Proposed Priority and Definitions-Secretary's Supplemental Priority and Definitions on Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Part 75</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2025-OS-0118]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Proposed Priority and Definitions—Secretary's Supplemental Priority and Definitions on Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed priority and definitions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Secretary proposes a priority and related definitions for use in currently authorized discretionary grant programs, or such programs that may be authorized in the future. The Secretary may choose to use the entire priority for a grant program or a particular competition or may use one or more of the priority's component parts. This priority and definitions augment the initial set of three Secretary's Supplemental Priorities on Evidence-Based Literacy, Educational Choice, and Returning Education to the States published as proposed priorities on May 21, 2025 (90 FR 21710). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We must receive your comments on or before August 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . See the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for more details. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Zachary Rogers, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 7W213, Washington, DC 20202-6450. Telephone: (202) 260-1144. Email: <E T="03">SSP@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Invitation to Comment:</E> We invite you to submit comments regarding the proposed priority and definitions. Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . However, if you require an accommodation or cannot otherwise submit your comments via <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , please contact the program contact person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . The Department will not accept comments by fax or by email, or comments submitted after the comment period closes. To ensure that the Department does not receive duplicate copies, please submit your comments only once. Additionally, please include the Docket ID at the top of your comments. <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.Regulations.gov</E> to submit your comments electronically. Information on using <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , including instructions for accessing agency documents, submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site under “FAQ.” Also included on <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> is a commenter checklist that addresses how to submit effective comments. In instances where individual submissions appear to be duplicates or near duplicates of comments prepared as part of a writing campaign, the Department may choose to post to <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> one representative sample comment along with the total comment count for that campaign. The Department will consider these comments along with all other comments received. In instances where individual submissions are bundled together (submitted as a single document or packaged together), the Department will post all of the substantive comments included in the submissions along with the total comment count for that document or package to <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . Comments containing personal threats will not be posted to <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> and may be referred to the appropriate authorities. During and after the comment period, you may inspect public comments about the proposed priority and definitions by accessing <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . To inspect comments in person, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Privacy Note:</E> The Department's policy is to generally make all comments received from members of the public available for public viewing in their entirety on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . Therefore, commenters should be careful to include in their comments only information that they wish to make publicly available. <E T="03">Assistance to Individuals with Disabilities in Reviewing the Rulemaking Record:</E> On request, we will provide an appropriate accommodation or auxiliary aid to an individual with a disability who needs assistance to review the comments or other documents in the public rulemaking record for this document. If you want to schedule an appointment for this type of accommodation or auxiliary aid, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> 20 U.S.C. 1221e-3, 3474, 6301 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> 5 U.S.C. 311 <E T="03">et seq.</E> <E T="03">Proposed Priority:</E> This document contains one proposed priority. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Priority: Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education</HD> <E T="03">Background:</E> Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the future of education, work, learning, and daily life. As AI becomes more integrated into the tools and systems that shape elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, it is increasingly important for students to develop AI literacy. A strong foundation in AI literacy will help ensure students are prepared to navigate and contribute to a society where these technologies play a growing role in decision-making, communication, innovation, and career readiness. Beyond serving as a subject of study, AI also offers powerful opportunities to enhance teaching and learning. When used effectively, AI tools have the potential to support personalized instruction, increase classroom engagement, and improve student outcomes. Educators are beginning to use AI-powered platforms to analyze student progress, identify learning gaps, and tailor support to individual needs. This work is only the beginning. To move from passive users of AI to active creators and innovators, students must also understand foundational computer science. Exposure to core concepts such as algorithms, data analysis, and computational thinking can deepen their understanding of how AI systems function. Incorporating computer science where appropriate can reinforce efforts to build meaningful AI literacy in educational settings. This priority is designed to support efforts that expand student understanding of AI and its real-world applications. The priority will also promote the appropriate integration of AI into education, providing AI training for educators, and fostering early exposure to AI concepts and technology to develop an AI-ready workforce and the next generation of American AI innovators. <E T="03">Proposed Priority:</E> Projects or proposals to do one or more of the following: (a) Expand the understanding of artificial intelligence through one or more of the following: (i) Support the integration of AI literacy skills and concepts into teaching and learning practices to improve educational outcomes for students, including how to detect AI generated disinformation or misinformation online; (ii) Expand offerings of AI and computer science education in K-12 education; (iii) Expand offerings of AI and computer science courses as part of an institution of higher education's general education and/or core curriculum; (iv) Embed AI and computer science into an institution of higher education's general preservice or in-service teacher professional development or teacher preparation programs; (v) Provide professional development for educators on the integration of the fundamentals of AI into their respective subject areas; (vi) Provide professional development in foundational computer science and AI, preparing educators to effectively teach AI in stand-alone computer science and other relevant courses, including instruction about how to use AI responsibly; (vii) Partner with State educational agencies or local educational agencies to encourage the offering of dual-enrollment course opportunities to earn postsecondary credentials and industry-recognized credentials in AI coursework concurrent with high school education; (viii) Create opportunities for high school students through the development or expansion of AI courses and career-relevant, in-demand certification programs; or (ix) Support dissemination of appropriate methods of integrating AI into education. (x) Build evidence of appropriate methods of integrating AI into education. (b) Expand the appropriate use of artificial intelligence technology in education through one or more of the following: (i) Use AI to support K-12 or postsecondary instruction, supplemental learning, or other assistance or resources to students who are gifted and talented (as defined in 20 U.S.C. 7801(27)), or those who are otherwise in need of accelerated or other advanced learning opportunities; (ii) Use AI to support K-12 or postsecondary instruction, supplemental learning, or other assistance or resources to students who are below grade level, in need of remedial or developmental education, struggling to graduate with a regular credential from their education program, or otherwise in need of additional assistance to complete their program of study; (iii) Use AI to support early intervention, K-12, or postsecondary instruction or services for children and students with disabilities and their families; (iv) Integrate AI-driven tools into classrooms to personalize learning, improve student outcomes, and support differentiated instruction. This integration may include, but is not ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━