April 10, 2025 • 47 mins
Episode 209 covers a range of topics, including a recap of the PowerSchool interview, news on a UC Irvine study about AI usage among teens, potential cuts to K12 cybersecurity funding, and a humorous moment involving the Secretary of Education (A1!). The main focus is on exploring the potential impacts of the Department of Education's closure on K12 technology, examining the roles of key divisions like the Office of Educational Technology, the Institute of Education Sciences, grant-making offices, the Student Privacy Policy Office, and the Office for Civil Rights. The episode discusses how the closure could affect national policy, research funding, student privacy, and digital equity in schools.
News Articles:
- UC Irvine releases study on AI usage amongst teens.
- 4 things to know about Trump cuts to K-12 cybersecurity
- Linda McMahon thinks that A1 steak sauce is being taught in schools
00:00:00-Intro
00:07:10-News
00:11:40-A1 Steak Sauce???
00:18:31-Job Titles
00:26:04-Impact of the DoE Closure on K12 Tech
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Music by Colt Ball
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On site's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk Podcast, we talk about the potential closure of
(00:05):
the Department of Education and what that means for education technology. A loss of funding,
a shift of policy, and everything in between. Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk Podcast. This is episode 209 after our
(00:25):
special episode. I am Josh with me as always as Chris, Howdy, and Mark. Hey guys, hey, so I mean we
should probably kind of unpack power school or recap power school, right? Yeah. How'd that go?
Thanks to Mark, we had a kick-it. Oh, sorry. This is a G-rated show, a killer show with Mishka.
(00:48):
Yeah, no, it was good. I thought it was a good interview. He really opened up very early on.
I thought it was pretty vulnerable to do that. He's a human. We learned he likes Dr. Pepper.
That was the theme. He's a real person. Yeah. We can't say a couple of things, right? He did not touch
on MFA and all those things that circle around that. And we kind of knew that was going to happen.
(01:12):
Yeah. We didn't get to unpack the, how do you know the bad guy deleted the stuff?
The gentleman's handshake. Yes. But we knew that was, I mean, we felt like that was inevitable
to not get to really dig into those two things. Yeah. I think there's only so much you can do to go
backwards and talk about what we already know and what we're never going to be able to answer
(01:37):
that question of how do you know that the data was deleted. So it's hard. How much do you talk
about it versus think of moving forward? But yeah. I mean, you can assume that eventually it'll
come out and discovery with different litigation that's pending. But yeah, we won't find that out.
Yeah. That's for sure. Mark, you have traversed the company two or three times this week, right?
(02:01):
Yeah. I think I've four times flown to the Pacific coast twice since our last episode.
So I'm a little tired. Are your arms tired? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. How was you went to ASU,
ABCU? Yeah. So Chris and I hung out at Cosen and then Cosen and Josh, we missed you. Why weren't you
(02:25):
there? Several reasons. Okay. Great. Good answer. Cool, man. And then I came home for a day or two
and then went down to ASU GSV where I got to hang out with some really old friends and some
got to see some cool celebrities. Go ahead, say it. You're besties now. Linda McMahon.
(02:47):
That's not what I was talking about. R1. Linda. Linda. It's really weird. There's always some
like weird celebrities at this conference. So Colin Kaepernick was just hanging out and doing
some presentations on his new AI tool. Will I am was hanging out? There was a party with like
Sugar Hill gang just hanging out and yeah, it was it was an it's an interesting conference.
(03:11):
I would say if you ever get a chance to go to ASU GSV, don't pass it up. But just know that the
primary audience is not necessarily school-based folks. So you're going to see a lot of
ed tech companies and their funders and the research folks and colleges. So good time. I was hit
with the tariff bug this week went to execute our PO for our Chromebook purchase for next year and
(03:36):
was told that this particular manufacturer who I won't mention now has avoided all outstanding
quotes and they're not giving pricing right now because all of their devices are made in China.
Another manufacturer is giving quotes but their pricing structure is only valid for 48 hours.
(04:02):
Got to press that button as soon as you get it. Yeah Josh. That works really well when you
got to take things to a board or you have yeah. Josh, you just need to be more prepared.
Josh. Yeah, make a decision man. I think I said this and I said that to somebody else this week.
So last year and it just kind of hit there was particular reasons why but we purchased Chromebooks
(04:26):
for three of our four major buildings. So I've kind of been acting like I did the political
forecast, saw the tariffs coming. And I dodged a bullet right now because we're actually skipping a
year of Chromebook purchases. I'm a genius. Every year it's drama with my Chromebook purchase.
(04:47):
Last year was the vendor that was trying to sell me Chromebooks that didn't exist and the
manufacturer telling me that they're not going to sell Chromebooks to this vendor. It's always
something. It's always something. I'm sorry Josh. No, you're not. You guys are, I know you're
enjoying it. You like to listen to me wine. Speaking of Chromebooks, Chromebookparts.com is a proud
(05:08):
new sponsor of the KTool of Tech Talk podcast. They gave out all those tool kits, cool tool kits.
I think some of you may still be waiting on yours. I promise they're coming. We've heard all about
it. We let's just say we took every toolkit they had and they had to get more. I did receive mine
(05:30):
and there's a little bit of conspiracy on Missouri's discord and on KTool of Tech Pro that maybe we
ranked who should get theirs in advance. That's not true. That's a rumor. A rumor that you started
I think. But I will say all three of us did receive our toolkits and our closest friends did
receive our toolkits. That's a joke too. Anyway, I did not file for a toolkit. I did not take anyone's
(05:56):
toolkit. My guys got toolkits. I did not get a toolkit. Cool of Chromebookparts.com to do that
and they want to be your Chromebook lifetime partner. You can get their screens,
their parts, good parts for your Chromebook. If you're not buying Chromebooks, Josh,
you're going to need some parts to keep that fleet going. It's great. Yeah.
(06:19):
Well, I've got vendors that are like, well, I can get you a Chromebook that expires EOL
2031. I'm like, no, I need to stay in my rotation and my plan that we have that I adopted with my
CFO. I have to have a device that's got an EOL of 2033. Like 2031 screws me. I need a 2033
(06:40):
device. Sorry for your loss. Yeah, it's I'm going to have to end up going with a vendor that I
have expressed extreme hatred for is what's going to happen. I know this. I'm going to have to
get over it and just buy it by a crappy Chromebook. Is it what I would say is a great Chromebook?
No, not that company. I will not. They'll be blast on my list. All right. Mark, get us out of
(07:03):
Josh's woes, please. I don't I don't think that's possible, but I will try jumping in the news.
UC Irvine has released a study on AI usage amongst teens. There's some really cool stats. I
pulled out of this one. Is that AI or a one? We'll get to that later. That joke is later. Save it.
(07:25):
Save it. I could really go for some mistakes. They serve it. Students ages nine to 17 as well
as parents. 45% of students are using Gen A like chat, but the specialized tools like the really
nuance ones, super rare to see teens using those types of tools. So most people are gravitating
(07:46):
towards the chat GPT and Gemini and maybe Claude. The quote that I pulled from this, which I'm
very, very excited about. And when I read it for Badam was we were shocked to see that at least
this time, teens from lower versus higher income families did not very substantially in their adoption
or uses of Gen AI, which is common in the introduction of new digital and education technologies.
(08:10):
So the opportunity gaps that might exist with students in different socioeconomic families
was not prevalent in this survey, which is a really, really cool sign to see. Yeah, I hope I hope
that sticks. Yeah, that's really interesting. We just had election stuff, local election stuff,
had some mayor, like I'm small town, had several close to that maybe had several running for mayor.
(08:39):
There is this guy that ran that everyone knows this guy pretty well to say he's the most
professional speaking person he is not. Well, his Facebook page for his election, like was
Uber proper. And everybody's like, hey guy, like this ain't you, you know, that's funny.
And then he would write a response that it was chat GPT, like he was like, should be whatever for
(09:05):
believing this way and not giving folks an opportunity to blah, blah, blah. You know, it levels
the playing field guys. Yeah. So I hope this sticks. We will say that guy lost the election by the way.
I don't know, but you I had this article sent to me probably five or six times last week.
At week, published four things to know about Trump's cuts to K12 cyber security.
(09:28):
Some of the things we've talked about on this podcast, the first one, which hit me personally,
I was, we've talked about this. I was a member of the DOE's cybersecurity GCC.
Well, we got notified last week that our job is done. And so the Department of Education's GCC has
been officially canceled, I guess you could say. For those uninitiated listeners, what is GCC stand for?
(09:53):
Government coordinating council. So it was a bunch of groups that you've all heard of, the
alphabet soups is somebody described it. Cousin, Ceta, superintendents from large and small districts
kind of come together and talk about cyber security, no longer. Second one, MSISEC, as we've talked
about many times. Who's that? You should, you should learn about them, Josh. Yeah, Josh, actually,
(10:18):
oddly, weirdly, Mark and I are presented with MSISEC at Cousin. Yeah, you did too. Yeah, you think it
would be you, you're on the board, whatever, but yeah, as a board member, you sent, you sent us.
That was at the same time as the town hall was taking place. I believe that I was on. Yes. Okay.
I, and Mark, I'm going to bet like a dollar that we were the most exciting MSISEC
(10:44):
in person presentation that's ever existed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we brought it. MSISEC presented and
then we took over and then and Chris brought it like 8 a.m. energy drinks, government funding.
Let's go. Number three, this is one we've also talked about a lot. The FCC cyber security pilot
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program, it's still going. Experts are concerned about this and not very optimistic about its
future. The chair of the FCC actually was the one who voted against it in the first place.
So we will see what happens to that one and then fourth is just staffing cuts.
The Department of Education, which we're going to talk about later, did see their office of
(11:30):
edtech eliminated in March. We will see what happens with cyber security in K-12 with those kind
of four major shifts in the last couple of weeks. And last on the news, which was really fun
because I was in the room for this. I was at ASU GSV this week and we got to see Linda McMahon
in the flesh speak about her job as as Secretary of Education. I have a question. Yeah, when
(11:57):
when she came on the stage, did they do like the whole WWE entrance song and like did she run
through the crowd and come up on stage? You know, that that would have made a whole lot more sense.
No, it was a very tame one. I was waiting for somebody to come out with like a folding chair.
Yeah, but that never happened. No, there were there were protests. There were protests outside.
(12:23):
I did see a couple of people removed from the audience holding signs up. So it was a little
bit of a controversial one. You left your sign at home? Yeah, no, I'm not risking that seat.
But the reason this one hit the news, we're going to we're going to play this clip and I will say
this is funny no matter what your political affiliation is. You know, I don't know that it's funny.
(12:46):
I, I, well, let's, you know, that's you getting a little bit political. Just take it. Take it from the sit and say sad.
All right, let's let's let's play. Let's play. Let's play. Let's play.
I heard I think it was a letter or report that I heard this morning. I wish I could remember the
source, but that there is a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or
(13:08):
even pre-k's have a one teaching, you know, every year starting, you know, that far down into grades.
And that's just a, that's a wonderful thing. Kids are sponges. You know, they just absorb everything.
And so it wasn't all that long ago that it's we're going to have internet in our schools.
Now, okay, let's see a one and how and how can that be helpful? How can it be helpful in one-on-one
(13:30):
instruction? So when that happened, it was kind of quiet and I turned the person next to me and I said,
did she just read AI as a one? And there was just a lot of confusion in the audience and then
sure enough, the news articles just start pouring in that we'll even link one from TechCrunch
where reference that the United States Secretary of Education just referred to AI as A1. And so
(13:55):
there's a lot of A1 sticks us jokes going on. And I'm sure we'll have a few more of this this
episode. I don't know how well a sponge would soak up a one. A1's kind of thick. Yeah. Yeah. I
don't know. Yeah. She misspoke. If they, if they, right, Mark, you were there. You said she talked
about AI prior to these sentences. She did. She did. She talked about AI just right. Which I think makes
(14:19):
this worse. You know, if they're teaching a one, are they just trolling you, Josh, is she trolling you?
Are they teaching? She's going to come in and slam you down. Are they teaching proper
grilling technique? If they're teaching how to A1, they need to teach how to grill as well.
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It's a great question. Very great question. I don't know. All right. That's it for the news. We'll
come back to some more comments from Linda later in the episode. But that's it for for today,
I did want to talk about and this isn't this isn't just an an ad for K-12 Tech Bro, but we have
that safety watch weekly new letter that we've launched now. NTP is helping us with that. So every
(15:06):
Friday that will be posted on the cyber security hub on K-12 Tech Bro, we're going to post a portion
of it on the K-12 system and subreddit and pin it to the top. But that's kind of just like the
public stuff. And then we'll we'll hold some back just for those that work in K-12 Tech
to get that on K-12 Tech Bro. So this is going to drop tomorrow. There's several things that
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the newsletter talks through, but in particular, which is funny timing. I'm not going to say what
platform my school district uses for our website, but we we have a platform that we use.
Well, there is a word press, plug vulnerability, CVE 2025, 2075, and it's a plug in. You can read about
(15:54):
it called the uncanny automator that gives the bad guys the abilities to escalate and do some
bad stuff. So read about that, check about that. I think they're saying it's like 50,000 plus WordPress
websites using it. Get that taken care of. Josh, do you use WordPress? No, God, no.
(16:17):
You know, Josh, we ran into somebody at Cosen who really had some things to say about your hatred
towards Microsoft Teams. Oh, really? Was it my fan? No, no, definitely. No, you would have
was it Bill Gates? No, I mean, he lives up that way, right? Actually, wasn't it? I think it's one
(16:37):
of the fine folks in Indiana. And we're going to you're going to meet them face to face when we go
there. We're going to go to the Indiana Cosen chapter conference here at the beginning of May.
And I think it was one of those guys. Interesting. There was a guy that walked up and literally asked
for you by first and last name, which was an absolute riot. And he was disappointed when you weren't
(17:04):
there. And he made Josh or he made Mark and I feel very less than. He just walked away when he
found out that you weren't there. It's weird. Why did the why did the steakhouse hire a robot?
Because they thought a one sauce meant it was top tier artificial intelligence.
(17:25):
Are you using Gemini to write jokes again? I'm using chat GPT right now. We've tried both.
Don't know more. Don't do it. No. Anyways, that terrible joke was brought to you by Lumu.
There are news, a new sponsor of the KTW Tech Talk podcast. If you're tired of getting
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(17:50):
give you real-time visibility into confirmed network threats. They can automate some responses.
So check out Lumu.io to learn more. I asked my boss if we're using AI. He said, yeah. It's A1.
So now I've got I've got robots seasoning my emails. That's really bad. Oh, Chris,
(18:15):
do you have the ability to mute Josh? I we have the ability to kick him. Okay. If he starts on
another. That's a that's a threat. It's not a threat. Josh, it's a promise. I should jump to
the listener email or email, but a KTW tech please. A very well talked about
(18:40):
post on KTW Tech Pro was around job titles and people asking, what is your job title?
And while it wasn't necessarily a formal poll, there was some good trends to go on there.
I noticed quite regularly that the director of the IT department was listed as director of
technology. There was a few CIOs or CTOs within the group, but more often than not, the top of the
(19:05):
IT department was director of technology. And the other trend I noticed was most people reported
to an assistant superintendent and then to the superintendent. So that director is two layers
down from the superintendent. And then there was a whole host of other types of job titles,
administrator, coordinator, sister admin, specialist, those kinds of things. So it gets
(19:27):
all over the place afterwards. Jim, have you had what I haven't asked your official title,
but have you had any kind of job title changes over the years? Have you gone from director to
CIS admin to those kinds of title changes? With different roles, yeah. But since I've been at my
current job, you know, almost 12 years now, it's been director. And you talk about making that
(19:54):
too like a chief level position or I have actually recently asked about that. We're in discussions
about that. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but it's it's been a talking point recently.
Okay. Chris, I even laugh at the there's a there's a there's a decent debate about technology
(20:16):
director or director of technology. And some folks get really stuck on the director in the front.
Really? Yeah, I think it sounds nicer, right? Director of technology as opposed to just
technology director. Interesting. I was at a school one time where I was the so I was I was a technician.
(20:44):
And I was called the technology assistant. And they always hit like personally hit me not
right because that made it feel like that made it feel more like a secretary. The title could
be confused as like a secretary or role or a clerical role. As opposed to hey, I'm actually I'm doing
(21:06):
tech work. Yeah. I'm in the field. I can see that. At my school district and I fixed it. But
when I came on our tech our technician position was called technology technician. And I
thought that was a little bit repetitive. You know, you can you can chop that up a little bit. Yeah.
(21:32):
One time I had a job I was the field tech and then I got promoted to lead tech. But I was the only
tech. But I was the lead. I appreciated that. It came with it. It came with arrays. That's when
they trusted you to actually lead yourself. Right. Yeah. I'm doing it. I'm doing okay job. I say to
myself. No, I agree with what you're saying. There's I think in Missouri how you just describe the
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the tech director tends to go to the assistant soup. Yeah, I think that's a pretty common place
thing. I know some of our folks around here though have those extra titles that like director
of technology and innovation. Yeah. Some of those fancy retails that make us feel good. It's
interesting. I I did report the assistant soup and CFO one time. Then it was moved over to the
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assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. And then our superintendent left. And
that assistant superintendent became the superintendent. And so now I I report to the superintendent.
I don't report to an assistant. Which to me is even more argument for that to be a CTO CIO
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title. Yeah. Yeah. If you're at a chief level you should be reporting directly to the superintendent.
But it doesn't always happen. It you know, it all depends on the size of the organization
existing structures. And then you know, some of the larger districts in the area have adopted
that role. It isn't. I don't know that I see it as often in districts my size, although my district
(23:10):
continues to grow. We're getting bigger. I don't know. You seem you seem to see it more in the
major metropolitan areas. I guess. Yeah. That's for sure. And I always think Josh, would you agree with
this coordinator tends to be a teacher turn tech? Is that what goes through your mind or no?
(23:31):
No, not I didn't not for me. I see coordinator in those even smaller districts than years where
they can't afford a director level position and they just they need to they need somebody.
And they need somebody to set to set that strategic direction. They're going to call them
(23:51):
coordinator because they can't afford to pay director level maybe. I don't know. Yeah.
Interesting. Mark, did you see those same turns on the east coast?
Yeah, I know. Locally, anytime you see assistant superintendent or superintendent deputy,
anything with the word superintendent is an academic type position and these to have certain
(24:14):
certifications. So we usually see chiefs more on the operation side. But I mean, in 11 years of in
my district, I had every single title under the sun and every I worked with all kinds of
different titles. So it changes and their trends that change as superintendents come and go.
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Are you seeing a trend? It seems like there is a newer trend of executive director.
And that places it's still a director role. But it puts that role in the superintendents cabinet kind
of thing. Yeah, that seems to be a trend that we're seeing here. Yep. Yeah, for sure.
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The other trend that we're seeing in larger districts is for the superintendent to have only two
to three direct reports. Yeah, more like deputy superintendents and then like a deputy superintendent
of operations and a deputy superintendent of academics and then everything flows up to those two.
Yeah, that's the other trend I'm seeing. So yeah, job titles. That is all.
(25:20):
Christopher, you want to hit a sponsor? A little love to a class link, a proud sponsor of this
podcast. They can take identity and access management from overwhelming to automated checkout
class link at classlink.com. All right. I'm a I'm a technology director, by the way. Got it.
(25:42):
I think I'm the other way. Your nose is a little further up than mine. Yeah, it was bigger too.
The Rector of Technology. All I care about DPAs and whatnot.
Josh, have you, by the way, a correction from the last episode, it was, it was,
(26:04):
yes, Mishka referred to the heck that it was the the sea that is the the assessment from
Cosen. Yeah. Have you sent it to all of your vendors by now? No, but I did. At the end of that call,
I did send it to my assistant swoops and my soup and said, hey, if you're looking for another
tool to measure vendors when you're when you're, you know, vetting or trying to decide whatever.
(26:30):
Here's a here's a tool to use. You're a tool. Whatever.
Hurtful mark. We've said tool a lot this episode. I think we need to like
no more toolkits and tools this episode. Well, let's get the A1 count up.
Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, main topic tonight is the impact or the potential impact
(26:56):
of the closure of the Department of Education. The last few weeks has been quite a stir with
Trump announcing these moving towards close and the Department of Education. When I was at
ASUGSV this week, got to hear straight from Linda McMahon about her plans to close and
and her thoughts will play some clips now. But we thought we'd unpack if there were to be
(27:18):
a closure of the Department of Education. What does it actually mean for K-12 technology?
Because there's a whole lot of other things that that means for schools. But what's the relevance
of the Department of Education to our work? So, gentlemen, should we dig right into it?
We should. We should. The first one, the first kind of division of the DOE that has been closed
(27:40):
is or downsize at least is the Office of Educational Technology. They're the ones that set the
National Education Technology Plan, the NETP. They provide guidance and leadership to states
and districts. They're promoting research-based practices. They're the ones at the Department
of Education who think about the digital divide, homework, gap type stuff. That is being shut down
(28:02):
and being pushed down to states and districts. This is almost a conversation about where does
innovation sit? I know we all have our different political opinions. But this is something that
Linda McMahon did say that I actually, I can resonate with where she believes that innovation
actually should be as close as possible to the students. So, I want to play the question and answer
(28:25):
now. I think what we're trying to understand is how are you going to put guardrails around this
to ensure that the students who need the most get the resources? Well, if you look now and that's
an excellent question and that is one that I'm asking often and I don't have a magic answer to that
at this moment. But what we have seen already are some of the great innovations that are taking place
(28:50):
in many of the states in the country and that is not because of the Department of Education,
but that is because that local governors and local school superintendents and teachers and parents
all working together. And I'm not saying it's one party or the other. I am just saying where there
is that desire and that goal to bring in best practices. So, so you're starting to see a little bit
(29:16):
of her her belief here in the Trump administration's belief that local control, local superintendents and
states should be the ones to innovate. And so there's kind of your first move of moving the
office of educational technology, that functionality down to the state level. But as you heard from Linda
McBann, there's some uncertainty as to how to make sure that happens consistently across all the
(29:37):
states. Do you get a lot of guidance from your state in Missouri? Absolutely not. Oh, okay.
Do you want to think about that a little bit more, Josh? No, that is one thing that our Department
of Education could do light years better would be some sort of statistical alignment or guidance
(29:59):
when it comes to technology and both from instructional and tech tech side of things.
Missouri's big local control, which I'm all for, but if you are removing kind of a guide star
and you know, even if people didn't really use the federal Department of Education as that
(30:23):
guide star of what they should be doing their best practice or hey, these things work,
somebody's got to fill that role in and having 50 states do 50 different things
while it might work locally, it may not be the best way to do it. That's my issue with this.
And like in Missouri, we are, I don't expect a lot out of our Department of Ed.
(30:50):
Yeah, I think speaking again, I only know Missouri. Back in the day, and I think I'm talking
well, for sure 10 years ago, and I think it's been longer than that, our state did require
districts to submit a technology plan to the state. And it was a separate plan. It was for
(31:10):
your technology program. And then that went away. And now we, you know, we align with some other
things that are, you know, our school improvement plan or whatever, whatever we're kind of like
in it now. But I remember, I mean, used to, I had to submit a technology plan. And it had to
align with what the state had set as some things that we should try to be accomplishing. No, I
(31:36):
don't know, to be honest, did the state pull those things from the National Education Technology
Plan? It was, it was trickling down. You could assume that back then, really not until this
podcast, did I pay attention to or think through the National Education Technology Plan? It was,
(31:57):
I think like during COVID that I had really first laid my eyes on the PDF of, oh, nationally,
there's this plan that we're supposed to be following. So I put some question marks around some
of this. Yeah, well, I mean, within my state, I, I have great respect for the, our state's
office of ed tech, but they're very small. Like they don't have the capacity. So I think the first
(32:18):
thing that comes to mind is if you're removing this national department of ed tech, does the state,
each state have the capacity to do it? And then how do you make sure that all 50 states are aligned?
So they're working the same thing. Same thing. I don't know. And, and maybe Missouri does. I don't
know if Missouri has an office of ed tech. I, I don't know the answer to that. Well, that doesn't
(32:43):
bode well for alignment. Yeah, exact. That's right. I'm going to. Yeah, you know, as the office
of, of, or as the Department of Education does begin to kind of close or downsize, the states in
theory should be picking up this role in the capacity. So we'll see if that happens. And you,
you heard Linda McMahon there say she's not quite sure how that would, would occur.
(33:07):
The next major department or division within the Department of Education is the Institute of Education
Sciences. This is one that you rarely hear about in a school, but there are a lot of products that
come out of the IES that we benefit from a lot of research around ed tech tools, a lot of federal
(33:27):
funding going towards grants and ed tech effectiveness. And so some of the tools that we are using,
some of our high quality tools that are out there come from the Institute of Education
Sciences. And I know that a lot of folks are very concerned about the end of grants and the,
and the, the pausing of grants coming from IES. So this will be a big one that I think will be
(33:49):
interesting to see should there not be a federal office that's doing the research on all this
education technology are is it left up to states to, to push the research is it left up to the
private sector to fill that gap? I'm not sure. It'll be private sector and we all have to pay for it.
Well, sure. But then, you know, are you getting high quality materials or are you getting
(34:13):
materials that are just marketed really well? Right. That was, that was the entire intent of the IES
is to ensure that the types of materials and content and curriculum that we're getting
are actually effective. The third one, and I'm going to play a clip for this one as well,
which is gotten a lot of people concerned. And this is, this is where you're seeing the most
traction in in headlines are the grant making offices. So you got title one, title two, title four,
(34:40):
which is really student support academic enrichment. So I saw a lot of
districts using this money for devices, software, professional development around technology,
special education uses quite a lot of title four funding for technology. And you've got IDEA,
technology for students with disabilities, again, special education, competitive grants. Again,
(35:02):
this is all the money. And these offices, the money is administered by the Department of Education.
Should that Department of Education office go away? Well, then what happens? So we did get that
question from Linda McMahon this week. And here's her reply. That's important, which is why the,
the title, you know, title one and these grants are so important to keep intact, which you said are
(35:28):
going to step. Absolutely. Title one funding. And I talked to the president about this title one
funding. And the IPL grants and the IPA funding, the Pell grants is not, they're not looking to be
taken away because we understand that the funding is the good portion. That's right. So that's,
that's Linda McMahon saying that the loss of the Department of Education doesn't change the funding.
(35:51):
So that funding would in theory be distributed directly to the states to administer. So
could there be increases in funding if you don't have the administrative office down in DC handling
this one and taking a little bit of a chunk away from that funding. Maybe more goes the states or do
states need to kind of boost up their infrastructure to administer these funds. You never know. But,
(36:14):
you know, there's there's the Secretary of Education saying we're not cutting the funding just
because we're cutting the department that admin ministers it.
Good thoughts. Until tomorrow when they change the mind, I cannot find a link to the office of
ed tech. Everything's fine. It's going to be fine.
(36:42):
These next two departments that you and I should start, maybe we should, maybe we should
leverage the desi commissioners.
Let's do it. You know, I like a good idea. Yeah. Oh, don't, don't give them too many crazy ideas, Josh.
That's where how we got here, Mark. That is the status true. That's true.
(37:05):
You'll just keep the train moving, Mark.
There are tracks that go on right. We make it true. Yes, do we make it?
The last two, this is where Josh is going to go off. So you have the student privacy policy office,
which, which is the one that oversees FERPA. And then you have the office of civil rights. These
are more of the kind of the policing arms of the department of education. Closing the DOE
(37:29):
does not stop FERPA. So FERPA still has to exist. And there have already been court cases that
have said states cannot oversee and govern FERPA. It has to be done by a federal agency. So
unless Congress makes a big change here, FERPA has to go somewhere. I've heard a lot of theories.
Josh, you had a theory before we were when we were getting ready to start the show.
(37:54):
Yeah, it'll be the Department of Justice.
So we will see. But FERPA right now, I would say, is loosely enforced by the Department of
Education. And so if it were to move to the Department of Justice,
with the administration of FERPA change, we'll be start to see there'll be two busy investigating
(38:16):
Chris Krebs. So we're not politically here, Josh. I know. It's a fact. That's what they're doing,
right? There is there is interesting conversation around some of that stuff too. Like we know our
friends up New Hampshire way have done great work with student data privacy, better than say,
(38:37):
Missouri. Yeah. So if it is trickling, if it is broken down to the states,
there will be states that are stronger at that than others as it's playing out today,
where maybe the feds gave the bar and it was set pretty low for privacy. One out of the
(38:57):
state gets to decide how high they're going to put that bar. So maybe that's a good thing.
Or in Missouri's case, we don't even have an office at tech. So
keep googling for that. If someone can find it great, I cannot find it.
Well, speaking of websites, the last division would be the office for civil rights. One of the
(39:22):
things under their purview are digital equity and accessibility. They're the ones that reach out
to school districts to make sure that their websites are compliant with accessibility and that
all instructional materials are accessible to students with disabilities. So that's a big one as
well that we'll see potential changes, almost immediate changes to accessibility and enforcement
(39:42):
if the office of civil rights no longer exists. I see this. Yeah, I see this rolling to DOJ too,
though. Yeah, I was going to say again, laws need to go somewhere. So it's not like the laws
just stop existing, but the enforcement needs to move somewhere else.
Those are the major categories. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Jeff. I was just going to say I have a
(40:04):
funny accessibility story from this week. If you guys want to hear it, is it really funny, though?
That sounds controversial. No, it's really not. It's really, you should know me well enough to know
that I wouldn't go there. No, I got an email from a teacher this week that asked me
to disable the face tracking feature on Chromebooks. You texted this. And I said, I need some
(40:33):
context. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, apparently on our newer Chromebooks,
there is an accessibility feature like eye tracking and eye gaze for people that aren't in the
special needs world eye gaze machines are super expensive. And it's meant for people that have
low to no motor control or muscle tone, they're very hot, platonic to be able to use their eye
(40:56):
gaze to move the mouse around the screen and type and stuff like that with their gaze. That's
the point of this. Well, apparently new Chromebooks can do facial tracking in a very, very similar
manner. Pretty cool. I had a teacher complaining that while she's teaching, she has what looks like
a class of bobble heads because her entire class has turned on the facial tracking feature.
(41:21):
That's brilliant. We played with that in the office today because did you because you brought
that up? Yeah. I like it. It's fine. Yeah, it's clunky. Oh, I'm sure it's a Chromebook. And it,
you know, yeah, how did you get it? Did you smile for it to enter, I think? What was the
header? Yeah, you can choose like blinking or smiling to do keystrokes and stuff like that. So
(41:47):
I can totally go ahead. I'm sorry. You have to be really accentuated. So I can imagine that
there's this teacher who looks at her class and they're just nodding and waving her heads back
and forth and smiling blindly at their computers. And Mark, as a teacher, I'm sure that would
infuriate you if you had a class of 25 young adults all doing this. Yeah, but you also know me.
(42:13):
I would first ask the kids how to turn that on. And then I would start playing with it for
future. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we said the accessibility tools have all kinds of things that
you can do to your Chromebook. Like you can invert the colors. You can do all kinds of crazy things.
And we nip those kids that turn that junk on that don't need it. Right. Like, well,
wait, what Josh, what did you say to teacher? Did you say, hey, just get a grip on your classroom?
(42:36):
I said, one, I don't know that I can turn this off. And I'm, I didn't say this.
I don't think I would be willing to turn that off. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Because it is an
accessibility feature. And we do have, we have a handful of kids that are, I know one kid in
particular that's in a wheelchair that has very, he has, he has difficulty maneuvering a mouse.
(42:58):
This could work for him. And I'm not going to turn it off. And I'm not going to turn it off
for individual kids. Like, this would be a blanket thing. So it's not happening. So I kind of
nicely put that that way. And then I replied back after thinking for a little bit. And I said,
you know, the mean, the mean adult in me would tell them to, if they can't use their device in
(43:21):
a correct manner, one, close the lid, put it in the cart, you're done. Like, you don't, you don't
get to use the device. And then to let them, help them understand that this could be seen as
offensive to anyone that actually needs to use this technology in the appropriate manner.
And you're jacking around, playing around, thinking it's hilarious. So it could be a very good
(43:45):
learning opportunity as well. That's where we stand. Look at you becoming a teacher overnight.
You grew up. So I, I, the, the really funny part of the story that I haven't, I don't know
that I told you guys this. I went over and I talked to the assistant principal and we laughed and
she goes, yeah, you need, you should go get a bobble head and, and put it on the teacher's desk.
(44:09):
I'm like, I have a bobble head of me. Speaking of your charging stations that we know aren't
organized very well. Power justice is a sponsor of K to a tech for on the K to a tech talk podcast.
And for this month, April 2025, pretty cool on K to a tech pro, you can get 25% off of their
(44:33):
charging stations. If you go through Hayden, the new guy, you can get 25% off of their charging
stations and they can even defer payment. If you need to wait till July one budget kind of thing.
So check out powered, powered just to have great charging stations for your classroom. Josh
posted a pic of one of his that a teacher had wrecked. That's why I'm poking fun at that.
Yeah, I'm sure the kids did it enough teacher. I need I need to go check on that card too. I haven't.
(45:03):
I don't okay. Well, I'm there. I won't go there. No. Hey, Josh, are you feeling something you
should say it? I I caught some flak for not having my technicians check every cart in the district
twice a day for a condition. Yeah, but you're just a director of technology. Yeah, I'm not an executive
(45:25):
director. Anyway, we got anything else. Mark is that it? That's it. No, no a one jokes. Come on,
guys. We let me pull this up really quick. I keep forgetting to plug where we're going.
And we need to do that. So we've been on the road for 2025. And we have some cool things coming up.
(45:50):
So April 27th through 29th, if you're in Missouri, the Moazbo Spring Conference, that's for
superintendents and whatnot. Hayden, the new guy will be there with the kids will tech pro booth.
If you're if your administration is going to be there, haven't stopped by talk to Hayden. He'll
have some cool stuff to introduce them to. We will be going to the Indiana CTO clinic. All three
(46:15):
of us, April 30th through May 2nd, hanging out with the fine folks in Indiana. We're doing the
keynote presentation and recording an episode while we were there May 1st and 2nd. We'll be in
Nebraska. Hayden, the new guy will be there hanging out with Nebraskaians. And then July 8th through
the 10th, we're going to be in Georgia, all three of us recording an episode and presenting.
(46:42):
Those things are made possible. Thanks to you guys, our listeners, asking for us to be at your
events. And then for our fine sponsors like Fortinet, you can email Fortinet podcast at Fortinet.com
and extreme networks, D mayor at extreme networks.com. I'll be looking forward to hanging out with you
guys. Josh and I are going to road trip with the Tesla. Yeah, I'm kind of worried about this. Yeah,
(47:04):
it's fine. Do they have it's fine. It's fine. You guys going to pick me up with the airport?
Yes, we got you. Thank you. Well, we have no room, luggage-wise. Yes. Okay. What are you packing
for a two-day trip? All the recording equipment. Yeah, it's fine.
(47:26):
Ain't my face. We might not be the same. You share the same pain that I do.
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions of Josh,
Chris and Mark and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other organizations
that we're affiliated with. The material and information presented here is for general
(47:46):
information and entertainment purposes only. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
On site's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk Podcast, we talk about the potential closure of
(00:05):
the Department of Education and what that means for education technology. A loss of funding,
a shift of policy, and everything in between. Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk Podcast. This is episode 209 after our
(00:25):
special episode. I am Josh with me as always as Chris, Howdy, and Mark. Hey guys, hey, so I mean we
should probably kind of unpack power school or recap power school, right? Yeah. How'd that go?
Thanks to Mark, we had a kick-it. Oh, sorry. This is a G-rated show, a killer show with Mishka.
(00:48):
Yeah, no, it was good. I thought it was a good interview. He really opened up very early on.
I thought it was pretty vulnerable to do that. He's a human. We learned he likes Dr. Pepper.
That was the theme. He's a real person. Yeah. We can't say a couple of things, right? He did not touch
on MFA and all those things that circle around that. And we kind of knew that was going to happen.
(01:12):
Yeah. We didn't get to unpack the, how do you know the bad guy deleted the stuff?
The gentleman's handshake. Yes. But we knew that was, I mean, we felt like that was inevitable
to not get to really dig into those two things. Yeah. I think there's only so much you can do to go
backwards and talk about what we already know and what we're never going to be able to answer
(01:37):
that question of how do you know that the data was deleted. So it's hard. How much do you talk
about it versus think of moving forward? But yeah. I mean, you can assume that eventually it'll
come out and discovery with different litigation that's pending. But yeah, we won't find that out.
Yeah. That's for sure. Mark, you have traversed the company two or three times this week, right?
(02:01):
Yeah. I think I've four times flown to the Pacific coast twice since our last episode.
So I'm a little tired. Are your arms tired? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. How was you went to ASU,
ABCU? Yeah. So Chris and I hung out at Cosen and then Cosen and Josh, we missed you. Why weren't you
(02:25):
there? Several reasons. Okay. Great. Good answer. Cool, man. And then I came home for a day or two
and then went down to ASU GSV where I got to hang out with some really old friends and some
got to see some cool celebrities. Go ahead, say it. You're besties now. Linda McMahon.
(02:47):
That's not what I was talking about. R1. Linda. Linda. It's really weird. There's always some
like weird celebrities at this conference. So Colin Kaepernick was just hanging out and doing
some presentations on his new AI tool. Will I am was hanging out? There was a party with like
Sugar Hill gang just hanging out and yeah, it was it was an it's an interesting conference.
(03:11):
I would say if you ever get a chance to go to ASU GSV, don't pass it up. But just know that the
primary audience is not necessarily school-based folks. So you're going to see a lot of
ed tech companies and their funders and the research folks and colleges. So good time. I was hit
with the tariff bug this week went to execute our PO for our Chromebook purchase for next year and
(03:36):
was told that this particular manufacturer who I won't mention now has avoided all outstanding
quotes and they're not giving pricing right now because all of their devices are made in China.
Another manufacturer is giving quotes but their pricing structure is only valid for 48 hours.
(04:02):
Got to press that button as soon as you get it. Yeah Josh. That works really well when you
got to take things to a board or you have yeah. Josh, you just need to be more prepared.
Josh. Yeah, make a decision man. I think I said this and I said that to somebody else this week.
So last year and it just kind of hit there was particular reasons why but we purchased Chromebooks
(04:26):
for three of our four major buildings. So I've kind of been acting like I did the political
forecast, saw the tariffs coming. And I dodged a bullet right now because we're actually skipping a
year of Chromebook purchases. I'm a genius. Every year it's drama with my Chromebook purchase.
(04:47):
Last year was the vendor that was trying to sell me Chromebooks that didn't exist and the
manufacturer telling me that they're not going to sell Chromebooks to this vendor. It's always
something. It's always something. I'm sorry Josh. No, you're not. You guys are, I know you're
enjoying it. You like to listen to me wine. Speaking of Chromebooks, Chromebookparts.com is a proud
(05:08):
new sponsor of the KTool of Tech Talk podcast. They gave out all those tool kits, cool tool kits.
I think some of you may still be waiting on yours. I promise they're coming. We've heard all about
it. We let's just say we took every toolkit they had and they had to get more. I did receive mine
(05:30):
and there's a little bit of conspiracy on Missouri's discord and on KTool of Tech Pro that maybe we
ranked who should get theirs in advance. That's not true. That's a rumor. A rumor that you started
I think. But I will say all three of us did receive our toolkits and our closest friends did
receive our toolkits. That's a joke too. Anyway, I did not file for a toolkit. I did not take anyone's
(05:56):
toolkit. My guys got toolkits. I did not get a toolkit. Cool of Chromebookparts.com to do that
and they want to be your Chromebook lifetime partner. You can get their screens,
their parts, good parts for your Chromebook. If you're not buying Chromebooks, Josh,
you're going to need some parts to keep that fleet going. It's great. Yeah.
(06:19):
Well, I've got vendors that are like, well, I can get you a Chromebook that expires EOL
2031. I'm like, no, I need to stay in my rotation and my plan that we have that I adopted with my
CFO. I have to have a device that's got an EOL of 2033. Like 2031 screws me. I need a 2033
(06:40):
device. Sorry for your loss. Yeah, it's I'm going to have to end up going with a vendor that I
have expressed extreme hatred for is what's going to happen. I know this. I'm going to have to
get over it and just buy it by a crappy Chromebook. Is it what I would say is a great Chromebook?
No, not that company. I will not. They'll be blast on my list. All right. Mark, get us out of
(07:03):
Josh's woes, please. I don't I don't think that's possible, but I will try jumping in the news.
UC Irvine has released a study on AI usage amongst teens. There's some really cool stats. I
pulled out of this one. Is that AI or a one? We'll get to that later. That joke is later. Save it.
(07:25):
Save it. I could really go for some mistakes. They serve it. Students ages nine to 17 as well
as parents. 45% of students are using Gen A like chat, but the specialized tools like the really
nuance ones, super rare to see teens using those types of tools. So most people are gravitating
(07:46):
towards the chat GPT and Gemini and maybe Claude. The quote that I pulled from this, which I'm
very, very excited about. And when I read it for Badam was we were shocked to see that at least
this time, teens from lower versus higher income families did not very substantially in their adoption
or uses of Gen AI, which is common in the introduction of new digital and education technologies.
(08:10):
So the opportunity gaps that might exist with students in different socioeconomic families
was not prevalent in this survey, which is a really, really cool sign to see. Yeah, I hope I hope
that sticks. Yeah, that's really interesting. We just had election stuff, local election stuff,
had some mayor, like I'm small town, had several close to that maybe had several running for mayor.
(08:39):
There is this guy that ran that everyone knows this guy pretty well to say he's the most
professional speaking person he is not. Well, his Facebook page for his election, like was
Uber proper. And everybody's like, hey guy, like this ain't you, you know, that's funny.
And then he would write a response that it was chat GPT, like he was like, should be whatever for
(09:05):
believing this way and not giving folks an opportunity to blah, blah, blah. You know, it levels
the playing field guys. Yeah. So I hope this sticks. We will say that guy lost the election by the way.
I don't know, but you I had this article sent to me probably five or six times last week.
At week, published four things to know about Trump's cuts to K12 cyber security.
(09:28):
Some of the things we've talked about on this podcast, the first one, which hit me personally,
I was, we've talked about this. I was a member of the DOE's cybersecurity GCC.
Well, we got notified last week that our job is done. And so the Department of Education's GCC has
been officially canceled, I guess you could say. For those uninitiated listeners, what is GCC stand for?
(09:53):
Government coordinating council. So it was a bunch of groups that you've all heard of, the
alphabet soups is somebody described it. Cousin, Ceta, superintendents from large and small districts
kind of come together and talk about cyber security, no longer. Second one, MSISEC, as we've talked
about many times. Who's that? You should, you should learn about them, Josh. Yeah, Josh, actually,
(10:18):
oddly, weirdly, Mark and I are presented with MSISEC at Cousin. Yeah, you did too. Yeah, you think it
would be you, you're on the board, whatever, but yeah, as a board member, you sent, you sent us.
That was at the same time as the town hall was taking place. I believe that I was on. Yes. Okay.
I, and Mark, I'm going to bet like a dollar that we were the most exciting MSISEC
(10:44):
in person presentation that's ever existed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we brought it. MSISEC presented and
then we took over and then and Chris brought it like 8 a.m. energy drinks, government funding.
Let's go. Number three, this is one we've also talked about a lot. The FCC cyber security pilot
(11:08):
program, it's still going. Experts are concerned about this and not very optimistic about its
future. The chair of the FCC actually was the one who voted against it in the first place.
So we will see what happens to that one and then fourth is just staffing cuts.
The Department of Education, which we're going to talk about later, did see their office of
(11:30):
edtech eliminated in March. We will see what happens with cyber security in K-12 with those kind
of four major shifts in the last couple of weeks. And last on the news, which was really fun
because I was in the room for this. I was at ASU GSV this week and we got to see Linda McMahon
in the flesh speak about her job as as Secretary of Education. I have a question. Yeah, when
(11:57):
when she came on the stage, did they do like the whole WWE entrance song and like did she run
through the crowd and come up on stage? You know, that that would have made a whole lot more sense.
No, it was a very tame one. I was waiting for somebody to come out with like a folding chair.
Yeah, but that never happened. No, there were there were protests. There were protests outside.
(12:23):
I did see a couple of people removed from the audience holding signs up. So it was a little
bit of a controversial one. You left your sign at home? Yeah, no, I'm not risking that seat.
But the reason this one hit the news, we're going to we're going to play this clip and I will say
this is funny no matter what your political affiliation is. You know, I don't know that it's funny.
(12:46):
I, I, well, let's, you know, that's you getting a little bit political. Just take it. Take it from the sit and say sad.
All right, let's let's let's play. Let's play. Let's play. Let's play.
I heard I think it was a letter or report that I heard this morning. I wish I could remember the
source, but that there is a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or
(13:08):
even pre-k's have a one teaching, you know, every year starting, you know, that far down into grades.
And that's just a, that's a wonderful thing. Kids are sponges. You know, they just absorb everything.
And so it wasn't all that long ago that it's we're going to have internet in our schools.
Now, okay, let's see a one and how and how can that be helpful? How can it be helpful in one-on-one
(13:30):
instruction? So when that happened, it was kind of quiet and I turned the person next to me and I said,
did she just read AI as a one? And there was just a lot of confusion in the audience and then
sure enough, the news articles just start pouring in that we'll even link one from TechCrunch
where reference that the United States Secretary of Education just referred to AI as A1. And so
(13:55):
there's a lot of A1 sticks us jokes going on. And I'm sure we'll have a few more of this this
episode. I don't know how well a sponge would soak up a one. A1's kind of thick. Yeah. Yeah. I
don't know. Yeah. She misspoke. If they, if they, right, Mark, you were there. You said she talked
about AI prior to these sentences. She did. She did. She talked about AI just right. Which I think makes
(14:19):
this worse. You know, if they're teaching a one, are they just trolling you, Josh, is she trolling you?
Are they teaching? She's going to come in and slam you down. Are they teaching proper
grilling technique? If they're teaching how to A1, they need to teach how to grill as well.
(14:40):
It's a great question. Very great question. I don't know. All right. That's it for the news. We'll
come back to some more comments from Linda later in the episode. But that's it for for today,
I did want to talk about and this isn't this isn't just an an ad for K-12 Tech Bro, but we have
that safety watch weekly new letter that we've launched now. NTP is helping us with that. So every
(15:06):
Friday that will be posted on the cyber security hub on K-12 Tech Bro, we're going to post a portion
of it on the K-12 system and subreddit and pin it to the top. But that's kind of just like the
public stuff. And then we'll we'll hold some back just for those that work in K-12 Tech
to get that on K-12 Tech Bro. So this is going to drop tomorrow. There's several things that
(15:31):
the newsletter talks through, but in particular, which is funny timing. I'm not going to say what
platform my school district uses for our website, but we we have a platform that we use.
Well, there is a word press, plug vulnerability, CVE 2025, 2075, and it's a plug in. You can read about
(15:54):
it called the uncanny automator that gives the bad guys the abilities to escalate and do some
bad stuff. So read about that, check about that. I think they're saying it's like 50,000 plus WordPress
websites using it. Get that taken care of. Josh, do you use WordPress? No, God, no.
(16:17):
You know, Josh, we ran into somebody at Cosen who really had some things to say about your hatred
towards Microsoft Teams. Oh, really? Was it my fan? No, no, definitely. No, you would have
was it Bill Gates? No, I mean, he lives up that way, right? Actually, wasn't it? I think it's one
(16:37):
of the fine folks in Indiana. And we're going to you're going to meet them face to face when we go
there. We're going to go to the Indiana Cosen chapter conference here at the beginning of May.
And I think it was one of those guys. Interesting. There was a guy that walked up and literally asked
for you by first and last name, which was an absolute riot. And he was disappointed when you weren't
(17:04):
there. And he made Josh or he made Mark and I feel very less than. He just walked away when he
found out that you weren't there. It's weird. Why did the why did the steakhouse hire a robot?
Because they thought a one sauce meant it was top tier artificial intelligence.
(17:25):
Are you using Gemini to write jokes again? I'm using chat GPT right now. We've tried both.
Don't know more. Don't do it. No. Anyways, that terrible joke was brought to you by Lumu.
There are news, a new sponsor of the KTW Tech Talk podcast. If you're tired of getting
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(17:50):
give you real-time visibility into confirmed network threats. They can automate some responses.
So check out Lumu.io to learn more. I asked my boss if we're using AI. He said, yeah. It's A1.
So now I've got I've got robots seasoning my emails. That's really bad. Oh, Chris,
(18:15):
do you have the ability to mute Josh? I we have the ability to kick him. Okay. If he starts on
another. That's a that's a threat. It's not a threat. Josh, it's a promise. I should jump to
the listener email or email, but a KTW tech please. A very well talked about
(18:40):
post on KTW Tech Pro was around job titles and people asking, what is your job title?
And while it wasn't necessarily a formal poll, there was some good trends to go on there.
I noticed quite regularly that the director of the IT department was listed as director of
technology. There was a few CIOs or CTOs within the group, but more often than not, the top of the
(19:05):
IT department was director of technology. And the other trend I noticed was most people reported
to an assistant superintendent and then to the superintendent. So that director is two layers
down from the superintendent. And then there was a whole host of other types of job titles,
administrator, coordinator, sister admin, specialist, those kinds of things. So it gets
(19:27):
all over the place afterwards. Jim, have you had what I haven't asked your official title,
but have you had any kind of job title changes over the years? Have you gone from director to
CIS admin to those kinds of title changes? With different roles, yeah. But since I've been at my
current job, you know, almost 12 years now, it's been director. And you talk about making that
(19:54):
too like a chief level position or I have actually recently asked about that. We're in discussions
about that. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but it's it's been a talking point recently.
Okay. Chris, I even laugh at the there's a there's a there's a decent debate about technology
(20:16):
director or director of technology. And some folks get really stuck on the director in the front.
Really? Yeah, I think it sounds nicer, right? Director of technology as opposed to just
technology director. Interesting. I was at a school one time where I was the so I was I was a technician.
(20:44):
And I was called the technology assistant. And they always hit like personally hit me not
right because that made it feel like that made it feel more like a secretary. The title could
be confused as like a secretary or role or a clerical role. As opposed to hey, I'm actually I'm doing
(21:06):
tech work. Yeah. I'm in the field. I can see that. At my school district and I fixed it. But
when I came on our tech our technician position was called technology technician. And I
thought that was a little bit repetitive. You know, you can you can chop that up a little bit. Yeah.
(21:32):
One time I had a job I was the field tech and then I got promoted to lead tech. But I was the only
tech. But I was the lead. I appreciated that. It came with it. It came with arrays. That's when
they trusted you to actually lead yourself. Right. Yeah. I'm doing it. I'm doing okay job. I say to
myself. No, I agree with what you're saying. There's I think in Missouri how you just describe the
(22:00):
the tech director tends to go to the assistant soup. Yeah, I think that's a pretty common place
thing. I know some of our folks around here though have those extra titles that like director
of technology and innovation. Yeah. Some of those fancy retails that make us feel good. It's
interesting. I I did report the assistant soup and CFO one time. Then it was moved over to the
(22:24):
assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. And then our superintendent left. And
that assistant superintendent became the superintendent. And so now I I report to the superintendent.
I don't report to an assistant. Which to me is even more argument for that to be a CTO CIO
(22:45):
title. Yeah. Yeah. If you're at a chief level you should be reporting directly to the superintendent.
But it doesn't always happen. It you know, it all depends on the size of the organization
existing structures. And then you know, some of the larger districts in the area have adopted
that role. It isn't. I don't know that I see it as often in districts my size, although my district
(23:10):
continues to grow. We're getting bigger. I don't know. You seem you seem to see it more in the
major metropolitan areas. I guess. Yeah. That's for sure. And I always think Josh, would you agree with
this coordinator tends to be a teacher turn tech? Is that what goes through your mind or no?
(23:31):
No, not I didn't not for me. I see coordinator in those even smaller districts than years where
they can't afford a director level position and they just they need to they need somebody.
And they need somebody to set to set that strategic direction. They're going to call them
(23:51):
coordinator because they can't afford to pay director level maybe. I don't know. Yeah.
Interesting. Mark, did you see those same turns on the east coast?
Yeah, I know. Locally, anytime you see assistant superintendent or superintendent deputy,
anything with the word superintendent is an academic type position and these to have certain
(24:14):
certifications. So we usually see chiefs more on the operation side. But I mean, in 11 years of in
my district, I had every single title under the sun and every I worked with all kinds of
different titles. So it changes and their trends that change as superintendents come and go.
(24:35):
Are you seeing a trend? It seems like there is a newer trend of executive director.
And that places it's still a director role. But it puts that role in the superintendents cabinet kind
of thing. Yeah, that seems to be a trend that we're seeing here. Yep. Yeah, for sure.
(24:57):
The other trend that we're seeing in larger districts is for the superintendent to have only two
to three direct reports. Yeah, more like deputy superintendents and then like a deputy superintendent
of operations and a deputy superintendent of academics and then everything flows up to those two.
Yeah, that's the other trend I'm seeing. So yeah, job titles. That is all.
(25:20):
Christopher, you want to hit a sponsor? A little love to a class link, a proud sponsor of this
podcast. They can take identity and access management from overwhelming to automated checkout
class link at classlink.com. All right. I'm a I'm a technology director, by the way. Got it.
(25:42):
I think I'm the other way. Your nose is a little further up than mine. Yeah, it was bigger too.
The Rector of Technology. All I care about DPAs and whatnot.
Josh, have you, by the way, a correction from the last episode, it was, it was,
(26:04):
yes, Mishka referred to the heck that it was the the sea that is the the assessment from
Cosen. Yeah. Have you sent it to all of your vendors by now? No, but I did. At the end of that call,
I did send it to my assistant swoops and my soup and said, hey, if you're looking for another
tool to measure vendors when you're when you're, you know, vetting or trying to decide whatever.
(26:30):
Here's a here's a tool to use. You're a tool. Whatever.
Hurtful mark. We've said tool a lot this episode. I think we need to like
no more toolkits and tools this episode. Well, let's get the A1 count up.
Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, main topic tonight is the impact or the potential impact
(26:56):
of the closure of the Department of Education. The last few weeks has been quite a stir with
Trump announcing these moving towards close and the Department of Education. When I was at
ASUGSV this week, got to hear straight from Linda McMahon about her plans to close and
and her thoughts will play some clips now. But we thought we'd unpack if there were to be
(27:18):
a closure of the Department of Education. What does it actually mean for K-12 technology?
Because there's a whole lot of other things that that means for schools. But what's the relevance
of the Department of Education to our work? So, gentlemen, should we dig right into it?
We should. We should. The first one, the first kind of division of the DOE that has been closed
(27:40):
is or downsize at least is the Office of Educational Technology. They're the ones that set the
National Education Technology Plan, the NETP. They provide guidance and leadership to states
and districts. They're promoting research-based practices. They're the ones at the Department
of Education who think about the digital divide, homework, gap type stuff. That is being shut down
(28:02):
and being pushed down to states and districts. This is almost a conversation about where does
innovation sit? I know we all have our different political opinions. But this is something that
Linda McMahon did say that I actually, I can resonate with where she believes that innovation
actually should be as close as possible to the students. So, I want to play the question and answer
(28:25):
now. I think what we're trying to understand is how are you going to put guardrails around this
to ensure that the students who need the most get the resources? Well, if you look now and that's
an excellent question and that is one that I'm asking often and I don't have a magic answer to that
at this moment. But what we have seen already are some of the great innovations that are taking place
(28:50):
in many of the states in the country and that is not because of the Department of Education,
but that is because that local governors and local school superintendents and teachers and parents
all working together. And I'm not saying it's one party or the other. I am just saying where there
is that desire and that goal to bring in best practices. So, so you're starting to see a little bit
(29:16):
of her her belief here in the Trump administration's belief that local control, local superintendents and
states should be the ones to innovate. And so there's kind of your first move of moving the
office of educational technology, that functionality down to the state level. But as you heard from Linda
McBann, there's some uncertainty as to how to make sure that happens consistently across all the
(29:37):
states. Do you get a lot of guidance from your state in Missouri? Absolutely not. Oh, okay.
Do you want to think about that a little bit more, Josh? No, that is one thing that our Department
of Education could do light years better would be some sort of statistical alignment or guidance
(29:59):
when it comes to technology and both from instructional and tech tech side of things.
Missouri's big local control, which I'm all for, but if you are removing kind of a guide star
and you know, even if people didn't really use the federal Department of Education as that
(30:23):
guide star of what they should be doing their best practice or hey, these things work,
somebody's got to fill that role in and having 50 states do 50 different things
while it might work locally, it may not be the best way to do it. That's my issue with this.
And like in Missouri, we are, I don't expect a lot out of our Department of Ed.
(30:50):
Yeah, I think speaking again, I only know Missouri. Back in the day, and I think I'm talking
well, for sure 10 years ago, and I think it's been longer than that, our state did require
districts to submit a technology plan to the state. And it was a separate plan. It was for
(31:10):
your technology program. And then that went away. And now we, you know, we align with some other
things that are, you know, our school improvement plan or whatever, whatever we're kind of like
in it now. But I remember, I mean, used to, I had to submit a technology plan. And it had to
align with what the state had set as some things that we should try to be accomplishing. No, I
(31:36):
don't know, to be honest, did the state pull those things from the National Education Technology
Plan? It was, it was trickling down. You could assume that back then, really not until this
podcast, did I pay attention to or think through the National Education Technology Plan? It was,
(31:57):
I think like during COVID that I had really first laid my eyes on the PDF of, oh, nationally,
there's this plan that we're supposed to be following. So I put some question marks around some
of this. Yeah, well, I mean, within my state, I, I have great respect for the, our state's
office of ed tech, but they're very small. Like they don't have the capacity. So I think the first
(32:18):
thing that comes to mind is if you're removing this national department of ed tech, does the state,
each state have the capacity to do it? And then how do you make sure that all 50 states are aligned?
So they're working the same thing. Same thing. I don't know. And, and maybe Missouri does. I don't
know if Missouri has an office of ed tech. I, I don't know the answer to that. Well, that doesn't
(32:43):
bode well for alignment. Yeah, exact. That's right. I'm going to. Yeah, you know, as the office
of, of, or as the Department of Education does begin to kind of close or downsize, the states in
theory should be picking up this role in the capacity. So we'll see if that happens. And you,
you heard Linda McMahon there say she's not quite sure how that would, would occur.
(33:07):
The next major department or division within the Department of Education is the Institute of Education
Sciences. This is one that you rarely hear about in a school, but there are a lot of products that
come out of the IES that we benefit from a lot of research around ed tech tools, a lot of federal
(33:27):
funding going towards grants and ed tech effectiveness. And so some of the tools that we are using,
some of our high quality tools that are out there come from the Institute of Education
Sciences. And I know that a lot of folks are very concerned about the end of grants and the,
and the, the pausing of grants coming from IES. So this will be a big one that I think will be
(33:49):
interesting to see should there not be a federal office that's doing the research on all this
education technology are is it left up to states to, to push the research is it left up to the
private sector to fill that gap? I'm not sure. It'll be private sector and we all have to pay for it.
Well, sure. But then, you know, are you getting high quality materials or are you getting
(34:13):
materials that are just marketed really well? Right. That was, that was the entire intent of the IES
is to ensure that the types of materials and content and curriculum that we're getting
are actually effective. The third one, and I'm going to play a clip for this one as well,
which is gotten a lot of people concerned. And this is, this is where you're seeing the most
traction in in headlines are the grant making offices. So you got title one, title two, title four,
(34:40):
which is really student support academic enrichment. So I saw a lot of
districts using this money for devices, software, professional development around technology,
special education uses quite a lot of title four funding for technology. And you've got IDEA,
technology for students with disabilities, again, special education, competitive grants. Again,
(35:02):
this is all the money. And these offices, the money is administered by the Department of Education.
Should that Department of Education office go away? Well, then what happens? So we did get that
question from Linda McMahon this week. And here's her reply. That's important, which is why the,
the title, you know, title one and these grants are so important to keep intact, which you said are
(35:28):
going to step. Absolutely. Title one funding. And I talked to the president about this title one
funding. And the IPL grants and the IPA funding, the Pell grants is not, they're not looking to be
taken away because we understand that the funding is the good portion. That's right. So that's,
that's Linda McMahon saying that the loss of the Department of Education doesn't change the funding.
(35:51):
So that funding would in theory be distributed directly to the states to administer. So
could there be increases in funding if you don't have the administrative office down in DC handling
this one and taking a little bit of a chunk away from that funding. Maybe more goes the states or do
states need to kind of boost up their infrastructure to administer these funds. You never know. But,
(36:14):
you know, there's there's the Secretary of Education saying we're not cutting the funding just
because we're cutting the department that admin ministers it.
Good thoughts. Until tomorrow when they change the mind, I cannot find a link to the office of
ed tech. Everything's fine. It's going to be fine.
(36:42):
These next two departments that you and I should start, maybe we should, maybe we should
leverage the desi commissioners.
Let's do it. You know, I like a good idea. Yeah. Oh, don't, don't give them too many crazy ideas, Josh.
That's where how we got here, Mark. That is the status true. That's true.
(37:05):
You'll just keep the train moving, Mark.
There are tracks that go on right. We make it true. Yes, do we make it?
The last two, this is where Josh is going to go off. So you have the student privacy policy office,
which, which is the one that oversees FERPA. And then you have the office of civil rights. These
are more of the kind of the policing arms of the department of education. Closing the DOE
(37:29):
does not stop FERPA. So FERPA still has to exist. And there have already been court cases that
have said states cannot oversee and govern FERPA. It has to be done by a federal agency. So
unless Congress makes a big change here, FERPA has to go somewhere. I've heard a lot of theories.
Josh, you had a theory before we were when we were getting ready to start the show.
(37:54):
Yeah, it'll be the Department of Justice.
So we will see. But FERPA right now, I would say, is loosely enforced by the Department of
Education. And so if it were to move to the Department of Justice,
with the administration of FERPA change, we'll be start to see there'll be two busy investigating
(38:16):
Chris Krebs. So we're not politically here, Josh. I know. It's a fact. That's what they're doing,
right? There is there is interesting conversation around some of that stuff too. Like we know our
friends up New Hampshire way have done great work with student data privacy, better than say,
(38:37):
Missouri. Yeah. So if it is trickling, if it is broken down to the states,
there will be states that are stronger at that than others as it's playing out today,
where maybe the feds gave the bar and it was set pretty low for privacy. One out of the
(38:57):
state gets to decide how high they're going to put that bar. So maybe that's a good thing.
Or in Missouri's case, we don't even have an office at tech. So
keep googling for that. If someone can find it great, I cannot find it.
Well, speaking of websites, the last division would be the office for civil rights. One of the
(39:22):
things under their purview are digital equity and accessibility. They're the ones that reach out
to school districts to make sure that their websites are compliant with accessibility and that
all instructional materials are accessible to students with disabilities. So that's a big one as
well that we'll see potential changes, almost immediate changes to accessibility and enforcement
(39:42):
if the office of civil rights no longer exists. I see this. Yeah, I see this rolling to DOJ too,
though. Yeah, I was going to say again, laws need to go somewhere. So it's not like the laws
just stop existing, but the enforcement needs to move somewhere else.
Those are the major categories. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Jeff. I was just going to say I have a
(40:04):
funny accessibility story from this week. If you guys want to hear it, is it really funny, though?
That sounds controversial. No, it's really not. It's really, you should know me well enough to know
that I wouldn't go there. No, I got an email from a teacher this week that asked me
to disable the face tracking feature on Chromebooks. You texted this. And I said, I need some
(40:33):
context. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, apparently on our newer Chromebooks,
there is an accessibility feature like eye tracking and eye gaze for people that aren't in the
special needs world eye gaze machines are super expensive. And it's meant for people that have
low to no motor control or muscle tone, they're very hot, platonic to be able to use their eye
(40:56):
gaze to move the mouse around the screen and type and stuff like that with their gaze. That's
the point of this. Well, apparently new Chromebooks can do facial tracking in a very, very similar
manner. Pretty cool. I had a teacher complaining that while she's teaching, she has what looks like
a class of bobble heads because her entire class has turned on the facial tracking feature.
(41:21):
That's brilliant. We played with that in the office today because did you because you brought
that up? Yeah. I like it. It's fine. Yeah, it's clunky. Oh, I'm sure it's a Chromebook. And it,
you know, yeah, how did you get it? Did you smile for it to enter, I think? What was the
header? Yeah, you can choose like blinking or smiling to do keystrokes and stuff like that. So
(41:47):
I can totally go ahead. I'm sorry. You have to be really accentuated. So I can imagine that
there's this teacher who looks at her class and they're just nodding and waving her heads back
and forth and smiling blindly at their computers. And Mark, as a teacher, I'm sure that would
infuriate you if you had a class of 25 young adults all doing this. Yeah, but you also know me.
(42:13):
I would first ask the kids how to turn that on. And then I would start playing with it for
future. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we said the accessibility tools have all kinds of things that
you can do to your Chromebook. Like you can invert the colors. You can do all kinds of crazy things.
And we nip those kids that turn that junk on that don't need it. Right. Like, well,
wait, what Josh, what did you say to teacher? Did you say, hey, just get a grip on your classroom?
(42:36):
I said, one, I don't know that I can turn this off. And I'm, I didn't say this.
I don't think I would be willing to turn that off. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Because it is an
accessibility feature. And we do have, we have a handful of kids that are, I know one kid in
particular that's in a wheelchair that has very, he has, he has difficulty maneuvering a mouse.
(42:58):
This could work for him. And I'm not going to turn it off. And I'm not going to turn it off
for individual kids. Like, this would be a blanket thing. So it's not happening. So I kind of
nicely put that that way. And then I replied back after thinking for a little bit. And I said,
you know, the mean, the mean adult in me would tell them to, if they can't use their device in
(43:21):
a correct manner, one, close the lid, put it in the cart, you're done. Like, you don't, you don't
get to use the device. And then to let them, help them understand that this could be seen as
offensive to anyone that actually needs to use this technology in the appropriate manner.
And you're jacking around, playing around, thinking it's hilarious. So it could be a very good
(43:45):
learning opportunity as well. That's where we stand. Look at you becoming a teacher overnight.
You grew up. So I, I, the, the really funny part of the story that I haven't, I don't know
that I told you guys this. I went over and I talked to the assistant principal and we laughed and
she goes, yeah, you need, you should go get a bobble head and, and put it on the teacher's desk.
(44:09):
I'm like, I have a bobble head of me. Speaking of your charging stations that we know aren't
organized very well. Power justice is a sponsor of K to a tech for on the K to a tech talk podcast.
And for this month, April 2025, pretty cool on K to a tech pro, you can get 25% off of their
(44:33):
charging stations. If you go through Hayden, the new guy, you can get 25% off of their charging
stations and they can even defer payment. If you need to wait till July one budget kind of thing.
So check out powered, powered just to have great charging stations for your classroom. Josh
posted a pic of one of his that a teacher had wrecked. That's why I'm poking fun at that.
Yeah, I'm sure the kids did it enough teacher. I need I need to go check on that card too. I haven't.
(45:03):
I don't okay. Well, I'm there. I won't go there. No. Hey, Josh, are you feeling something you
should say it? I I caught some flak for not having my technicians check every cart in the district
twice a day for a condition. Yeah, but you're just a director of technology. Yeah, I'm not an executive
(45:25):
director. Anyway, we got anything else. Mark is that it? That's it. No, no a one jokes. Come on,
guys. We let me pull this up really quick. I keep forgetting to plug where we're going.
And we need to do that. So we've been on the road for 2025. And we have some cool things coming up.
(45:50):
So April 27th through 29th, if you're in Missouri, the Moazbo Spring Conference, that's for
superintendents and whatnot. Hayden, the new guy will be there with the kids will tech pro booth.
If you're if your administration is going to be there, haven't stopped by talk to Hayden. He'll
have some cool stuff to introduce them to. We will be going to the Indiana CTO clinic. All three
(46:15):
of us, April 30th through May 2nd, hanging out with the fine folks in Indiana. We're doing the
keynote presentation and recording an episode while we were there May 1st and 2nd. We'll be in
Nebraska. Hayden, the new guy will be there hanging out with Nebraskaians. And then July 8th through
the 10th, we're going to be in Georgia, all three of us recording an episode and presenting.
(46:42):
Those things are made possible. Thanks to you guys, our listeners, asking for us to be at your
events. And then for our fine sponsors like Fortinet, you can email Fortinet podcast at Fortinet.com
and extreme networks, D mayor at extreme networks.com. I'll be looking forward to hanging out with you
guys. Josh and I are going to road trip with the Tesla. Yeah, I'm kind of worried about this. Yeah,
(47:04):
it's fine. Do they have it's fine. It's fine. You guys going to pick me up with the airport?
Yes, we got you. Thank you. Well, we have no room, luggage-wise. Yes. Okay. What are you packing
for a two-day trip? All the recording equipment. Yeah, it's fine.
(47:26):
Ain't my face. We might not be the same. You share the same pain that I do.
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions of Josh,
Chris and Mark and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other organizations
that we're affiliated with. The material and information presented here is for general
(47:46):
information and entertainment purposes only. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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