sitting up there ready to go with the most current alignments out there. 

Rich Portelance

Thank you, Gina. So, it's good to hear that there are tools addressing some of these changes, and having some reporting that makes sense to allow you to have these better adoptions and to meet the criteria that are being set out. 

Closing Thoughts

Rich Portelance

We're running tight on time. So, one of the things I do want to make sure that each of the panelists has a few minutes to just kind of give a synopsis, on, you know, what's the single most important thing that vendors should do differently today and going forward into the future than they would have done maybe six months ago? 

So, if you guys are good, let's start with Ji Soo. If you could give us, you know, kind of your thoughts from the seat you sit in at SETDA, of what the most important thing that vendors could do differently, that would be tremendous. 

Ji Soo Song

What's the saying? Keep your ear to the ground, right? I think this year, especially when it comes to the edtech and AI policy space, there's been so many changes, and they're all very significant, right? California this week is just about to pass a new AI safety transparency law, right? And more states will probably follow suit, right? So, keeping aware of how these policy shifts might influence the priorities of states and districts that you'll be talking to will be really, you know, important to know that so that they know that you've done your homework, right? I know it's hard. I find it hard, like, I try to set aside like 30 minutes each morning before work starts just to, like, read through some newsletters just so that I'm on top of what the heck is happening. So, it's an uphill battle for sure, but doing your homework around like how priorities are shifting on a real-time basis will come to your advantage so that you're able to speak the same language with the folks that you're talking to, right? When I talk with different partners and potential members of SETDA, you know, if they know the pain points of our members, wow, like you're already like halfway in, right? So, I think that's a really good point. Again, I'm not saying it's easy at all because every day there, every hour, even there's a new piece of legislation being proposed. There's always a new, you know, priority set by the federal and state governments. But, you know, just doing your homework there, I think it will be to your advantage.  

Rich Portelance

I would agree 100%. The more educated you can become and keep your ear to the ground, I think that's wonderful advice. Jill, what do you think people can do that's going to be most impactful? 

Jill Pierce 

Well, I think it goes back to what we said at the beginning, and I agree completely with Ji Soo. One of the biggest issues that we have is vendors going in to talk to districts or state entities, and he used the term, and it's the right thing, “not doing their homework”. And how's that changed in the last 12 months? By a lot, because you need to know what state laws are affecting those districts, what data privacy, what cyber security, and if any standards have changed, because it's moving at the speed of light, and you're not going to be able to answer everything. But I do think that the more you're informed, people hate to waste time, and the more things that you can answer and not have to say, "We need another meeting” for, gives that first impression that you know what you're doing. And I know that's not new. It's really not new, but in this climate, it'll be more respected. So, I do think that if I can answer those questions on the front end to the best thing, and being transparent, I think that holds a lot of water when you're working with districts or with the state entity either way. 

Rich Portelance

Amen. Thank you, Jill. Gina Faulk, any thoughts on that? 

Gina Faulk

Yeah, I'm back to cybersecurity again. I think every contract we work on, we're seeing something about, you know, has your staff been trained with cybersecurity and handling confidential information? So, have your staff been trained? Has your team implemented adequate cybersecurity frameworks? Be up on all the frameworks that you need to have in place as you talk to your clients, and then, of course, from being at EdGate, I would say probably make sure all of your content is aligned to the most up-to-date state or international standards because they're constantly changing. And I did put that link in the chat. So, we have a view into all of those state standards or international standards that are changing. So, be ready.

Rich Portelance

Well, and you know, on behalf of EdGate, the EdGate Powers podcast, again, I'm your host, Rich Portelance, and I want to thank all our panelists, Ji Soo, Jill, and Gina, for joining us today. This was another great discussion. A lot of amazing information came forward. Please take the time to visit some of the resources that were provided. Make sure you check out SETDA and their new report that just came out. And everyone have a wonderful day. Thanks for attending.