Overdeck Family Foundation

Since late 2022, my team at Overdeck Family Foundation has intentionally focused on exploring the potential of genAI to advance our mission. We’ve been closely monitoring the latest research, our grantees’ experiences, and activity and trends we’re seeing across the broader tech and education landscapes to inform our strategy for genAI investments. Over the last two years, we’ve made over $13 million in commitments across 16 grants with the primary purpose of building, scaling, or learning about AI-powered interventions. During that time, we’ve observed 20+ grantees using AI to deliver better, more cost-effective solutions that positively impact students, teachers, and families. In a new blog post, my colleague Jonathan Sotsky details five reflections from our genAI grantmaking efforts and observations from the field.

Decades of research demonstrate the importance of family engagement—students whose families are engaged are more likely to attend school, avoid discipline problems, achieve higher levels, and graduate. Our grantee National PTA teamed up with The Johns Hopkins University to develop Family Engagement Solutions, a free online tool designed to help administrators, educators, and advocates find programs that are proven to strengthen family engagement and family-school partnerships and improve student outcomes. Explore the full hub to find impactful ways to engage families: https://lnkd.in/g_wFfV_e

Since late 2022, our team has intentionally been exploring the potential of #genAI to advance our mission. Over the last two years, we’ve made over $13 million in commitments across 16 grants with the primary purpose of building, scaling, or learning about AI-powered interventions in Pre-K-12 education. Recently, we took stock of what we’ve learned from our grantmaking efforts and trends we’ve seen in the broader landscape to inform how we pursue genAI investments in 2025 and beyond. On our blog, Strategic Impact & Learning Director Jonathan Sotsky shares five reflections that surfaced, focused on the progress, challenges, and dynamics we’re observing through the efforts of our grantees and others in the field.

“Rapid changes in technology and the speed of adoption are far outpacing the field’s understanding of impacts on teaching and learning. Every day there is a new story about an exciting AI-related development, but given the time it takes to conduct careful evaluation, very limited evidence exists about whether any of these tools have positive benefits for students.” In a recent The 74 Media op-ed, research and impact officer Meghan McCormick examines what the research tells us about the impact of #genAI on education, and what more we need to learn.

Only about a quarter of teachers (26 percent) think the profession has role flexibility and opportunities for growth, and 63 percent want more time to collaborate with other teachers, according to a nationally representative survey from Educators for Excellence. Strategic staffing models have the potential to make teaching more sustainable and boost student achievement. Learn more in a new resource from our grantee, the National Council on Teacher Quality.

In the years since the pandemic, one in four—or even more—students have been considered chronically absent, meaning they missed 10 percent or more of the school year. The problem isn’t new, but it’s getting worse, with chronic absences more than doubling in some cases since pre-pandemic years. What type of messaging helps parents understand the importance of in-person learning and commit to sending their children to school every day, or nearly every day? Our grantee Ad Council set out to answer just that. With insight from Attendance Works, the team conducted a mixed-methods research study to understand the messaging and narratives that would effectively communicate to parents why consistent in-person attendance is critical to children’s development, and encourage them to attend. Read the full report and the accompanying toolkit to see how parents view education and school attendance, and how to best develop messaging that motivates them to send their children to school.

Each day, our grantee partners touch the lives of countless educators, students, and families. Through the stories of these beneficiaries, we get a glimpse into what impact looks like on the ground in the communities our grantees serve. On our blog, we’re thrilled to highlight three stories of meaningful change:? - How Parent Teacher Home Visits transformed the life of one District of Columbia parent - How the PBS SoCal Family Math program helped Alabama parents learn to incorporate math learning into their families’ daily lives - How MIND Education’s ST Math helped a Michigan elementary school foster a culture of resilience

Mark your calendar. On September 10th from 4-5 p.m. ET, Overdeck Family Foundation and Ad Council will host a webinar revealing key takeaways from a recently completed mixed methods research study examining K-12 parents’ views on education and school absences, and the narratives that would effectively communicate why consistent in-person attendance is critical. Register here: https://lnkd.in/e9cSb5VR The findings in this report and accompanying toolkit, presented by Derrick Feldmann, will provide guidance for policymakers, practitioners, and educators on how to best develop messaging that motivates families to consistently send their children to school in person. Following a review of the research, hear from experts and practitioners Dr. Robert Balfanz, Hedy Chang, Angelica Infante-Green, and Dr. Todd Rogers during a live panel conversation moderated by Lina Eroh. cc: Attendance Works, EveryDay Labs, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Rhode Island Department of Education

In April, our grantee, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), convened over 60 state and federal policymakers, edtech innovators, school system leaders, and advocates to discuss how AI can drive meaningful, positive change in education. In a new report, CRPE highlights key insights that emerged from this convening: how AI can enable needed changes in our schools, how current conditions in the edtech market act as barriers to closing equity gaps, and how policy and practice must adapt for lasting system change.

Overdeck Family Foundation’s Exceptional Educators portfolio is at the forefront of helping schools and districts reimagine the “one teacher, one classroom” model in favor of flexible and collaborative strategic staffing that has shown early indicators of improving teacher efficacy and student outcomes. Jessica Fredston-Hermann talks with David Rosenberg from Education Resource Strategies about the benefits and challenges of implementing strategic staffing in schools and how ERS and other nonprofits are working to address barriers to staffing innovation. “If we do this work well, if we build teaching to be the kind of profession we want it to be and have the impact we want on students, then teaching becomes significantly more attractive; it's more sustainable, and it's more consistently excellent.” https://lnkd.in/eRW3A5bh