Navigating a New Era of Education and Digital Learning

AI Remains Everywhere

In our GSV takeaway note from 2023, we light heartedly joked that it seemed like every session was AI related – even the sessions that didn’t have AI in the title still found a way to weave in AI. We also felt confident in our prediction that unlike other trends and themes that captivated GSV in the past (e.g., education in the metaverse) that AI was here to stay and would be prevalent in future GSV conferences. And here to stay it is with seemingly more sessions dedicated to the ongoing impact that AI is having on education in 2024. Like in any part of the economy, the impacts of AI on education could be enormous. AI is not a recent phenomenon; educators across the lifelong learning spectrum have been using AI for years. However, as AI has grown exponentially and moved to the forefront of the conversation, there are numerous concerns, including academic fraud as well as failure of students to engage in critical thinking and actual learning. We fully understand why AI is so prominent at the GSV conference in light of its trendiness and overall importance. 

That Said, AI is Not the Dominant Topic within Schools

While AI was prominently discussed at GSV, it is not an issue K-12 school leaders and teachers would rank as a top-priority or challenge for them. According to panel discussions hosted by EdWeek that we attended, they shared survey data created in advance of the GSV conference that showed many district officials are not impressed enough with AI to recommend their districts use it, and only about three out of ten teachers today have experience with AI in their classroom. For teachers not experimenting with AI, almost half of EdWeek respondents said they have other priorities that are more important to them. For K-12 schools, the more prominent issues at the top of the list include (in no particular order): a) teacher shortages, b) school safety, c) student mental health and wellness and d) learning loss recovery post COVID. That said, teachers and school districts are getting increasingly wary of student usage of AI to fulfill assignments, and we expect to see that as an increased focus point over time. We also expect that there is a generational aspect to AI within K-12 schools and suspect that as younger, tech-savvy teachers and decision makers enter the system, the usage and appreciation of AI will continue to increase over time.      

The Clock is Running on ESSER Funding

The only thing that seems to be certain about ESSER funding is that nothing is certain. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund was enacted over three years ago in response to the pandemic and allocated $190 billion in federal funding to US public K-12 schools. States and districts have spent about three-fourths of the funding and have until September 30, 2024, to commit ESSER funds to projects with funds needing to be spent by the end of January 2025. Over half of ESSER money went towards labor related costs, while a substantial portion went towards infrastructure-related costs.

In terms of educational solutions, districts have been spending ESSER funds on early grade ELA and math, social-emotional learning, summer learning and devices (though the devices spend was more during the pandemic). It’s likely that, aside from devices, that those are potential areas from which schools will scale back stimulus spending and potentially pivot to utilizing money from the general budget to still spend robustly on. Our view remains that despite stimulus dollars leaving the K-12 system, schools, in some instances states, are going to need to backfill for funding gaps to keep popular / high efficacy programs going, while other in-classroom solutions will continue to see a potential impact as ESSER winds down and schools make budget allocation decisions. But because ESSER dollars weren’t being used for out-of-the classroom software-related purchases, we don’t expect to see a major impact on those solutions.

Source:  https://ballotpedia.org/Daily_Brew:_April_22,_2024    

The Outlook for Higher Education

We attended a thought-provoking fireside chat discussion with the presidents of Arizona State University (Michael Crow) and The University of Florida (Ben Sasse). The premise of their discussion was the juxtaposition of the U.S. higher education system as the envy of the world while at the same time having major, mounting issues. 

The need for significant change was widely recognized but there was frustration expressed on the historical pace of change in the sector (as Jamie Merisotis, CEO of Lumina Foundation, coined it “the slowest moving trainwreck in history”). In some instances, we have seen the occasional school closure or school merger, but those instances have been few and far between and tend to be at schools on the very low-end of the enrollment spectrum (< 1,000 enrollment). The sector faces many interrelated obstacles, including enrollment trends, public trust challenges, college affordability, employability and measuring outcomes / ROI, amongst others.

Our takeaway is that while this is certainly a pivotal point in the history of post-secondary education, higher ed isn’t going anywhere and these dynamics don’t present an imminent threat to third party providers selling into higher education. In many instances (e.g., enrollment solutions, student success / retention, workforce development and others), higher ed is increasing spend with third parties to combat some of these structural issues. This will continue to be an evolving space and we expect some level of innovation across the broader higher education market.

Focus on Upskill & Reskill Remains

While less of a focus of the GSV agenda this year (maybe the AI crowd out effect), within corporate learning, we held a number of discussions with private equity investors in attendance that continue to show interest in investing behind corporate learning platforms that can help drive upskilling or reskilling of employees. That trend has remained particularly in focus in light of the low unemployment environment and companies recognizing that they need to invest in skills-based programs to utilize their internal workforce to fulfil open positions. The requirement to increase workforce efficiency (ROI for employer) coupled with retention / career progression by ensuring the right people are in the right place at the right time is critical as we are moving through the 4th Industrial Revolution. We’ve discussed this topic at length in a past whitepaper on upskilling / reskilling.