The Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) just released the second edition of their openly licensed digital image collection, “American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action.” This edition features nearly 500 high-quality images of teachers and students licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0).

A screenshot of the digital collection from the Alliance for Excellent Education.

Captured by Allison Shelley (photojournalist; co-founder and co-director of Women Photojournalists of Washington) and funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, these images portray “deep learning” both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at the UCLA Community School in Los Angeles and Sutton Middle School in Atlanta. 

“These are some of the final images we have of classroom-based instruction prior to the coronavirus sending students and teachers home for months of online instruction,” said Deborah Delisle, All4Ed president and CEO. “The idea of deeper learning is evolving as schools across the country rethink how they deliver instruction, and we are excited to see what that shift produces in thoughtful, innovative ways of engaging students.”

Browse the free collection!

Here at Creative Commons, we’re especially excited to use these images in relation to our work in Open Education. As we continue advocating for and supporting the development of open education policies globally, the images we use should accurately illustrate the messages we send. That’s why openly licensed stock photography collections (like this one!) that are inclusive and representative is imperative.

Congratulations to the Alliance for Excellent Education on a great collection!