Susan Padgett, a veteran math teacher of 28 years, pivoted away from in-person teaching in 2021 to do live virtual instruction as she began to have issues with her knees, which made standing and walking more difficult in a traditional school setting. 

“I was struggling in the brick-and-mortar schools because of that,” Padgett said. “They don’t want you to sit down. You always have to be standing, and I was starting to have difficulties with my health.”

Though Padgett still teaches to a classroom full of students, there’s a twist: She now instructs from home, while cameras positioned around the room allow her to see her students. A large screen at the front of her room streams Padgett’s face, and an in-person paraprofessional assists in the actual classroom. 

Quick fixes to address shortages and get more adults in front of classrooms — even if they aren’t yet fully certified in teaching — have ranged in recent years from enlisting military personnel and veterans without bachelor’s degrees to teach in Florida classrooms to removing bachelor’s requirements in Arizona so long as the person teaching full time is on track to earn a credential.

Padgett, however, is part of a growing trend in which certified instructors are delivering live lessons virtually to in-person groups of students. An analysis of GovSpend data by The 74 found districts are increasingly paying up for these services. For instance, districts’ annual spending on Proximity, another live virtual teacher company, jumped from $6.3 million in 2020 to more than $21 million in 2022. 

Padgett works for Elevate K-12, a for-profit company that operates live virtual teaching services for districts. Currently, Padgett teaches geometry and algebra II remotely from her home in northern Wisconsin, while her 10th- and 11th-grade students attend in-person classes at Milwaukee Public Schools.

In the last year alone, estimated teacher vacancies jumped 51% as the number of open positions nationwide rose from 36,504 in 2022 to 55,289 in 2023, according to updated data from researchers at Kansas State University, University of Pittsburgh and several other institutions. 

A recent RAND survey also identified ongoing signs of low pay, poor working conditions and long hours to suggest more educators may dip from traditional school settings sooner rather than later. 

Meanwhile, applications to teach for Elevate K-12, which employs teachers as independent contractors, have surged since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the possibility of remote online teaching opened to many teachers for the first time, said Shaily Baranwal, the 9-year-old company’s CEO and founder. Elevate K-12 has seen a “flood of applications,” because teachers want the flexibility to work from home, she added. 

Last year, Elevate K-12 hired about 1,500 active teachers on its platform. Elevate K-12 sets the curriculum and makes sure the lessons are aligned with state standards, Baranwal said. The number of districts using the company’s services has increased more than tenfold since the pandemic, from about 24 districts in 2019-20 to 260 districts in 2022-23, according to the company.

A sustainable solution?

Services from companies like Elevate K-12, Proximity Learning and Fullmind aim to put live, virtual and certified instructors in classrooms as a solution to teacher shortages. However, debate continues as to whether teacher shortages will persist at all as federal COVID-19 relief spending nears an end and student enrollment drops. 

This reality already led some districts to seriously consider school closures.

Even so, the limited supply of future educators has been a persistent red flag for district administrators like Michael Harris, senior director of talent management for Milwaukee Public Schools, who noted that enrollment in teacher preparation programs is lagging. Between 2009-2010 and 2019-20, nationwide enrollment in these programs has declined from 728,310 to 601,467, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. 

Teacher shortages aren’t going away “until we change some things about how we get folks into teacher prep programs. There’s a lot of hurdles out there,” said Harris. 

The 70,000-student Milwaukee Public Schools began working with Elevate K-12 partway through the 2022-23 school year and is expanding the number of live, virtual teachers in its classrooms this fall in the face of an estimated 200-teacher shortage, according to Harris. 

And, Harris said, this isn't “a one-time solution” for the problem. Milwaukee Public Schools is focusing its 55 Elevate K-12 teachers on middle and high school math, science and special education, which are often the most challenging positions to fill. 

“This is going to be part of an ongoing plan, a strategy to ensure that schools have licensed teachers in core subjects,” Harris said. “I’m looking for those courses that I want our students to be able to have access to, because when we talk equity and access, I want to ensure that if my students want to take pre-calc, if they want chemistry, if they want physics, that they have the opportunity to do so.” 

Even so, Milwaukee Public Schools is still actively recruiting and hiring for in-person teachers to eventually instruct in those hard-to-fill subjects, he said. 

Harris also said the district’s $3.9 million contract with Elevate K-12 saves money in the long run, given the district is not providing benefits to those teachers. Considering benefits and salary, Harris estimates it would normally cost over $5 million to hire the same number of teachers (55) for in-person instruction. 

Questions remain

Meanwhile, debates are still swirling about whether live virtual instruction should in fact be a long-term solution. 

For instance, board members in North Carolina’s Moore County Public Schools approved the hiring of two virtual math instructors through Fullmind. But during a discussion in September on the move, board member David Hensley said he hoped this would only be an emergency fix instead of being seen as a pilot to be expanded in the future. Leaning into the mode, Hensley said, could be a “dangerous slippery slope.”

“You start outsourcing our teachers to companies like this, and what are you guys going to do when our teachers start quitting and start being virtual teachers at another school district, say in Scotland County or Raleigh, because they get more locality pay?” Hensley asked.

Given how new this model is, there’s also not much research into the impact on student achievement.

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said the bottom line is that schools must ensure students are being instructed by teachers with the content knowledge and skills to be impactful. 

“For any of these experiments, I would make sure that they’re really paying attention to the outcomes of these experiences in order to ensure that students are learning and not wasting an entire academic year before looking into the question of to what extent are kids actually learning in classrooms with virtual teachers,” Peske said.

During the pandemic, students’ relationships with teachers suffered when they could only connect over Zoom, Peske said. That’s why it’s key for districts using virtual instruction to ensure students can develop meaningful in-person interactions with other adults in a school building, she added. 

“We know that is really important to their learning, and without it, their academic and social outcomes and their sense of belonging may really suffer,” Peske said.

Google will prolong the life of its Chromebooks by permitting the devices — which are popular with K-12 schools — to get automatic updates for up to 10 years. 

The recent announcement comes after pushback earlier this year about Chromebooks not being environmentally or financially sustainable for schools given their average four-year lifespan tied to limited software updates.

The change is to take effect in 2024. Chromebooks released in 2021 and thereafter will automatically update for 10 years. For models that predated 2021, Google said users and IT admins will have the option to transition to a longer automatic updating process. 

Google's move appears to show it is listening to calls from advocates such as the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, which released a report in April that found doubling Chromebook lifespans could save U.S. schools $1.8 billion. 

Lengthening the time Chromebook software updates are good for could also significantly reduce the devices’ environmental impact, the PIRG Education Fund said. For instance, the group said doubling the lifespans of just the Chromebooks sold in 2020 could cut carbon emissions at a level equal to removing 900,000 cars from the road for one year. 

Focus is shifting on school devices’ financial and environmental sustainability as 1:1 device programs have increasingly become the norm for school districts, particularly after COVID-19 forced schools to temporarily pivot to full-time remote learning. 

Google added that beyond extending Chromebooks’ lifespans through extending software updates, it’s working to build the devices with more recyclable materials and roll out new power-efficient features and faster repair methods.

Roughly 22% of low-income households with children do not have home internet access, according to a recent report by Connected Nation, a nonprofit that advocates for universal broadband access.

There are resources available to help low-income families access home internet, including the Affordable Connectivity Program, a federal broadband benefit program funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Even so, only 64% of low-income survey respondents are aware of the program while 33% are enrolled, according to Connected Nation. 

Moving forward, Connected Nation recommends promoting digital programs to potential enrollees through varying forms of outreach, suggesting services through trusted local institutions, and highlighting the benefits of home internet access. 

The Connected Nation’s study backs up previous findings that there may be signs of lagging enrollment rates in the $14.2 billion Affordable Connectivity Program. 

The federal program provides financial assistance up to $30 per month for internet service to low-income families and $75 per month for eligible households on qualifying tribal lands. Additionally, eligible households can benefit from up to $100 in discounts when making a one-time purchase of a desktop computer or tablet from participating providers.

In October 2022, a report by nonprofit EducationSuperHighway found only a quarter of the 51.6 million eligible households had enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program. That report also found that among those who tried to enroll at the time, 45% saw their applications rejected, and even more households struggled to complete the 30- to 45-minute enrollment process. 

Concerns around the ongoing digital divide often intersect with the homework gap, or students’ ability to access classwork outside of school hours. A majority of schools and libraries have previously expressed support for expanding the federal E-rate program to fund internet access beyond their campuses as the “most practical solution” to this issue. 

The top two reasons Connected Nation survey respondents from low-income families said they have not signed up for home internet services is because they have broadband access elsewhere, like at work or school (33%), and their smartphone allows them to do everything they need online (32%). The third most cited reason was because it’s too expensive (9%).

Connected Nation also noted that focus group participants expressed distrust in internet service providers or the federal government. Because of this, the report stressed the need to tap into community resources — such as places of worship, libraries or community centers — to introduce eligible households to the Affordable Connectivity Program. 

For the report, Connected Nation interviewed 1,758 people, of which 453 survey respondents were identified as living in low-income households.

Gauging if an early learning product is effective is an essential process for product development but a complex one to carry out, panelists and audience members said at an early learning and technology session during the U.S. Department of Education's Ed Games Expo on Sept. 21.

Some of the research difficulties mentioned during the session included conducting school-based research during the pandemic, interpreting young children's reactions to new toys and media, and ensuring products are accessible to children of all income levels and abilities. 

Panelists and audience members also discussed the need for responding to emerging media and engaging parent caregivers in using and evaluating the technology.

Early learning ed tech developers should have a comprehensive formative research process when creating their products, so products are launched and tweaked to be effective, panelists said.

While formative and outcome research are essential to building a better product, that information gathering process can be difficult, because it might raise more questions than answers in addition to doubts about the size of the populations testing the product. Logistics for conducting the research also may be complex, said panelists. 

Tammy Kwan, panelist and co-founder and CEO of Cognitive ToyBox, a game-based learning assessment, said that formative research was essential to helping the company move from a physical toy to a digital game. The change was made after the company sought feedback from more than 100 educators, administrators, children and families. One aim of the product is to help teachers more easily and effectively collect data to inform their instruction, Kwan said.

"As a small business, formative research for us means making a product that meets the needs of our users, Kwan said.

Shelley Pasnik, senior vice president of the Education Development Center, told attendees not all research needs to start from scratch. Developers can build on what has already been learned in the early learning ed tech field, Pasnik said.

"Don't think you're alone," said Pasnik, adding that building a community around existing and new research will ultimately benefit both developers and users. 

For example, STEMIE, a technical assistance and professional development website funded in part by the Education Department, contains resources about increasing young children's access to science, technology, engineering and math.

Another research resource — The Ready To Learn Initiative funded by the Education Department and supported by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service — shares information on developing high quality educational media. Education Department grant recipients are required to evaluate the effectiveness of their products.

Some panelists and attendees shared their experiences in optimizing product research. For instance, they might observe children's use of media in familiar environments, like their homes or classrooms, rather than have children come to a research office. 

Attendee Katalina McGlone said she conducted research that led to improvements to The Guinea Show, a video platform she developed that encourages healthy eating habits for children ages 2 to 7. The show features short videos of a guinea pig eating a fruit or vegetable.

After doing research that included observing children viewing the videos, McGlone, who is director of the show, added an applause recording to the beginning of each video when the fruit or vegetable of the day is introduced. That change came because she saw preschoolers clapping or making comments when a fruit or vegetable was introduced and missing the next section in the video, McGlone said. 

The Guinea Show is early in the implementation stage, but McGlone already plans to continue the research.

"You really want to be open to hearing what the feedback is from the people that are using it," McGlone said.

Ransomware attacks against K-12 and higher education institutions — breaching over 6.7 million personal records — around the world are estimated to cost over $53 billion in downtime between 2018 and mid-September 2023, according to research on 561 attacks released Sept. 21 by Comparitech, a cybersecurity and online privacy product review website.

A majority of the analyzed attacks occurred in the U.S., with 386 recorded incidents costing a total of $35.1 billion due to systems being down. K-12 schools accounted for most of the breaches worldwide, but colleges and universities have been more frequently targeted in recent years, the Comparitech report noted. 

Overall, 2023 is on track to be a record-breaking year for ransomware attacks against education institutions, according to Comparitech. Within the first half of 2023, the group found 85 global ransomware attacks, while just 45 incidents were recorded in the same period of the previous year.

There have been 102 education-related ransomware attacks in 2023 as of mid-September, compared to 116 in 2022, 107 in 2021, 116 in 2020, 104 in 2019 and 16 in 2018.

The average amount of downtime caused by ransomware disruptions has also lengthened quite a bit from 7.9 days in 2022 to 11.6 days in 2023, Comparitech found. 

Though more K-12 schools have fallen victim to ransomware attacks than colleges between 2018 and 2023 — 319 versus 240 — the number of colleges targeted has been on a steady ascent. Colleges outpaced K-12 schools in 2022, with 61 ransomware attacks compared to 54, and that trend has continued into 2023 with 52 college-based ransomware incidents so far versus 50 in elementary and secondary schools.

Whether schools and colleges pay a ransom to hackers to reclaim any stolen data, the Comparitech report said, the financial damage is already done and is often the main goal of cybercriminals. The average cost of downtime among 20 varying industries is $8,662 per minute, according to a 2017 report published in the trade journal For The Record.

“Schools can ill-afford for systems to go down as this often means lessons are disrupted or even canceled as a result,” the Comparitech report said. “As our findings suggest, downtime can extend for weeks and the effects felt for months after.”

Hackers have already kicked off the new school year by launching ransomware attacks against school districts — as seen in Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools and Pennsylvania’s Chambersburg Area School District.

Besides the monetary consequences, sensitive student and staff data is at risk of being leaked following these high-profile cyberattacks. Prince George’s County, for instance, warned the school community that 4,500 district users’ data “may be released online” following an August ransomware attack.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has released a guide for teachers who use the conversational artificial intelligence model in their classrooms. 

The guide includes examples of how K-12 teachers and college faculty use ChatGPT in their classrooms, as well as an FAQ with information on using the tool for assessments, safety guardrails, and potential biases and other limitations.

The guide comes as educators, parents, school advocates, lawmakers and others are gathering information on best practices and considering standards for classroom use while ensuring students aren't shortchanged in their development of critical thinking skills.

Use of ChatGPT in education has been increasing rapidly over the past year since the AI tool and other models have been introduced to the public. A survey by the Walton Family Foundation and Impact Research, a public opinion research and consulting firm, found that 63% of teachers said in late June and early July that they used the technology, up from 50% in February. 

The quick adoption of AI tools — which some say have the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning like the internet has done — or the refusal to incorporate them has led to a scramble to find best practices and frameworks for usage.

A May report by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology recommends educators use a "humans in the loop" approach when exploring AI capabilities and protecting against risks.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are considering what role Congress should take in mitigating the technology's risk and leveraging the benefits, including in education. 

"AI will either be a shortcut for students’ critical thinking or an incredible sparring partner to strengthen them — what actions can we take to ensure it is the latter?" said a white paper published by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who is also ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

Internationally, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is urging all governments to regulate generative AI in schools to ensure a human-centered approach is being used. The organization warned in a Sept. 7 statement that the "education sector is largely unprepared for the ethical and pedagogical integration of these rapidly evolving tools."

OpenAI's educators guide, released Aug. 31, provides examples of how teachers are using the tool to accelerate student learning. Included in the guide are sample ChatGPT generative prompts for developing lesson plans and helping students learn by allowing them to demonstrate their knowledge. 

It also offers several disclaimers and warnings, including that the model may not always generate correct information, and that while AI can be an aide for assessments, humans need to be involved to make decisions and judgements about measuring students' knowledge.

"Models today are subject to biases and inaccuracies, and they are unable to capture the full complexity of a student or an educational context," the FAQ said.

Additionally, in response to a question about how educators can detect if students are presenting AI-generated work as their own, OpenAI's FAQ said, “ChatGPT has no ‘knowledge’ of what content could be AI-generated. It will sometimes make up responses to questions like ‘did you write this [essay]?’ or ‘could this have been written by AI?’ These responses are random and have no basis in fact."

Plagiarism detection service Turnitin said in May that its tool detected a “higher incidence of false positives” — or the incorrect identification of fully human-written text as AI-generated text — when there is less than 20% of AI writing in a document. At that time, the company also announced it will display an asterisk when the detector finds less than 20% of AI writing in text.

The OpenAI FAQ advises teachers to ask students to share specific conversations from ChatGPT so they can discuss students' skills in asking questions, analyzing responses, and integrating information.