Opportunity Opportunities 2024
Our annual list of opportunity-related questions. For reference: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020.
K-12 Education, includes school-based health services and healthy schools, using evidence to inform decision-making in procurement, budgeting, and programming, operational planning, and school-based health staff
What traditional principles and methods guiding district and school budgeting decisions should be reconsidered?
Can we shift the school safety and security paradigm towards an evidence-based all hazards preparedness model (e.g., addressing natural, technological, biological hazards and human-caused threats)?
What immediate steps can we take to plan and develop instructional infrastructure that would allow for a friction-limited transition should schools need to close for a prolonged period of time?
What non-obvious support will schools and districts need to put in place to serve the inflow of migrant students, many of whom are living in temporary housing?
What is a generally accepted belief about the science of reading that is incorrect?
Health and Wellbeing, includes youth mental health, thriving, and health security planning and response
Can we build momentum–e.g., funding for research–to determine the holistic impact of school-based active shooter drills?
How can we establish standardized indicators across domains–education, health, youth development, and housing–and geographies to measure youth thriving?
How can we better align financial incentives across sectors that serve youth to optimize for health and wellbeing?
In what non-obvious ways can the public health community regain public trust?
How can the public health community better communicate the need to advance shared public health behaviors in the face of growing distrust, skepticism, and ideological division?
What role can AI/GenAI play in pediatric clinical care, particularly in light of recent studies showing a high tendency for misdiagnosis in pediatric populations?
AI/Generative AI, including health and wellbeing impacts, cognitive development impacts, and impacts on childhood poverty and the digital divide
What systems need to be built and data collected to determine the appropriate age to introduce classroom-based GenAI tools?
How will using GenAI to direct or control children’s behavior impact them?
In what ways is GenAI literacy premature?
How will GenAI influence the formation of identity and self in kids and adolescents?
What learning problems are potentially solvable in the near-term with GenAI breakthroughs (e.g., overcoming the 2 Sigma problem)?
How can the full range of youth mental health services evolve to address the unique challenges posed by rapid AI-driven change?
In what unexpected ways will Gen AI impact clinical pediatric healthcare?
How do individual understandings of GenAI inform societal acceptance of GenAI?
How can we establish adequate resourcing, systems, and structures to support grassroots advocacy for GenAI regulation from superintendents to parents?
Economic Opportunity, including Career Identity development and evidence-based retention and persistence interventions in non-traditional post-secondary pathways
How will short-term Pell Grants–if passed into law–change behavior of four year colleges and universities (e.g., rapid increase of credential stacking experiences)?
What role can–and should–technology play in supporting career identity development?
How will shifts in work from home policies impact the childcare ecosystem?
What significant shifts in workforce policy will happen at scale this year (e.g., four-day work weeks) with implications for early childhood education and childcare?
Will high growth industries–e.g., green/tech jobs–constrain or extend the record-high labor force participation rate among women? What are the second order impacts on children?