What the Elimination of the U.S. EdTech Office Means for Schools

“Without OET offering guidance, smaller and rural districts may struggle to navigate emerging technologies safely and effectively.”

Joseph South, Chief Innovation Officer at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

As schools across the country continue to bring artificial intelligence into classrooms, shore up defenses against cybersecurity threats, and work toward closing persistent digital divides, a quiet but significant change has shifted the national education landscape. The U.S. Department of Education has officially dissolved its Office of Educational Technology (OET), an agency once tasked with setting a clear federal vision for the role of technology in learning.

For years, OET provided states and districts with research, best practices, and examples of how to integrate new tools effectively, particularly in places with limited resources or rural communities where local expertise was harder to come by. Its closure means that responsibility for navigating digital learning now rests almost entirely at the state and district level, often without the centralized support that helped streamline innovation and avoid duplication of effort.

The move has raised new questions at a time when technology’s role in education is expanding rapidly. Forty-three percent of district leaders said their schools were already experimenting with AI tools in classrooms. Without a national office to coordinate strategy, how will states adapt to the growing demands of digital learning? Can nonprofits and regional agencies step in to offer the same level of support? And what might this shift mean for students and teachers as they face an increasingly complex and uneven technological landscape?

To better understand what the closure of the Office of Educational Technology could mean for schools, we spoke with Joseph South, chief innovation officer at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ISTE/ASCD) and former director of the OET during the Obama administration. With experience leading national initiatives on educational technology policy and practice, South offers a clear perspective on the challenges ahead and on what it will take for schools to adapt without a centralized federal strategy.

Joseph South is a strategic national educational technology leader focused on evidence-based learning transformation.

He formerly served as the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. In his role at the department, he was an adviser to the Secretary of Education and developed national educational technology policy, formed public-private partnerships to assist state and local education leaders in transitioning to digital learning, helped school districts expand the use of openly licensed educational resources (OERs), and collaborated with stakeholders to nurture a robust ecosystem of edtech entrepreneurs and innovators.

He also worked on a cross-governmental team to bring high-speed broadband, interactive devices, professional development for educators and leaders, and high-quality, affordable digital content to U.S. classrooms. He is a strong proponent of the active use of technology by learners.

South has led learning product development teams at startups, museums, nonprofits, corporations, and higher education institutions. He has also directed a host of learning programs and consulted on projects in China, Korea, Mexico, South America, and the Middle East.

He holds a doctorate in instructional psychology and technology from Brigham Young University.

The closure of the Office of Educational Technology marks more than just an administrative change; it signals a broader shift in how the federal government approaches its role in shaping the future of education. According to South, the decision reflects a move away from coordinated national leadership at a time when it is arguably needed most.

“It’s hard to decipher what the current administration’s education priorities are,” South observed. “They have moved quickly to eliminate areas that have been considered valuable by both Democratic and Republican administrations.”

While education policy often shifts between administrations, the elimination of OET breaks with decades of bipartisan support for a national approach to educational technology guidance.

Critically, South emphasized that OET never imposed federal control over state decisions. States always maintained authority over their own educational technology strategies. What OET offered was coordination – a clearinghouse of research, case studies, and evidence-based principles that states could voluntarily draw from to strengthen their own plans. Without that foundation, states must now navigate emerging technologies without the benefit of shared research or best practices vetted at the national level.

The absence of a coordinating body risks not only inefficiency but fragmentation. “The resources, research, and coordination that OET provided accelerated innovation while preventing duplication of efforts across states,” South said. In the past, districts and states could lean on OET’s frameworks to implement new tools with confidence. Now, without a central hub for information and strategy, schools may face a more chaotic and uneven digital future.

This change arrives just as education leaders confront increasingly complex questions around technology use, from managing AI in classrooms to securing student data against sophisticated cyber threats. According to the K12 Security Information eXchange, over 1,330 cybersecurity incidents were publicly reported by U.S. K–12 schools between 2016 and 2022, and the trend continues to rise sharply. Without national coordination, responses to these challenges will likely vary widely across states and may potentially widen gaps between well-resourced and under-resourced districts.

For many schools, especially those in rural or under-resourced areas, the loss of a national edtech office introduces new vulnerabilities. Without centralized guidance, districts that lack in-house technology experts or robust support systems may struggle to implement emerging tools effectively or may choose to avoid new technologies altogether.

According to South, one of the most immediate risks is that the digital divide will widen. “Without OET offering guidance, case studies, and convening organizations to rally around solutions, smaller and rural districts that don’t have in-house edtech expertise may struggle to navigate emerging technologies safely and effectively,” he said. In practice, this could mean that wealthier districts continue to integrate innovations like AI and advanced cybersecurity measures, while others fall further behind.

Another concern lies in how technology is deployed. South pointed out that without proper scaffolding, districts may lead with technology first rather than pedagogy, implementing tools for the sake of novelty rather than supporting deeper learning goals. In the absence of national best practices, schools risk adopting systems that do little to transform education, and in some cases, may even reinforce outdated models.

The confidence gap also plays a role. Many educators working in smaller districts are talented and capable, South noted, but without access to national resources or a network of peer support, they may hesitate to engage with new technologies altogether.

“It’s not that it’s impossible for them to figure this stuff out,” he said. “It’s that they may not have the confidence and support they need to focus on it, given all the other pressures they face.”

These pressures extend beyond academic concerns. As districts weigh whether and how to use AI, they must also contend with growing cybersecurity threats and increasingly complex questions around student data privacy. Without expert guidance, smaller systems may be more vulnerable to breaches, regulatory missteps, or reliance on third-party vendors without clear oversight.

Over time, disparities in how technology is adopted and managed could deepen systemic inequities. Schools with the resources to navigate this new environment independently may move ahead, while others risk falling into cycles of hesitation or misalignment, placing students in already disadvantaged communities at an even greater disadvantage in the digital age.

With the federal Office of Educational Technology shuttered, the question facing education leaders is whether nonprofits and state agencies can realistically assume the role of providing strategic edtech guidance. South sees the potential, but also acknowledges the significant challenges ahead.

“It’s not impossible for state agencies to fill the gap,” South said. “It’s just that it’s so much harder and less efficient to do the work as a single entity without the visibility of how the other 49 states are doing the work.” Without a coordinating body, states risk duplicating efforts or developing strategies in isolation, making it difficult to align around shared standards or scalable innovations.

Nonprofits like ISTE, Digital Promise, TeachAI, and the ED SAFE AI Alliance are already stepping in to support schools, offering frameworks for responsible technology use and professional development for educators. ISTE itself has set an ambitious goal of reaching 200,000 educators over the next few years with training on the effective integration of AI and other emerging tools. However, even as these organizations expand their efforts, they lack the cross-agency reach and convening power that OET once provided.

During his time at OET, South noted that one of the office’s critical roles was to align resources not only within the Department of Education but across federal agencies and even private sector partners. Initiatives like expanding broadband access to classrooms required collaboration far beyond what any single nonprofit or state agency could orchestrate.

“We were able to align a vast amount of government and private sector resources around shared priorities,” he explained. That level of coordination, especially during national emergencies like the Covid-19 pandemic would be difficult to replicate without a central federal entity.

The result is a patchwork landscape. Some states, especially those with strong existing digital learning infrastructures, may continue to innovate effectively. Others may struggle to keep pace, particularly as emerging technologies like AI demand new policies around student data privacy, teacher training, and instructional design. Without a national platform to synthesize best practices, disparities in implementation are likely to grow.

The ability of nonprofits and state systems to fill the gap will depend largely on how quickly they can build new networks of collaboration and whether local leaders recognize the urgency of acting without waiting for federal leadership to return.

In the absence of a national strategy, schools and policymakers must act promptly to establish their own frameworks for responsible technology adoption. South points to existing resources as an immediate starting point. Much of OET’s work remains publicly available through digital archives, guiding on issues such as digital equity, student privacy, and AI integration. Documents released in the past year, in particular, provide timely frameworks that can still inform district and state strategies.

Beyond tapping into archived resources, South recommends that education leaders seek out regional collaborations. Working together across districts and states can help replicate some of the coordination that OET once provided.

“They should seek to develop their own capacity through forming regional collaborations,” he said, “while also leveraging some of the excellent guidance and resources that are out there via nonprofits.”

Still, South emphasized that adopting new technology should not be viewed as a goal in itself. Schools must be cautious not to simply automate outdated practices. “We need to use AI to help us transform learning to be more human-centered, more personalized, more relevant,” he explained. Responsible AI use should enhance education by making it more adaptive to student needs, not by making traditional models faster or more rigid.

Looking ahead, the success of edtech innovation will depend less on sweeping federal initiatives and more on the ability of local leaders to act strategically. By investing in educator training, forming new regional networks, and grounding technology decisions in pedagogy rather than novelty, schools can continue to advance digital learning despite the loss of a national guiding office.