At its annual "Reimagine Education" 2024 digital conference, Microsoft Education announced several new features of its AI and security tools aimed to assist teachers and help prepare students for future careers in which AI will play a prominent part.
Simply evaluating school-to-school achievement rates will yield only part of the story, because those factors are often linked to life outside of school: at-home literacy, access to enrichment opportunities, families' economic status … in other words, things that aren't under a school's control. But what if we looked at growth rather than achievement?
In the recently released "Extending the Runway: A 50-State Analysis of Middle School Career Exploration," nonprofit education organizations American Student Assistance (ASA) and the Education Strategy Group (ESG) report there is a vast difference between states that value the idea of middle school career exploration and those who have created guidelines and accountability at the state level for districts and schools implementing it.
Education strategy and policy consulting firm ILO Group has released a new "Framework for Implementing Artificial Intelligence in K–12 Education" to provide comprehensive information and resources to educators and state leaders on adopting AI technology.
In January, the U.S. Department of Education (ED)'s Office of Educational Technology released its annual 2024 "National Education Technology Plan (NETP): A Call to Action for Closing the Digital Access, Design and Use Divides."
Education equity nonprofit Core Knowledge Foundation has partnered with the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) to develop a digital K–8 social studies curriculum, Bayou Bridges, for the state's school districts for the 2024-25 school year. The curriculum will be hosted on ed tech company Kiddom's platform.
Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) has awarded a five-year, $30 million contract for school bus service to the Zūm school transportation company.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and data analytics company SAS have partnered to launch a web-based tool that provides reports and analysis on performance, achievement, and growth at all K–12 schools in the state to help guide decision-making about effective learning strategies.
At San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District in Central Texas, transparency and communication are critical to student success. We spoke with the district's chief of communications and technology about how how consistent communication between educators and families builds relationships, trust, and a foundation of student support.
Cybersecurity software and services vendor Malwarebytes has launched a new unified solution for school districts called ThreatDown K–12 Bundle that is more cost-effective than piecemeal solutions, the company said in a news release.