On October 24, 2024, the U.S Department of Education (“DOE”) released its AI Toolkit for Safe, Ethical, and Equitable AI Integration for school leaders. This toolkit, primarily targeted towards K-12 school leaders, implements recommendations from the DOE’s Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) Future of Teaching and Learning report (published May 2023). It provides guidance for the effective use and integration of AI in teaching and learning, summarizes key federal laws and considerations for ensuring safe, secure, and non-discriminatory AI use, and promotes the principles of transparency and awareness for schools using AI. The toolkit covers ten key topic areas, or “modules”: 1) opportunities and risks; 2: privacy and data security; 3) civil rights; 4) accessibility, and digital equity; 5) understanding evidence of impact; 6) considering the instructional core; 7) planning an AI strategy; 8) establishing a task force to guide and support AI efforts; 9} building AI literacy for educators; and 10) updating AI policies and advocating for responsible use; and developing an organization-wide AI action plan.
The DOE was required to develop this toolkit pursuant to President Biden’s October 30, 2023, Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (“Executive Order”). This Executive Order was issued to promote the thoughtful responsible development of AI with appropriate guardrails by developing of federal standards for artificial intelligence (“AI”) use within public institutions and in connection with federal programs. California Department of Education’s previously released a resource entitled “Learning With AI, Learning About AI” https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/pl/documents/cdeairesourcekit.pdf in September 2023, providing policy suggestions and guidance for the use of AI in the classroom and the safe use of the technology.
Liebert Cassidy Whitmore attorneys are closely monitoring guidance from the DOE and will provide updates to assist our clients with compliance. We are available to assist our clients in developing policies to promote responsible and ethical use of AI.