Industry groups ‘alarmed’ Education Department cuts may weaken school cybersecurity | StateScoop
This year, according to a number of organizations and school districts, the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology’s closure will stifle security efforts in K-12 college towns.
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The Trump president’s reduction of staff members at the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology raises questions for a number of campaigning groups focused on schools and technology. This year, they raised concerns about security in schools and the negative effects of failing to improve electronic learning.
The elimination, which was a part of the Donald Trump administration’s larger plan to reduce the size of the national workforce, had an impact on 50 % of the Department of Education’s employees and all groups within the department, according to the Associated Press.
Following the general election in November, representatives from several state education departments expressed concern about the potential problems to give programs like Title I-A and Title IV-A that college districts can use to buy electronic devices and software designed to improve teaching for students from low-income people or those with disabilities.
Chloe Teboe, director of communications at the Maine Department of Education, stated last year that the agency’s Office of Educational Technology and its  , which it updates periodically, offer “vital supervision and guidance to ensure equitable access to technology for all students.
The Consortium for School Networking expressed alarm over the disintegration of OET and the potential cascading effects for “school districts working to implement responsible AI strategies, target modern equity gaps, and ensure students can learn carefully net” in a this week. CoSN also pointed out that the department’s new AI guidance and National Educational Technology Plan “risiko becoming outdated and absent, leaving colleges without crucial support.”
OET was established to ensure that educators, school districts, students, and educators could use cutting-edge systems, including cybersecurity resources, online learning tools, and artificial intelligence. The Department of Education’s proposed 50 percent staff reduction and the elimination of this knowledgeable team” sends a disturbing signal about the future of the country’s longstanding leadership in educational technology,” according to CoSN’s CEO, Keith Krueger, in the news release.
Similar concerns were raised by Elizabeth Laird, the director of ownership in political systems for the Center for Democracy and Technology, about the department’s closure of the OET and its .
As two of the principal offices that guide schools ‘ efforts to responsibly use AI and other tech have been decimated, K-12 students and their families now find themselves at greater risk of tech-driven harms, according to Laird in an emailed statement. This is a significant setback for educational institutions, which must be able to use technology safely without violating legal rights regarding student privacy and civil rights. As technology usage in schools rises, educators need assistance finding ways to promote responsible technology use and shield students from unfavorable uses of their data.
The concerns also arise as K-12 security initiatives have grown increasingly important as a result of the state-wide “whole-of-state” method to cybersecurity being pursued by state governments and nonprofits as a result of increased collaboration across all levels of government, the education sector, and private business.
However, to two knowledge sharing companies that are commonly used by state and local governments to protect IT and election systems from attacks are hampered by these efforts, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s to these initiatives. The Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or EI-SAC, has been completely funded by the CISA, and this week the organization announced it has cut$ 10 million in funding from the Multi-State ISAC.
Steven Langford, the former COSN chair and current chief information officer for the Oregon school district, claimed that the MS-ISAC reductions will also harm schools ‘ cybersecurity postures.
According to Langford,” Bornton School District has a lot of cybersecurity resources thanks to the CISA and MS-ISAC.” The combination of cybersecurity resources, security threat awareness, and technical support is essential to our cybersecurity portfolio. Our ability to anticipate and respond to cybersecurity threats will be significantly impacted by CISA and MS-ISAC’s loss of services.