RAIL

RAIL is for savvy school leaders who want to lead the way on responsible AI in service of their faculty, staff, and students. The Middle States Association’s global presence means that schools from around the world will form RAIL’s forward-thinking community.

The first RAIL endorsement is in “AI Literacy, Safety, and Ethics.” Participants will walk away with:

1. Change strategy. Every school leader knows that it’s easy to generate innovative ideas but hard to implement them. With the help of Middle States, you will develop a plan to lead and facilitate that change. As former school leaders, we have seen this movie before—many times!

2. Guided access. The team at Middle States will guide you through our growing library of resources, templates, and examples related to the responsible use of AI in schools. We will be “on call” to ensure your success.

3. New (or updated) mission-critical documents. These help to ensure the safe and ethical adoption of AI across your system. Examples of such documents are school governance statements, academic policies, and a Portrait of a Graduate.

4. Marketing toolkit. Once you’ve earned the credential, you need to communicate its value and purpose. Middle States will ensure you have the right tools for that job.

5. Superior professional development. RAIL involves a tremendous amount of learning-by-doing, with substantial feedback from Middle States. You can’t get that kind of professional learning from a workshop or webinar!

6. “Software updates.” As the AI landscape continues to evolve, Middle States will update the endorsement framework so that participants can always Stay Safe. Stay Ahead.

7. Credentials. You can display this Middle States-issued credential on your website, in your email signatures, and in other digital spaces. When viewers click on the credential, they will see evidence of your success.

The journey to earn the first RAIL endorsement in “AI Literacy, Safety, and Ethics” follows a few simple steps:

• Use this diagnostic to see if you should apply. [Estimated time: 2 minutes]

• RAIL costs $3000/year, but pays for itself many times over in terms of concrete value delivered. Read our FAQs to learn more.

RAIL is not just an accreditation-style endorsement, but also an implementation framework.

It relies on the wisdom of Stewart Brand’s “pace layering” model, which reflects how complex, adaptive systems change (or resist change) over time.

In line with Clayton Christensen’s Business Model Theory, we designed RAIL so that schools address AI at every layer. This means that they will have to shift resources, practices, and most of all priorities. To assist further, we are drawing on best practices from change management—for example, by requiring executive sponsorship, a change strategy, and an internal and external marketing plan.