Professional Learning in an AI World: A Playbook for State and Local Leaders

By: Ji Soo Song

The rapid adoption of AI-powered tools in K-12 classrooms, paired with the national discourse around developing AI literacy skills, have spotlighted the need to address the digital design divide–defined in the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan as the gap between educators who are supported in building their capacities to design learning experiences transformed through technology and those who are not. 

Title II-A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as the sole federal program focused on K-12 educator professional learning (PL) and growth, can serve as a resource to narrow this divide. However, recent data from the U.S. Department of Education reveals that states and districts deprioritize support for technology-integrated instruction when it comes to how these dollars are spent. 

Therefore, SETDA, in partnership with FullScale, ISTE+ASCD, and Learning Forward, set out to find out why this occurs and use this information to develop a strategy guide for closing the digital design divide and investing in meaningful, sustainable PL initiatives. Here’s what we found.

What the Evidence Shows (and Why It Matters)

Through a national survey of state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs), as well as focus group conversations with K-12 education leaders, we found four consistent gaps in how Title II-A is invested and PL decisions are made. 

1. Definitions of quality are inconsistent and incomplete: Many leaders share a vision for student-centered instruction where technology deepens and accelerates learning. Few have a formal definition of what this looks like in practice, and even fewer have a clear definition of how PL can support effective edtech integration.
2. Funding often defaults to short-term tool training: Many respondents described using Title II-A dollars for short-term training on specific platforms or applications. These sessions may meet immediate needs, such as rollout of a newly procured tool, but rarely build durable educator capacity in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
3. Tracking happens, but not always in ways that drive improvement: LEAs embed various metrics into regular review cycles, but not always to understand impact and refine practices. SEAs also acknowledge that their monitoring often focuses more on compliance with relevant laws and regulations than on using evidence to refine strategy.
4. The field lacks a strong library of well-documented models: Leaders can point to broad categories of effective work, such as coaching, professional learning communities (PLCs), and inquiry cycles, but struggle to name specific, well-documented programs with evidence of success.

Taken together, these findings reveal the opportunity to address each of these gaps through deliberate action by SEA and LEA leaders. 

What Coherent Local Systems Look Like 

Using the research findings, the guide dives into five categories of strategies for local leadership to build coherent systems that enable powerful edtech PL at scale. 

1. Diversify Funding Strategies: Relying solely on Title II-A funding can leave local education agencies vulnerable to federal appropriation shifts. By braiding funds from multiple sources, including Title II-A, Title IV-A, Perkins, state and local funding, and partnerships, LEAs can build more stable systems.
2. Build Cross-Functional Leadership Teams: Technology-integrated PL is most impactful when planned and delivered by a team that reflects the full scope of instructional needs, from edtech to curriculum, assessment, student support, and equity. 
3. Anchor PL in Long-Term Outcomes: PL that focuses only on individual tools often leads to shallow adoption and quick obsolescence. PL must be anchored in evidence-based frameworks and research-backed instructional models that help teachers adapt as technology evolves while keeping instruction student-centered.
4. Invest in and Provide Support for Sustainability: One-off training is rarely enough for teachers to confidently integrate technology into their instruction. Sustained supports—such as coaching, peer learning, and leadership pipelines—help ensure PL investments lead to lasting change.
5. Use Data to Inform Planning: Effective PL design depends on accurate, relevant data about teacher needs, student outcomes, and the impact of previous training. 

For example, Pennsylvania’s Intermediate Unit 13 offers sustained PL anchored in the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Student-Centered Learning Blueprint rather than focusing on specific devices or software. Through workshops and coaching, educators explore personalized learning, UDL, and formative assessment. In these sessions, technology is introduced as a means to advance these practices. Title II-A supports the framework-driven elements of this PL, while other funding streams such as Title IV-A provide space for targeted tool training, ensuring that teachers both understand how to operate tools and how to apply them toward deeper instructional goals.

How SEAs Can Scale Local Successes

While LEAs carry the bulk of responsibility for PL and control most of the spending, they do not act alone. SEAs set the conditions that make local success possible.

1. Align Funding With Instructional Priorities Across Initiatives: Funding decisions are most powerful when explicitly tied to instructional goals. SEA leaders can ensure that Title II-A and other PL funds are aligned with a shared definition of high-quality, technology-integrated instruction.
2. Define and Promote Aligned Visions of Tech-Integrated Instruction: Without a clear, statewide definition of high-quality, technology-integrated instruction, PL often becomes fragmented, focusing on isolated tools rather than transformative teaching. SEA leaders can set the vision and establish expectations by developing statewide definitions.
3. Leverage Compliance Structures to Encourage and Support Continuous Improvement: Compliance monitoring is essential for program integrity and public trust; but when limited to checking boxes, it misses the chance to strengthen practice. By designing monitoring systems that double as continuous improvement tools, SEAs can help LEAs use required data collection to make more strategic PL investments.
4. Encourage Durable PL Models: One-off workshops rarely lead to sustained changes in practice. Durable models like coaching, PLCs, and job-embedded inquiry or improvement cycles give teachers the focused instruction, collaboration time, and supportive community they need to meaningfully integrate technology into instruction.
5. Document, Highlight, and Scale What Works: Pockets of excellence exist across states, but without a deliberate system to document and share them, they often remain isolated.SEA leaders can highlight and promote examples of high-quality PL focused on how to effectively use technology to improve instruction.
6. Work Across Silos in State Leadership: Our research found that, too often, state-level departments operate in isolation, with different teams making decisions about curriculum, assessment, technology, and PL. By bringing edtech and instructional leadership teams together, SEAs can ensure that technology integration is embedded in all major instructional initiatives rather than treated as an add-on.

For example, the Wyoming Department of Education’s Innovator Network integrates PL and compliance into a single, continuous improvement process. Rather than treating Title II-A reporting as a static checklist, the state empowers educators to design and deliver asynchronous PL offerings in Canvas that align with state priorities for technology-integrated instruction.

LEAs participating in the network not only document their PL activities but also share evidence of impact that can be reviewed to inform future statewide support, such as teacher implementation videos, student work samples, and peer feedback. 

Responding to the Moment by Focusing on Educator Needs 

Across the country, educators are creating more meaningful, technology-integrated learning experiences for their students, including by leveraging AI. These efforts show what is possible and demonstrate that closing the digital design divide will take more than investing in additional tools. It will require sustained investment in the PL structures that give every educator the skills, confidence, and support to integrate technology in ways that are student-centered and instructionally powerful.

Ji Soo Song is the Director of Projects and Initiatives at SETDA, where he oversees a portfolio of initiatives to support state education agencies implement promising practices on topics such as digital opportunity, edtech procurement, professional learning, sustainability, and AI. He leads SETDA’s partnerships with philanthropic groups and corporate sponsors and advises the organization’s federal advocacy strategies. Ji Soo also oversees the design and evaluation of SETDA’s signature events and represents state leaders in national and international forums.