Read on to learn:
The literal and figurative costs of EdTech;
Research-for-hire: Research requirement loopholes;
State unveils ethical guidelines for AI in education, but failed to acknowledge AI helped build them;
In the first two parts of this series, we discussed a grassroots parent coalition advocating to change the landscape of Nevada’s education system when it comes to two hot button items: recess and screens.
The Washoe Parents Coalition wants to tackle student wellness from the top down by asking Nevada lawmakers to scale back technology, increase play and physical activity, and establish new safeguards for assessing software purchased with taxpayer money — sometimes with multimillion-dollar price tags.
When it comes to EdTech — educational technology such as software, devices and everything digital in between — the playing field can change rapidly. What was the new hot thing just two years ago can fade into obscurity as a new platform is rolled out.
The coalition also has many questions relating to transparency and the ethical use of programs like AI within education. Such as, how schools, families and students are meant to utilize programs in the classroom when the technology and platforms and loopholes seem to change every day — and when state guidance on ethical use has been created in part by AI itself.
And, more importantly: who exactly is keeping track of the cost — or the performance of these technologies when it comes to academics and student wellness?
The literal and figurative costs of EdTech
EdTech is a big money maker in the educational industry, reflected both here at home as well as nationally.
What many consider to be the beginning of K-12 public education curriculum that most closely resembles our definition of curriculum today can be traced to the late 1800s. From that period of educational reform and into the mid 20th century, state educational departments developed their own curriculum and even printed their own textbooks.
However, by the time we were tipping into the new millennium, virtually all schools across the country were purchasing textbooks from private companies.
Then, after the next wave of digital changes with accessible internet and 1:1 devices came the next pivot: EdTech.
Nevada is one of several states in which districts are allowed to choose their curriculum, but only from a pre-approved list supplied by their state’s Department of Education. Choices are narrow; in some years, districts have even been tasked with “choosing” from just one curriculum choice, according to a Washoe County School District board meeting last year. With pre-approved lists, that means there’s no shopping for better pricing, or opting to develop curriculum at a district level.
As curriculum shifted from physical textbooks to subscription-based platforms, districts also moved from periodic textbook purchases toward recurring licenses, digital access fees and software contracts. Some products begin as grant-funded pilots or free trials before becoming ongoing district expenses.
Understanding how much these programs cost in monetary terms has also proven to be a struggle to determine.
Some EdTech programs start grant-funded, or are provided in a limited-time free trial. Districts may use a program for a year or two before it disappears, making tracking whether these programs work difficult.
In the Carson City School District (CCSD), EdTech costs are spread across various vendor contracts and departmental budgets rather than in a single dedicated line item.
For the 2026-27 school year, the district’s proposed contract expenditures list software and digital services including:
- $60,000 for Paloma Learning,
- $40,000 for Paper Education America Inc.,
- $16,999 for Lexia Learning Systems,
- $8,318 for Pro Vision Solutions, and;
- $1,500 for Filewave, among others.
Additionally, the district budgeted $150,000 for six-year digital access licenses for its new secondary Spanish and AP Psychology curriculum materials.
However, itemized costs for several CCSD-adopted AI platforms could not be found within the proposed contract budget materials.
When asked by a trustee where these AI tools are located within the budget, CCSD’s Chief Academic Officer Brandon Bringhurst said WriteOn, an AI writing assistance tool, is paid for through the Educational Services budget. However, WriteOn could not be found listed during a review of budget documents.
Bringhurst also said that Magic School AI initially began as a grant-funded item but is now being funded by the district. It similarly could not be located as an individually itemized expense in the proposed contract materials.
To manage these technological investments, Bringhurst said the IT department actively monitors software usage reports. Systems with low utilization rates among staff or students are reviewed so the district can adjust or cancel those contracts, ensuring funds are not spent on unused platforms.
While this likely reduces the chances of unknowingly paying for an unused product like a free-trial streaming subscription, utilization alone cannot show whether a program is working. A product may be used frequently because it is part of a required program, not necessarily because the platform improves learning outcomes.
This very argument has been at the center of both the Washoe County School District and in the national conversation surrounding the i-Ready software platform.
i-Ready is a platform used by a large number of school districts across the country. Within WCSD, it is utilized as a math and reading assessment and instruction platform, but includes a broad array of other service packages districts can choose from.
It is also facing national scrutiny alongside other EdTech providers like Google Classroom in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging data harvesting of students and teachers who use their software and devices.
While students, families and educators allege the program lacks the academic merits it claims, once a platform is being used to fulfill state testing requirements, assign lessons or track student progress, replacing it can become more complicated than canceling an underused subscription.
Our children are not guinea pigs and we do not need one more year to figure out whether i-Ready works.
Currently, it is used to fulfill reading assessment requirements for the state in Washoe County School District, and is currently under review for a statewide rollout as part of the Read by Grade 3 retention mandate. The mandate will go into effect July 2028 and states that students who cannot pass a minimum reading assessment by the end of third grade must be held back until they can demonstrate reading proficiency barring special education/IEP considerations.
The Parents Coalition is arguing districts should be required to disclose their total annual technology spending, identify which products are funded through grants and explain what standards are used before a contract is approved or renewed.
But what they want to come first is making sure that due diligence is done before a program is incorporated — regardless whether the acquisition is free or paid.
When it comes to what programs districts can purchase, the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act established evidence standards for certain programs and interventions funded with federal dollars. This effectively requires local districts to purchase EdTech programs only when they include data showing it’s backed by research.
As a result, this forces vendors to provide empirical proof of efficacy — meaning research showing the platform produces positive results in its users — rather than relying on pitches or marketing teams to sell their products.
However, the definition of “evidence” gets complicated when the company selling a product also funds the research used to support it.
Research-for-hire: Research requirement loopholes
By hiring or even creating “independent” research firms explicitly to provide the data needed, EdTech companies are able to overcome federal hurdles and sell their products to educational institutions even if the company is new and relatively untested.
One example is Genio, a digital note-taking platform currently used by some campuses within the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE).
To demonstrate its efficacy, Genio points to a “Learner Impact Report” reporting students who used the platform saw a reduction in dropout intentions and an increase in their grade point averages.
The research, however, was conducted by LXD Research at Charles River Media, a firm hired by Genio. On its client-facing website, the company explicitly advertises its services to EdTech companies to assist in “overcoming barriers caused by research requirements to gain more RFPs and sales conversations” and showing district leaders that their company is “genuinely research-based.”
A review of the Genio study’s methodology shows it relied heavily on self-reported data integrated into the app itself, meaning the survey targeted students already actively using the platform.
Additionally, while the report acknowledges that full-time students naturally have higher grades and retention rates than part-time students, the study’s sample included a disproportionately large number of full-time students.
Another company is WestED, a San Fransisco-based nonprofit which has been used for decades both in Nevada and across the US on a variety of assessments and research purposes relating to educational. Most prominently, WestEd conducted a 2019 SBAC assessment we get into in our final installment, which unearthed a number of frustrations by educators and district leaders relating to standardized testing.
While they market independent assessments to school districts to determine if their programs are operating smoothly, they also market themselves toward the EdTech companies who want to be awarded contracts by those same districts.
It should be noted that this does not mean that these EdTech products are a farce, or have not resulted in positive impacts to students. But it does beg the question of whether a product can be accurately vetted if the bias of the research backing it cannot be determined. And this issue undermines the very basis for the law requiring research in the first place.
EdTech companies using vendor-funded reports to demonstrate efficacy is a primary concern for the Parent Coalition.
When the Washoe County School District renewed its $2 million contract for the i-Ready platform, coalition advocates pointed out that the evidence of its success relied on vendor-funded white papers.
According to Brandi Vesco, one of the coalition founders, those vendor-funded reports showed no effect on reading outcomes and only an 8% improvement in math.
In response, the Washoe Parent Coalition is advocating for a state law mandating that all school district tech investments be based solely on “independent peer-reviewed research that’s been published in Q1 journals.”
During a recent WCSD Board meeting, parents — Vesco included — urged the board to reject a contract extension for the i-Ready platform, pointing out that the district has spent $6 million over the past three years on an unproven product.
“Our children are not guinea pigs and we do not need one more year to figure out whether i-Ready works,” she said. She told trustees the vendor-funded white papers provided to the district showed no effect on reading outcomes, and only an 8% improvement in math.
Issues with EdTech transparencies aren’t found only at the district level, however.
State unveils ethical guidelines for AI in education, but failed to acknowledge AI helped build them
The Nevada Department of Education (NDE) recently rolled out a formal ethics statement and extensive guidelines relating to Artificial Intelligence. However, the 50-page packet fails to disclose that AI was used to help create the packet itself.
One of the biggest topics for 2026 in education has been AI, as usage from students and educators alike ticked up significantly.
Districts and parents are searching ways to balance the tools that AI offer that can assist with productivity against the detriments utilizing AI has on human learning.
In response, NDE announced the Nevada STELLAR Pathway to AI Teaching and Learning: Ethics, Principles and Guidance.
According to the 2025 guidance, “the overarching goal of NDE is to prepare students for a future shaped by AI while ensuring its use is equitable, accessible, and thoughtfully integrated into education systems.”
When the formal guidance was rolled out, many expressed surprise at how positively it framed AI in education — a stark contrast to educators both in the US and internationally who have gone so far as to call it the “death of learning.”
However, out of the 50 page packet, only two paragraphs discuss negative impacts of AI in learning. These can be found within the “Encouraging Critical Thinking and Academic Integrity” subsection that warns that because AI is such a powerful tool, students may become “overly dependent” on it. It says that it’s crucial for students to understand “what counts as plagiarism and what is considered responsible AI use.”
Schools are encouraged to establish clear integrity policies defining how AI can and should be used. Parents and educators are encouraged to “model responsible AI evaluation” to show students how to identify bias “and refine prompts for better results.”
However, when it comes to ethics and responsibility, the guidance focuses almost exclusively on protecting data privacy and teaching students to identify when results from AI might be incorrect or misleading.
It touches on transparency for families within it’s “responsible usage” best practices infographic, which encourages families to “use AI tools to set screen time limits and promote offline activities while teaching transparency by having children disclose AI use in projects.”
There is no guidance provided to students, teachers, families or district leadership on what constitutes plagiarism or academic dishonesty when it comes to AI tools.
For teachers, it gives tips on how to prevent plagiarism, such as revising their assignment instructions with “clear skill guidelines,” familiarizing themselves with AI tools, tracking student AI usage, and collecting writing samples regularly to identify student styles. However, all guidance ends in positively framed integration tips on AI usage in the classroom.
The implication within the advice for educators, school leadership and parents to familiarize themselves with AI tools is so they are more readily able to identify an AI-generated assignment submitted by a student.
This is important because those familiar with AI tools have clocked the language and formatting used within the guidance as being generated by Generative AI — which NDE confirmed via email when questioned about the packet’s origins.
The packet does not include any acknowledgement of AI tools being used; it also does not have a listed author or author group.
Instead, there is an acknowledgment section listing individuals who assisted in and resources used to create the packet as a whole. These include NDE employees, an “executive steering committee” made up of members from NSHE and AI tech companies, and local school districts including Carson City and Washoe County.
Emily Kaziu, an Education Programs Professional in K-12 Computer Science under NDE’s Office of Teaching and Learning, said that the ethics statement and the principles of STELLAR were “100%” human created, but that Google Gemini was used to help create the larger packet:
The STELLAR AI Ethics & Guidance document was a team effort, with contributions from everyone in the Acknowledgments section. Compiling stakeholder input and drafting the document was performed by the NDE employees in the Acknowledgements section, with some AI assistance for unifying the document, as each section was drafted by different employees, based on their area of expertise. The Executive Steering Committee gave feedback, which was incorporated into the document and final edits were performed by NDE leadership.
The Ethics statement itself and the principles of STELLAR were 100% human created. Gemini was used to standardize language and tone throughout the guidance document, which might contribute to how it may read as AI generated. From my understanding, the document was put together in Canva and does not use any AI-generated images.
What constitutes ethical versus unethical use of AI within professional settings is something that virtually all human beings are currently grappling with. But when it comes to the Washoe Parents Coalition, NDE’s failure to disclose how AI was used within its own AI guidance for ethical use is a prime example of their argument: until there is research and a firm consensus on EdTech and AI integration within schools, it is imperative for the state to roll back its use.
But the question families and districts alike are asking is: are students improving, and is EdTech helping? But determining proficiency in students is a struggle in and of itself when standardized testing results are built, not from whether or not students are mastering grade-level skills and standards.
Rather, they’re being tested on “progression” and “growth,” which makes assessing what’s working and what’s not when it comes to academics nearly impossible to achieve.
Check back for the final installment of our series where we take a look into the transparency issues surrounding proficiency and compliance in evaluating student academic scores.
