The Department of Education's edtech guidance, answered
Last updated September 29, 2026
On August 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education wrote to states and school districts about education technology and screen time. Its message is that edtech should be judged by whether it "measurably improves teaching, learning, and student outcomes," not by screen time alone. The letter lists what districts should expect from providers, what providers should do, and what states and districts should consider.
This page answers each point for Dabbled for Schools, including the ones we do not meet yet. The quoted lines are the letter's own. Read the Department's letter (PDF).
In short
- In place: outcome measures on every app, a monthly or quarterly report for review and renewal, plain statements of what the product and its AI can and cannot do, and implementation support for teachers.
- Partly: parent input and feedback, and the accessibility of the apps teachers generate.
- Not yet: an independent evaluation or randomized controlled trial, and integration with other school systems.
What districts should expect from providers
Publish rigorous, independent evaluations of product impact on student learning whenever feasible.Not yet
We have not commissioned an independent evaluation or run a randomized controlled trial. Dabbled for Schools is a platform teachers use to build their own apps, so no two classrooms use the same product, which makes a single study hard to design. What we publish instead is outcome data on every app a school uses, below, which a district can use in a review of its own. A district that wants to run a formal study with us is welcome to get in touch.
Share implementation guidance grounded in effective classroom practice.In place
A ninety-minute remote workshop takes a school's teachers from writing a good request to building their first app. In the product, every kind of app - quiz, flashcards, game, simulation, practice drill, writing tool, class utility - has a starting template that sets out what a good version includes, and the idea finder suggests apps from a teacher's own lesson plan.
Provide transparent information about product capabilities, limitations, and performance.In place
What the AI does, what it sees and what it does not is written down, and so is where the platform does not yet meet accessibility standards. The reports a school gets say when a figure rests on too few plays to trust, and call the learning measures what they are: promising indicators, not proof. This page lists where we fall short, too.
Continuously improve products using evidence from implementation and student outcomes.In place
Every app reports how often it is opened, started and finished, whether it crashed, and the answers students got right and wrong. Apps that crash, lose most of their players or have low accuracy are flagged to the school, and a teacher can revise one by describing the change. Teachers can send us feedback on the platform from inside it.
What the letter asks of providers
Design products that support high-quality instruction and meaningful student engagement with teacher and parent input.Partly
Teachers design every app: a teacher describes it, often from their own lesson plan or worksheet, and decides what is built, kept and shared with a class. Parents can build apps of their own with a free account, but there is not yet a way for parents to give input on the apps their child's school uses.
Incorporate evidence of effectiveness and demonstrate success through independent evaluation, RCTs, and transparent reporting.Partly
Transparent reporting is in place: every school sees its apps' outcomes on its own App metrics page and as a monthly or quarterly PDF report set against the period before. Independent evaluation and randomized controlled trials are not, as above.
Minimize unnecessary screen exposure while maximizing instructional value in design.In place
Each app is one activity for one lesson, with a beginning and an end - a quiz, game, drill or set of flashcards finishes with the student's results and a choice to play again, not another screen. There are no student accounts, feeds, notifications, advertising or daily streaks to pull a student back, and the measures we report are about learning - answers right, improvement during and between plays - never minutes on screen.
Support educators with implementation resources and professional learning.In place
The workshop above, the templates and idea finder in the product, and two free tools for any educator: PromptMagic, for writing clear requests to an AI, and the Demystifier, which shows which parts of an AI's answer came from the question and which the AI added itself.
Continuously improve products using evidence from classroom implementation, parent feedback, and student academic outcomes.Partly
Classroom use and student outcomes feed back as described above. Parent feedback does not yet have a channel of its own.
Using Dabbled for Schools in your district's own review
The letter's considerations for states and districts, and what the product gives a district acting on them.
Distinguish between policies addressing recreational technology use and those governing instructional technology.In place
Dabbled for Schools is instructional only. Every app in a school was made by a teacher for a lesson; there is nothing to browse, no social features and no entertainment feed.
Evaluate education technology based on demonstrated learning outcomes and instructional value rather than screen time alone.In place
The App metrics page shows each app's accuracy and two learning measures: whether students' accuracy rises from the first half of a play to the second, and whether a student does better coming back to an app than the first time.
Incorporate evidence of effectiveness into procurement and renewal decisions.In place
The App metrics report is a PDF for a month, a quarter or any period, compared with the period before: an executive summary, the headline figures, activity by day, class, teacher and subject, what was spent, and every app - written to be filed with a renewal decision.
Establish processes for reviewing implementation and outcomes to ensure technology investments continue meeting instructional goals.In place
Run the report each month or quarter. It shows participation by class and by teacher, which apps are improving students' accuracy, which need attention, and what the school spent against what it got.
Support professional learning that helps educators integrate technology effectively into instruction.In place
The workshop is built for exactly this: ninety minutes, remote, for a school's staff.
The other factors the letter names
Besides evidence of effectiveness, the letter says investments should weigh "cost, usability, accessibility, interoperability, implementation support, and educator experience."
CostIn place
Published: free for teachers working on their own, $199 a month for a school, and district pricing on request. App building is paid for in usage credit, and a school sees what each app cost.
UsabilityIn place
A teacher describes an app in plain language, with formatting as simple as a word processor; no coding. Students join a class by link, with no account to set up.
AccessibilityPartly
The platform has a published conformance report against WCAG that says where it conforms and where it does not yet. The apps teachers generate are not yet assessed against WCAG, though an app can be built to read its text aloud.
InteroperabilityNot yet
Apps are web pages that open from a link on any device with a browser. There is no integration with learning management or student information systems, and no roster import - partly by design, since holding no student roster is how we keep student data out of the product.
Implementation supportIn place
The workshop, templates, the idea finder and free tools, above.
Educator experienceIn place
The teacher is in charge throughout: they decide what is built, can change any app by describing the change, and see how each of their apps is used.
Questions
A district reviewing Dabbled for Schools can ask for anything on this page in more detail, or for a sample of the App metrics report, through the contact page.