Aaron Cuny: [00:00:00] Maybe the most important thing is making sure that there’s clarity around decision rights and ownership. Of AI related work streams. You know, there’s nothing more dangerous than a skeptic who is also a key influencer of his or her peers given the pace of change with ai, you cannot be a good strategic decision maker if you don’t have a really good sense of how the technology is evolving.
Aaron Cuny: And what is that shifting line between where there is opportunity and where there is limitation?
Brett Roer: Welcome everyone to today’s episode of the AmpED to 11 podcast. We are honored to have today’s guest, Aaron Cuny, who’s gonna be speaking, let’s say about ethical leadership and building AI for equity and education. I’m joined by my incredible podcast co-host, Rebecca bma. Rebecca, how are you doing today?
Rebecca Bultsma: I’m good and I always love a podcast title that has ethical in the title, [00:01:00] so I’m extra excited to be here. Looking forward to talking to Aaron and getting to know him a little bit better.
Brett Roer: Well, we’d have to put that in if we’re speaking to Aaron Cuny. So Aaron, welcome to today’s episode. How are you doing today?
Aaron Cuny: I am doing well. Glad, glad to be here and thanks for the opportunity to speak with you guys.
Brett Roer: Yeah. So for today’s listeners, just in case you, you’re no wondering why this isn’t one of our marathon hour long sessions. Uh, Aaron has a 6-year-old who just recently had a, a medical procedure, so we’re gonna make sure we get him back to that child, uh, you know, in, in the near future.
Brett Roer: So we’re gonna jump right in if that’s okay. Aaron, that sound good to you?
Aaron Cuny: Yeah, let’s do it.
Brett Roer: Alright, so Aaron, first of all, you know, in your role at ai, AI for equity as the co-founder. I’d love it if you can kind of give us, give us the longest version, the shortest version, your favorite version of your why, and how did you get to where you are today and what are some of those, you know, things you’ve learned, uh, on your journey to co-founding AI for Equity?[00:02:00]
Aaron Cuny: So my background is in classrooms. I spent 18 years working in a school building. As a teacher first, as a, as a school leader, I co-founded a charter school that I led in DC for a while and like so many, so many people in the fall of 2022, early winter of, of 2023, I was really compelled by Chat GPT and started thinking about the use cases in education.
Aaron Cuny: And I remember having this moment where. I sent an email to the co-founder of, of the charter school that I had, I had co-founded, and I said, oh, hey, here’s this really interesting, you know, technology and here’s a great use case for schools. And then, you know, within a few days, I think I had replied to that same email 20 times with all of these use cases that just, it became this waterfall and.
Aaron Cuny: For me, I think that was just this, this moment when I realized the implications for our work in schools would be really big. [00:03:00] And kind of the short version is that that led to a launch of AI for equity as a nonprofit in spring of 2023. And since then we’ve been really fortunate to work with a bunch of innovative school system leaders from across the country, learning with them and, and learning from them.
Aaron Cuny: And really positioning them to be exemplars that the rest of the ecosystem can learn from, uh, as we go forward.
Rebecca Bultsma: So what are some of the specifics of exactly what you do with schools when you work with them. This example of, of innovative school systems you work with, what, what do typical days and weeks and months look like?
Aaron Cuny: We see school system leaders as the key levers for change. As we think about, you know, who are the folks who are setting the vision, who, who’s managing the budget, and guiding a resource allocation. Who’s making decisions about what gets time on the leadership agenda? What gets time on Friday afternoon during teacher professional development?
Aaron Cuny: Um, those folks are school system leaders and, and while [00:04:00] we think it’s important that we’re, you know, building the AI literacy and competency of folks at all levels of the system, we are really leaning in on building the capacity of. Senior school system leaders to be good decision makers on all things ai, everything from adult work streams to student facing tools, uh, to the really, really big implications for curriculum and instruction.
Aaron Cuny: And so. Kind of what that looks like, you know, structurally is we facilitate virtual communities of practice on a monthly basis, and we do that for role-based groups. So we have a group of AI quarterbacks who, who we convene senior instructional leaders, senior talent leaders, and then we have a data it and operations group.
Aaron Cuny: And the vast majority of the school systems who we are working with this year in, in SY 25, 26 have been partners of ours [00:05:00] over the last several years. And so we’ve had the opportunity to develop some really nice longitudinal relationships with these folks. And instead of serving kind of new groups, we, we say like, we’re not PD for all organizations.
Aaron Cuny: So we are not looking to do like AI 1 0 1. Over and over with new groups of school systems. But rather we were trying to support a set of the top innovators longitudinally over time so we can get kind of deeper and deeper and peel back the layers of, of what it looks like to innovate. So we, we convene these folks virtually once a month and we address both the strategic side of the work across all of those functions.
Aaron Cuny: Um, and then we also really lean in tactically. That comes from, I think, a, a big lessons learned, lesson learned that we have had over the last couple of years, which is given the pace of change with ai, you cannot be a good strategic decision maker. If you don’t have a really good sense of [00:06:00] how the technology is evolving and what is that shifting line between where there is opportunity and where there is limitation, you know, something that, where that line was three months ago is, is different than where it is today.
Aaron Cuny: So we, you know, we spend time talking about. The AI adoption curve and thinking about systems for pilots. But we also spent a lot of time looking at, you know, demos of how products are evolving in the ed tech market, how the foundational models are evolving, um, and you know, what the implications of those are for school-based work streams.
Aaron Cuny: So we try to kind of split time between the strategic. The tactical, you know, all towards the goal of making sure that the folks that we’re supporting are really positioned to be great decision makers about both opportunity and risk.
Rebecca Bultsma: So how do you empower these leaders to make good ethical decisions about Ed Tech’s [00:07:00] tools specifically?
Rebecca Bultsma: What are some of the things that you teach them or that you talk about?
Aaron Cuny: In terms of ma like being good decision makers in the product marketplace, our leaders are coming to us with content expertise. So, you know, our, I, I think about like our talent. Community of practice, they know talent work really well.
Aaron Cuny: These are, you know, generally folks who are in senior talent positions in strong school systems around the country. Um, and we are kind of in, in tactic on the tactical side. We are engaging them in exploring how AI can be leveraged in talent workflows, how, you know, we’re teeing up opportunities for them to share with the community.
Aaron Cuny: How they are already leveraging AI in talent workflows. And so, you know, I, we are a community of practice, so sometimes we are coming to the table to, you know, share things with them that we think are interesting or compelling, but there’s also space for them to, to bring to our community what [00:08:00] they are learning.
Aaron Cuny: And so we, you know, be, because we, I think, have the, these longitudinal relationships and it’s a conversation that we get to re revisit each month. We have folks who, you know, will learn about something one month and go out and try it the next month and they’ll come back and say, Hey, this is actually getting some traction in our community.
Aaron Cuny: We’re, we’re starting to, you know, leverage the technology in, in this way. And we, we find that, you know, it’s what we’re getting back is quality and it’s reliable. Or conversely, you know, we’ll tee something up or someone will hear about something from a peer and they’ll go out and try it. They’ll come back the next month and say, actually, like, this seems like this is a little bit more hype than, than substance.
Aaron Cuny: And so I think just having the space for that conversation helps us kind of pair the content expertise of our leaders with the emerging exploration that we’re all doing about the technology to figure out, you know, [00:09:00] where, what it, what’s gonna stick and what’s gonna have. Meaningful and substantive use case implications that allows them to do their more, their work more effectively.
Brett Roer: Aaron, first of all, thank you for, you know, guiding today’s leaders, right? It’s a really challenging time to lead. AI has created opportunity, but also, you know, with the lack of guidance and support, it can feel even more difficult than ever. So just wanna say thank you for supporting these leaders through this time.
Brett Roer: I’d love it if you’re willing to, you know, for our listeners out there. Whether it’s someone who’s longitudinally, been you’ve been supporting, or someone you’ve recently been supporting, could you maybe share like one anecdote of a, of a specific school or a specific leader who’s really, um, blossomed or created something really impactful that you’d love to share today?
Brett Roer: Uh, with our audience.
Aaron Cuny: I, I can share about a few systems that I think have really gotten the work of AI leadership, right? And, and maybe, you know, some different [00:10:00] pathways that they’ve taken to, to get there. I think about innovate. In Southern California is one example. I see you nodding your head, Brett. You know, when, when Innovate came to our community, I think AI was already something that was, you know, very much on the, the radar of Oliver Sicat, the, the CEO there.
Aaron Cuny: Um, and I think they’re an example of a network that’s, I think led in a really innovative way because of the conviction Oliver’s leadership on this, this topic, and. So many of the, we have a leadership roadmap that involves, you know, vision setting and making sure you’ve got clear roles and responsibilities around AI and facilitating an AI task force and amplifying power users.
Aaron Cuny: You know, so I could go on and on, you know, in terms of the things in our roadmap. And I think, you know, innovate has done so many of those things well over the last couple of years and, and really, you know, Oliver was like the, the impetus. For that. [00:11:00] Another example, I think of a, of a real positive outlier and a and a leader in terms of AI leadership across the country right now is Dream Charter Schools in in New York.
Aaron Cuny: Um, and you know, when, when Dream joined our community of practice, I would say AI was not necessarily something that was maybe on their radar. This the radar, the senior leadership in the same way that was the case. With Innovate in, in Southern California, but I think they, they, their senior leadership recognized quickly that this was a topic that deserved some attention and deserves some time on the leadership agenda.
Aaron Cuny: It deserved the, the allocation of some time in someone’s job to be paying attention to this. And so, you know, their, their C-suite, I think while they themselves. Weren’t as maybe directly involved in the way that Oliver was. I think they recognized the importance of it. They made sure that it got the right attention and [00:12:00] strategy, and resource allocation and human capital, you know, attention.
Aaron Cuny: And the, their network, I think, has really just developed a strong culture around innovation in general over the last couple of years and kind of more, more narrowly as it relates to ai. Um. And that has allowed them to, and like we have seen, that can trickle down to all levels of the organization in terms of the, the buy-in for leveraging the technology, the buy-in for exploring on, just like from a frontline standpoint, exploring how AI can get leveraged to create, you know, more efficiencies and effectiveness in workflows from, from the talent team.
Aaron Cuny: To the IT team, to the ops team, to the instructional team. Um, but I think in, in both of those examples that I gave, even though they were slightly different, the key was that there was C-suite buy-in early [00:13:00] on to say, this is something important and we’re gonna make sure that it gets attention. Not because AI itself is one of the top three, you know, goals that we have as an organization, but rather because AI has relevancy to the talent retention goals that we have.
Aaron Cuny: You know, if we think about, if we were to, you know, survey district leaders across the country and ask them about what are, you know, what are your top goals right now? It’s probably gonna be some combination of some goals around academic, you know, outcomes and retention of top leaders, you know, retention of top teachers.
Aaron Cuny: Um, probably something having to do with the budget and, you know, AI has implications for all of those things. So in very few of the, if I were to think about who are our top innovators, in few to, maybe none of those examples is AI itself. One of the top goals, but rather, [00:14:00] I think all of those innovators see it as something that has relevance for the goals that are at the top of their list as a, as a school system for this year and beyond.
Brett Roer: Excellent. I think just wanna highlight what you just said. Obviously you’re working with leaders and it sounds like the leaders that are, uh, benefiting from uh, your organization are the ones who recognize they’ve already set goals, they already know their community well enough to know where they need to get to.
Brett Roer: They’re using, you know, the, the wisdom they’re gathering from you to recognize AI is the tool that can help them reach those goals. Maybe quicker, maybe at a higher level of success, but it is the tool and the vessel to reaching goals that they’ve already defined. So that’s, that’s great that you’re, you know, you’re really empowering them there.
Brett Roer: You also said something that I really wanna make sure we highlight. Uh. The 20 25, 20 26 school year is one like none other when it comes to educators having to make really challenging decisions, right? You have all this new technology. In some cases it’s fantastic and it could [00:15:00] really change outcomes for students if it’s unethically and implemented well.
Brett Roer: And yet you also now have a budget crisis that, um, is many years in the making. And it’s a, a number of factors are attributing to that and school districts and states are really struggling. So. This is probably something everyone’s gonna wanna pay attention and listen to, but Aaron, in your area of expertise, what are some of the major gaps that states, um, private institutions, philanthropy should be funding?
Brett Roer: And then are there any out there that you wanna highlight that people should know about and start taking advantage of if they exist?
Aaron Cuny: Appreciate that, that question because I think that people will follow the money, right? And so if funders and states are saying this is the thing that we think is most important, then I think that’s gonna inform, you know, how the market evolves.
Aaron Cuny: You know, maybe zooming out for a second, as we think about AI’s implications for schools, um, and I think therefore what [00:16:00] school system leaders have to be prepared to lead on. There are a few different buckets. We think about AI’s, implications for adult work streams for student facing tools for the future of curriculum and instruction, and that is everything from something like AI literacy to I think separate from AI literacy, just what are the implications of AI for the learning outcomes that we have for kids across content areas.
Aaron Cuny: For example, like. What are the future of ELA learning outcomes in a world where. Adults in the labor market are leveraging AI for reading and writing, you know, in the ways that we are starting to see now. So I think there are just profound implications for the, the future of curriculum instruction. And then the other category we think about are is just AI’s implications for how students are showing up to us acculturated into this world of ai in the same way that.
Aaron Cuny: Schools are now serving students who have [00:17:00] been acculturated into this world of social media. Um, there’s, I think, big implications for serving kids who are acculturated into a, a world of ai. And so I think directly to your question, we have seen much funding go towards the technology and the tools so far, and.
Aaron Cuny: Proportionally, I think less funding and investment go into the human capital capacity building work that we think is foundational to a healthy, healthy market. So I was a economics major back in the day, and you know, one of the things you learn is that markets function really well when you have an informed demand.
Aaron Cuny: When, when the demand side of the equation, you know, is, is informed, it will eventually push the supply side. In the right direction. And right now, I think by and large we have, if we think about who, who is the demand in our education system is [00:18:00] largely, you know, school system leaders. They’re the ones that are deciding, you know, what technology is going to get leveraged, what tools are going to get purchased.
Aaron Cuny: And I would say that is the demand side. Sufficiently informed are, are they sufficiently informed consumers and discriminating consumers of the technology yet? No, I do not think that that is the case. So we’ve seen lots of investment go into tech and tools, but I think proportionally we have underinvested in human capital and pot positioning those school system leaders to be the discriminating consumers that they need to be.
Aaron Cuny: That will serve as the foundation of how the, the tech and product side of the market, you know, eventually evolves. So if I was to nudge, you know, the, the folks with the purse strings in what, you know, in a, in a direction, it would be towards more investments in building the [00:19:00] capacity of school system leaders to be good decision makers as it relates to this technology.
Aaron Cuny: The other place that I think we’ve just under invested in is work that is getting at what the future of curriculum and instruction looks like. Um, I’ve heard very little about rethinking standards. We’ve heard very little about rethinking what the next generation of HQIM looks like. You know, the, the.
Aaron Cuny: The ELA curriculum that is gonna serve kids well over the next decade, and that aligns with the competencies they’re gonna need to have to succeed in the workplace like that. Today’s ELA curriculum maybe gets at some of that, but certainly there’s huge gaps. And so I think we need more funding to rethink what learning outcomes we need to prioritize.
Aaron Cuny: And then backwards mapping from that, what is the curriculum? What is the student programming? It’s ultimately [00:20:00] gonna ensure that there’s alignment between, you know, what, what it takes for kids to flourish personally and professionally in the labor market, and then what our school system is preparing them for.
Rebecca Bultsma: And let’s pretend that you had the power to ban three over hyped buzzwords related to ai. What would they be?
Aaron Cuny: Transform. Transform, transform.
Rebecca Bultsma: I, it, it make the list as long as you want. We should share notes. My list is getting long and I appreciate that you’re not using a lot of them, but I’m just curious what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing. And I know you have a list.
Aaron Cuny: I, well, I would just say I think if you’ve worked in schools long enough, you know that change happens gradually.
Aaron Cuny: That there is no, like nothing is a silver bullet or a panacea. I, I heard. This is borrowed from, you know, someone, someone, someone else somewhere along the way. But I, I heard one at one point that [00:21:00] running a great school is 101% solutions. And there is no, there is no, like, there’s no singular thing that’s going to lead to a, you know, the achievement gap getting closed by, you know, 50% or 30%.
Aaron Cuny: And so. I think we do this work at AI for equity because we believe if we don’t position school system leaders who are serving kids furthest from opportunity to be good decision makers on AI to, to capitalize on the opportunities to manage the risks, then AI could be something that exacerbates the achievement gap or the opportunity gap.
Aaron Cuny: Um, not because we think AI is a panacea. Or that is going to magically transform the work that is happening in, in schools. So I think, I, I don’t, um, I don’t love it when I hear, you [00:22:00] know, the phrase that AI is going to transform the work of, of schools. ’cause I think it is just like real, real change, uh, is so much more complicated than what even this.
Aaron Cuny: You know, magical technology. I think we’ll be able to drive in our school systems.
Brett Roer: All right, first of all, Rebecca, thank you. Oh, Rebecca, I feel like I just watched a light bulb go off over your head. What are you thinking?
Rebecca Bultsma: Actually, I was just wondering when he was talking about kind of all the exciting things I, the light bulb you probably saw was, I was just wondering, like, I’m always curious about this too.
Rebecca Bultsma: People who are early adopters, like we were, um. What were like your Oh, wow. Moments like with AI or in your work where you’re like, oh my gosh, that actually worked. Your light bulb, like exciting, like, you know, we all have a, a handful, but I’m, I’m curious what, what are yours from like a human, like putting aside the company and the business, like a moment where you as a human we’re like, [00:23:00] this is amazing.
Aaron Cuny: Yeah. I mean, I, I think I shared the, the. You know, my, my initial entry point, you know, the, the, I shared the example of it just kind of, you know, in, in early. Spring, late winter of 2023. Starting to think through those first use cases in schools and trying them out in, you know, whatever, Chad ccpt 3.5 i I guess it was at that point.
Rebecca Bultsma: Oh, that was a good one.
Aaron Cuny: Yeah, so certainly like those moments. Stand out as particularly powerful and were the impetus for the work. You know, my, my own personal, I think, investment in the work that I do today. Um, I also think about like the, my, my first moments of using deep research, you know, maybe nine, nine months ago, January, 2025.
Aaron Cuny: You know, I’ve, I just remember being struck by the, the quality of the [00:24:00] output. And I think that that was a real, you know, moving from maybe what we were, what we had kind of access to in terms of output prior to that point. And, you know, what, like a deep research report could provide for, um. That was like a moment that stands out just in terms of, you know, being struck by the trajectory of progress in, in the technology.
Brett Roer: I wanted to ask similarly to Rebecca, I really liked how she really got, she really got you to think of three words and I think that really, I, I enjoy like hearing exactly right. It really made you narrow your focus for a second. So something I also think about like. AI tools, AI rollouts initiatives in schools.
Brett Roer: First, I want you to give the one piece of advice, like the one thing, if there’s an ed tech org out there or someone who thinks they have the AI tool that will transform, transform, transform school and society, what is the one thing you want to make sure they hear from you today? And then [00:25:00] similarly, what is the one piece of advice you would give to the opposite side, the educational school system leader on like what’s the exact.
Brett Roer: Best piece of advice you need to take right now as you continue through the 25 26 school year?
Aaron Cuny: Yeah, so I would say to the, to the folks that are building, building products, I think by this point everybody gets that they, you know, they need to be engaging their end users and, you know, I, I doubt that there’s an EdTech, you know, builder out there who doesn’t have, you know, some group of educators who they’re engaging with around the product.
Aaron Cuny: Maybe the slightly different or more refined like advice that I would have is that I think that there is a, in, in terms of how discriminating the consumer is and the lens that that consumer has on the system level implications of the technology, [00:26:00] there’s a difference between engaging teachers, a random group of teachers.
Aaron Cuny: Engaging, let’s say very discriminating instructional leaders in high performing school systems. So if I, if I was building a product right now, I would go to, I would find the highest performing school systems in the country and I would go find the very best instructional leaders in those systems. Um, and those would be the people.
Aaron Cuny: Who I would want product feedback from. ’cause I think those are folks who are bringing deep content expertise. They’re thinking about the kind of systems level implications of a technology, and they’re doing that within the context of a school system that is functioning well. I just think like that’s the sweet spot of the folks whose feedback will probably be most helpful over the long term.[00:27:00]
Aaron Cuny: To the question of like, what, what’s the top advice I would have for school system leaders? I think you need a clear roadmap. And while this is an emergent technology and you know, we’re, we are all, we’re building, building the plane as we’re flying it, there are roadmaps out there. You know, we, we just launched something called AI Innovation Index.
Aaron Cuny: So we have a roadmap that is, you know, a part of that initiative that we’re, you know, seeking to, to scale broadly. But I think if you’re a senior school system leader, you need a roadmap. You need to get really clear. Maybe the most important thing is making sure that there’s clarity around decision rights and ownership.
Aaron Cuny: Of AI related work streams. Uh, when you know the, so often, so many challenges in schools and organizations result from the collective action issue. When, when everybody is [00:28:00] responsible for something, no one is responsible. And that’s typically not a problem for ELA instruction or for attendance. These are longstanding kind of topics or work streams in most school system for which.
Aaron Cuny: There’s, you know, clear designation of roles and responsibilities and, and in the best cases, maybe some clear clarity around decision rights. But AI is this new thing, and most school systems, I think, haven’t yet brought clarity to who is owning various aspects of the work. Who gets to weigh in, who approves high stakes decisions?
Aaron Cuny: And so when you don’t have that clarity. Folks are just gonna kind of, sometimes the work just is not gonna happen. Or if it does happen, it’s gonna happen dysfunctionally because, you know, this group thinks that it should be their decision and this other group thinks it should be their decision. So I think you gotta bring clarity to leadership.
Aaron Cuny: You gotta bring, bring clarity to [00:29:00] the question of decision rights, and then you’ve gotta have systems for progress monitoring. Your work against that roadmap. So, you know, our, our AI innovation Index will hopefully position a lot of school systems across the country to have a roadmap and to progress monitor their work against that roadmap over time.
Aaron Cuny: But you know how, I think we, we’ll, we’ll see various iterations of. How school systems want to leverage this technology. But I think that that kind of fundamental, you know, we talk about it as like leader condition setting work. Like the C-suite needs to be setting the condition for the work to proceed kind of functionally in the way that other work streams are already set up for, um, in most school districts right now.
Rebecca Bultsma: Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume that the people that you’re getting are people who are curious and open to change potentially. How are [00:30:00] they or how are you? And we’ve all been working in AI and education and so we know there’s a lot of, um, educators out there who are very uncomfortable with this new technology or field very strongly.
Rebecca Bultsma: That it should not be used in education or they’re not interested in learning it and changing teaching practice. What are your messages or your strategies when you are either coaching leaders to work with people like that on their staff? I don’t know if you get any of those leaders that you end up working with, but how are you navigating that?
Rebecca Bultsma: Because I’m finding that’s people are settling into more like two specific camps these days and it’s harder and harder to bring people along who absolutely do not want to be brought along.
Aaron Cuny: Yeah, I, great question. And I think it definitely strikes at the heart the leadership, one, leadership challenge around AI right now in, in school systems.
Aaron Cuny: And, you know, we, we like to say this work is like one [00:31:00] part technical and three parts change management. And I, I think you know that what you articulated is one of the ways that this is change management work. So, you know, we, we try to think about the adoption curve, right? And so, you know, you, you have your, your early adopters and your enthusiasts, and then, you know, kind of the, the, the, there’s various across the continuum, you know, various degrees of buy-in and resistance, you know, and, and the other end of the, the continuum from your early adopters and your enthusiasts are not just folks who might be kind of pa passively not, but in.
Aaron Cuny: People who will be vocally antagonists to this work and, you know, conversations around the ai. So, you know, one of the things that we’ve done with our leaders is try to help them think about what are the change management strategies that they know are best practice for other initiatives that they have led [00:32:00] historically, you know, in their organizations and.
Aaron Cuny: Many of those same strategies for how they might, uh, you know, approach the rollout of a, of a, the science of reading, let’s say. You know, you’re gonna have, if, if we, you know, go back maybe 3, 4, 5 years before the science of reading had really picked up traction. Uh, you know, there were folks in schools who are antagonistic to, uh, to this and, and, you know, still, still today.
Aaron Cuny: But I think the school system leaders who are leading that change, were thinking about. How do we leverage the folks who are enthusiastic about this and who are bought in? How do we peel off, like what’s the next layer of work that allows us to peel off some of the folks in the middle and bring them into the camp of those who are bought in?
Aaron Cuny: Um, and then how are we attentive to the needs and the interests of the folks who might be skeptics? Because eventually, like we want them on board. And especially if you have, you know, some, [00:33:00] um. Some key influencers there, you know, there’s nothing more dangerous than a skeptic who is also a key influencer of his or her peers.
Aaron Cuny: Uh, and so, you know, you have to be, I think, really intentional about how you’re empathetic to and addressing the needs and slowly working to cultivate the buy-in of, of folks on that end of the continuum as well. So we, we had, just to, to give you like a concrete example, we, in one of our convenings last fall.
Aaron Cuny: We had kind of broken out these various groups and we had a planning template for our leaders to go through and actually list out some of the leaders in the organization who. In their organization who they thought fell into each of these buckets. And then we had a list of strategies, like very concrete strategies for what to do with each group.
Aaron Cuny: And they went through and they said, you know, here, here are the people who are falling into this category of, of skeptics. And here, you [00:34:00] know, from this list of 15 strategies, here’s three or four that we, we think could be good. To pursue with this particular group of, of people. So we’ve tried to, I think just like validate that this is a real key challenge and then position our leaders with some concrete guidance and planning opportunities to go out and, and address it.
Brett Roer: You know, Aaron, one thing I just wanna highlight that you said that’s great is just like in any other pedagogical initiative, you know, you’ve named a couple, you know, science of Reading, for example. You’re not trying to get every educator. In the entire district to try 20 things the next day in their classroom.
Brett Roer: You’re trying to explain what are all the different options and what are the pedagogical best practices, but then let’s really drill down on what’s the most relevant that you can personalize for you and your students. Like you just mentioned, taking all these tools and really applying a few practices, so that’s a great methodology that I find sometimes educators I think are like so nervous they see everything.
Brett Roer: As you just said, it’s really highlighting [00:35:00] which ones should you start with and lean into first, uh, to get that fluency. So just thank you for highlighting a really great brush practice that educators are used to. We are going to flip the script right now, so, uh, for the listeners out there, we always provide a prep doc for our guests, and Aaron actually also had some really wonderful questions that he thought would be really relevant for today.
Brett Roer: So you’re hearing some of a combination of those two. But Aaron. Uh, you are now the host of the AmpED to 11 podcast. You have the incredible AI ethicist, Rebecca Bultsma as one of your guests, and then this other guy, Brett, that she, let’s come on things with her. What is your question That you are burning? You cannot wait to ask us.
Brett Roer: You’ve been waiting this whole podcast and you’re like, when will it be my turn? It is here, Aaron, go ahead.
Aaron Cuny: So I, you know, our, our work, as I’ve mentioned, centers on senior school system leaders, and I’m always interested in hearing about who, who’s doing the work really well. And so I would [00:36:00] love to hear from each of you, maybe one or even two school systems where you have been really impressed by the AI leadership.
Aaron Cuny: In thinking about both, you know, leader leadership shown addressing both AI’s opportunities and risks, like where are there, where have you encountered C-level leadership that you think you, you would put at the, you know, the, the top of the, top of the continuum of folks who are really getting it right.
Brett Roer: I’m gonna name a few and just highlight like one thing I’m so impressed by the work they do. One is here in the, uh, greater New York City region is Alana Winnick over at Botanical Hills. The thing I’m most impressed by in her work is, um, how much student voice plays a role in her district and how they’ve now taken that role, the students, and they’ve been able to speak at conferences virtually around the world.
Brett Roer: And the way that Alana really started that best practice was by [00:37:00] building a club. Where students started to learn, uh, innovative ways to use AI to change what they’re doing at home or in schools, and then flipping it and actually teaching their teachers, here’s something cool I learned about ai. Do you wanna learn about it?
Brett Roer: Such a novel approach that, uh, is very replicable and would be amazing to see more schools adopt that. So reach out to Alana Winnick, uh, for that one. Someone I just recently reconnected with, uh, in October at EdTech Week in New York City is Roberto Vargas. Many school districts are working towards building community handbooks or playbooks.
Brett Roer: So, right, there’s policy that lives up at the board level, um, that, you know, a, your everyday student or teacher isn’t ever gonna look at. And then there’s the actual playbook. What does it feel like in a first grade classroom versus an eighth grade classroom versus English versus science? And so Roberto and his school have, you know, I got a chance to read it fresh off the press last week, and there was, I walked with him, read it.
Brett Roer: Like kept [00:38:00] stopping and just saying, I just want you to hear like, I wish more people said exactly this when they talk to students or parents or any stakeholder about how you’re using ai. And they, he kept putting just like, why we’re doing it this way and just explaining the why was so helpful. So.
Brett Roer: There’s many other folks out there, but you said if you said two would be okay. I don’t wanna, uh,
Aaron Cuny: oh, you could keep going. This is, I could have this conversation all day. And also , uh, Roberto is a partner of ours and so I’m, I’m excited to hear his name mentioned, but I’m happy to stay on this.
Rebecca Bultsma: He is outstanding.
Rebecca Bultsma: I had a chance to read that handbook too. And it is like Chef’s kiss. It is everything that I would include that I recommend people include. Uh, so adding. My check mark as the third behind that.
Brett Roer: Rebecca, maybe rule of three. Maybe you can finish us off with a third person or a in addition district or leave it.
Rebecca Bultsma: You know what, um, I’m in Canada and I was talking to a friend of mine at Grand Erie [00:39:00] District School Board, which is in Ontario, and they’ve developed a set of micro credentials. AI Microcredentials for every role in their district. So there’s different ones for teachers than there is for different elements of support staff.
Rebecca Bultsma: And the every single member of their district, uh, has a dedicated AI microcredential that they now have the opportunity to work towards. And it’s really sort of involving everybody in the process and giving everyone an opportunity to incorporate AI in their role. Uh, whatever it is. In the district, which I thought was great to kind of formalize it like that instead of just showing up and doing a PD and uh, then expecting people to just carry it on.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think it gives some good accountability and a little structure. So I, I was a huge fan of that.
Brett Roer: I got one more group of people that don’t get shouted out enough. Is that okay? This is it, I swear.
Aaron Cuny: Yeah, no, keep going.
Brett Roer: Alright, so check this out. So, literally three months ago, uh, I met this amazing superintendent from a very, very rural district out in Texas called Rosebud [00:40:00] Lot.
Brett Roer: Um, he saw like the most basic ways I was using ai, just like in co in corresponding. Like, he just watched me working one day over a cup of coffee and just was like, how are you doing that? And I shared and he’s like, can you do this in my district? And he got his whole leadership team to come to a barn, uh, the day before school started and they had never.
Brett Roer: Used AI like systemically to think about, for example, the instructional cycle or other things. And so that was August 1st, right? Not even three months ago. And so we just met yesterday, we had an hour long debrief with his curriculum director, uh, for his district. So he’s like, well, you know, it’s really hard and we’re doing this and we’re doing that.
Brett Roer: And you know, as always, educators are like, they’re just, they’re not willing to accept that they’re actually crushing it. Right? Like they don’t realize, or they’re not willing to say publicly, like. This is actually incredible, right? Three months ago, they had never touched ai and she’s like, well, every one of those principles now goes into classrooms.
Brett Roer: They transcribe the course, the classes using audio recordings. They put it in into an AI tool. We now have all of our walkthroughs in one spot. It tells us trends. I’m [00:41:00] like, yeah, that’s like. That’s not nothing that’s actually really ahead of the curve. And then she was like, well, we have these two math teachers who are using it every day and they’re taking student work and they’re using it to give feedback quicker.
Brett Roer: I’m like, yep. And she’s like, and I would love to learn about programming. ’cause they reached out to me like the night after they made their programs. And I’m like, can you up us fix programming? And I used to program and I was like, wow, AI is such a better way to program. And she’s like, I’m like, yeah.
Brett Roer: She’s like, can we have a meeting like now so we can get ahead of it? I’m like. I’m like, these are all like, incredible things. And then she’s like, can we have, like in January we’re gonna have a pd, a service day? And we have these two great teachers, like, we’re like, great, do you want help? Like letting them showcase what they’re doing, just showing like in Rosebud lot, this is literally how they’re doing it.
Brett Roer: And she’s like, yeah, they love when that happens. I’m like, right, like, you’re doing all these things at the instructional level, at the leadership level, at the, at the pol uh, the operational level. I’m like. If you were doing any one of these things, I’d say That’s incredible. You’ve implemented that in a few months of your school.
Brett Roer: So anyway, that’s the one I [00:42:00] wanna highlight. And I think it’s again, this trend of like, people are doing great work. They don’t even know how to recognize it.
Aaron Cuny: I, I believe that there are like some, some hidden gems like that scattered all around the country. Folks that are flying below the radar, we, we can probably, the three of us can think about who some of the usual players are that deservedly, you know, get invited to the panels to talk about the work that they’re leading.
Aaron Cuny: But there’s a lot more folks that are doing innovative work and I will just take this opportunity to share. This is why we have launched the AI Innovation Index, which essentially is looking to scale system level data collection across the country from school districts. Looking at what are staff saying about ai, what are students saying about the development of their AI literacy and what is the leadership work that is happening?
Aaron Cuny: Um, we think that if we can cast a really wide net. Collecting that system level data from [00:43:00] in, in including, you know, districts like the one you just mentioned, Brett. Then we’re gonna have a data set to identify some positive, out positive outliers, you know, broadly speaking and across a bunch of really specific metrics to say, Hey, here, here’s this district in Oklahoma that nobody is talking about, but they’re crushing it, and what can we do?
Aaron Cuny: The, the, the, the data backs up that they’re crushing it. What can we do? To learn from them, to spotlight their work to make sure that it’s getting the attention that it deserves. Right now, you know, we, over the last couple of years, we’ve had this proliferation of surveys of, uh, educators, students, you know, ask them about their perspectives around ai, but we haven’t had system level data that allows us to triangulate between.
Aaron Cuny: What students and educators are saying in a particular system and the leadership work that’s happening in that system. And [00:44:00] so our initiative is really seeking to get that system level data so that we can say. Where do we have these positive outliers in, let’s say the percentage of students who say that they are designing and building with AI to address real, real world problems?
Aaron Cuny: And then what do we know about the leadership work that’s happening in that school system? That is driving those, those positive outlier outcomes. So we haven’t had good systems level AI innovation data that we can compare, you know, across the country and, and internationally. And so we are hoping to do that in order to really be able to tell a lot more of the stories, um, that, you know, like the one that you just mentioned.
Brett Roer: Hey, I’m, uh, just wanna share, you know, uh, again, Aaron highlighted some of these amazing things during our prep for this, uh, today’s podcast. I’m on their website. I just wanna share like one, ’cause this almost is better than wrapping up with our Oceans 11 ’cause we’ll make sure we add this to the show notes.
Brett Roer: But one, if you go to the AI Innovation [00:45:00] Index framework on their website, uh, the first thing is check out who they’re partnering with, right? ’cause you can always tell a lot about, uh, an initiative as to who’s. Backing it, and I truly am saying the people on this are all people that I either deeply admire and have had the pleasure and privilege of working with or would aspire to in my future.
Brett Roer: These are some incredible organizations behind it. And then actually, what I’m really just wanna make sure people check out is go to the framework and look at the questions that they’re asking either students or staff. Because as someone who’s had to administer so many staff surveys. These are really relevant right now.
Brett Roer: Uh, like just the very first question for students. I understand how AI can be both helpful and harmful to me and others. If a student can’t answer and say that they feel like a school has prepared them for that, it’s gonna be very hard to say. We’re equipping them for the future of. Society, workforce post-secondary readiness.
Brett Roer: So just wanna make sure our listeners, uh, will add these in the comments. Um, [00:46:00] really check this out. This seems like something every school should be aligning to at this time.
Aaron Cuny: Thanks Brett. Appreciate that.
Brett Roer: Yeah, and so. I just wanna say Aaron, we are gonna make sure you get to that, you know, to your kiddo. Um, I’m also about to head on to daddy duty.
Brett Roer: I can hear my son’s piano lesson wrapping up, but I wanna say thank you for the work you’re leading for bringing all of this to as many. Educators and communities as possible and for just doing this great work. So thank you once again, Aaron, for joining us. Thank you Rebecca as always for being the leader in this space.
Brett Roer: And thank you to our listeners. We look forward to, uh, welcoming you to our next episode of the AmpED to 11 podcast. Have a wonderful day everybody.
