• 22 minutes 34 seconds
    AI Is in Schools. Teachers Are Not Ready.

    Three-quarters of school districts now have AI guidelines, up sharply from just a year ago, yet 82 percent of teachers say they have never received formal guidance on how to use AI in their work. EdSurge reporter Lauren Coffey breaks down the 2026 CoSN State of Ed Tech report and what it reveals about AI adoption, cybersecurity gaps, and edtech vetting inside K-12 districts. Then host Ira Apfel talks with Joseph South, chief innovation officer at ISTE+ASCD, about why teachers say they feel unprepared to bring AI into their classrooms and what it would take to change that.

    What You'll Learn

    • Why AI adoption in K-12 districts jumped from 54 percent in 2025 to 75 percent this year, and why most prefer local flexibility over state or federal mandates.
    • Why cybersecurity remains many districts' top concern even as two-thirds lack the staff and budget to address it, and what the Canvas ransomware attack reveals about the real cost of that gap.
    • What the Gallup and Walton Family Foundation data actually shows about the teacher guidance crisis: 82 percent of teachers have received no formal AI guidance, 34 percent have received no guidance at all, and 69 percent have received no guidance specifically on using AI for one-on-one instruction or tutoring.
    • How districts in Long Beach, Gwinnett County, and Fairfax County are building transparency-first AI frameworks, and what the Lighthouse Schools model offers as a replicable path for districts that want to move without waiting for policy from above.

    Stories Mentioned in This Episode

    CoSN U.S. State of EdTech 2026 Report with coverage by Lauren Coffey

    Teachers Say Lack of AI Guidance Is a Major Problem from Education Week featuring Joseph South, Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCD

    Stay Connected

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    Host and Contributors

    Hosted by

    Ira Apfel: Editorial Director, Journalism

    Featuring

    Lauren Coffey: Reporter, EdSurge (public policy, early childhood education, K-12 technology)

    Joseph South: Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCD

    Stay informed, stay curious.

    3 June 2026, 12:30 pm
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    How a Vacant School Building Became a Symbol of Loss, and Then Hope, for a Dying Small Town
    When the only school in Donora, Pennsylvania, closed a few years ago, it hit the town’s residents hard. Now the building may be the town’s best hope, as a community college considers setting up in the former school. A University of Pittsburgh professor spent three years documenting life in this fading town for an unusual podcast series that ran late last year. Education was a key theme. On this week's EdSurge Podcast, we talk to the professor about her takeaways for the role of education in the many forgotten small towns around the U.S.
    15 January 2025, 12:40 am
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    How AI Has Changed Student Cheating — And How to Respond
    One long-time expert on preventing student cheating argues that understanding why students cheat is key to making adjustments in teaching to prevent cheating with AI. It's the argument of Tricia Bertram Gallant, a longtime expert in academic integrity who is director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California San Diego who co-wrote a new book, “The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI. See show notes at EdSurge.com: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2025-01-07-ai-has-changed-student-cheating-but-strategies-to-stop-it-remain-consistent
    7 January 2025, 10:42 pm
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    Inside the Push to Bring AI Literacy to Schools and Colleges (Encore Episode)
    There’s a growing push to add AI literacy as a subject in schools and colleges. But what exactly is AI literacy, and can educators promote curiosity about the subject amid their own concerns, and in some cases fear, around ChatGPT and other generative AI? This episode originally ran in January 2024, and was the most-listened-to episode of the year.
    10 December 2024, 11:38 pm
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    What We Learned About Teaching and Creativity By Commissioning a New Podcast Theme Song
    We found the theme song for the EdSurge Podcast on a free music library years ago, after spending hours clicking around searching for the right sound. The music turns out to have an unusual origin story, as we learned when we tracked down the artist this week for a conversation about the intersection of music, creativity and teaching.
    4 December 2024, 12:22 am
  • 34 minutes 45 seconds
    Want To Find Highly-Engaged Students at 4-Year Colleges? Look At Transfer Students.
    When students transfer from community colleges to four-year universities, there’s often culture shock. But those transfers are often more motivated and engaged in the classroom than students who arrive straight from high school, experts say. Hear firsthand from a student in his 30s who recently transferred from a two-year college to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
    20 November 2024, 12:14 am
  • 59 minutes 34 seconds
    Should Students Chat With AI Versions of Historical Figures?
    A new documentary project about Sacagawea, the young woman from the Shoshone tribe who helped guide the Lewis and Clark Expedition back in 1804, lets students chat with an animated chatbot of her. Some educators worry about how faithfully such chatbots can represent history, or whether they might keep students from digging into documents to form their own analysis.
    8 November 2024, 4:00 am
  • 47 minutes 38 seconds
    The Effects of Smartwatches on Kids, Schools and Families
    Should kids wear smartwatches? Companies market the wearable devices to kids as young as 4 years old, while digital media experts and educators worry about potential downsides of what some see as an “electronic umbilical cord.” On the EdSurge Podcast this week, we talk with our reporter who spent months researching the issue, Emily Tate Sullivan, and hear her read the full story.
    4 November 2024, 4:00 am
  • 57 minutes 31 seconds
    What Can AI Chatbots Teach Us About How Humans Learn?
    ChatGPT and other chatbots are modeled after how the human brain works. And one of the pioneers of the technology, Terrence Sejnowski, says that what AI has made clear is that we don’t really understand what it means for the human brain to “understand” something.
    27 October 2024, 4:00 am
  • 37 minutes 41 seconds
    How Are School Smartphone Bans Going?
    Many school districts and states have enacted new restrictions on smartphones in classrooms during instructional time, in the name of increasing student engagement and counteracting the negative effects that social media has on youth mental health. We checked in with two teachers and an administrator to hear how the new rules are playing out.
    21 October 2024, 4:00 am
  • 32 minutes 39 seconds
    How the Job Market Has Changed for College Grads
    College grads are facing a tough job market these days, with experts saying the college degree holds less of a premium in getting hired than in the past. And as it gets easier to apply to jobs online, applicants say they are getting ghosted by employers or applying to hundreds of jobs with little return. How can colleges respond?
    13 October 2024, 4:00 am
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