Learn21's Weekly EdTech Update

March 19, 2026

Building What's Next: Lessons from KAST and the Work Ahead for Student Data Privacy

By Kevin Ghantous

It started with a food tour.

Before the sessions began and the exhibit hall opened at the Kentucky Association for School Technology's Spring 2026 Conference, Encore Technologies brought together a group of Kentucky's EdTech leaders for their Customer Advisory Board meeting, 90 minutes of honest listening and peer conversation, followed by a food tour through Louisville. Louisville, being Louisville, there were more than a few ghost stories along the way. KAST has been one of the most respected state EdTech associations in the country for more than 30 years, and this year's conference theme "Navigating the Future of EdTech" felt well-earned. Kentucky's districts are navigating a lot right now, and the conversations happening in hallways and session rooms reflected it.

One of the most visible signs of the increased load Kentucky is navigating is that the Connected User Experience System (CUES) is leading a statewide migration. They are moving all 171 districts from on-premises Active Directory to cloud-based identity management by the end of 2027. This migration includes nearly 1 million user accounts, decades of local configurations, and services that districts have built on infrastructure they may not have fully mapped until now. It's a significant undertaking, and Kentucky is taking it on at a scale that few states have attempted.

CUES is just one part of the picture. As more services move to the cloud, student data follows.

That creates a real problem on the policy side. Many districts are managing contracts with hundreds of EdTech vendors without the legal resources to review them thoroughly. What vendors can do with student data such as how long they hold it, whether they can use it for other purposes, and who they share it with deserves a clear answer, one that most districts don't have yet. 

Which is what brought us to Louisville.

We came with two conference sessions designed to start the data privacy conversation. The first, "Data Is Treasure: Build a Culture That Protects It," made the case that student data privacy is a leadership responsibility that requires building shared culture across departments that have historically operated in silos. The second, "Building a Culture of Student Data Privacy in Kentucky K-12 Schools: A Deeper Dive," walked district leaders through the practical steps of establishing standardized agreements that reduce vendor management burden and protect students. Both sessions drew strong attendance, and the conversations that followed were the kind that move things forward.



Our goal is to give Kentucky districts a way to manage data privacy together through the Kentucky Data Privacy Alliance, a state-level effort led by the EdTech Leaders Alliance (ETLA) that will become part of a broader multi-state consortium. The alliance stands on the framework built by the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) and its National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA), a standardized approach that already serves more than 12,600 school districts and 34 million students across 40 states. The aim is to bring Kentucky districts into that framework as a group, reducing the cost and complexity of compliance and moving more schools toward genuine protection for students.

The need is real. The interest is there. What's been missing is an organized starting point, which is what we're building.

We came to connect, and we did. The relationships we fostered are the foundation the Kentucky Data Privacy Alliance will be built on. We're grateful to Encore Technologies’ reminder that the best work in this field begins with people willing to sit in a room, listen, and show up for each other. 

If you're reading this and thinking "we need something like this,” you're right, and you're not alone. Visit edtechleadersalliance.org to learn more and join the effort. If you're in Kentucky, we want to hear from you now. If you're in another state, we want to hear from you, too.

The framework is ready. The community is forming.

Join us.

Media Literacy Minute

Cursive Is Back — But Schools Face Real Hurdles

More than half of U.S. states have now mandated cursive instruction, reversing a decade-long decline that began when Common Core dropped it from its standards in 2010. As Education Week reports, the comeback comes with significant challenges: finding time in an already packed schedule, addressing a widespread decline in students' fine motor skills, and preparing teachers, many of whom never learned cursive themselves, to teach it effectively. For school leaders, this is a timely reminder that curriculum mandates without teacher training and resources can set everyone up to struggle.

The Real AI Problem in Writing? Students Aren't Showing Their Thinking

A high school English teacher in New Hampshire makes a compelling case in this ASCD piece that the challenge AI poses to writing instruction isn't about cheating, it's about invisible thinking. Drawing on classroom experience and Bloom's Taxonomy, she argues that asking students to document how and why they use AI at each stage of writing is the most important literacy practice educators can develop right now. It's a practical and thought-provoking framework for any teacher wrestling with how to keep genuine student thinking at the center of writing assignments.



New Kids' Online Privacy Bills Are a Step in the Right Direction — But Not Quite There

Congress recently passed COPPA 2.0 in the Senate and advanced the KIDS Act through committee, signaling renewed momentum around protecting young people online. But as ITIF cautions, both bills have significant flaws that could backfire — including compliance burdens that might push kids toward less safe platforms and overly broad restrictions that go beyond addressing real harms. For educators and advocates invested in youth digital safety, this is a useful snapshot of where federal policy stands and why the details of these laws matter enormously.

Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment PPRA 101

By Mike Porter

This U.S. Department of Education guidance (issued October 2020), outlines parent rights and LEA Obligations under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). Parents have the right to consent before students are required to submit to federally funded surveys covering eight sensitive areas:

1. Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or student’s parent; 

2. Mental or psychological problems of the student or student’s family; 

3. Sex behavior or attitudes;

4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior; 

5. Critical appraisals of others with whom respondents have close family relationships; 

6. Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as with lawyers, doctors, or ministers; 

7. Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or student’s parent; or 

8. Income, other than as required by law to determine program eligibility

Parents also have the right to opt their child out of non-emergency physical exams, marketing-related data collection, and certain non-federally-funded protected information surveys. LEAs must develop privacy policies in consultation with parents, notify them at least annually at the start of each school year, and provide advance notice of any scheduled surveys or activities — including specific or approximate dates. Rights transfer from parents to students at age 18 or upon emancipation.

Three Recommendations for LEA Leaders



1. Establish a clear, annual PPRA notification process

Don't treat PPRA compliance as a one-time checkbox. Build a repeatable system to notify parents via mail or email about all upcoming surveys, data collection activities, and physical screenings, including scheduled dates. When new activities are added mid-year, ensure parents receive timely notice and a genuine opt-out opportunity before participation occurs.

2. Develop and regularly update a parent-inclusive privacy policy. 

PPRA requires that LEA privacy policies be developed in consultation with parents, not just distributed to them. Create an advisory process (such as a parent review committee) to develop or revise these policies, and communicate any substantive changes promptly. Keeping parents as genuine stakeholders, rather than passive recipients of notices, reduces legal risk and builds community trust.

3. Audit all third-party surveys and data-sharing agreements 

LEAs are responsible not just for their own surveys but for those administered by third parties. Before any vendor, researcher, or partner distributes surveys or collects student data for marketing or other purposes, ensure legal review has occurred, parental inspection rights are honored, and opt-out mechanisms are in place. With the growing use of EdTech tools, this is an area of increasing PPRA risk that demands proactive oversight. Also, teachers and other staff should be careful about deploying surveys that contain sensitive information (see the list above). The current leadership at the Department of Education have made it clear that this is a priority issue.

Big Ideas

Moving at Lightspeed

Technical readers know that fiber optics technology delivers data packets using photons (light) over glass instead of electrons over copper. The advantages in speed and distance are considerable. It should be no surprise that the demands of AI computing are leading to new investments in fiber optics, as this article shares. As photonic technology becomes increasingly central to AI computing infrastructure, Nvidia has announced a $4 billion investment split equally between two U.S. photonics companies — Coherent Corp. and Lumentum. The multi-year strategic agreements include large purchase commitments and capacity access rights for advanced lasers and optical networking products, and will support research, development, and manufacturing expansion. Lumentum plans to build a new fabrication facility, while Coherent will expand its domestic manufacturing footprint, moves aimed at securing the supply chain powering the next generation of AI data centers.

Can you put pepperoni on that?

I (Mike Porter) have been around Information Technology for over 20 years, and know that technologists like two things: innovation and pizza. This article details the nexus between emerging technologies and the pizza industry. Here's a ~60-word summary for a general audience:

Pizza restaurants have become a leading testing ground for restaurant technology. On a typical Friday night, a modern pizzeria may rely more on software than staff. AI can answer phones, algorithms anticipating repeat orders, and automated systems assembling pizzas in seconds. High delivery volumes, standardized kitchens, and intense competition create strong incentives to adopt tools like robotics, predictive analytics, and AI ordering systems. These innovations are now spreading across the broader restaurant industry.

Claude AI usage by state ranked

This infographic details the usage of Claude AI by state. Interestingly, Washington DC has the highest usage rate (four times the national average) with its nearby neighbor West Virginia having the lowest usage rate of one quarter the national average. See where your state ranks!

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