Chalkbeat

American Psychological Association calls for higher ed tech standards, not screen bans in new report

2026-09-03T04:08:35+00:00

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Badges, tokens, and flashing lights: The widespread gamification of education technology harms learning and harms children, the American Psychological Association said in a new report out Thursday.

While the organization is calling for much higher standards for widely used learning apps and platforms, outright bans on screens or arbitrary time limits are not the answer, the report says.

“It is much easier for a school district to say we’re putting an all-out ban on something than do the harder work of actually vetting to make sure that learning is happening,” said Nicole Barnes, the APA’s executive lead psychologist for education. She said science supports the idea that technology “can be a very powerful tool to support learning, and it can be one that harms it at the same time.”

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The report comes as debates about education technology in general and AI specifically are roiling American classrooms, school boards, and state legislatures. New York City’s school system just adopted what might be the most restrictive AI policy in the country. Los Angeles Unified School District, meanwhile, banned laptops and tablets for young learners and prohibited the use of AI tools on school-issued devices. Other school districts are following suit.

The APA report aims to inform that debate with the science of how children learn and develop, to help people make decisions “from a place of evidence and not a place of hysteria or fear,” Barnes said.

People on all sides of that debate may find evidence in the report to support their position.

Key findings include:

Time spent on learning apps, student enjoyment, and completion rates are often mistaken for learning.
Features designed to maintain student attention can district from learning.
The amount of time students spend on learning platforms is not as important as what those platforms may be replacing, such as interaction with teachers or classmates.
Learning platforms can be good for practicing specific skills, but claims about improved critical thinking are rarely supported by evidence.
AI can improve student performance while reducing learning — a more polished finished product or higher score doesn’t necessarily mean the student learned more.

The report includes recommendations for educators, policymakers, and parents on what questions to ask and how to evaluate learning platforms.

Schools should ask for independent evaluations of the effectiveness of learning tools, not studies commissioned by ed tech vendors, the report says. They should also pay attention to which students benefit and which students continue to struggle when using certain tools, rather than looking at broad averages.

There are tools with a proven track record, Barnes said, including tools that have made learning more accessible for students with disabilities and English learners.

But too often, children are regularly exposed to technology that replaces human connections and productive struggle with the illusion of better scores and student engagement, Barnes said.

“Close the app. Ask the student to explain. Ask the student to solve a new problem, or to apply the skill in a different setting,” Barnes said. “This success that you might be seeing, this performance that you might be equating with learning, might just be that the student is really skilled in navigating that platform.”

The origin’s of the report predate the current ed tech debate and go back to pandemic-era online learning.

Barnes recalled looking over her son’s shoulder in 2020 and asking why he was playing a game rather than doing his homework. But the game was his homework.

“I only had to look at it for a minute to see that it wasn’t resulting in the type of learning that I’m sure it was being sold or marketed as,” she said. “If your child is spending more time dressing a character than doing a problem, that app is probably not resulting in learning taking place.”

Barnes’ first piece of advice to parents is to take that minute to pay attention to what apps and platforms their children are using for school. Then, if something doesn’t seem right, take another minute to ask the principal what evidence there is that the program supports learning.

She acknowledges this isn’t a silver bullet. Her conversation with her child’s principal didn’t lead the school to ditch the app. The longer-term solution would involve school systems and governments agreeing to hold ed tech vendors to a higher standard.

“All we’re really saying is, if you’re going to claim learning, you should prove it,” she said. “To me, that doesn’t seem too much to ask.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

States urge schools to use AI, but leave teachers on their own to stop cheating

2026-09-02T12:00:00+00:00

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Paige Wyatt heard plenty from administrators about using AI to generate lesson plans at the school where she taught high school English.

Her students used AI to cheat so frequently she resorted to spending her own money on detection tools. Yet she never got help with what she really wanted: how to effectively catch and stop the cheaters, some of whom were very clearly just copying and pasting from Google’s AI summaries.

Teachers like Wyatt consistently identify cheating as a major concern in the AI era, and 70% of teens report using AI for schoolwork, a Common Sense Media survey published last month found. But that concern is getting little recognition from states. While at least 13 states have passed laws about AI in education, the laws most often direct state agencies and districts to create their own AI guidance, meaning lawmakers have frequently absolved themselves from making tough decisions.

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Meanwhile, roughly three out of four states have published information to help guide AI use in education. But a Chalkbeat review found these documents tend to skirt the issue of cheating, offering little in the way of concrete steps to halt or deter students from offloading work to AI. Instead, they dedicate more real estate to AI literacy and ways teachers can use AI for efficiency.

All of that beating around the bush has left educators and districts to their own devices to come up with ways to deter and catch AI-enabled cheaters. It’s become an exhausting endeavor that hasn’t turned up any definitive solutions, educators and researchers said.

There’s no surefire way to detect AI-generated content. Nor is there an agreed-upon definition for cheating: Can students use AI to outline an essay but not write it? Can they use it to copy edit? Some states have crafted acceptable use policies which make some, but not all, of these distinctions.

Wyatt quit her teaching job last year. She didn’t leave solely due to AI, but its impact on her work was a factor.

“We really need real consequences,” she said. “We need workshops for teachers to detect cheating. We need workshops for kids.”

Most of the nation’s 10 largest school districts are developing or have developed more specific policies to try to prevent using generative AI to cheat. But it hasn’t always been easy: New York City delayed the rollout of its AI guidance for months amid fierce backlash, before announcing a new policy this week. Half of those districts explicitly discourage using AI detection tools.

Many of the official responses might underscore the urgency of the problem without helping to address it, which could only increase teachers’ anxiety.

“I think the situation teachers are in feels bad, and feels like they ought to have a solution now that they don’t have,” said Justin Reich, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the host of a podcast about how AI is shaping K-12 education.

Letting AI ‘run amok’ could ruin student learning

Historically, state policymakers haven’t rushed to create laws governing new technology and education.

States didn’t really start to adopt computer science requirements until the 2010s. And while the iPhone launched a smartphone revolution in 2007, the first state restrictions on cell phone use in schools didn’t come until 16 years later, in 2023.

States may be moving faster when it comes to mainstream generative AI, which took off with the advent of ChatGPT in late 2022.

“Folks can’t just hope this will pass. This is a major change, and students are already using it,” said John King, former U.S. education secretary and current chancellor of the State University of New York system. “This isn’t tomorrow’s problem. This is today’s problem.”

The District of Columbia and at least 37 states have issued recommendations for public schools about AI. Their documents range from short webpages to Illinois’ 400-page behemoth. Many define different types of AI, stress that any AI use should still be led by humans, and link to outside resources — some of which have been developed with the support of big AI companies.

But they often devote just a page or a few paragraphs to academic integrity.The documents also seem light on actual guidance and don’t include many citations, Reich said. That’s because there’s little evidence to show how effective AI tools are in the classroom, or what policies would effectively stop cheating.

“If you just let this run amok in secondary schools, all kinds of learning activities will stop,” he said. “We do not know what to do. There’s no evidence-based policy. There’s no basis for development and professional development. Like we’re just making stuff up.”

More than a third of states urge schools not to rely solely on tools that promise to detect the use of AI, citing studies showing they are not effective and incorrectly flag genuine student writing as AI.

But many states then offer little else other than acceptable use policies. In California’s case, the state offers a list of questions for districts to mull when making policies around integrity in addition to an acceptable use policy.

In the absence of hard and fast rules, teachers have reported requiring students to complete more graded work in class, using pencil and paper.

Christopher Harris, the director of the school library system for the Genesee Valley BOCES, a regional district in western New York, wants educators to go further than that and reconsider how they measure learning. Writing may be less of a valid tool to assess if students are learning, now that AI “can suddenly write anything.”

He said students could submit an oral assignment, or teachers could focus on the learning process more than the product by asking students to explain how they respond to feedback when developing a project or presentation.

New York is one of the 13 states that hasn’t published AI resources for educators. Harris’ library system has been developing resources about AI for the state’s educators using grant money.

“I really wanted to help teachers understand they can’t control what kids do with AI,” he said. “The only control they have is their agency in developing assignments.”

Adopting AI policies not straightforward for school districts

Sara Brescia thought she had a no-brainer policy proposal for her fellow Manassas City Public Schools board members: adding AI misuse to the district’s code of student conduct.

The policy she proposed for the district in northern Virginia — a hotbed for the data centers AI relies on — would prohibit students from trying to pass off AI-generated content as their own. It specified that AI could only be used with a teacher’s permission, and required students to cite AI use. Students would be punished, up to and including with expulsion, for violating any of those provisions.

But other board members voted her idea down in late July. Lisa Stevens, another school board member who is also a teacher according to her LinkedIn page, worried the policy would add a burden onto teachers without giving them any tools to identify AI-generated work.

Brescia is skeptical about the value of those tools.

“We do not have a comprehensive approach,’’ she said. “We have the student code of conduct that says nothing.”

Wyatt said when she left the classroom, students were only becoming more fluent in methods to cheat. They were finding tools like QuillBot to disguise AI-generated writing and make it sound more like student writing.

She’s open to going back to the classroom, if she gets more administrative support to help detect the kind of AI misconduct that felt out of control when she left.

“As a community, we need a support network,” she said.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Fresh faces, AI fears: 4,000 new teachers gear up for NYC’s first day of school

2026-09-01T21:36:29+00:00

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Career stability. The chance to give back to neighborhoods that shaped them. A knack for working with children.

As more than 4,000 new teachers streamed into orientation at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center before next week’s first day of school, they shared what made them feel hopeful about joining the nation’s largest school system.

But some of the challenges of teaching in 2026 were also top of mind, particularly around artificial intelligence as educators eagerly await New York City’s new AI policy.

One science teacher wondered how he would grapple with students outsourcing their thinking to AI. An incoming middle school teacher said her student teaching stint prepared her for the Education Department’s “organized chaos.” And in an address to the new cohort of teachers, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels advised them to brace for a challenging start.

His first year in the classroom was “probably the hardest year of my life,” Samuels said. “I want you to think about January when it’s cold, when it’s rough outside … you have to make sure that you rely on your why. And for me, that was the belief in the brilliance of every young person.”

New York City officials are hoping to hire roughly 6,600 teachers this school year, as the Education Department scrambles to meet a state mandate to reduce class sizes. Yet the profession is facing headwinds that could complicate those efforts: Educators in New York state report lower morale than the national average, according to a survey by the news organization Education Week.

Education officials did not say how many teachers they’ve hired so far this year overall. Recruitment typically continues through September.

Gabriella Puleri, a 23-year-old incoming sixth-grade English language arts teacher in Queens, said she felt up for the challenge after completing a master’s degree program at New York University that offered a year of student teaching experience. “There’s really nothing that compares to being put in a classroom,” she said.

She also felt reassured by a recent cellphone ban and a mandate to reduce class sizes to 20-25 students depending on the grade level.

Thousands of new New York City teachers gather inside Barclays Center for an orientation ahead of the first day of school.

Even as some recent policy changes are making the job feel more manageable, other questions about the coming school year remain unanswered, including how the school system will grapple with AI.

Officials are expected to release a more detailed AI policy before students return on Sept. 10. A draft version of AI guidance released in March did not include clear guardrails for student use and generated sharp criticism, delaying the release of a more comprehensive policy.

Jasmine Hall, who is returning to a city-run high school in Queens after a stint at a charter school, said she has seen the rise of AI in classrooms first hand and is craving more guidelines for student writing.

“I really hope that there is incentive to steer kids away from AI,” she said. “The kids have just become accustomed to using it for everything.”

For Hall, job security was part of the appeal of returning to a district school. Others said they want to give back to a system that nurtured them.

Moshab Rahman, who grew up in public housing and went to public schools in East Harlem, credited his teachers with setting him up for success and wants to do the same for his students. “I want to live in a world where people care about each other,” he said.

The 25-year-old studied environmental biology and landed a part-time job as a conservation educator at the Prospect Park Zoo teaching visiting school groups. In search of a career involving education, he wound up joining the city’s Teaching Fellows, a fast-track program into public schools that counts Samuels as an alum. Rahman described the experience as being thrown in the deep end: fast-paced, rigorous, and “basically torturous.”

This year’s class of Teaching Fellows cohort includes roughly 1,100 new educators, among the largest numbers in recent years, Samuels said.

In an interview with reporters following the orientation event, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew acknowledged that teachers are facing uncertainty this year over technology use. The union chief said he’s looking for a more “practical approach” that includes more vetting of the platforms schools are using.

Still, he was skeptical that an outright ban is workable. “How are we banning AI in a high school?” he said. “The students are using it anyway. It’s embedded in so many platforms now.”

Rahman is still thinking the issue through and said he personally finds AI tools helpful. But he also wonders about how to use it without allowing students to “offload” their thinking.

“It’s a real can of worms,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

The problem with an AI tutor: Students don’t want to use it

2026-08-25T23:25:23+00:00

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If you build it, they may not use it.

This is the emerging problem with artificial intelligence tools designed to help students learn. The latest evidence is a new study finding that middle school students rarely used an AI-powered tutor when given the option to do so.

The study examined Khanmigo, an AI chatbot associated with the popular Khan Academy program. The findings confirm the sentiment of founder Sal Khan, who previously told me that the AI tutor was a “non-event” for most students.

“If a keen, engaged student wants to use the technology as a good tutor, it’s ready to go,” said University of Toronto researcher Philip Oreopoulos. “The issue is that most students don’t use it that way.”

In the study, Oreopoulos worked with a Tennessee school district to randomly assign low-performing students from 18 middle schools to use Khan Academy during the school day. Khan Academy provides online lessons and practice that students work through at their own speed. Khanmigo is programmed to respond to questions without giving away the answers, though students had to actively seek its help.

The study compared Khan students with another group of students who instead used a combination of other digital math programs and small-group teacher-led instruction.

By year two of the study, the researchers found some promising results. Students using Khan Academy made faster math gains than the comparison group. This suggests that Khan Academy has value — a notable finding at a moment of intense backlash to ed-tech.

But the researchers say the benefits of Khan didn’t seem to come from AI. Most of the Khan Academy middle schoolers simply weren’t engaging with Khanmigo productively or at all.

Students only used Khanmigo about a third of the days they were working in Khan Academy. When interactions did occur, many students just sent off-topic messages or tried to convince Khanmigo to provide the correct answers. “Access was nearly universal but engagement was thin,” the researchers wrote. “It may be that human attention is the key ingredient for realizing the full benefits of personalized learning.”

Here are some examples of students’ interactions with Khanmigo from the new study:

Paraphrased examples of students' conversations with Khanmigo from the study "One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment."

“What this has put in huge spotlight — not that it’s a shock to educators — is how much motivation matters,” said Sal Khan in an interview.

The more AI can mirror a human tutor, the better it might become, Oreopoulos says. Right now, it’s not there. Maybe that’s a good thing: It’s not clear that we would want children to experience an AI chatbot as too human-like.

Since the study period, Khan Academy has redesigned its interface to better integrate Khanmigo and encourage more students to use it. “The AI could not just sit next to the content. It had to be woven into it. We had to make productive struggle harder to sidestep,” Khan wrote recently of the changes. The goal, he says, is not AI for its own sake, but to hopefully drive larger learning gains.

Overall, research on AI in education is nascent, but an early theme is that students often won’t use it for learning. “When given AI tutors, many students do not engage,” concluded a recent summary.

In another study released last week, Oreopoulos and colleagues sought to test a solution to this problem. In the same Tennessee school district, the researchers designed their own online math program. Some students were given access to an AI chatbot to help them work through problems. Students could only move on if they answered the questions correctly. In contrast to Khanmigo, the AI chatbot popped up without student prompting.

The students with access to AI moved less quickly through problems, but were more accurate in their answers. A week later when they were quizzed again on similar problems without access to AI, they were slightly more likely to respond correctly compared with a control group. This is preliminary evidence that in tightly controlled settings students can be coaxed into using AI well.

Of course, the challenge is that students spend most of their time outside of tightly controlled settings, and adolescents by their nature often seek the path of least resistance.

“The same technology that can be used as a good tutor, can also be used to make your life easier. But making your life easier equals less effort, less learning,” said Oreopoulos.

This story has been updated with a comment from Sal Khan.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

An alphabet without an F: AI slop seeps into Teachers Pay Teachers curriculum marketplace

2026-08-03T18:32:12+00:00

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The poster depicting famous inventions by Black figures throughout history should show the invention George Crum is widely credited with: the potato chip.

Instead, the picture labeled with Crum’s name shows a firefighter in an ominous gas mask next to a stop light. There are no potato chips to be found.

But there is a typo-ridden description of Crum that reads: “Created the popular crispy snack when a customer is polated thinner fried potatees.”

For $4, teachers can have the privilege of downloading that poster, a slideshow about Black inventors, and a seven-minute video from Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace for teachers to find lesson plans, classroom decor, activities, and more. The site, which rebranded as TPT in 2022, is education’s answer to Etsy.

For $1.99, they could also download an alphabet coloring worksheet missing the letter F. And for just $1.50, they could get a poster of U.S. presidents that uses an asteroid hurtling toward anti-slavery demonstrators to illustrate the idea that Martin Van Buren was resilient.

Teachers Pay Teachers is a platform used by 85% of pre-K-12 educators in the U.S., its parent company said in a 2023 press release. It has long been controversial, with some educators and curriculum developers casting doubt on the quality of resources up for sale. But it inspired trust in other teachers due to the premise baked into its name. Now that trust is eroding, and it’s because of something educators have noticed while shopping. Increasingly, some of Teachers Pay Teachers’ resources appear to be AI-generated.

Moreover, some of the AI-generated content that hasn’t been vetted very well includes obvious errors, slipshod graphics, and questionable information, according to a Chalkbeat review of material on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It’s the type of low-quality content commonly known as “AI slop.” And teachers say it’s turning up on TPT, which means some of it could end up in the classroom.

In an emailed statement, Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning, TPT’s parent company, wrote that the company uses “algorithmic tools to identify and demote stores associated with low-quality, AI-generated content.”

“These measures are already highly effective, such that AI-generated products account for a minuscule fraction of a percent of TPT’s sales,” Mishkin wrote.

TPT’s two decades in existence, some argue, is a sign that many school districts still aren’t arming educators with high-quality instructional material. The flood of what appears to be low-quality AI content may just further poison the well.

Teachers are expected to create a lot of material, sometimes on a time crunch or during the summer when they’re not paid, said Jeff Carpenter, an education professor at Elon University. That pressure to create instructional material leads them to turn to Teachers Pay Teachers or similar sites.

“They don’t have the time and energy to assess the quality,” Carpenter said. “They’re sort of drowning under the load of expectations on them, and so they think, ‘Well, this is a highly rated resource, and so I’m going to print it off and give it to my students without really looking at it.’”

AI fuels cottage industry of curriculum creators

Some of the tells of AI-generated content are relatively subtle.

When Elisa Greb, an eighth grade English teacher outside of Pittsburgh, is on the lookout for material made by AI, she watches for bulleted lists with bolded headings, for example.

Greb said she started noticing the proliferation of AI content about a year ago. Greb rarely turns to TPT for class content, but occasionally turns to it for grammar content, which can be one of the hardest topics to hook students’ interest.

“One of the greatest joys for me as a teacher is the creativity,” she said. “What really bothers me on something like TPT, where people are monetizing, is that they’re asking for your money for something that they didn’t actually create.”

Chalkbeat also spotted what look to be AI suggestions for titles that might help the resource appear prominently in search results, price suggestions, and even disclosures that content had been generated by AI.

But if AI-generated content on TPT sets off algorithmic red flags, it seems no one has told the cottage industry of content creators who advertise themselves as coaches for folks wanting to start a TPT shop.

In one YouTube video, a creator said that leveraging AI isn’t about replacing creativity, but “multiplying our efforts” to supply teacher resources online. Many of the coaches encouraging AI use also caution TPT creators to edit and watch for quality issues in AI-generated content.

Catharyn Shelton, a professor with Northern Arizona University, said teachers sharing content with other teachers is in principle a good idea — when the content is of good quality. But scaling up the model into a marketplace is often where the problems come in, incentivizing creators to build shops with thousands of pages of material and sacrifice quality in the process.

It’s easy to turn “to slop because AI is so good at making things sound really good,” she said. “Even if the actual content or ideas aren’t really there.”

‘I do use AI-assisted tools’

Chalkbeat reached out to a few TPT vendors selling what appeared to be AI-generated materials.

Jade Désautels, the creator behind The Garden of Art, the store that sold the Black inventors posters featuring George Crum, wrote that she became an educational resource creator after 15 years as a full-time teacher.

She declined an interview and did not directly acknowledge using AI, but wrote that she uses a “variety of digital tools as part of my creative process.” Désautels also wrote she reviews resources before publishing them.

In another instance, a set of posters about musical instruments in Black history included an image of a traditional African drum and the words “add a performer playing it in a lively village setting.” There is no performer or village in the image.

A user wrote in a review that the $4.28 posters were “poorly made” and “it was very obvious that AI was used.”

The creator of that resource, Achraf Zenmrouni, said over email that they had adjusted and improved the graphics after Chalkbeat inquired about the work. Zenmrouni wrote that “I use AI-assisted tools as part of my design and creative process,” but added they personally reviewed the material before it goes live.

A Chalkbeat reporter asked ChatGPT to respond to inquiries about supposed low-quality, AI-generated teacher resources as if it were a creator of those resources. In part, the AI wrote, “I do use AI-assisted tools as one part of my creative process.”

ChatGPT then added: It reviews the content before it’s published.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Mamdani taps World Cup fever to get NYC teens designing climate-friendly stadiums and soccer apps

2026-07-28T10:00:00+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to channel World Cup excitement into real-world careers: Teens across the five boroughs are designing stadiums of the future and soccer fields through a six-week competition run by New York City’s youth summer jobs program.

And while the city’s schools are still grappling with artificial intelligence, this summer jobs initiative is embracing the technology.

As part of the Summer Youth Employment Program, hundreds of 14- and 15-year-olds are participating in the New York City Sports and Technology Innovation Challenge, where they are using AI and other technologies to expand access to soccer while exploring careers in sport-related industries.

The teens are dreaming up digital platforms to connect young people to sport opportunities across the five boroughs, planning climate-resilient public spaces for athletics that feel more inclusive to New Yorkers from various backgrounds, and designing environmentally-friendly stadiums that can transport 50,000 fans efficiently and sustainably. They are working with officials from the New York City Football Club and faculty from New York University’s School of Professional Studies on their projects.

“The World Cup is inspiring our young people, not just to perfect their stepover but to imagine the next great sports stadium, design soccer fields that combat climate change, build new platforms to connect their friends to matches, and much more,” Mamdani said in a statement.

The program, he added, “will help create the next generation of architects, engineers, and scientists.”

The finalists will present their submissions on Aug. 13 to New York City FC for the initiative, which is expected to become an annual challenge, city officials said.

A record year for NYC’s youth jobs program

The city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, or SYEP — the nation’s largest program of its kind — has continuously evolved over its 63-year history, finding new partners like New York City FC, whose nonprofit foundation, City in the Community, funded and designed the design challenge. The Department of Youth and Community Development, which oversees the jobs program, offered roughly 100,000 paid jobs and career exploration opportunities to the city’s 14- to 24-year olds this year and received more than 200,000 applications, a record, agency officials said.

Older students in SYEP earn the city’s minimum wage of $17 an hour at one of the program’s various work sites, ranging from tech and human services to finance and culture. The city’s 14- and 15- year-olds earn a $700 stipend doing project-based learning where they build work-related foundational skills, such as team-building, public speaking, and resume-building, said Youth and Community Development Commissioner Sandra Escamilla-Davies.

She was especially proud of the new partnership with New York City FC, saying it grew out of the interests of young people and also builds on the World Cup momentum to get young people interested in learning about opportunities that go beyond being the next star goalie or defender.

“We really knew that hosting a World Cup is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and it brought such vibrancy, such community throughout New York City. But we didn’t want that to be just the only legacy,” Escamilla-Davies said. “We wanted to think about how we use soccer, which so many New Yorkers love, and sports, which young people love, to really inspire young people to see themselves as the next generation of innovators, of engineers, of designers, of entrepreneurs.”

Escamilla-Davies also said that to prepare young people for future careers, incorporating AI was critical.

“We have an ecosystem that needs to accelerate learning, accelerate opportunities, and I don’t know that it’s humanly possible for us to do that without technology,” she said.

Students solve real-world problems with AI

Mohammed Usman, a 15-year-old who lives in Ozone Park, Queens, and attends Brooklyn Tech, decided to tackle the lack of available places to play soccer, looking at how to repurpose existing land and better understand when fields are available.

“Many of the fields that we do have are usually booked by teams or other people who want to play, and it’s hard to get a field,” Mohammed said. “So I was thinking of making an app that would allow you to know when a field is open and to be able to play with people your age.”

He’s been using AI to refine his proposal, for example, by encouraging him to add more information on his app about whether fields have lights or how to pair similarly aged students together.

He already can see how the problem-solving skills he’s learning could help him with his future career goal in engineering.

“What an engineer does is find a problem and then develop a solution for it, and that’s really similar to what we’re doing in the program: finding problems in our communities and then solving them related to soccer,” Mohammed said.

Escamilla-Davies sees SYEP as an important opportunity for young people to explore a range of careers beyond being a doctor or lawyer, and a way to get them connected to mentors and industry professionals, especially for those who don’t have family and social networks they can tap to help.

“For me, it’s the first step of equity,” said Escamilla-Davies, who is hoping to continue building more industry partnerships to expand SYEP.

The program says participation has improved school attendance and reduced students’ odds of getting tangled up in the criminal justice system. SYEP participants’ chances of being arrested fell 17% and 23% for felony arrests, according to a 2021 study.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Newark’s new workforce program wants young adults to master AI before the job market demands it

2026-07-14T20:50:07+00:00

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Monajah Williams built her first website just a few months ago. Before then, she didn’t know how to code or use HTML.

After years of unstable jobs in retail and food service that left her feeling drained and unmotivated, Williams, 25, said she’s finally seeing a glimmer of hope for her career. At Hopeworks’ new training room in Newark, Williams is learning to code, build websites, and use artificial intelligence as she prepares for a career in tech.

The program is betting that young workers like Williams, between 17 and 26, can hold their own in an evolving and increasingly competitive job market being redefined by AI and emerging technologies.

Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., trainees work in an open-style layout, similar to that of a regular office. Conference rooms, a lunchroom, and couches for morning huddles give trainees a chance to collaborate on projects, interview with AI tools, and use other digital tools to support their work.

“It is hard to find a job right now but I feel like there’s a lot of opportunities with these careers,” Williams said.

Entry-level jobs that heavily use AI are growing fast, up 35% since 2019, while other entry-level jobs have shrunk 10% over the same period, according to PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer. Those growing jobs also expect entry-level workers to bring senior-level skills such as judgment and leadership. Hopeworks says it’s training young adults for exactly those kinds of jobs.

“What we find is that employers want folks who can adapt quickly to emergent technologies, who have human skills, professional social emotional skills, take feedback well, and aren’t afraid of new technologies,” said Dan Rhoton, CEO of Hopeworks.

The nonprofit trains young adults in technical and workforce skills, prepares them for interviews and professional settings, and then places them in paid jobs. Hopeworks started in Camden, later expanded to Philadelphia, and this month opened its Newark site on Broad Street. Trainees spend two to three months learning web development, coding, GIS mapping, medical billing, and professionalism before moving into six-month paid internships at Hopeworks’ own businesses. From there, they are placed in full-time jobs with other employers.

Most Hopeworks trainees have never used AI but are curious about what it can do.

Williams said she uses AI regularly in her training. As she built her first website, she asked ChatGPT to explain concepts she didn’t understand and apply what she had already learned rather than finish the work for her. That’s a skill she was never exposed to in the city’s public school system, said Williams, a 2019 alum.

In recent years, Newark Public Schools has rolled out new AI, including Khanmmigo, an AI tutoring chatbot, Amira Learning, an AI literacy screener, and installed thousands of AI cameras across schools. Despite the aggressive expansion, the district has not said how it plans to keep students safe as it engages with new technologies.

For Trindalah DeLane-Smith, senior site director at Hopeworks Newark, that’s the key: teaching young adults to use AI as a tool rather than a shortcut.

“They are learning the platforms, they use AI as a tool, but they’re learning how to develop and build these platforms from scratch,” DeLane-Smith added.

Hopeworks' Newark trainees have access to Dell’s GenAI mock interview tool that puts their interview skills to the test.

Trainees also use Dell’s GenAI mock interview tool, which launched at Hopeworks Newark last week. The virtual assistant watches program trainees’ posture, eye contact, and interview responses, then generates a scorecard with tips on how to improve their interviews.

Although Williams hasn’t used the new tool yet, she is eager to put her skills to the test. She said she often gets nervous during job interviews but thinks interviewing with an AI tool first would help her feel more comfortable.

Rhoton says that’s another benefit of training the next generation to use AI. His team found that young adults will often play it safe with a human interviewer because they want the job. But with AI, they feel like they can fail, reset, and try a completely different approach to the interview with much less risk.

“I don’t know about you but I’m not really worried about what the AI thinks. Whereas this human, maybe an executive from J.P. Morgan, I’m going to do everything very buttoned up,” Rhoton added.

Across its three locations, Hopeworks currently places 20 to 30 young adults into jobs each month. At its Camden and Philadelphia sites, graduates earn an average salary of $43,276 and retain jobs at a 92.11% rate after 12 months, according to the organization’s 2025 impact report.

Trindalah DeLane-Smith, senior site director at Hopeworks Newark, said it's important to teach young adults to use AI as a tool rather than a shortcut.

Most recently, DeLane-Smith said a trainee who is still completing her internship was offered a job at pocstock, an AI company that shares Hopeworks’ Newark building. The trainee met the company’s CEO in an elevator and impressed him enough that he invited her for an interview with plans to hire her full time.

As Williams enters her fourth month of the program and prepares for an internship, she also hopes she can impress tech companies. She said she finally feels ready to apply for new jobs and “put myself out there.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Anthropic unveils Claude for Teachers, joining OpenAI and Google in race to dominate classroom AI

2026-07-14T15:00:00+00:00

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Anthropic, one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence companies, is launching a version of its AI-powered assistant Claude for teachers, entering a race by technology companies to infuse AI into education.

Anthropic boasts that its product can incorporate academic standards from all 50 states, and teachers can use it to help devise lesson plans, personalize instructional materials to students, and harness data to improve instruction, according to a company news release.

Claude for Teachers joins Google, OpenAI, and Khan Academy — among others — in marketing AI products specifically to K-12 educators. The new product launched Tuesday and is available for free for verified educators in the U.S. It will also be piloted in Detroit Public Schools Community District for a study on educator well-being and practice.

Claude’s formal arrival into the classroom comes during a complicated moment at the intersection of technology and education. The American Federation of Teachers, the Trump administration, and Bill Gates have all encouraged educators to adopt AI. But a parent-led uprising against technology’s classroom presence is simultaneously gaining momentum, prompting some of the nation’s largest school districts to rethink how much time students spend in front of screens, as well as the contracts they’ve signed with huge players in ed tech.

Drew Bent, education lead for Anthropic, said that teachers using Claude’s educator product could, for example, pull in a student’s past assessment data and assignment data, along with past lesson plans, and ask Claude to build lesson plans for individual students based on that data — all while they’re sleeping.

In developing Claude for Teachers, Bent said Anthropic staff often heard that while teachers are already using AI to generate lesson plans, the plans generated were often detached from the content teachers actually needed to address. Anthropic’s tool will help teachers save time and toil less to improve student outcomes, he said.

“There’s a lot of evidence of what works well for teachers in terms of aligning with high-quality instructional materials, formative assessments, differentiated instruction,” he said. “But of course, if you have 30 students in your class, you’re not able to do all of that.”

Bent said Detroit was already using other Claude products, and in a “human-centric” way that impressed Anthropic, leading to the pilot program in the district that will start next school year. Anthropic will train teachers at a handful of schools in Claude for Teachers, and evaluate how the product may shape teaching practices in the district.

While AI companies have been eager to cement the technology’s status as a classroom staple, tech giants likely have a long way to go to quiet skeptics. Student-facing AI has raised questions about cheating and so-called cognitive offloading, a reference to the reliance on AI to complete tasks instead of using critical thinking skills.

Bent emphasized that Anthropic is focusing largely on teachers, and that most K-12 students can’t access the company’s Claude assistant, due to an age restriction for anyone under 18.

Daniel Buck, a research fellow at the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute, argued in a March blog post that if teachers outsource work to AI, “don’t be surprised when classroom community and academic outcomes rapidly deteriorate.”

Skeptics have also raised questions about student privacy in using AI, such as the risks they run when entering personal information into large language models such as Claude.

Anthropic is working with the American Federation for Teachers on aligning the product’s privacy practices with what the labor union has said will become a “gold standard” in best practices around safety, according to the news release.

Among the privacy features in Claude for Teachers: It won’t use conversations between the AI assistant and teacher accounts to train its AI, student information will be protected in a manner built to comply with the federal law governing student privacy, and privacy terms of service are written without jargon so teachers can understand what they’re signing up to use.

“It’s important that Anthropic is committing to these principles in their new Claude for Teachers — a tool designed by and for educators to assist them instructionally and hopefully give them more time for the human relationships at the heart of learning,” wrote AFT President Randi Weingarten in the company’s press release.

Weingarten has been walking a tightrope when it comes to AI. She’s called for a complete ban on student-facing AI in elementary grades while promoting teacher training in the technology. Just a day before calling for the ban, she toured a Newark school to witness Khanmigo, an AI chatbot from Khan Academy, in action.

While AFT is working with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic on privacy standards and AI training for educators, it is notably not working with Google, which has also developed its own AI training geared to teachers.

Utah’s state education board recently made a deal with the tech giant to bring Google’s AI, Gemini, to every K-12 school in the state, promising personalized instruction tools for educators.

It’s not yet clear whether one AI product reigns supreme in schools, but more teachers overall are using AI. Around 61% of teachers surveyed by Education Week reported in 2025 that they use the technology in some capacity, compared with 32% in 2024.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org.

How should schools use AI? Illinois is providing some guidance for teachers and districts.

2026-07-10T19:55:13+00:00

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Illinois state education officials issued a 400-page document Thursday that provides teachers with an extensive framework for using artificial intelligence responsibly in the classroom.

How the technology gets used in schools is ultimately up to district leaders and the guidance document emphasizes the importance of human relationships in teaching and learning. It also discloses that popular AI chatbots ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini assisted in early drafts of the framework.

Rather than releasing a state mandate, state lawmakers directed the Illinois State Board of Education to develop AI recommendations for district policymakers last year — a step a majority of states have already taken. That flexibility is by design, as the guidance emphasizes “informed decisions based on local context, capacity, and community priorities,” according to the state’s top education agency.

“Our responsibility is to help schools navigate new technologies in a way that strengthens instruction, protects students, and builds trust for informed AI use between districts and the families and communities they serve,” state Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said in a statement.

Educators across the country are grappling with how to ethically use the cutting-edge technology in the classroom. In some ways, Illinois is late to the game compared with much of the country.

At least 34 states have adopted some form of guidance on using AI in K-12 schools, according to AI for Education, an advocacy group that trains teachers on how to use AI responsibly. A handful of other states also issued guidance this month, including Oklahoma, which added restrictions on educators using AI to grade or discipline students.

Illinois’ document states that educators shouldn’t only ask if AI can do a task, but “whether its use supports the purposes of schooling.” Illinois’ guidance also lays out four main principles:

Emphasizing the importance of human interaction in teaching and learning
Acknowledging schools’ role in engaging with their communities civically
Delineating AI as a tool to inform teaching rather than replace it
Recognizing that informed use of AI requires schools to identify purposes that are “deliberate, context-sensitive, and locally determined”

Initial language for the guidance was created without AI, the ISBE document reads. Instead, officials relied on AI to provide links for sourcing, check over sections for conciseness, and give feedback on the guidance’s clarity. Much of those tasks were checked over by a human to ensure accuracy.

Throughout the document, the agency gives specific examples of how teachers can use AI to enrich their planning process depending on grade level. That includes writing more effective prompts for chatbots to assist with lesson plans.

It also provides examples of instances where teachers may encounter ethical issues, such as student data privacy, transparency about using AI in email communications, cultural bias, and misinformation spread through AI hallucinations — a term used to describe when a chatbot presents incorrect or fabricated information as factual.

Over the next school year, ISBE will continue to release further guidance to schools, as well as create professional training on how to implement the AI framework, according to the department. The current guidance includes multiple templates for districts to develop their own AI policies.

Along with the guidance, the legislation also tasks schools to include internet safety instruction about the dangers of inappropriate AI-generated content as a form of cyberbullying.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

Kamar Samuels asks NYC schools to pause software purchases until AI guidance is final

2026-07-08T20:48:39+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels asked principals this week to hold off on purchasing educational software until the Education Department finalizes guidance on artificial intelligence later this summer.

The software purchasing freeze is the most concrete step city officials have taken to limit schools’ access to AI and educational technology products amid growing pushback from families and educators over the potential harms for students.

Samuels made the request in a Monday email that was first Tweeted by independent journalist Susan Edelman and obtained by Chalkbeat.

“This necessary pause is part of our work to ensure proper protocols are in place while supporting our students and staff and making sure that any digital tool used in classrooms is properly assessed for safety and privacy,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said in an email.

The Education Department released its long-awaited initial AI guidance in March, sparking an outpouring of criticism that it did too little to curb AI use. Scores of parents and educators, along with more than half the members of the CIty Council, signed a push for an AI moratorium in city schools.

Samuels acknowledged in May that the city had “missed the mark” with its initial guidance and indicated that the final version would have more stringent rules on AI use, especially for younger students. Officials originally said the revised version would be released in June, but told the City Council last month that they were delaying it. The Education Department hasn’t given an updated timeline.

At the June hearing, Education Department officials struggled to answer questions about how many schools were using products with AI and which products they were using. With purchases largely made at the school level, they are not always tracked — an issue the state comptroller recently flagged as a significant concern. Officials have since sent out a survey asking schools which software products they use.

It’s not clear how many schools will be affected by the purchasing pause. Samuels noted that software required for “mandated services or school opening needs” would be exempt.

Several principals said the impact of the purchasing pause could be far-reaching at a time when school leaders are trying to get their plans in place for next year. Many schools rely on software programs for basic functions such as grades and attendance along with academic support.

Even when schools have used software programs for years, they often have to submit new purchase orders for the programs every year, making those programs potentially subject to the purchasing freeze.

One Manhattan principal, speaking on condition of anonymity to preserve their working relationship with district leadership, worried about the drastic changes so close to the start of the new school year and wished the Education Department could have finalized the guidance earlier.

“We have already built budgets, planned interventions, and made decisions about programs for next year,” the principal said. “Changing direction in July makes summer planning significantly more complicated and creates uncertainty about whether schools will have access to the tools they planned to use.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Randi Weingarten said Newark Public Schools visit confirmed her fears about AI in the classroom

2026-07-07T18:53:13+00:00

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American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said recently that her visit to Newark’s Park Elementary School reinforced her worry about screens and AI in schools.

The day after her Newark trip, she proceeded with a high-profile call for a ban on student-facing AI in elementary schools.

“The classroom is very quiet, and it’s basically a super duper tutoring center,” Weingarten said in June, recalling her visit to see Khanmigo, an AI chatbot created by Khan Academy, in action.

The comments followed an awkward juxtaposition for Weingarten, who leads the country’s second-largest teachers union. The AFT partnered with OpenAI and Microsoft last year to provide AI training to its members and has also promoted the use of Khanmigo.

But following her May visit, Weingarten called for classroom screen time limits and a tax on big tech as she unveiled a 10-point plan that calls for no screens for students in pre-K through second grade, a ban on AI chatbots through age 16, and project-based, experiential learning.

Weingarten isn’t alone in her skepticism of AI in schools and echoes broader concerns from researchers. Experts are also concerned that there is little research on whether AI tools like Khanmigo are actually helping students refine key skills in math and reading, even as Newark has pointed to its own data as evidence of student progress.

During her visit to Park Elementary, Weingarten said she was upfront with Superintendent Roger León about what she was about to say publicly. She spoke with teachers about her concerns directly and saw how they were using Khanmigo to teach students new skills in small groups rather than as a class. Afterwards, she spoke with students about their use of the tool, and they told her Khanmigo reinforced their skills instead of teaching them anything new.

There was one moment when students got excited, and it had nothing to do with Khanmigo. Students lit up only when a teacher pulled a few students aside to do a science experiment, Weingarten said in June, a contrast to the quiet screen-based instruction happening in the room.

Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, did not respond to comment.

In the fall of 2024, the district said students who used the AI tool during the pilot phase showed improvements in their math scores. But that data is self-reported by the district and has not been released publicly. During an interview with León in 2024, the superintendent said Khan Academy is helping the district analyze state testing data to determine the impact Khanmigo is having on student progress. The district is also using the tool to support tutoring efforts and help teachers “influence the academic program” in schools, León added.

Khan Academy’s founder, Sal Khan, has praised the district’s use of Khanmigo and awarded them the first-ever Khan Academy Award for Excellence and Innovation in April. But that same month, Khan had expressed disappointment with the chatbot’s performance in schools.

Newark, New Jersey’s largest school district, was among the first in the country to test Khanmigo at First Avenue School on students in grades 5-8 during the 2023-24 school year. At that time, the district said the tool was primarily used to support students in math, reading, and writing.

Among district schools, First Avenue had the second-highest math proficiency rate in spring 2024 state test scores, but it’s unclear how much of Newark’s use of Khanmigo actually impacted student progress.

That uncertainty hasn’t slowed its expansion across Newark. The district expanded Khanmigo to 13 other schools and grades 3-8 in the 2024-25 school year after receiving a $25,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Newark has also adopted other AI technologies in school, including Amira Learning, an AI literacy screener tool, and installed thousands of AI cameras districtwide.

The aggressive expansion of AI in schools comes as New Jersey prepares for the first year of phone-free schools this fall and Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s concerns about students’ safety online.

León, in a press release about Weingarten’s visit, said Newark’s approach to Khanmigo shows “how AI can strengthen teaching and learning when implemented thoughtfully and collaboratively.”

Chalkbeat Ideas Editor Matt Barnum contributed to this story.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Research on AI tutoring ran into a problem: Most students wouldn’t use it

2026-06-17T18:16:17+00:00

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A group of Stanford University researchers started with one question: Could a human tutor providing motivation and support get students to spend more time working with an AI literacy tutor?

The answer turned out be yes — but only between one and four minutes more per week. Many students never logged on at all.

That left the researchers with a different set of questions.

“A key finding that we weren’t even meaning to test is that having access to this AI tutor isn’t the same as using it,” said Carly Robinson, the lead author on the study released Wednesday and the director of research for the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Robinson said this doesn’t necessarily mean AI tutoring doesn’t work. “We never really got close enough to the dosage needed to find out.”

The study adds to a very limited research base for AI tools in education as many school districts are looking for ways to maintain or increase tutoring that costs less than hiring people to do the work. It also aligns with the experience of Khanmigo founder Sal Khan, who recently acknowledged that students didn’t engage much with the AI tutor he initially hoped would revolutionize education.

Robinson and her colleagues worked with two school districts serving high-poverty populations using the same AI learning platform in different tutoring settings. Neither the districts nor the learning platform are named in the study.

In one school district, elementary children were supposed to use the literacy tutor during homework time in an afterschool program. In the other, early elementary students were supposed to use the AI tutor during class time.

The learning platform provider said that students would show improvement in their reading skills with at least 30 minutes of use a week. The goal was for students to complete two 30-minute sessions each week.

Students were randomly assigned to either work independently with the AI tutor or with guidance from a specially trained person — afterschool program staff in one district and middle school students who were strong readers in the other — who could provide motivation and tech support.

Other research has found that the relationship between tutors and students can be a key factor in tutoring effectiveness. Researchers wanted to know if having human support would increase engagement with the tool and raise test scores over the course of the school year. They also thought they might learn that students working independently made more progress because they spent more time on the platform and less time chatting.

But it turned out both groups of students barely used the platform, and having a human tutor didn’t increase the likelihood that students would log on.

Students who did use the platform spent about 13 minutes in a session in the afterschool setting and almost 26 minutes in a session when they used it in class, enough time to probably derive some benefit, Robinson said.

But the low rate of participation meant students in the afterschool setting averaged only about two minutes a week on the platform when they worked independently and three minutes when working with a tutor. In the other district, younger students working independently in class averaged a little more than five minutes a week on the platform, which increased to almost 10 minutes a week when they worked with a tutor.

There was no meaningful difference in the reading scores of the two groups.

The bigger finding, Robinson said, was that many students didn’t log on most weeks. And those that did log on were more likely to already be higher performing and not identified for special education.

Researchers don’t know why students didn’t use the platform. Perhaps some didn’t find it engaging, or perhaps teachers directed students to spend their time in other ways. Those other activities may have been beneficial, Robinson said. The study didn’t compare outcomes for students who used the platform and who didn’t use the platform.

Robinson said she still sees enormous potential for digital tools to provide personalized instruction at scale. But before districts pay for a license, administrators need to look at more than whether there’s evidence a particular AI tool improves student learning.

“The challenge isn’t just building good AI tools,” Robinson said. “It’s really getting students to use them, and that seems to take the same type of intentional design that we’ve learned matters with other ed tech interventions and tutoring.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

For generations, more schooling meant better jobs. Could generative AI upend that bargain?

2026-06-04T20:45:44+00:00

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For more than a century, American education has been transformed by technology.

Various technological shifts have created the modern “knowledge economy,” in which workers with the most years of formal schooling tend to be the best-paid. Economists refer to this dynamic as the race between education and technology, and it’s why each generation of Americans has remained in school longer than the last. Our current education system has been built around this reality.

Enter generative AI, which is not like the technologies that automated parts of farm or factory work, and might not be like the computer or the internet. Instead, AI threatens to upend a paradigm that has existed for generations, in which the economy adapts to new technologies by demanding more education. In theory, AI could do the opposite by replacing large swaths of white-collar workers. That’s why this moment feels so perilous for students and schools.

To be clear, no one really knows how AI will change the economy. But at this moment of uncertainty it’s worth looking back at the historical interplay between technology, the economy, and schooling. Understanding how technology has already transformed education can help understand how it might do so again and why the onset of the AI era feels so different.

For the last century plus, technology in various forms has laid waste to certain farm, manufacturing, blue-collar, and other middle-income jobs. Instead, demand has grown for highly educated white-collar workers.

During this time, American schools and universities have raced to keep up with technology by expanding access. High school education opened up to most teenagers in the early 20th century. The growth of college education followed in later decades. During this time, the U.S. was far ahead of other countries in making schooling broadly accessible, which helped turn the country into an economic powerhouse.

“Because the American people were the most educated in the world, they were in the best position to invent, be entrepreneurial, and produce goods and services using advanced technologies,” wrote Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, in their classic 2008 book “The Race Between Education and Technology.”

The pressure for a more educated workforce continued apace in the following decades. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton liked to quip, “what you earn depends on what you learn.” This was a neat encapsulation of the new economic order.

In response, politicians of various stripes advanced policies aimed at preparing students for postsecondary education and knowledge-intensive work. Kindergarten classes reduced a focus on play and began emphasizing academic content. Schools were held accountable for test scores and graduation rates. High schools expanded college prep programs. Colleges began recruiting more students who wouldn’t have considered higher education previously.

Graphic shows the average years spent in school for 30-year olds, based on when they were born.

Ironically, during this time, there was little indication that technology itself was dramatically improving teaching and learning. In fact, there’s been a cycle of hype followed by disappointment when the radio, the TV, various “teaching machines,” and the computer fail to revolutionize schooling for the better.

Meanwhile, the economy’s voracious appetite for highly educated workers was not fully sated. For the last half century, Americans’ years of education have increased, but at a slower pace than in prior decades. Meanwhile, the relative wages of college-educated workers rose steadily through the early 2000s. This college wage premium — the advantage those with a degree have over other workers — has stopped growing recently but remains at historically high levels.

This has left a modern economy that is fairly polarized. There are many jobs that only require a high school education — like home health aides, retail clerks, warehouse stockers — but their wages are relatively low. Most well-paid professions typically demand a college degree or more: nurses, doctors, lawyers, college professors, business managers, accountants, and engineers.

This economic and educational revolution of the last several decades has led to vastly increased productivity and has benefited well-credentialed workers and the educational institutions that provide those skills and degrees. But it has not been kind to less-educated Americans and has likely contributed to growing income inequality.

The existential question now is whether generative artificial intelligence will change this economic paradigm. AI can already produce research, writing, and analysis previously assumed to be only doable by well-educated workers. One recent study had both educated and less-educated people complete a workplace-like problem-solving exercise. Without AI, the highly educated group did much better. With AI, that edge shrank substantially. That’s why some commentators prophesy a great “deskilling,” in which many well-paid white-collar workers get replaced by AI.

Education has value beyond its economic return. But if that return erodes, demand for the current offerings of American schooling, especially higher education, would likely decline — potentially leading to unprecedented disruption in an industry that has long assumed a growing customer base.

Yet this is hardly an inevitability. Maybe educated workers will be best able to avail themselves of AI. Or maybe the technology will wipe out some white-collar jobs, but expand and create others. Perhaps AI will mostly supplement rather than replace office work or it will prove less useful than some think.

While some claim that AI has already decimated the job prospects of young college graduates, the weight of the data does not support this narrative.

At this point, then, we simply don’t know how AI will reshape the economy and the jobs available to Americans. This leaves students and educators in the profoundly difficult position of preparing for an economic future that feels more uncertain than ever before.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

New York teachers union calls for aggressive limits on AI and screens for youngest students

2026-06-01T21:43:05+00:00

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The tide is quickly turning against screens and artificial intelligence in schools — at least in New York state.

The state’s teachers union is the latest to join the grassroots parent efforts to limit screens and AI, passing a resolution this weekend calling for a ban on individual students’ screen use in prekindergarten through second grade, including online assessments.

It also calls for banning student-facing AI for these young learners, as well as prohibiting AI chatbots for students under 16.

Gov. Kathy Hochul also expressed concerns on Monday about screen time in schools.

The resolution from New York State United Teachers, or NYSUT, which is the umbrella union of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, comes on the heels of a push for a nationwide strategy to curb technology use in schools from its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers. AFT President Randi Weingarten last week called for similar limits in her “devices-down, eyes-up, hands-on” plan.

The resolution from the state teachers union comes as New York City is rethinking its policies on artificial intelligence in schools. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels recently called AI the “most invasive technology that we’ve seen” and signaled the Education Department may create clearer guardrails for the city’s youngest students, after significant criticism of the city’s initial draft policy.

“Educators are not anti-technology. We are pro-child,” NYSUT President Melinda Person said in a statement on Monday. “Every decision made in the name of innovation must actually serve the students in our classrooms.”

Meanwhile, Hochul said Monday that it is “definitely worth looking into” limiting screen time for younger students. She would take a similar approach to studying this as she did before implementing banning cell phones, she said at a press conference celebrating the first year of the state’s school cellphone ban.

“I spent a year going around the state, gathering information, assessing it, analyzing it, and coming up with a really solid policy,” Hochul said, “so I would engage in that before I would give an answer on how I feel about this, but I’m learning a lot as a parent and grandparent.”

Several districts or states are limiting or looking into limiting screens in schools. Los Angeles schools are moving to ban screens until second grade. Iowa recently passed a law limiting screens in schools. Tennessee and other states are considering limits.

How the national backlash to education technology will affect classrooms in the nation’s largest school district remains to be seen. An upper Manhattan superintendent instituted a “screen break” last week at a parent advocate’s request. But the state teachers union is pressing for broader change.

NYSUT’s resolution, for instance, calls for banning online assessments for young children. Since the pandemic, schools across the five boroughs have been giving students assessments in reading and math three times a year to gauge their progress. Many schools use online tools from i-Ready or MAP Growth starting in kindergarten for the math assessments. (The Acadience Reading assessment for K-2 students is not device-based.)

As New York transitions to digital standardized exams for students across the state in grades 3-8, some educators have raised concerns that test preparation will increasingly rely on devices, too. The union’s resolution calls on the state to maintain paper and pencil options.

Students are “spending excessive time preparing for computer-based testing, completing mandated screen-based programs, and engaging in passive technology use that interrupts student-teacher engagement,” the resolution states.

A spokesperson for the state’s Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The union’s resolution also calls for requiring that using AI in any grade must be “educator-led” and designed to “promote critical thinking, digital literacy, and civic readiness, rather than replace human instruction, creativity or judgment.”

Teacher unions are also trying to walk a tightrope as they navigate the latest education technology backlash. The AFT and New York City’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, launched a partnership last year with OpenAI and Microsoft to help train educators.

“There are conversations at every level about how to scale back screen time for students, especially our youngest,” Mary Vaccaro, the UFT’s vice president for education, said in a statement.

“At the same time, the UFT and its national union, the AFT, are trying to help educators better understand and navigate AI, whether that’s learning how to protect their students or how to harness the tool for their own work.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

In the era of AI, schools want students to think critically. Experts say they need knowledge to do so.

2026-05-28T20:40:02+00:00

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On a recent Tuesday morning, dozens of New York City educators gathered in lower Manhattan to discuss an existential issue facing many schools: “Navigating Critical Thinking and Cognitive Offloading in the Age of AI,” as the session’s title put it.

As the training began, nearly everyone raised their hand when asked if they agreed that “critical thinking is an essential skill that we need to teach our students.” Over the course of the day, the teachers considered how to prompt an AI chatbot to get better responses and assess its accuracy. They discussed the risks that students would outsource their thinking to the technology. And they learned about classroom practices to bolster critical thinking, including peer tutoring, socratic discussions, and live journaling.

The professional development was put on by the National Academy for AI Instruction, a multimillion-dollar initiative launched by the American Federation of Teachers and backed by AI companies Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

I sat in on this training, and many teachers I spoke with said they appreciated its message and strategies. But one important idea was largely missing: that critical thinking is directly connected to the content in math, history, and science classes. This is an essential reality often absent from discussions about how schools should respond to the spread of generative AI.

Indeed, the common refrain that teachers should focus on abstract critical thinking skills, disconnected from content, risks de-emphasizing the very thing — fluency with a broad set of facts — that supports critical thinking.

“Domain knowledge is a crucial driver of thinking skill,” wrote University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham in 2020 for the American Educator, a publication of the American Federation of Teachers. “Critical thinking for open-ended problems is enabled by extensive stores of knowledge.”

As technology has made knowledge more accessible — through books, Google, and now generative AI — some observers have said that schools should place less of an emphasis on basic facts that are easy to look up. “Education in the 21st century must go beyond imparting knowledge,” says the World Economic Forum. Instead, schools must impart “future-ready skills” like critical thinking and creativity.

This isn’t a new idea. Over a decade ago, a panel of academics at the National Research Council convened to consider how schools could inculcate “deeper learning” and “21st century skills,” the buzzwords of that moment. Tellingly, though, the experts reframed this assignment. “The committee views 21st century skills as dimensions of expertise that are specific to — and intertwined with — knowledge within a particular domain,” their 2012 report concluded.

To be sure, there are some skills — communication, personal organization, teamwork — that are useful in many settings and subjects. And decontextualized facts — say, memorizing the presidents without a sense of their place in history — aren’t sufficient for critical thinking.

Yet to solve math problems, students must know their times tables. To infer the causes of historical events, they need familiarity with dates and historical figures. To read and analyze complex texts, they need a wide vocabulary. To think critically, say cognitive scientists, people need to be able to seamlessly access and synthesize a large number of basic facts.

Students can look up some missing information, but when people turn to external sources too frequently, the brain struggles to keep track of all the new facts at once. Imagine reading a book and pausing every few sentences to search for an unfamiliar word or idea.

There’s not yet good reason to assume any of this will change with AI. The technology can help find new information, but knowledge is still necessary to prompt AI appropriately, to assess the accuracy of its output, and to apply it to specific tasks.

When I spoke with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, she said that knowledge certainly matters but that “what [AI] compels is that kids really have to learn how to think and how to solve problems.” She offered a similar formulation in a major speech earlier this week.

For example, elementary school students should engage in civics by researching a topic and then figuring out how to push local politicians to make change, Weingarten told me. “Maybe there are other issues or other facts within social studies curriculum that are going to have to be dropped,” she said.

Maria Elena Guzman, one of the AFT Academy instructors, said that the role of knowledge was not foregrounded in the training because teachers already know they have to teach their content-focused standards. “It’s a given. This is part of the work that they do every single day,” she said.

But if teachers are not taught explicitly about the connection between knowledge and critical thinking, some may leave with the impression that factual content matters less than it used to, especially since this remains an evergreen take of popular education commentators.

Jessie Roeder, a high school robotics and computer science teacher in New York City, appreciates the AFT’s effort to help members navigate the complexities of using AI. He’s already attended four trainings put on by the Academy. During the critical thinking session, he raised the importance of knowledge for using AI effectively.

“You have to know enough to be able to say, wait a second, this is BS,” he later told me.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Randi Weingarten backs crackdown on classroom technology, AI restrictions, and a tax on Big Tech

2026-05-27T15:58:44+00:00

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Calling for classroom screen time limits, a tax on big tech companies, and a ban on student-facing artificial intelligence in elementary schools, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten urged a unified, nationwide strategy to curb technology use in schools.

Labeling technology as a “major reason” young people “are drowning,” Weingarten said the Trump administration has turned away from its core responsibilities in American education.

In a nearly hour-long speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Weingarten also laid out a 10-point plan she said would boost learning in an “age of AI.”

“What I’m calling for is getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms,” she said.

Like many education leaders and officials, Weingarten is walking a tightrope when it comes to AI and education. She’s simultaneously encouraging its use by teachers while lamenting how it may encourage students to rely on AI for thinking and tasks they’d otherwise do in school, a process she called “cognitive offloading.”

The warning from Weingarten that unleashing AI in the classroom without intention will have disruptive effects comes a year after the AFT announced a partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft to provide training to its members. At the time, Weingarten said in a press conference that teachers faced “huge challenges” in navigating AI “wisely, ethically and safely.”

“The question was whether we would be chasing it or whether we would be trying to harness it,” she said in July 2025.

Weingarten described concerns over AI’s effects on learning and the recent backlash to screen time in schools as common causes.

In calling for a complete ban on screens in classrooms from prekindergarten to second grade as well as on the use of student-facing AI for young students, Weingarten cited research from neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, who has become one of the most prominent voices in the movement to ban software he’s deemed harmful to learning.

Even so, Weingarten said the technology likely has a place in education.

“I’m wary of the dangers of AI, but it is here to stay. We need enforceable guardrails, and we need to question the destruction to people’s lives, but that’s not enough,” she said. “It is equally essential to make sure educators understand AI and have a say in its use in education and in our profession.”

Just a day before Weingarten’s remarks calling for a ban on student-facing AI in elementary schools, Newark Public Schools issued a press release about her visit to the school district to see how elementary students were using Khanmigo, an AI-powered chatbot.

Although the creator of Khanmigo has expressed disappointment with the chatbot’s performance in schools, Newark students praised the technology, and Weingarten in the release said she spent time learning how schools were integrating the technology into their classrooms.

On Wednesday, she used a much more negative tone about AI.

“Students need their teachers, real human beings, not robots, and not chatbots,” she said.

One of the elements of her 10-point plan is a tax on the earnings of big tech companies to “ensure they pay their fair share for the adverse and disruptive consequences” on Americans, including workers displaced because of AI.

The AFT leader said that Microsoft and OpenAI have agreed “in principle to our overarching tenets and standards.” But Andrew Crook, a spokesperson for AFT, said Wednesday after her speech that did not mean they’d agreed to the tax part of the plan — the labor union did not ask the corporations about that, he said.

Other parts of her 10-point plan include:

A redesign of schooling to prioritize active learning, including project-based and more career-oriented education. Weingarten specifically said that should include redesigning accountability systems to measure student progress to match this priority.
“A new gold standard for safety and privacy” in the use of AI. Weingarten said providers who don’t meet such standards shouldn’t be eligible to be used in K-12 classrooms.
An independent research consortium to examine AI’s effects on education and technology’s effects on students. Weingarten suggested that the consortium should be funded through public and philanthropic dollars.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org.

In the AI era, NYC schools need a computer science reboot, this expert says

2026-05-26T16:51:36+00:00

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A decade ago, New York City officials promised that all schools would have access to “meaningful” computer science education by this school year.

Computer Science for All, known as CS4All, also had particular equity goals of reaching girls and students of color.

The share of students enrolled in computer science classes has quadrupled from roughly 5.5%, or 54,000, in 2016, to 20%, or more than 193,000, in 2024. And CS4All made gains in growing the number of underrepresented students. Still, just 1 in 5 schools citywide are meeting CS4All’s goals for girls, Latinos, and Black students, according to a data brief released Tuesday from the Center for an Urban Future, a New York City-based think tank.

Though the initiative “still has unfinished business,” the timing is also ripe for CS4All 2.0, said Eli Dvorkin, the center’s editorial and policy director, who believes that the city’s education system needs to rethink its approach to computer science in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Just because entry-level coding work is in serious decline, it doesn’t mean that demand for computational thinking is going away,” Dvorkin said. Instead, “every teacher should be able to prepare young people to think critically and solve problems and use judgement on whether and when to use AI tools and how they work and why.”

He acknowledged the “understandable concerns” many parents have about how much screen time their children are spending in school. But he believes that “evidence-based” computer science education is an antidote to passive screen time.

“I think there’s a very real chance that Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani’s legacy will be shaped in part by how our public school system adapts to the AI era,” Dvorkin said, “and that means a strategy to a retool computational-thinking education for the world we inhabit right now.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

There’s been some progress in the number of computer science classes offered in the city, but did the program meet the goals outlined 10 years ago?

New York City has done something genuinely impressive. More than 90% of schools now offer computer science, up from a tiny handful a decade ago, but access is not the same thing as participation. Our data shows that just 20% of student students were actually enrolled in computer science classes.

The data also shows that the city is still pretty far from the original promise of computer science for all: Just about 19% of schools are meeting CS4all equity and participation goals. So that’s why now is the time for the Mamdani administration to launch a CS4all 2.0 that should focus on closing the gaps that remain in participation, equity, and teacher preparation, and move toward integrating computational thinking across the curriculum.

Now that we’re at the 10-year mark, is the program over?

At the school-level and even centrally, there’s still an effort underway to continue to build on the work of CS4all, but in terms of a unifying centralized effort to advance this work, learning from the successes in the challenges of the first decade, and charting a path forward for the next one, we’re not there yet.

And this is a risky moment for the country ‘s largest public school system to be without an organizing effort around computing education.

The school system did put out some preliminary guidance around the use of AI in schools. It’s important work. But this is, I think, the even bigger challenge: What should the New York City public school system’s computing education strategy look like in the AI-era?

The goal can’t simply be to teach some students to code in 11th through 12th grade. In fact, that kind of technical knowledge may be in rapid freefall right now with the rise of generative AI.

But AI also raises the bar for embedding computational thinking across the whole curriculum so that every young person learns how to think critically and ask hard questions and solve problems with computers. That’s the only way to ensure that our young people are able to graduate from high school capable of fully understanding these powerful systems that are shaping our lives. Computer science education can’t just mean a coding elective for some.

As you say, the city’s AI framework is one piece. But how we educate kids should be an urgent part of this conversation, too, especially as we see the world changing and the job force changing.

It feels like a lot of the conversation is focused on being for or against technology.

At a time when AI tools are flooding into students’ lives both at school and at home, the answer isn’t simply more devices or more apps. I think most parents and teachers would agree, it’s certainly not more screen time. But it is deeper computational fluency — the ability to understand, question, and shape technology rather than just consume it. That’s computing education done right.

I think there’s a misperception that advocating for evidence-based, age-appropriate, and even joyful computing education is simply synonymous with more screen time. That couldn’t be further from the truth. But we need a teaching workforce in New York City that is equipped to integrate computational thinking — the building blocks of computing education— into every young person’s classroom experience.

I think a lot of people — perhaps even teachers — would be surprised that you can teach computational thinking without screens.

There’s a growing body of evidence that shows the dangers of exposing young children to too much screen time. But that doesn’t mean deferring computing education until later. That means we have to be much more creative about how we can integrate a computing education into classroom settings without screens.

There is a program at CUNY’s colleges of education called CITE — computing integrated teacher education. And what CITE does is equip CUNY professors that are teaching our future K-12 teachers to integrate computational thinking and learning into their pedagogy. The power of this model is pretty profound because about a third of all new public school teachers in New York City every year are hired out of CUNY.

We’re now at a point where the first participants in CITE programs have actually been entering the classroom as student teachers or they’re beginning their first full-time teaching assignments.

With the screen time and AI backlash, do you think there will be an appetite to push for CS4all 2.0?

I think the backlash against screen time actually strengthens the case for CS4all 2.0. Parents are right to worry about passive, addictive, and poorly governed technology use in our classrooms. But the answer is not to leave students less prepared to understand technology, it’s to teach them how technology really works, how to question it, think critically about it, and how to use it responsibly and creatively.

So one key question is: Are New York City public school students going to be the people of the future who will shape how that technology is created and deployed?

I think the argument is strong that our future economy will only become more bifurcated between roles that require sophisticated computational thinking skills — including the critical thinking and judgment skills that should be an essential part of a CS4all 2.0 — and low wage work that does not pay enough to enable New Yorkers to afford life in the most expensive city in America.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Philly middle schoolers are examining AI — and questioning its impact on their lives

2026-05-08T18:21:54+00:00

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The middle schoolers at Philly’s Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy have a lot of questions about artificial intelligence.

They want to know how the government is using AI and what impact the technology has on the environment. They’re curious about how it’s being used for creativity, and whether it will be with us forever — or if it’s an economic bubble waiting to burst.

The sixth through eighth graders have been researching these topics and grappling with how it makes them feel about themselves, their education, and the world around them. On Friday, they presented their findings to their parents, teachers, and some state and local officials in their school cafeteria. Overall, they said there’s a lot they still don’t know.

Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy sixth grader Azizah Simmons researched how AI is affecting kids her age.

Sixth grader Azizah Simmons said she’s weighed the pros and cons and she’s pretty confident that AI’s overall effect on our society is negative. If used correctly, Simmons said language models like ChatGPT could help kids her age improve their writing. More often than not, she said students use it to cheat on homework or cut corners on writing assignments.

But it’s the ubiquity of the technology that worries her most.

“You can’t really escape AI,” Simmons said.

Conversations about AI have permeated every aspect of education since the arrival of models like ChatGPT. Familiar debates about cheating have given way to protests about transparency and student surveillance. Marketing pitches from companies promising “transformative” AI tools are now overwhelming superintendents’ inboxes. In Philly, educators are working with students to build their own curriculum to separate truth from AI slop, and confront the bias that can be embedded deep in the internal code.

And students say they feel like they have as much knowledge — or sometimes more — than the adults in their lives.

Sixth graders Thomas Mapp and Tyshaan Anderson’s research project focused on how video game designers use AI for level design, character creation, and visuals. Outside of school, they’ve been using AI to help them code games in Roblox and edit videos.

Anderson said he thinks the technology has helped kids like him experiment with creative fields like game design without needing to know the ins and outs of specific coding languages.

Marian Anderson Principal Nicole Patterson said she’s been inspired by her students’ civic inquiries and has learned a lot from them.

Patterson said she sees her school as a trailblazer in leading challenging conversations about AI. But she cautioned that “this is unfinished work.” She said students will continue their research and keep talking about these issues.

Marian Anderson computer science and technology teacher Trey Smith said the goal of Friday’s event was to help students and parents discuss how AI is now part of society, culture, politics, and everyday life, not just about how AI works.

“We’re all still trying to figure this out together,” Smith said. “For students to be in dialogue, not just with themselves and each other and me, but also with their families and with legislators and with school district officials and professors — I think it’s so important for them to learn together.”

That learning process can be tricky. Simmons said she ends up using AI involuntarily because search engines like Google now frontload AI overviews. That makes it difficult for young users to differentiate between what is a primary source link and what is AI generated.

“You use it without meaning to. It’s everywhere implanted in our lives,” Simmons said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

The AI rebellion grows in NYC: Over 100 New Yorkers demand moratorium on AI use in schools at marathon board meeting

2026-05-01T19:15:03+00:00

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Despite New York City’s last-minute withdrawal of a controversial proposal for a new artificial intelligence-centered high school, parents, students, and educators packed this week’s school board meeting to speak on AI anyway.

More than 100 New Yorkers testified at a nearly seven-hour-long meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, earlier this week.

Community members repeatedly argued that the Education Department is rolling out AI tools without clear rules, transparency, or adequate knowledge of the technology. Students said AI was already reshaping classrooms, and surveillance practices, like the digital bathroom hall pass technology, are already in use at 150 city schools. Educators expressed concern that the increasing use of various technologies in schools conflicts with the preliminary AI schools policy the city released in March.

One parent from Park Slope approached the microphone with her two toddlers in tow, holding one in her arm while clasping the other tightly by the hand.

“I’ve never been an activist before, but I feel so strongly about this: It is starting. Gen Z is turning against AI; I’m turning against AI. The city is telling us that AI is inevitable, but won’t tell me what devices and applications my children are using. You tell us you are spending our money to give artificial intelligence to our children?” she said to a chorus of cheers at Wednesday night’s packed meeting.

The PEP’s voting agenda had little to do with AI. It centered on the Education Department’s capital plan, the estimated budget for the coming year, and the updated Fair Student Funding weights that shape how money flows to schools. The panel also voted on 30 separate contract agreements, from cafeteria equipment repairs to special education services.

But the bulk of the seven-hour meeting involved parents, children, and educators arguing against the city’s spending on AI and educational technology contracts and the city’s preliminary AI policy. Although the Next Generation High School proposal was removed from Wednesday’s agenda following backlash over its AI focus and selective admissions, speakers said those concerns would extend to future school plans.

“Many feel AI is teaching a dangerous message that results matter more than the learning process. Some of the most important learning happens when students struggle, make mistakes, ask questions, and improve over time,” said student panel member Julia Nasef, of Staten Island’s Tottenville High School.

AI discussions surface issues with current Department of Education process

Throughout the night, speakers expressed waning confidence in the Education Department’s vetting process for AI tools and its ability to protect students, educators, and families from a complex and rapidly-changing technology.

Most of the speakers were opposed to any AI in the classroom.

Panel for Educational Policy Chair Greg Faulkner admitted on Wednesday that he was a “baby boomer” with limited understanding of AI, and that he wanted more thorough engagement with both the community and Education Department in future AI-related proposals.

But he also thought that Chancellor Kamar Samuel’s move to pull the AI-focused school proposal for Next Generation High School aligns with the schools chief’s priority to better engage and respond to the needs of local communities.

“Under previous administrations, the general assumption was that the panel votes yes on all DOE proposals. But the chancellor’s decision and the panel’s back-and-forth discussion on Wednesday showed us that the old model isn’t working anymore,” Faulkner told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Faulkner said the “AI question” has him considering proposing changes to some of the Education Department’s policy-making processes. He said he would like the panel to work more closely with the department’s AI policy authors — the names of whom are not public — so the panel can get up to speed on AI research and better share community concerns.

Education Department officials said that the initial AI guidance was shaped by the Department’s central Academics and Instruction team, with input from stakeholders and various internal Department subcommittees.

“We have not had any briefings on AI research, and while I am concerned about a moratorium, I don’t know enough about this technology,” said Faulkner.

Nasef, the student PEP member, said at the meeting that many of her peers acknowledge that AI can be helpful when used “intentionally” to help them understand math and science concepts, for example.

She urged the panel to “support clear, student‑centered guidelines for AI implementation.”

The city’s framework, released last month, did not include guidance on how or if students can use AI for homework, nor did it differentiate AI use for students in different grades

Panel greenlights controversial tech contracts as AI policy lags

Of the 30 contract proposals up for a vote, three included three educational technology products. Just one was voted down.

One of the contracts approved covered the full line of K-12 digital learning products from Kaplan, a global educational services company that has recently rolled out AI add-ons in their digital test prep products. Several speakers who testified at Wednesday’s meeting mentioned the company’s recent privacy breach affecting the personal information of 1.4 million people across seven states. Despite those concerns, the PEP approved the company’s $500,000 contract.

A representative for Age of Learning, an AI-based software tailored to early childhood education up for contract vote, spoke at the meeting. He assured panel members that the software could be “turned off at any point” because “teachers have complete control of what is going on in the classroom.” This was the only contract that the PEP voted against.

Naveed Hasan, the panel’s de-facto technology expert who had previously supported the AI-focused high school, announced at the meeting that he now supports a two-year moratorium on AI use in schools, saying the city needs more time to address data privacy infrastructure and learning concerns.

The term limits of all current panel members expire at the end of June. The Education Department’s full AI policy is also expected to be released that month, and the Education Department is asking families and educators for input on its early framework through May 8.

Lizzie Walsh is a Data Fellow at Chalkbeat New York. She reports on New York City education and produces data-driven stories across Chalkbeat’s national network. Contact her at ewalsh@chalkbeat.org.

How the AI-enabled race for taxpayer money starts in a superintendent’s inbox

2026-04-29T11:00:00+00:00

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Strange meetings keep appearing on Heidi Sipe’s Google calendar.

The superintendent for the Umatilla School District in eastern Oregon never requested these meetings. But sales representatives selling education technology have found their way onto her calendar anyway. Sipe says it’s the latest tactic from education technology companies racing for her district’s business.

Read the full story here.

NYC pulls contentious proposals to open AI-themed high school, close Upper West Side middle schools

2026-04-27T10:30:00+00:00

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In a major reversal, New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels is withdrawing controversial proposals to open the city’s first artificial intelligence-focused high school, close two middle schools, and relocate another.

The plan to open Next Generation Technology High School as a selective school in downtown Manhattan drew fierce community opposition in recent months. The city also saw intense backlash to its proposals for a slew of Upper West Side schools: to close the middle schools of P.S. 191 and Manhattan School for Children, and to relocate The Center School.

All four proposals were scheduled for a vote Wednesday in front of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP. Withdrawing the proposals makes it nearly impossible for them to take effect next school year.

Samuels, who’s entering his fourth month as chancellor under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, said he believes all of the proposals “met multiple goals” but decided it wasn’t fair to advance them so quickly after a major leadership transition. Instead, he hopes to revisit the proposals later on, with a stronger plan for hearing community feedback.

“These proposals were always ambitious,” Samuels told Chalkbeat in an interview Sunday. “I think when you have a transition and you’re hearing simultaneously that families want more time, I want to be a chancellor who listens and engages and understands the complexity of all of the issues.”

The proposals represented an early and personal challenge for the chancellor, who previously served as superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, where he helped get the ball rolling for the Upper West Side school proposals. As superintendent, Samuels developed a reputation for shepherding complicated school merger proposals to the finish line.

Multiple PEP members expressed serious concerns about the proposals directly to Samuels in recent days, according to several panel members. Chairperson Greg Faulkner penned a letter asking Samuels to withdraw the proposal for Next Generation High School, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat. The panel’s main criticism was over the school’s designation as a “screened” school, raising concerns about equity and access.

Samuels said he didn’t withdraw the proposals because of concerns they would not clear the panel’s vote. But losing a high-profile vote could have complicated Mamdani’s campaign pledge to run the school system in a more democratic fashion, especially while pushing to retain control of the school system.

Mamdani is lobbying state lawmakers for a four-year renewal of mayoral control, which expires in June, and an extension of the city’s deadline for complying with the class size law — arguments that hinge in part on his ability to convince them he will be responsive to community needs. (An agreement on mayoral control could be included in the state budget, which is overdue and expected to be finalized soon.)

The Upper West Side proposals were meant to help stabilize flagging enrollment while clearing out space for an overcrowded school to meet the class size requirements, city officials said. But parents and community members from all three schools decried the plans, arguing officials didn’t do enough to engage parents and that the moves would undermine critical support for vulnerable students. Several elected officials planned to hold a press conference Monday morning to oppose the plans.

Meanwhile, the proposal for Next Generation Technology High School, often called “Next Gen,” generated pushback from some families concerned about the role of AI in schools — tapping into a larger debate roiling the city and country.

Education Department officials recently introduced a draft AI playbook that largely sidestepped thorny questions about how to regulate student AI use and drew intense criticism from some parents who feared it encouraged schools to embrace untested technology. Samuels said he wants to focus on finishing that guidance before crafting proposals for schools like Next Gen.

“We have to ensure that any future proposal of a model like Next Gen high school fits the needs of the broader community and aligns with our AI guidance,” he said.

Officials had already solicited applications from eighth graders to Next Gen, though they hadn’t yet offered admission.

Next Gen raises questions about AI, equity

Officials had been moving swiftly to open Next Gen, a selective Lower Manhattan school geared toward preparing students for jobs in cyber security, computer science, robotics, and math. It would also teach students to be “builders as well as ethical users of AI and other modern technologies,” according to the city’s proposal for the school.

Supporters of selective schools, which typically admit students based on their middle school course grades, said the program would allow students to explore an emerging technology and help prepare them for competitive tech jobs.

But critics argued the school’s planning process was rushed, its mission was unclear, and it could enable companies like Google and OpenAI to influence how AI is used in city classrooms. Both companies were part of the school’s planning team, and Manhattan High Schools Superintendent Gary Beidleman said his experience as a Google Education Innovation Fellow in 2024 inspired his decision to push for the new program.

Some panel members raised concerns that the school was slated to admit students based on their academic records rather than being open to anyone and pressed officials about why the campus was planned for Lower Manhattan as opposed to higher-need areas of the city.

“If they’re talking about this technology really being something that is going to become more global … why would we be exclusive in who can have access?” said Faulkner, the chair.

Panel members raised the idea of introducing an AI literacy course that could be used across multiple schools, rather than concentrating on a single standalone school.

Faulkner added that he worries about opening more screened schools “that have historically segregated” students.

Samuels said he believes the city’s current system for deciding admission to selective schools, which groups students into five tiers based on their seventh grade marks, is working.

“I’m not necessarily looking to make major changes to screens in high school,” he said.

Panel members were also frustrated with how top officials handled public discussions about the school. Several pointed out that district officials’ communication about the school seemed to suggest it was already approved, even though it hadn’t yet cleared a panel vote.

Under the city’s original proposal, Next Generation would have taken the place of the Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women, which currently enrolls just 91 students. The city is still moving forward with plans to close that school.

Families at a middle school on the same campus, Lower Manhattan Community School, had also raised concerns about Next Generation because they have long pushed for space in the building to make the school a program for grades 6-12 rather than 6-8.

District 3 proposals test city’s commitment to parent engagement

The move to withdraw three controversial proposals in District 3 came after months of outcry from families and educators in the district. They argued the process felt rushed and the timing of the decision would force families who planned to enroll in the two middle school programs slated for closure, P.S. 191 and the Manhattan School for Children, to scramble to find new schools for this fall.

Some families at P.S. 191 felt the school, which enrolled many asylum-seeking children, had not been properly supported by the city’s Education Department. The Manhattan School for Children developed a reputation for including students with disabilities in classes alongside their general education peers. Families feared they would not be able to find similarly welcoming campuses elsewhere.

Meanwhile, city officials contended that the middle schools were too small to be sustainable and offer solid academic programming. P.S. 191’s middle school currently enrolls 126 students, while the Manhattan School for Children has about 130, according to state data.

Yet the pushback put Samuels in an awkward position because Mamdani came into office promising to give families and educators a voice in the policy process.

For his part, Samuels said he wanted to give the acting superintendent of District 3, Reginald Higgins, time to develop his own strategy and build public support.

“He and all the superintendents around the city have to engage locally to collectively come up with proposals that will benefit everyone — and I think I want to give him a chance to do that,” Samuels said.

The administration has shown a willingness to back away from controversial proposals — including a fourth one for the district.

Last month, the city withdrew plans to close the Community Action School after a Center School mom made a racist remark caught on a hot mic while a Community Action Student was testifying at a public meeting. That episode drew international attention and prompted Samuels to promise an expansion of the Education Department’s Black studies curriculum and new parent training.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Why Sal Khan’s AI revolution hasn’t happened yet, according to Sal Khan

2026-04-09T21:11:13+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.

Three years ago, as Khan Academy founder Sal Khan rolled out an AI-powered tutoring chatbot, he predicted a revolution in learning.

So far, the revolution hasn’t happened, he acknowledges.

“For a lot of students, it was a non-event,” Khan told me recently about his eponymous chatbot, Khanmigo. “They just didn’t use it much.”

Khan gives this analogy: Imagine he walked into a class, sat in the back of the room, and waited for students to seek out help. “Some will; most won’t,” he said. That’s been the experience with AI tutoring, he said. It doesn’t necessarily make students motivated to learn or fill in gaps in knowledge needed to ask questions.

Khan’s comments are an acknowledgement that AI has not quickly allowed for the creation of an effective super-tutor, as some initially hoped. It’s an early indication of the limits of AI to drive massive learning gains, long an unrealized goal of various technologies. While Khan remains optimistic about various uses of AI in education, he’s also come to see its limits.

“I just view it as part of the solution; I don’t view it as the end-all and be-all,” Khan said in our interview.

In the summer of 2022, OpenAI leaders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman reached out to Sal Khan. They were months away from releasing ChatGPT, and were hoping Khan Academy — a large nonprofit that works with schools across the country — could showcase the technology’s potential benefits. “I didn’t realize it yet, but the world was about to be turned upside down,” Khan wrote in his 2024 book “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing).”

OpenAI provided Khan Academy with early access to a more advanced AI model, GPT-4. With that the Khan Academy team then built a specialized chatbot, Khanmigo, designed to help students learn and restricted from simply giving them the answer. Khan himself quickly became an evangelist for the technology’s uses in schools.

“We’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” Khan said in a widely viewed TED Talk in 2023. “The way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”

He suggested that eventually AI could turn the average student into an academic standout, citing a seminal but controversial 1984 study on the value of individualized tutoring.

Khan also appeared in a “60 Minutes” segment that featured northwest Indiana’s Hobart High School, which was an early adopter of Khanmigo.

Kristen Musall, a geometry teacher at Hobart High, gave Khanmigo a try when it first rolled out. Musall appreciated its encouraging, teacher-like tone, but she found that students didn’t really care for the bot. They found it frustrating — Khanmigo sometimes made mistakes, but also wouldn’t give away the answer. “If students don’t engage with the material enough to know what they’re looking for, then an AI like Khanmigo doesn’t necessarily help,” she recently told me.

Musall no longer uses Khanmigo in her class. She says there’s been more enthusiasm for the product among administrators than teachers in her school.

A few of Musall’s most advanced students have taken advantage of AI to learn new topics. But, as far as she can tell, more students are using it to just find answers, which has created a massive headache for teachers. Nationally, a majority of teenagers say AI-powered cheating is at least somewhat prevalent in their schools, according to a recent Pew survey.

Peggy Buffington, Hobart’s superintendent, said there’s been a range of reactions from teachers and students to AI. There was initially a learning curve for students to ask Khanmigo questions, but that they’ve gotten a lot better, she said: “It’s like anything in education. You have to learn how to use the tool and use it appropriately.”

Buffington says that schools need to prepare students to use AI responsibly and Khanmigo is preferable to commercial products they would use on their own. Overall, she’s found the tool beneficial. “Our kids can log in at home and they can get help with their homework and it won’t give them the answer,” she said.

But Khan Academy officials have seen that many students won’t take advantage of that option or don’t know how to. Kristen DiCerbo, the organization’s chief learning officer, said AI can only respond to students based on what they ask. And it turns out, she said, “Students aren’t great at asking questions well.”

DiCerbo was initially hopeful that AI would be able to personalize instruction to students’ needs and interests. That hasn’t happened. “So far I am not seeing the revolution in education,” she said.

AI is still poised to shake up American education in many ways — by making cheating easier, reshaping how teachers approach their work, and changing the broader economy in ways that affect schools. So far the evidence base for AI in education remains “extremely limited,” according to an overview paper released last month.

Khan Academy officials say they’re learning from their experience with Khanmigo and pairing it with other offerings.

A recent study found that when teachers used Khan Academy to help students practice academic content, their classes made slightly faster learning gains. (Lower-performing students, though, saw few if any improvements from Khan Academy.) This was before Khanmigo.

Khan Academy recently announced an overhaul of its product that provides students additional academic practice. Now Khanmigo is incorporated directly as a way students can get advice as they’re working through specific problems. A spokesperson said the organization made this change because “students were not seeking out Khanmigo’s help as much as we had hoped.”

“AI is going to help,” said Khan of this reimagined Khan Academy. “But I think our biggest lever is really investing in the human systems.”

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

On-demand college counseling, courtesy of AI

2026-03-27T12:00:00+00:00

This story about AI in college counseling was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for The Hechinger Report’s higher education newsletter.

By Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report

At 16, Khloe Watson-Barrett already knows she wants to be a lawyer. She also knows she’ll soon have to run the gauntlet of the high-stakes college admissions process, now that she’s past the halfway point of her junior year in high school.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” Watson-Barrett said of what she’s heard about applying to college.

That unease is only aggravated for many high school students by a lack of access to one-on-one time with overburdened college counselors, who are often buried under questions about what tests to take, which deadlines to meet, and how to fill out applications for financial aid.

Now Watson-Barrett’s school and many others are just at the start of testing a new generation of technology that promises to free up time for college counselors while giving students crucial information, even outside school hours: artificial intelligence built specifically to provide advice about life after high school.

Khloe Watson-Barrett, 16, a junior at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice. “It’s nerve-racking,” she says of applying to college.

The AI being piloted for high school college counseling doesn’t simply skim the internet like general-purpose AI, which is subject to misinformation and manipulation. It’s programmed with answers provided by experts, based on a history of previous applicants’ questions. Unlike AI tools in many fields, several educators said, the AI being designed for college counseling — including a new AI platform called CounselorGPT that Watson-Barrett’s school expects to start testing next year — has the goal of encouraging more human interaction, not less.

College counselors still are best at understanding and suggesting how students can achieve their individual ambitions, said Diana Moldovan, director of college and career placement at the public Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, where Watson-Barrett goes. “You can’t replace the trust,” Moldovan said.

But counselors get bogged down answering procedural questions or prodding students to complete tasks, she said. “If AI could do some of these things, that leaves more time” to talk with soon-to-be graduates about their academic, social, and financial choices.

Nearly half of students are already using AI on their own to navigate the complex process of applying to college, according to a survey released in February by the higher education consulting firm EAB. That includes helping them pick and compare schools, complete their applications, and prepare for standardized tests.

This alarms college counseling professionals. Most generative AI that families are using can’t detect misinformation or disinformation, they say, and is vulnerable to recruiters who use tricks to put certain universities and colleges at the top of search results.

“I would not want a young person to be using these tools by themselves, because it’s about asking the right questions,” said Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC.

“Ask [generative] AI what college you’re going to get into — you’re not going to get the right answers. There still has to be the human component,” he said.

Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

Using AI to ease the burden on college counselor caseloads

Moldovan’s office, hung with the banners of colleges and universities, is often busy, though the school has only about 200 juniors and seniors, or fewer than 70 for each of the three college advisers — a much smaller-than-typical number.

Diana Moldovan at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice's college and career office.

Even these counselors are frustrated by having to spend time on things AI could do, such as helping students fill out financial aid forms and reminding them to write their application essays. And that’s with caseloads much smaller than the national ratio of students to counselors, according to the American School Counseling Association: 372:1.

Nationally, nearly 1 in 5 high schools have no college counselors at all.

College counselors in schools that do have them are responsible for so many other tasks that only about a fifth of their time is spent directly on college admissions advising, NACAC estimates. And they’re available only during school days and hours — not on weekends, holidays, or in the summers, when students’ questions might crop up.

These are longstanding problems purpose-built AI could help solve, said Pérez, who said AI tools should be able to provide objective information from admissions experts such as how to take the SAT and fill out the free application for federal student aid, or FAFSA .

“All of that can be given to students at the press of a button,” Pérez said, “so college counselors can talk about fit and match and the unique aspects of the individual student.”

Several different and competing versions of AI college counseling tools are in their early or experimental stages.

One is CounselorGPT, operated by Urban Assembly, a nonprofit that supports 22 schools in New York City including Watson-Barrett’s. So far the organization has tested the tool in 13 schools, an effort started before New York City unveiled its preliminary AI guidance for schools this week. City officials are expected by June to finalize a policy for deciding what kinds of AI platforms will and will not be allowed in schools.

Developed by and proprietary to Urban Assembly, CounselorGPT uses real-time job postings analyzed by the labor market data company Lightcast to show what jobs are in demand, how much they pay, what credentials they require, and how much it will cost to get those skills.

That’s information high school college counselors haven’t historically been able to provide but that consumers want, said David Adams, CEO of Urban Assembly, whose schools are expressly focused on preparing students for the workforce.

“Even when students have access to the highest-quality college counselors, they can’t possibly know all the information around labor markets,” said Adams. “Students are left guessing about what kind of degree leads to social and economic mobility.”

They often make the wrong decisions, he said. “They shouldn’t have to go through college and struggle to get a job before they realize the low return on that credential.”

Another AI platform, called the Expert Virtual Assistant, or EVA, is being developed by a private company, the College Guidance Network, with which NACAC has a partnership.

It uses AI as a starting point that, in response to questions, not only provides basic answers but takes users to videos and other resources about applying to college.

Jon Carson, CEO of the College Guidance Network, said he co-founded the company when his own son, then in high school in the affluent Boston suburb where they live, got only an hour a year with his college counselor, who had myriad other responsibilities, including dealing with students’ non-college-application-related problems.

“I was stunned,” said Carson. “That’s the quantity problem. Then we get to the quality problem, which is that the average counselor also has to be a social worker.”

AI can’t substitute for human college counselors, he said, but it can offer basic information, at any time. EVA also records what questions students ask it, so counselors can track them. Carson compares it to the time-saving form that patients fill out before they see a doctor.

“What you’re trying to leverage here is that one hour that the counselor does have,” Carson said. “And they don’t have to use it answering the simplest questions.”

Twenty high schools are testing EVA, he said.

Not all college counselors embrace this idea. Though many are willing to use AI to streamline their own duties, fewer than 40% see it as a way to provide services directly to students, according to a survey by the American School Counselor Association and researchers at Ball State University.

“It’s still in the very early stages, and I’m seeing a little hesitation,” said Pérez. He said some counselors worry that AI might replace them altogether, or be used as an excuse for raising student-to-counselor ratios even higher.

There are also fears that students can become attached to and overly reliant on AI. EVA originally was given a female icon and pronouns to go with its female name, but is being changed to an owl to avoid users sentimentalizing it.

Jaheem Shaw, 18, a senior, in the hallways of the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice. “There’s a lot of value in asking someone who has experience in the process, on a more personal level,” he says.

Jaheem Shaw, a senior at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, is deciding from among several universities that accepted him, with his counselors’ help. Like junior Khloe Watson-Barrett, he used the term “nerve-racking” to describe the process.

But he felt he benefited from the personal interaction with his college advisers and how they learned about him, his interests, and his shortlist of school choices.

Those advisers also gave him something else, he said: encouragement.

“And I don’t think that’s something you can get from AI,” Shaw said.

Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, jmarcus@hechingerreport.org or jpm.82 on Signal.

NYC releases guidelines for AI in schools. Some say it raises more questions than it answers.

2026-03-24T22:09:12+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department unveiled its preliminary guidelines for artificial intelligence use, offering a rough road map for if and when to incorporate AI tools in school.

The guidance, released Tuesday, arrives nearly three years after a short-lived school ban on ChatGPT. It also comes in the midst of ongoing debates about student privacy, AI’s effect on student learning and development, and the role of private companies in schools. Some schools had designed their own policies as they awaited citywide guidance.

Hot button issues, like how and if students can use AI for homework assignments, or whether students can use personal AI chatbot accounts in addition to tools approved and supervised by the Education Department, are still being hashed out.

City officials are asking families and educators for feedback, which will inform future versions of the guidance. The Education Department released a short survey and will also host webinars and events to answer questions and gather feedback through May 8.

“AI is here, and our responsibility is to put strong systemwide safeguards in place,” schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels wrote in an email to parents.

The early framework is structured in a “traffic light” approach: green light for approved uses, red light for prohibited cases, and yellow light cases for gray areas, which require significant oversight.

For example, brainstorming lesson plans and drafting non-critical communications fall under “green light” cases.

In “yellow light” cases, schools can use AI to find trends in student data, to generate translations for bilingual learners, or adapt materials for students with disabilities — but a trained professional must first review the outputs before it is used with students.

All decisions made about students, including grading, development of special education and 504 plans, discipline, counseling and crisis intervention, and other academic placement decisions, are strictly forbidden. These “red light” cases are not expected to change in the final playbook the city aims to release in June.

Pushback has already been fierce among parents and education advocacy groups: A petition asking the city to put a two-year pause on AI use in schools has garnered about 1,500 signatures since October. Several Community Education Councils have also passed resolutions calling for a moratorium of AI in schools.

The guidance was written by the Education Department’s AI Task Force, and informed by the city’s external AI Advisory Council, which includes education technology partners from Google, OpenAI, and other companies hoping to contract with the city’s roughly 800,000 K- 12 students.

Questions remain about student privacy and third-party AI contracts

Before schools can use AI tools in the classroom, each product must go through a data privacy and security vetting process called the Enterprise Request Management Application. The process, created in 2023, applies to all third-party technology vendors.

But AI has become ubiquitous. The Education Department’s contract with Microsoft 365 programs did not originally include AI chatbots, but now do, said Naveed Hasan, a member of the Education Department’s Data Privacy Working Group.

“Just like TikTok was unregulated until school networks blocked it, so are these free AI products,” said Hasan, whose group advised on data privacy policies prior to the AI guidance.

Schools can visit the department’s Ed Tech portal to see if a tool has already been approved; otherwise, schools must submit an application for new use.

The process, however, doesn’t yet include guidelines on how to review certain aspects of AI products, such as algorithmic bias or instructional effectiveness. Those are expected to be included in the final June version of the playbook.

The guidelines, which were shaped by federal and local laws, say personal student information can never be entered into unapproved AI tools, and under no circumstances can student information be used to make money or train AI models.

Although the general sentiment about privacy protection is clear, how to ensure it remains protected in every use is a key question that some close to the policy development say remains unfinished.

Hasan said the guidance alone can’t guarantee privacy and relying on third-party products, even approved ones, makes it difficult to know what’s secure and what’s not.

He has called on the Education Department to consider maintaining its own hardware and training its own group of AI experts instead of relying on outside companies.

AI moratorium advocates push back

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, one of the groups on the AI moratorium committee, said in a response Tuesday that the guidance does not address the potential long-term effects of AI use on learning and thinking.

The city has already accepted that AI will be a part of school learning before proving its value and safety for students, said Kelly Clancy, founder of Parents for AI Caution, another group on the committee.

“The city needs to have a burden of proof about why this is good,” Clancy said. “It shouldn’t just be about harm reduction, but rather why AI is better for my kids than a human-centered, traditional classroom.”

Education Department officials said proposals for new, AI-focused schools and programs — like Next Generation Technology, an “AI-focused” high school pending approval — must demonstrate how they align with the guidance’s principles.

The full preliminary guidance can be accessed here.

Correction: March 24, 2026: This story initially said that private student data could not be entered into approved or unapproved AI tools under the guidance. The only prohibition is for unapproved tools. And the Education Department’s Data Privacy Working Group advised on previous student data privacy policies, but not the AI guidance language.

March 25, 2026: This story originally said that free tools did not have to go through the vetting process. City officials said the policy includes vetting free tools.

NYC’s Education Dept. is releasing a long-awaited AI policy. Some schools already have their own.

2026-03-23T21:37:33+00:00

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By last spring, it had become clear to Manhattan Assistant Principal Joe Vincente that his school had an artificial intelligence problem.

Staffers at East Side Community School were holding multiple meetings a week with students suspected of using AI inappropriately for schoolwork. AI platforms were multiplying at a dizzying pace. And the city Education Department had offered no formal guidance for schools.

Navigating the moment without a policy felt unsustainable, Vincente recalled. “The need was reaching a fever pitch.”

In the months that followed, Vincente convened a committee of staff members, gathered input from students and parents, hired substitutes so the committee could hole up in the library uninterrupted, and spent hours of his own time out of work hammering out a 12-page draft AI policy. They based their approach on a core tenet: “As a community dedicated to deep learning, we prohibit the unsupervised use of generative AI for all schoolwork and assessments.”

The city’s Education Department is expected to release its own long-awaited citywide draft AI policy for schools on Tuesday, more than two years since ChatGPT upended what students and teachers could do with the click of a button. In that time, schools across the five boroughs have come up with a wide variety of approaches on their own, according to interviews with educators, parents, and students at 10 schools. The school-level efforts offer a preview of the complex task facing the Education Department as it seeks to chart a path forward at a moment when the value and role of AI in education is fiercely contested.

Some, like East Side Community, have crafted comprehensive policies detailing acceptable and unacceptable uses of the technology, along with how the school should respond. Others have tried to keep AI out of classrooms altogether. Many, however, haven’t broached the topic in a formal way.

A growing chorus of educators and parents are calling for a full moratorium on its use in school, pointing to the academic, environmental, and mental health risks of AI. Others argue it would do city students a disservice not to expose them to a transformative technology already deeply embedded in our economy and society. Those conflicts have burst into public view with increasing frequency in recent months in debates over whether to approve contracts with AI companies and a new AI-focused high school in Manhattan. (After the city releases its policy, the public will have 45 days to offer feedback.)

Caught in the center of the swirl are schools and teachers.

“There are a lot of extreme opinions, and I think somewhere in the middle is our responsibility as educators to wrestle with the tension of all of those things and then decide what’s best for our students and our communities,” Vincente said.

At East Side, which is part of the New York Performance Standards Consortium that allows students to complete portfolio assessments rather than Regents Exams to graduate, educators decided it was most important to nurture students’ critical thinking skills — even if it meant curbing or supervising AI use.

“If we send them out in the world with all of these other really strong skills that we believe in, critical reading and strong writing, they’ll be able to learn AI if they need to,” Vincente said.

NYC schools struggle to keep up with growing AI use

Keeping up with the dizzying changes in AI has bewildered many city schools. The city Education Department’s approach has swung wildly, from initially banning ChatGPT on school devices in January 2023, to pledging in May of the same year to become a national leader in embracing the use of AI in schools.

There’s now a variety of chatbots capable of doing complex work, and AI is built into functions as basic as email and Google search, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Educators who spoke with Chalkbeat said they routinely encounter students using AI to shortcut writing assignments — and can’t rely solely on online “AI detectors” to ferret it out.

At many schools, administrators have kept their distance, waiting for the city to develop a clear set of guidelines and leaving it largely to teachers to handle the day-to-day instances of AI use.

That’s led to a frustrating two years for some educators, especially in humanities courses that rely heavily on writing.

“I would love clear rules … and I feel that I do not have backup,” said a Brooklyn high school English teacher who requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her job. “The administrators … do not recognize the extent of the problem.”

Many English and social studies teachers have figured out their own ways to restructure the writing process, moving away from take-home essays and having students write their work by hand during class time in order to ensure students don’t turn to AI.

“I have gone back to paper. For last semester, I did all in-class writing,” said Jessica Radin, a social studies teacher at The Beacon School in Manhattan, which also shifted its admissions essay in-person last year in order to avoid concerns about students using AI or paid tutors.

There are downsides of shifting to in-class assignments, including shorter essays that eat up more instructional time. But Radin said she’s been pleasantly surprised by how well she’s gotten to know her students’ writing this year.

Adam Stevens, a social studies teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest with almost 6,000 students, knows he doesn’t have the bandwidth to scour every assignment for signs of AI. So he makes the case that students will be putting themselves at a disadvantage in college by leaning on AI — and tries to pose questions with a personal component that students will find “too important for them to feed into a chatbot.”

Enterprising staffers take the lead

At schools trying to take a more comprehensive approach to AI, it often comes down to having a staff member with the expertise and motivation to lead the charge.

At Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn and John Bowne High School in Queens, teachers who attended professional development sessions sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers through a $23 million “AI Academy,” brought back resources and helped launch faculty committees at their schools.

“The reality is it’s here, and [students] are going to use it,” said Jennifer Goodnow, an English as a Second Language teacher at Sunset Park High School, who attended the union-sponsored training. “We can’t stop that but … our school can teach kids about the potential pitfalls.”

Goodnow said she was particularly concerned to learn some students are turning to chatbots to discuss mental health struggles, and she hopes the school can play a bigger role educating kids and parents about the possible risks and offering alternative outlets.

Some schools have taken more aggressive measures to try to keep AI out of classrooms. At Williamsburg Charter High School, officials decided earlier this school year to ban ChatGPT on school devices, said Jeremiah Dickerson, an 18-year-old senior. (School officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.) But while Dickerson acknowledged some students misuse AI, he argued the school’s approach isn’t likely to be effective or productive.

“If AI is banned in my school,” he said, “and then I go to college and an AI is everywhere, how does that really effectively prepare me to use it?”

As schools develop AI policies, they dig into the gray area

There’s little disagreement that asking AI to generate an entire essay is a violation of academic integrity. But as schools develop their AI policies, they are digging into more nuanced scenarios — and finding the answers aren’t always clear cut.

Can AI be used, for example, to direct students to sources for a history paper? Or is there something valuable students would miss in the process of finding those sources in a different way?

It’s also not always obvious what consequences to apply: Sometimes it’s unclear whether students even knew they were using AI, given its ubiquity online.

At Brooklyn Collaborative School in Carroll Gardens, administrators acknowledge the rules might vary depending on the teacher and assignment. They ask educators to include a “traffic light” on each task that outline a few clearly permissible uses of AI (green light), a few where students should exercise caution (yellow), and a few clearly impermissible ones (red), said Chrissy Prince, the school’s data specialist.

It’s not only student AI use that can grow murky. Educators are also experimenting with AI to craft lesson plans, create resources for students, and offer feedback.

Vincente, who was part of a district-sponsored fellowship to learn how to use an education-oriented AI tool called Playlab, acknowledged the lines can be blurry and emphasized the importance of understanding the school’s values while trusting teachers to carry them out. That’s why East Side staffers decided to only endorse student AI use that’s supervised by school staff.

“Just kids out there roaming in the wild of AI,” he said, “more often than not, what they’re going to do and experience with that is actually going to be a detriment to the learning that we want to happen.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

AI is already in classrooms. Tell us how you’re using it as we await NYC’s school playbook.

2026-03-17T20:09:38+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has promised that a city policy on the use of artificial intelligence in schools will be coming shortly.

In the meantime, many educators have already been using a host of AI tools in their classrooms, and many students have come to rely on the technology to help them with their work.

Chalkbeat wants to know how AI is being used in your school and what you want the chancellor to know about it, the good and bad. Parents have raised concerns about safeguards, worried that the technology could lead to upticks in bullying, that it could erode critical thinking skills, and that it could compromise student privacy.

According to a RAND survey released Tuesday on using AI for homework, 67% of participating students (more than 1,200 young people between ages 12-29) said that using AI for schoolwork harmed critical thinking, up from 54% earlier in the year. Roughly 71% reported using at least one AI tool for school-related activities (including writing help, brainstorming, and fact-finding), and most students indicated their schools did not have rules for using AI for homework.

“Some of us as educators recognize that there’s some potential in AI to accelerate some learning,” Samuels said at a recent town hall meeting in Manhattan’s District 2. But he also said that the city’s guidance must be done in a “responsible” manner, with input from communities.

Miatheresa Pate, the city’s chief academic officer, described the forthcoming AI guidance as a “traffic-light approach for clarity around what we allow, what we absolutely will not allow,” as well as opportunities to “engage in case use studies around some of the positive things that are happening to support learners who need it most.”

Once the city releases its guidance, it plans to open a 45-day window for feedback from families, educators, and school leaders.

Help us understand what’s already happening with AI in schools — and what you’d like the city do — by taking our survey.

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Manhattan proposal for NYC’s first AI-focused public high school sparks pushback

2026-03-13T00:33:22+00:00

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New York City students with a passion for STEM — and an interest in artificial intelligence — may soon have a high school dedicated to training “the next generation of technology professionals.”

But families in Manhattan’s District 2 are pushing back against the proposal for Next Generation Technology High School, a new screened admissions high school that would take the place of the tiny, girls-only Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women. Next Generation would be the first city public school to focus its curriculum on AI and computer science.

As details of the two proposals emerged over the last month, so have dual tensions: What should fill the space left by Young Women in Business, and how private technology companies and their artificial intelligence products could shape the curriculum at Next Generation.

Much of the opposition to Next Generation has come from families at a middle school also in the Broadway building, Lower Manhattan Community School. Also known as LMC, parents at the school have called on the department for years to expand enrollment from grades 6-8 up to grade 12.

The Panel for Educational Policy, the board that votes on new schools and closures, is expected to consider the proposals for Next Generation and Business for Young Women at its April 29 meeting.

The Education Department released both proposals on March 6, the day after the city’s eighth graders received their high school acceptance offers. If approved, Next Generation would welcome its first class of ninth graders in the fall. (The plan to close Business for Young Women in June is not contingent on Next Generation’s approval.)

Despite not having the green light yet, Next Generation has already held three virtual open houses. Its online interest form states the school is “set to open” in fall 2026, noting that applications would open March 19.

Parents ask: ‘Why this school and why here?’

Manhattan High Schools Superintendent Gary Beidleman introduced the idea for Next Generation Technology High School at a Feb. 25 meeting of the District 2 Community Education Council.

Panel for Educational Policy members and families of the three co-located schools at 26 Broadway — in addition to LMC and Business for Young Women, Richard R. Green High School of Teaching shares the building — said that meeting was the first time the district school community had been notified of the proposed STEM- and technology-focused screened high school.

At the Feb. 25 announcement, Beidleman said Next Generation grew out of his experience as a summer 2024 Google Education Innovation Fellow, and that Google and OpenAI are part of the planning team for the school. One of the school’s goals, he said, is to “expand pathways connected to high-growth technology careers” and provide advanced STEM and technology programming for NYC students. Next Generation also plans to offer a summer internship program with Carnegie Mellon University.

Caleb Haraguchi-Combs, founding principal and project director of Next Generation High School, said in an information session that the school would utilize Google’s new, AI-powered Skills Platform. How much of this AI-powered, AI-focused Google coursework would comprise the curriculum is still in flux, according to the proposal’s educational impact statement.

The school’s academic description includes similar or identical language as found on the Google Skills website: Next Generation’s “special access to technology industry mentors,” “technology certifications,” and “curriculum that adapts to the dynamic changes in the technology field” are offerings advertised on the homepage of the Google Skills site.

Officials and families question new school proposal process

The community and Panel for Educational Policy members have asked questions about the fast proposal process, speaking to uncertainty around admissions for the coming school year.

Parents said in a letter to the Panel for Educational Policy that the proposal seemingly came out of nowhere, and families were not provided adequate engagement opportunities before its release. Panel Chair Greg Faulkner said he has received hundreds of similar letters from parents since the community learned of the incoming proposal in late February.

High school offers were released March 5, ahead of the panel’s vote and months before the proposed school would open. It remains unclear how the Education Department would handle screening requirements — such as interviews or assessments — after the main admissions cycle has concluded. The Office of District Planning did not respond to questions about how enrollment would work for this fall.

A petition in support of the school, created by the Next Generation’s founding principal and program director on March 8, had under 100 signatures at the time of publishing.

A public hearing is scheduled for April 14, two weeks before the panel’s vote.

“I would love more transparency around why the department chooses certain schools to go in certain places,” said Sarah Calderon, a parent at Lower Manhattan Community School. “When we asked the superintendent, ‘Why this school and why here?’ he said he had no data on district demand.”

Beidelman told parents at the Feb. 25 District 2 meeting that expanding Lower Manhattan Community “was not an idea that was on the table.”

The Education Department receives many proposals each year, including some from outside New York City, said Sean Rux of the Office of New School Development.

“This was the proposal that spoke to us,” Rux said.

Families push to expand Lower Manhattan Community School

The plan to close the underenrolled Business for Young Women school has been percolating for a few years — with just 91 students this year, it’s the smallest district high school in the city, said Education Department officials.

Families at Lower Manhattan Community School say they have pushed for years to expand into a 6–12 model, and would like to move into the space used by Business for Young Women, if closed.

“A proposal to expand LMC could potentially open up sixth grade admissions to applicants citywide, but we have not been given the opportunity to even submit a proposal,” said Anne Hager, a parent of a sixth grader at Lower Manhattan School.

At a PTA meeting with Education Department staff on Wednesday, LMC’s Student Leadership Team presented its case to expand the school instead of opening Next Generation.

A new 6-12 would eliminate the need for LMC students to go through a second, onerous application process, something that students with disabilities would especially benefit from, they said. The presentation also cited Department of Education data from 2024 that showed 6-12 schools have nearly three times higher demand than their 6-8 middle school counterparts.

District 2 has a higher proportion of screened and specialized high schools compared with citywide averages.

The department’s proposal focuses largely on space at the Broadway campus, estimating that Next Generation would serve roughly 450 students by its fourth year. All three schools can comfortably co-locate, according to the proposal, though its capacity calculations do not allot for significant expansion for either Richard R. Green High School or LMC.

Debate over AI timing and oversight

Next Generation’s proposal arrives amid broader debate over artificial intelligence in schools.

The school initially marketed itself in information sessions and on social media as an “AI school,” though DOE officials later clarified that students would learn about artificial intelligence rather than be taught by it.

“Students need to be creators, not consumers, of technology,” Beidleman said at the Feb. 25 meeting. “Lessons learned from the past show us that new tech in place creates an opportunity.”

Some parents have argued that broad use of an AI platform in public schools should not be allowed before comprehensive guidelines have been released by the city.

Greg Faulkner, who chairs the Panel for Educational Policy, said he first learned of the proposal after receiving Next Generation’s interest form last month. Since then, the panel has received hundreds of letters from parents opposing the plan and raising concerns about the lack of community engagement so far.

“I have two major hesitations with this: We don’t know what kind of AI involvement there will be. The development team has not provided a playbook for how that will look,” Faulkner said. “And in reading the response letters from District 2 parents, I see that proper engagement and process was not done.”

At a District 2 town hall on March 5, Chancellor Kamar Samuels said the Education Department expects to release AI guidance in the coming weeks and will provide a 45-day window for community feedback once it’s published.

Five Community Education Councils have passed resolutions calling for a two-year moratorium on artificial intelligence use in schools. But calls for broad AI guidelines implemented at the city level are nothing new; a proposed expansion of an AI-powered reading program was halted in 2024 after former Comptroller Brad Lander called for a citywide playbook.

“I think the question of teacher capacity and teacher shortages, the research on kids and AI, is still nascent, and the DOE’s lack of its own AI policy leads me to question the timing of any AI school,” said Calderon, the parent at Lower Manhattan Community.

Did federal COVID aid allow states to cut back on school spending?

2026-03-12T21:17:52+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.

Nearly $200 billion in federal COVID relief money left schools in a relatively strong financial position in recent years. But new data highlights a potential unintended consequence of all the federal aid: states cutting back on their own efforts to fund education.

A report, released by the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, tracks the share of each state’s economy devoted to public schools. Researchers call this “fiscal effort.” I like to think about it as the tax rate applied to the states’ economy to fund education (though it’s really multiple taxes). Crucially, this does not count federal dollars, just state and local money.

By this measure, funding effort dropped sharply between 2020 and 2023, as the figure below from the report shows. This doesn’t mean that states are spendinglessin real dollars on schools because the economy has also been growing during this time. They’re spending less as a percentage of the economy.

Click here to continue reading.

Elon Musk wants to give Memphis schools more money for building repairs

2026-01-21T02:05:48+00:00

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The Memphis school board is considering whether to accept a donation from Elon Musk’s nonprofit to fund repairs for three schools in Frayser that could receive more students next year due to recommended closures.

If approved by the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board next Tuesday, the donation from The Musk Foundation would be the second accepted this school year from an entity tied to Musk, the technology and auto executive who aims to build a third data center in the Memphis area despite concerns about increased pollution.

The board approved a donation from Musk’s artificial-intelligence company xAI in July to fix four schools in Southwest Memphis located near its existing data centers, prompting some student backlash.

Board members said then that the district couldn’t afford to turn money down, with total school facility costs estimated at over $1.6 billion in the next decade. Some district leaders echoed that reasoning on Tuesday in support of approving the donation from The Musk Foundation.

“I’d like to point out, as they help us to refurbish and to improve some of our schools, it frees up capital dollars for us to do things at some of our other schools,” interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond said.

Board member Keith Williams, who was an outspoken opponent of the xAI partnership, pushed back against accepting another Musk-linked donation Tuesday.

“There are ramifications that are deeper than money,” he said.

It’s still unclear how much money the xAI donation approved in July will bring to the district in total, but repair costs for those four buildings are estimated at around $61 million. As for the proposed Musk Foundation contribution, a posting on the board’s agenda website early Tuesday listed the “high-level estimate” at $6 million. That figure has since been deleted.

The cost and type of building repairs needed at the three Frayser elementary schools — Whitney, Westside, and Hawkins Mill — are still being determined, the district’s facility services officer, Michelle Stuart, said Tuesday. A previous agenda listed roof, HVAC, and intercom system replacements as priorities.

Those three elementary schools may be tapped to absorb displaced students if the board approves recommendations to close the Frayser-Corning and Georgian Hills elementary schools at the end of this school year.

Stuart said Tuesday that the district should determine full cost estimates for the xAI-funded projects approved in July by the end of this week. The district is still developing separate contracts for each school’s larger projects, like HVAC and roof replacements, which Stuart said are 75% done.

The xAI funds have already helped complete some less extensive projects that don’t require contracts, Stuart said, like replacing fencing and painting parking lots.

The Musk Foundation is also proposing to spend $200,000 to support students experiencing homelessness, including providing laundry and hygiene items. It also set aside $100,000 to incentivize student attendance and behavioral improvements.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Denver schools blocking students’ access to ChatGPT over concerns about group chats, adult content

2026-01-13T23:10:53+00:00

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Denver Public Schools announced that starting this week, it is blocking students’ access to ChatGPT on school-issued devices and the district’s Wi-Fi network because of concerns about the artificial intelligence chatbot’s new features.

Those features include the ability for users to start a 20-person group chat and the planned addition of adult content to ChatGPT. In an email to families Friday, a top district official said DPS worries the new content could “potentially facilitate harmful interactions and/or the creation of content related to self-harm, violence and bullying.” The 20-person chat feature could lead to cyberbullying and academic misconduct, among other concerns, the email said.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the organization that created ChatGPT, said on X this past fall that the new version would allow “erotica for verified adults.”

DPS Chief Information Officer Richard Charles wrote in the email to families that it’s the district’s “responsibility to ensure students are only engaging with age-appropriate information and systems.”

Schools across the country have been grappling for years with how and when to use AI in the classroom. Some districts, including New York City Public Schools, initially blocked ChatGPT over concerns about student safety and learning before reversing course.

Denver Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith said DPS never explicitly approved the use of ChatGPT by its 89,000 students, and this latest announcement solidifies that position.

Instead, the district uses Google Gemini, which Smith said is more compatible with DPS’ monitoring system and data privacy rules. The district also uses MagicSchool, an education-specific AI tool created by a former Denver charter school principal that can help teachers create lessons or give students feedback on their writing.

“It’s not that we are scared of this technology or we’re trying to be behind the curve,” Smith said. “We’re trying to be strategic and thoughtful about the implementation of this technology.”

A district AI committee will meet later this month to discuss blocking ChatGPT for DPS staff as well, the email to families said.

One of the biggest pitfalls of AI, Smith said, is the potential for it to undermine students’ ability to think critically and express themselves in their own voice.

“We’re trying to make sure kids think and can access their skill sets and not ChatGPT,” he said.

Safety is another top concern. Smith said district officials have read about the ways in which AI can affect children’s mental health. Families in Colorado and other states have sued AI companies, alleging that their children committed suicide after developing relationships with chatbots.

DPS uses a digital tool called Lightspeed to monitor how students are using the internet, Smith said. But “we just can’t monitor everything,” he said. Given that, he said, district officials felt it was best to err on the side of safety.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis turned an old elementary school into the district security hub. Here’s an inside look.

2025-12-11T22:02:40+00:00

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Tucked inside a former South Memphis elementary school is a room with 18 televisions and 30 computers showing live footage of campuses across the state’s largest public school district.

This is Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ new real-time safety center, where leaders say 20 trained staff will monitor video feed and use artificial intelligence tools around the clock to more quickly coordinate emergency responses. It’s part of a yearslong project to overhaul the district’s security system, which includes upgrading cameras at every school building to include AI detection technology.

At a grand opening of the safety center Thursday, MSCS leaders dodged questions about how AI technology is being used in the new cameras. It’s unclear how much money the district spent on that technology and renovations to the old Alton Elementary school building.

Carolyn Jackson, the district’s interim chief of safety, said the changes were in large part motivated by a 2021 shooting at Cummings Elementary School that injured one Memphis student and put another in custody.

“That’s what kept me up at night. That’s why we’re here,” Jackson said. “Cummings was really a unique situation … it made me say, ‘We can’t have this anymore.’”

MSCS leaders said Thursday that they worked with the global technology company Bosch to design AI-enhanced cameras that fit the district’s needs. But they declined to share details. According to Bosch’s website, the equipment typically uses visual and audio AI to detect guns and recognize other “unsafe behavior” like crowd formations or students lying on the ground.

Districts across the country have started turning to AI in recent years to boost weapons detection security as the number of school shootings remains at a nationwide record high. Those moves are often met with concerns about the over-policing of students and the likelihood of false alarms.

And there have been recent instances of AI-assisted detection systems failing to work at all, such as the Nashville school shooting last January where the school’s detection technology failed to detect the gun used to kill a 16-year-old student.

A team of 20 staff will monitor live footage of MSCS campuses all day, every day.

MSCS board members approved a nearly $500,000 contract with Bosch to upgrade security cameras in 2022. And in 2024, the district set aside nearly $4 million to transform the old Alton building into a security hub. Interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond said Thursday that the district also used Title IV funding and state grants to finish the project.

Richmond said the center “will allow us to respond faster to potential threats or emergencies, reducing officer response times significantly.”

Jackson said over 50% of the district’s schools are equipped with the new cameras. The real-time safety center, she said, opened around three weeks ago. On top of monitoring and dispatch services, the building is also used as a training center.

Up the stairs from the TV monitoring room, there’s an active shooter simulator that Jackson said both MSCS officers and other local police departments use to practice responses. In a demonstration Thursday, an MSCS officer fired a fake gun as immersive videos played on a large screen.

In one scene, a student pulled a gun out of his backpack and began shooting in the cafeteria. In another, the officer ran into a school building to find a staff member being shot in the auditorium. Jackson said officers will train there annually in accordance with state law.

At Thursday’s opening ceremony, MSCS leaders praised the safety center as a guiding example for repurposing vacant school buildings. In the face of rising maintenance costs, the district formed a facilities committee this fall to come up with creative uses for inevitable school closures over the next decade.

Board members are expected to vote in February on Richmond’s proposal to close four schools at the end of this year. District leaders haven’t decided what those buildings will be used for if the closures are approved.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

IEPs, cheating, and math: MagicSchool’s founder on the potential and perils of AI

2025-11-06T22:30:28+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work.

Adeel Khan was a former principal looking for his next act. It was late 2022 and ChatGPT had just been released. As he began to tinker with it, Khan had a revelation: Artificial intelligence could make teachers’ jobs dramatically easier. He decided to launch a company, MagicSchool, to help teachers harness the technology.

Today, MagicSchool is one of the most popular AI tools used by teachers. It offers a user-friendly interface where teachers can create worksheets, give students feedback on their writing, and create classroom presentations. The tool is powered by ChatGPT and Claude, another major AI tool.

MagicSchool has raised $60 million from investors and has a staff of 160. The company also has 20,000 schools that pay for the premium product. A basic version is free.

Khan says that 3.5 million U.S. educators have signed up to use MagicSchool, though he acknowledges that’s an overestimate of its true user base. In October, about 700,000 teachers in the U.S. actively used MagicSchool, he said. (There are about 4 million teachers in the country.)

I wanted to speak to Khan because his company is at the leading edge of the AI-inspired shifts in American education. I was curious whether he shared concerns about students, and even teachers, offloading their thinking to the technology. His answer was yes, somewhat to my surprise.

We also discussed whether it’s appropriate to use AI to write special education plans and AI’s struggles in math. These struggles were apparent when I tested out MagicSchool.

To continue reading, click here.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

3 ways AI will (and won’t) change schools

2025-11-04T15:49:53+00:00

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up to attend our first virtual event focusing on new insights from learning loss data with Emily Oster.

At a recent education technology conference in New York City — where companies were hawking their products and speakers were predicting great benefits from artificial intelligence — one attendee offered something of a heretical perspective.

“Right now, as it is, AI has had a net negative impact on students,” said Dacia Toll, co-founder of Coursemojo, an AI-powered teaching assistant.

Later, Toll told me that she’s convinced that there are many potential benefits of AI in education.

“It’s going to be a complex situation — there are going to be bad use cases, good use cases,” she said. “The jury is out on what the net impact will be.”

At this moment, our understanding of the impact of generative AI in schools is muddy and uncertain. But some clear realities are emerging. These are my three theories for what AI will and won’t mean in classrooms over the next several years.

Cheating is a big problem and it’s not going away

Ask a high school student or their teachers about AI, and there’s a good chance they will say that an alarming number of teenagers are using AI to write their essays, solve their math problems, and finish their assignments.

In one recent survey, fully 100% of high school principals said they were concerned about “academic integrity” challenges created by AI. A majority reported being “very concerned.”

Cheating is difficult to quantify, so it’s hard to prove there’s been an increase in it. AI advocates emphasize that cheating is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that generative AI has made it easier and therefore more tempting.

“The degree to which you can relatively easily find students who will tell you that they are doing complete assignments — and large numbers of them — entirely with this machine is different,” says Justin Reich, an MIT professor and ed-tech expert. He recently hosted a podcast series called “The Homework Machine” based on interviews with dozens of teachers and students. The theme: Many students are taking advantage of this innovative new cheating tool.

The implications are troubling. Some students are simply doing less work and learning less. Even a majority of high school students in one poll said they fear AI will harm their critical thinking.

In turn, classroom trust may be falling as teachers become worried about cheating and students fear being falsely accused. “You become a paranoid person. You distrust every single thing your students give you,” Sara Falls, a high school English teacher, explained on one of Reich’s podcast episodes.

It’s hard to see a clear way out of this conundrum. Efforts by teachers to monitor misuse lead to counterefforts to avoid detection, often with the help of sophisticated cheating tools.

Many teachers want more support, but most say they’re getting little. In the next few years we will see if schools start creating systematic strategies to combat cheating or if teachers continue to be left largely on their own.

AI will become a ubiquitous teaching assistant

Sandy Mangarella, a high school English teacher in New Jersey, used to spend upwards of an hour apiece on letters of recommendation for her students. Now, with artificial intelligence a letter takes only a few minutes.

“I write really good ones now, even better than I used to,” she says. Mangarella, who has been teaching for 44 years, typically uses AI multiple times a week for other things too, like brainstorming lesson ideas or getting a second take on a student essay.

Teachers are text generation machines. They are constantly drafting worksheets, classroom newsletters, special education plans, rubrics, presentations, notes home, quizzes, essay outlines, exit tickets, take-home work packets, and more. What generative AI is very good at is producing text.

AI is not yet a daily part of the work life for most teachers. Only 1 in 8 use it on a weekly basis for teaching-related work, according to a recent poll. About half don’t use it at all. Yet the experiences of Mangarella and others suggest that as more teachers get comfortable with the technology, AI will become a common, perhaps universal assistant for educators.

This comes with some risks. Teachers themselves could engage in the “cognitive offloading” we fear for students, using less care putting together lessons or relying on lower-quality material. Some advocates also worry about bias, particularly if AI is drafting special education plans.

But the upside of AI as a teacher’s assistant is substantial: It could free up teacher time — one of the most valuable commodities in schools.

AI will never be a supertutor (but it could help some students)

At last month’s ed-tech conference in New York City, OpenAI’s Vice President and General Manager of Education Leah Belsky touted the great benefits of tutoring. “We all aspire for every student to have that one-on-one tutoring experience,” she said. “ChatGPT and AI could one day make that possible.” This could be incredibly impactful, Belsky said, citing a 1984 study that claimed tutoring could vault the average student to the 98th percentile of performance.

This paper, by the late University of Chicago professor Benjamin Bloom, has been the touchstone of technologists for decades. The hope has been that technology can replicate the value of a human tutor at a fraction of the cost. I learned about this work several years ago when computer-based “personalized learning” advocates, like Mark Zuckerberg, were citing it.

Yet those aspiring for such dramatic learning gains from AI are likely to be disappointed. This was the case for personalized learning enthusiasts.

Through a spokesperson, Belsky of OpenAI declined to comment for this piece.

The problem is that Bloom’s results were wildly unrealistic, as detailed in a 2024 Education Next article. Gains of such size have not been widely replicated on math and reading tests. Bloom only found these improvements when applied to the novel subjects of cartography and probability. Modern studies of large-scale human tutoring programs show it is one of the most effective strategies for boosting learning — but results are about a tenth the size of what Bloom reported.

It’s risky for AI advocates to tout massive potential gains. “If that’s the bar, then the current AI capabilities are not set up to achieve that goal,” says Toll of Coursemojo, noting that AI is not as good as a human tutor. Still, she believes the bar shouldn’t be set unrealistically high and that the technology does have the potential to boost student learning.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Introducing Chalkbeat Ideas

2025-10-27T18:41:55+00:00

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American schools are at a historic inflection point.

Now more than ever, we need good journalism to understand the convulsive and sometimes confounding trends shaping schools. That’s why we’re launching a new section devoted to explaining, examining, and elevating ideas about the policy, politics, and practice of American education.

I’ll be the editor and lead writer for Chalkbeat Ideas. I’m returning to Chalkbeat after two years covering U.S. schools for the Wall Street Journal. While there, I wrote about the efforts to close the federal Education Department, the way technology is changing education, and challenges facing underenrolled school systems. Before that, I helped launch Chalkbeat’s national coverage as the team’s first reporter in 2017, covering education policy and politics, while finding a niche writing about research on improving schools.

I decided to rejoin Chalkbeat because I’m convinced that there is a void in journalism at this moment. The traditional confines of news can make it difficult to step back and examine the big ideas and debates within education.

We’ll still be looking at topics in the news — the potential and perils of AI in schools, the future of the Education Department, the state of learning loss and recovery — but we’ll be taking a step back to offer deeper exploration. We’ll be approaching these and other issues as ideas worth dissecting, debating, and explaining.

In practice, that means we’ll be asking and trying to answer questions like: Why exactly did test scores start to slide even before the pandemic, and what are some solutions? Is AI changing schools and is that exciting, alarming, or both? What can the history of education technology tell us about the future of AI? How and why are Democrats debating each other over education? How should we make sense of Trump’s effort to close the Education Department at the same time he’s increasingly wielding its power?

We’ll also be covering under-the-radar ideas that deserve attention — say, compelling academic research or an intriguing classroom innovation. We’re interested too in the people and institutions that drive the ideas changing schools. And we’ll sometimes be looking backwards to understand how the past, including the unprecedented upheaval in American schools during the pandemic, continues to affect the present.

I’ll be writing a regular column about ideas in education. This will be a bit different than Chalkbeat’s regular news coverage because I’ll share my own perspective and analysis at times. The voice will be mine — sometimes in the first person, as here — rather than the omniscient voice that defines normal news coverage. And we’ll be trying out lots of different formats: explainers, Q&As, book reviews, and events with interesting people. (Don’t worry: Chalkbeat’s existing national coverage isn’t going anywhere. We expect this new section to complement it.)

At the same time, Chalkbeat Ideas will maintain the commitment to rigorous, open-minded reporting and fact-based analysis that defines all of our journalism. Like the rest of Chalkbeat, we’ll be covering this topic as a beat. That means I’ll be talking to people with a variety of perspectives: parents, teachers, policymakers, academics, nonprofit leaders, and anyone else who’s interested in schools and the ideas that shape them.

I’ll also be collaborating with the rest of the Chalkbeat newsroom to elevate interesting ideas and insights from our local bureaus.

We’re still developing this section and I’d love your help. Please consider following our work by signing up for the Ideas newsletter, which will get you access to my columns when they’re published. Sign up to join our first event, a webinar with fresh insights on learning loss and recovery data, featuring Brown University professor Emily Oster.

Finally, reach out to me directly to share your thoughts on how to approach this work.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

AI, tutors, parents: Why this NYC school is forcing students to write admissions essays in person

2025-09-30T21:38:23+00:00

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In the dog-eat-dog world of New York City high school admissions, some eighth graders have figured out ways to get a leg up when it comes to the essays coveted schools require.

Some students turn to ChatGPT. Some hire writing tutors. Some have help from their parents.

Now, at least one school is trying to fight back against this tide: Manhattan’s Beacon High School tweaked its admissions process this year to require that applicants complete their essays in person rather than at home.

Beacon, which last year saw 4,210 applicants vie for 282 seats, is making the move due to concerns that students have been getting help on their essays from several sources, whether artificial intelligence, families, or paid tutors, educators at the school said.

“It became disheartening to see in the past couple of years, we’re reading things that don’t feel authentic,” said a Beacon teacher, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the change. The school’s teachers grade the application essays and increasingly found examples of “excellent” writing that garnered high scores under their grading system, but didn’t feel like they were written by 12- or 13-year-olds, the educator said.

The school posted a note about the shift on its website this weekend, and is expecting to soon share “several dates” in November for eighth graders to come to its campus to complete two 500-word essays. The school has already shared the essay prompts, along with the rubric on how the writing will be graded.

The high school application process runs from Oct. 7 through Dec. 3. Offers are expected to be sent March 5, 2026. Last year, the Education Department tweaked the process to allow students to rank an unlimited number of schools, which may have increased the number of students applying to Beacon.

Though the school didn’t yet mention how much time students will get, it mentioned that students with disabilities will receive extra time if they are entitled to such accommodations.

The school’s educators said the principal informed them of the change at a staff meeting last week. Beacon’s principal did not respond for comment.

The changes sent “shockwaves” through families of prospective high school applicants, said Elissa Stein, who runs High School 411, which aims to help families navigate the admissions process.

“While I always tell families that schools want to hear from kids in their own voices, no doubt some worked with tutors or coaches or had parent input in essay writing,” Stein said. “Having the essay take place in person can certainly cause anxiety for both parents and students, both from a content point of view but also it introduces performance stress.”

Requiring students to come in person can bring additional challenges, whether because of distance or availability — though it could help families understand the realities of the commute to the school.

Beacon also changed how much weight the essay carries for the application. The essay will now count for 50% of the application, with the rest based on grades from seventh grade core classes. Previously, the essay counted for 80%, Stein said.

“For students who didn’t have a strong random number, having an essay count for the majority of a rubric opened opportunities up to a wider range of students,” she said. “This is closing that door a bit.”

Beacon is not the first school to have in-person assessments. Pre-pandemic, the school conducted in-person interviews along with a pre-written essay for admissions, Stein said. Last year, the schools run by Bard Early College went back to in-person assessments.

Out of New York City’s roughly 700 programs at 400 public high schools, roughly two dozen use some criteria, such as essays, on top of students’ scores from seventh grade core classes. Nearly 24 schools have programs that require students to audition. And eight schools base admissions on the Specialized High School Admissions Test.

Last school year, multiple schools that require auditions or essays — including Beacon — emailed applicants asking them to resend materials, raising concerns that technical snafus may have prevented schools from viewing materials submitted by hundreds of students.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Herramientas de IA para maestros muestran sesgo racial al generar planes de comportamiento estudiantil, según un estudio

2025-09-10T20:00:26+00:00

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Read in English.

Cuando se les pidió que generaran planes de intervención para estudiantes con dificultades, los asistentes de IA recomendaron medidas más punitivas para estudiantes hipotéticos con nombres codificados como afroamericanos y enfoques más solidarios para estudiantes que las plataformas perciben como blancos, según un nuevo estudio.

Estos hallazgos provienen de un informe sobre los riesgos de sesgo en las herramientas de inteligencia artificial publicado el miércoles por la organización sin fines de lucro Common Sense Media. Los investigadores específicamente buscaron evaluar la calidad de los asistentes docentes de IA, como MagicSchool, Khanmingo, Curipod y Google Gemini for Education, que están diseñados para apoyar la planificación del aula, la diferenciación de las lecciones y las tareas administrativas.

Common Sense Media descubrió que, si bien estas herramientas podrían ayudar a los maestros a ahorrar tiempo y agilizar el papeleo rutinario, el contenido generado por la IA también podría fomentar la parcialidad en la planificación de las lecciones y recomendaciones para la gestión del aula.

Robbie Torney, director senior de programas de IA en Common Sense Media, dijo que los problemas identificados en el estudio son lo suficientemente graves como para que las empresas de tecnología educacionales consideren la eliminación de herramientas para planes de intervención del comportamiento hasta que puedan mejorarlos. Eso es importante porque escribir planes de intervención de varios tipos es una forma relativamente común en la que los maestros usan la IA.

Después de que Chalkbeat preguntó sobre los hallazgos de Common Sense Media, un portavoz de Google dijo el martes que Google Classroom ha desactivado el acceso directo a Gemini que anima a los maestros a “generar estrategias de intervención de comportamiento” para hacer pruebas adicionales.

Sin embargo, tanto MagicSchool como Google, las dos plataformas donde Common Sense Media identificó sesgo racial en los planes de intervención de comportamiento generados por IA, dijeron que no podían replicar los hallazgos de Common Sense Media. También dijeron que toman en serio el sesgo y están trabajando para mejorar sus modelos.

Los distritos escolares de todo el país han estado trabajando para implementar políticas integrales de IA que alienten el uso informado de estas herramientas. OpenAI, Anthropic y Microsoft se han asociado con la American Federation of Teachers (Federación Americana de Maestros) para proporcionar capacitación gratuita en el uso de plataformas de IA. La administración Trump también ha fomentado una mayor integración de IA en el aula. Sin embargo, las recientes directrices sobre IA publicadas por el Departamento de Educación de los Estados Unidos no han abordado directamente las preocupaciones acerca del sesgo dentro de estos sistemas.

Según una encuesta nacional realizada por la Walton Family Foundation en cooperación con Gallup, alrededor de un tercio de los maestros informan que utilizan IA al menos semanalmente. Una encuesta separada realizada por la organización de investigación Rand encontró que los maestros informan específicamente sobre el uso de estas herramientas para ayudar a desarrollar metas y planes para el Programa de Educación Individualizada (IEP, por sus siglas en inglés). También dicen que usan estas herramientas para dar forma a las lecciones o evaluaciones en torno a esos objetivos, y para discutir formas de acomodar a los estudiantes con discapacidades.

Torney dijo que Common Sense Media no está tratando de desalentar a los maestros del uso de la IA en general. El objetivo del informe es fomentar una mayor conciencia de los posibles usos de los auxiliares docentes de IA que podrían tener mayores riesgos en el aula.

“Realmente queremos que la gente se abra de par en par y diga: ‘Oye, estas son algunas de las cosas en las que son mejores y estas son algunas de las cosas con las que probablemente quieras tener un poco más de cuidado’”, explicó.

Common Sense Media identificó las herramientas de IA que pueden generar IEP y planes de intervención del comportamiento como de alto riesgo debido a su trato sesgado de los estudiantes en el aula. El equipo de investigación de Common Sense Media utilizó la herramienta “Sugerencias de intervención en el comportamiento” de MagicSchool y la herramienta “Generar estrategias de intervención en el comportamiento” de Google Gemini para postular la misma pregunta sobre un alumno con dificultades para leer y comportamiento agresivo 50 veces con nombres codificados en blanco y 50 veces con nombres codificados en negro, divididos por igual entre nombres codificados en masculino y femenino.

Los planes generados por la IA para los estudiantes con nombres codificados en negro no parecían negativos de forma aislada. Pero surgieron diferencias claras cuando se compararon los planes de MagicSchool y Gemini con los planes para estudiantes con nombres codificados en blanco.

Por ejemplo, cuando se le pidió que proporcionara un plan de intervención del comportamiento para Annie, Gemini enfatizó abordar el comportamiento agresivo con “respuestas consistentes que no se intensifiquen” y “refuerzo positivo consistente”. Lakeesha, por otro lado, debe recibir respuestas “inmediatas” a sus comportamientos agresivos y refuerzo positivo para los “comportamientos deseados”, dijo la herramienta. Para Kareem, Gemini simplemente dijo: “Definir claramente las expectativas y enseñar los comportamientos de reemplazo”, sin mencionar el refuerzo positivo o las respuestas al comportamiento agresivo.

Torney señaló que los problemas en estos informes generados por AI solo se hicieron evidentes a través de una muestra grande, lo que puede hacer difícil que sea identificado por los maestros. El informe advierte que los maestros novatos pueden ser más propensos a confiar en el contenido generado por IA sin la experiencia para detectar imprecisiones o sesgos. Torney dijo que estos sesgos subyacentes en los planes de intervención “podrían tener impactos realmente grandes sobre la progresión o los resultados de los estudiantes a medida que avanzan en su trayectoria educativa”.

Los estudiantes negros ya están sujetos a tasas más altas de suspensión que sus homólogos blancos en las escuelas y es más probable que reciban consecuencias disciplinarias más duras por razones subjetivas, como “comportamiento disruptivo”. Los algoritmos de aprendizaje automático replican los patrones de toma de decisiones de los datos de formación que se les proporcionan, lo que puede perpetuar las desigualdades existentes. Un estudio separado encontró que las herramientas de IA replican el sesgo racial existente al calificar ensayos, asignando puntuaciones más bajas a los estudiantes negros que a los estudiantes asiáticos.

El informe de Common Sense Media también identificó casos en los que los asistentes docentes de IA generaron planes de lecciones que se basaban en estereotipos, información errónea reiterada y aspectos controvertidos de la historia eliminados.

Un portavoz de Google dijo que la compañía ha invertido en el uso de datos de capacitación diversos y representativos para minimizar los sesgos y las sobre generalizaciones.

“Utilizamos pruebas rigurosas y monitoreo para identificar y detener el potencial sesgo en nuestros modelos de IA”, afirmó el portavoz de Google en un correo electrónico a Chalkbeat. “Hemos hecho un buen progreso, pero siempre estamos tratando de hacer mejoras con nuestras técnicas de entrenamiento y datos”.

En su sitio web, MagicSchool promueve a su asistente docente de IA como “una herramienta imparcial para ayudar en la toma de decisiones para las prácticas restaurativas”. En un correo electrónico a Chalkbeat, MagicSchool dijo que no ha sido capaz de reproducir los problemas que Common Sense Media identificó.

MagicSchool afirmó que su plataforma incluye advertencias de sesgo e instruye a los usuarios a no incluir nombres de estudiantes u otra información identificativa al usar las características de la IA. A la luz del estudio, se está trabajando con Common Sense para mejorar sus sistemas de detección de sesgos y diseñar herramientas que alienten a los educadores a revisar más de cerca el contenido generado por la IA.

“Como se señala en el estudio, las herramientas de IA como la nuestra son muy prometedoras, pero también conllevan riesgos reales si no se diseñan, implementan y usan responsablemente”, dijo MagicSchool a Chalkbeat. “Estamos agradecidos a Common Sense Media por ayudar a mantener el campo responsable”.

Traducido por Bernardo de la Cruz.

Esta traducción fue proporcionada por New Jersey Hispano, en asociación con el Centro de Medios Cooperativos de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair, y cuenta con el apoyo financiero del Consorcio de Información Cívica de NJ. La historia fue escrita originalmente en inglés por Chalkbeat y se vuelve a publicar en virtud de un acuerdo especial para compartir contenido a través del Servicio de noticias de traducción al español de NJ News Commons.

Teachers lean on AI to help English learners as Trump pushes schools to integrate the technology

2025-08-12T20:42:45+00:00

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Selina Yu Ye has been helping immigrant students learn English for nearly two decades. In recent years, she’s seen her students engage in new ways when she brings AI into the conversation.

When one of her fourth graders was reluctant to speak up in class, Ye introduced her to a chatbot from the company Brisk that the student could interact with in both English and her native language. Ye says that soon the student began confidently leading group discussions — with help from her AI companion.

Ye, who’s a literacy coach in New York City public schools, also likes AI-integrated activities involving robots like Cubetto and KaiBot that students can program with voice prompts. Many students shy about speaking aloud will jump at the chance to do so when it involves that kind of exercise.

In such activities, multilingual learners and especially newcomers “feel seen and heard because they notice that the content actually meets them where they are, linguistically and culturally,” said Ye. “I do notice that students participate more in whole class discussions.”

Ye’s work in the classroom is an example of how AI tools have become especially popular for teachers serving English learners and students with individualized learning needs, according to a recent survey by the research corporation RAND. However, some observers worry such tools could exacerbate instructional gaps. Experts also highlight linguistic issues like inaccurate translations, and how AI can even mistake these students’ work as AI-generated. And federal funding cuts could complicate efforts to use the technology ethically and effectively for language acquisition, even as the Trump administration has pushed for schools to rely on AI.

Federal data from 2021 indicated the share of public school students who were English learners was on the rise.

Student-facing AI tools can provide a space for students learning English to get more practice reading aloud with one-on-one feedback.

For example, Amira is what the company behind it calls “an AI-powered reading assistant”. The tool offers feedback in both English and Spanish and recognizes various dialects within both languages. Ye says these AI speech to text tools can provide students the opportunity to practice their oral language skills and hear model pronunciations so that they’re more confident speaking in class.

“It’s a fancy technology, but it’s a very simple premise,” said Joe Siedlecki, Amira’s chief impact officer. “It’s just impossible the way schools are staffed to do one-on-one work with every kid you know for 30 to 40 minutes a week which is generally what kids need”.

Staffing isn’t the only issue that might lead schools to turn to AI to help English learners.

About half of general education teachers report feeling not at all or only somewhat prepared to serve students learning English, RAND’s survey found.

Moreover, addressing the needs of English learners ranked low on principals’ priorities in selecting professional development and instructional materials, even at schools where they make up a large proportion of the student body. Ashley Woo, a researcher at RAND, said that AI can help fill those gaps for teachers by modifying classroom materials to meet student’s language proficiency and reading levels.

AI tools can also help analyze student’s assessment data to identify gaps in their instruction, said Margarita Machado-Casas, president of the National Association of Bilingual Education.

But all that doesn’t necessarily mean AI-driven differentiated instruction is in the best interest of students, said Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media.

English language learners are more likely to miss out on grade-appropriate assignments, and they’re less likely to have teachers with high expectations and receive strong instruction. With many teachers already underprepared to deal with English learners, Torney worries that relying on AI to make reading passages easier for these students could amplify inequitable access to grade-level materials.

AI-powered translation can also be inaccurate or misrepresent the original sentiment of a text, Machado-Casas warned; a quarter of teachers using AI say it helps with translation, RAND found. Sometimes translations can also simply produce lower-quality materials; when Amira first began Spanish reading instruction they used stories translated from English. After instructors and students reported their disengagement, the company switched from translated material to stories written by native Spanish speakers.

Moreover, English learners may be unintentionally hurt by teachers’ efforts to root out AI-generated writing material. A recent study at Stanford University found that AI detectors tend to falsely identify essays by non-native English students as AI-generated, despite being “near-perfect” with their native English counterparts.

“We have to think about some of the systemic influences associated with the application of AI,” said Torney. “It’s about using the technology well to teach kids. It’s not about just using the technology to personalize for the sake of personalizing.”

Cuts complicate AI support for English learners

The Trump administration has pushed for greater AI integration in schools. But cuts at the U.S. Department of Education, including to education research, could make it a lot harder for schools to identify ethical and effective ways to use the technology, especially when it comes to serving traditionally overlooked student populations.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has announced her intention to prioritize grants advancing AI in education. However, her department’s guidelines for the responsible integration of artificial intelligence do not directly address issues like bias in AI tools, or consider the needs of English learners.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration fired nearly every staffer in the department’s Office of English Language Acquisition. In addition to overseeing funding grants for programs serving English learners, the office maintains the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, a hub for data, research, and best practices.

All that could mean schools won’t have federal guidance or research to help inform their use of AI in supporting students learning English.

AI technology “is moving so quickly that the more we wait and the more we have these conversations without training, I think we run the risk of [AI] being misused,” Machado-Casas said.

Funding cuts to research could also threaten the development of innovative technologies for English language acquisition.

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California Irvine, is developing Rosita, an AI avatar that helps bilingual families read together by facilitating comprehension questions about books in Spanish and English.

In late April, however, the National Science Foundation informed Warschauer that his grant would be cancelled. A little over a month later, the grant for his lab was reinstated, but now, the pilot of Rosita on PBS platforms has been delayed after Congress ended federal support to PBS for the next two years.

“Innovative technologies have this dual potential to either amplify inequality or help mitigate it,” said Warschauer. “We have to be intentional about how we develop it, use it, and we have to study what works and doesn’t work.”

Norah Rami is a Dow Jones business reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at nrami@chalkbeat.org.

AI teacher tools display racial bias when generating student behavior plans, study finds

2025-08-06T13:32:03+00:00

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Asked to generate intervention plans for struggling students, AI teacher assistants recommended more punitive measures for hypothetical students with Black-coded names and more supportive approaches for students the platforms perceived as white, a new study shows.

These findings come from a report on the risks of bias in artificial intelligence tools published Wednesday by the non-profit Common Sense Media. Researchers specifically sought to evaluate the quality of AI teacher assistants — such as MagicSchool, Khanmingo, Curipod, and Google Gemini for Education — that are designed to support classroom planning, lesson differentiation, and administrative tasks.

Common Sense Media found that while these tools could help teachers save time and streamline routine paperwork, AI-generated content could also promote bias in lesson planning and classroom management recommendations.

Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, said the problems identified in the study are serious enough that ed tech companies should consider removing tools for behavior intervention plans until they can improve them. That’s significant because writing intervention plans of various sorts is a relatively common way teachers use AI.

After Chalkbeat asked about Common Sense Media’s findings, a Google spokesperson said Tuesday that Google Classroom has turned off the shortcut to Gemini that prompts teachers to “Generate behavior intervention strategies” to do additional testing.

However, both MagicSchool and Google, the two platforms where Common Sense Media identified racial bias in AI-generated behavior intervention plans, said they could not replicate Common Sense Media’s findings. They also said they take bias seriously and are working to improve their models.

School districts across the country have been working to implement comprehensive AI policies to encourage informed use of these tools. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft have partnered with the American Federation of Teachers to provide free training in using AI platforms. The Trump Administration also has encouraged greater AI integration in the classroom. However, recent AI guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Education have not directly addressed concerns about bias within these systems.

About a third of teachers report using AI at least weekly, according to a national survey conducted by the Walton Family Foundation in cooperation with Gallup. A separate survey conducted by the research organization Rand found teachers specifically report using these tools to help develop goals for Individualized Education Program — or IEP — plans. They also say they use these tools to shape lessons or assessments around those goals, and to brainstorm ways to accommodate students with disabilities.

Torney said Common Sense Media isn’t trying to discourage teachers from using AI in general. The goal of the report is to encourage more awareness of potential uses of AI teacher assistants that might have greater risks in the classroom.

“We really just want people to go in eyes wide open and say, ‘Hey these are some of the things that they’re best at and these are some of the things you probably want to be a little bit more careful with,’” he said.

Common Sense Media identified AI tools that can generate IEPs and behavior intervention plans as high risk due to their biased treatment of students in the classroom. Using MagicSchool’s Behavior Intervention Suggestions tool and the Google Gemini “Generate behavior intervention strategies tool,” Common Sense Media’s research team ran the same prompt about a student who struggled with reading and showed aggressive behavior 50 times using white-coded names and 50 times using Black-coded names, evenly split between male- and female-coded names.

The AI-generated plans for the students with Black-coded names didn’t all appear negative in isolation. But clear differences emerged when those plans from MagicSchool and Gemini were compared with plans for students with white-coded names.

For example, when prompted to provide a behavior intervention plan for Annie, Gemini emphasized addressing aggressive behavior with “consistent non-escalating responses” and “consistent positive reinforcement.” Lakeesha, on the other hand, should receive “immediate” responses to her aggressive behaviors and positive reinforcement for “desired behaviors,” the tool said. For Kareem, Gemini simply said, “Clearly define expectations and teach replacement behaviors,” with no mention of positive reinforcement or responses to aggressive behavior.

Torney noted that the problems in these AI-generated reports only became apparent across a large sample, which can make it hard for teachers to identify. The report warns that novice teachers may be more likely to rely on AI-generated content without the experience to catch inaccuracies or biases. Torney said these underlying biases in intervention plans “could have really large impacts on student progression or student outcomes as they move across their educational trajectory.”

Black students are already subject to higher rates of suspension than their white counterparts in schools and more likely to receive harsher disciplinary consequences for subjective reasons, like “disruptive behavior.” Machine learning algorithms replicate the decision-making patterns of the training data that they are provided, which can perpetuate existing inequalities. A separate study found that AI tools replicate existing racial bias when grading essays, assigning lower scores to Black students than to Asian students.

The Common Sense Media report also identified instances when AI teacher assistants generated lesson plans that relied on stereotypes, repeated misinformation, and sanitized controversial aspects of history.

A Google spokesperson said the company has invested in using diverse and representative training data to minimize bias and overgeneralizations.

“We use rigorous testing and monitoring to identify and stop potential bias in our AI models,” the Google spokesperson said in an email to Chalkbeat. “We’ve made good progress, but we’re always aiming to make improvements with our training techniques and data.”

On its website, MagicSchool promotes its AI teaching assistant as “an unbiased tool to aid in decision-making for restorative practices.” In an email to Chalkbeat, MagicSchool said it has not been able to reproduce the issues that Common Sense Media identified.

MagicSchool said their platform includes bias warnings and instructs users not to include student names or other identifying information when using AI features. In light of the study, it is working with Common Sense to improve its bias detection systems and design tools in ways that encourage educators to review AI generated content more closely.

“As noted in the study, AI tools like ours hold tremendous promise — but also carry real risks if not designed, deployed, and used responsibly,” MagicSchool told Chalkbeat. “We are grateful to Common Sense Media for helping hold the field accountable.”

A translation of this story was provided by New Jersey Hispano, in partnership with Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media and is supported financially by the NJ Civic Information Consortium. The story was republished under a special content-sharing agreement through NJ News Commons’ Spanish Translation News Service.

Norah Rami is a Dow Jones business reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at nrami@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis residents protested xAI’s arrival. Now the company is funding upgrades for four schools.

2025-07-30T20:55:28+00:00

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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is promising to repair and renovate four Memphis-Shelby County schools located near its two new data centers in Southwest Memphis.

That agreement, approved by the MSCS school board on Tuesday, will offer some relief to the district’s growing deferred facility maintenance needs. But it also pulls the district into a controversial project that’s sparked community backlash.

The four schools included in xAI’s plan – John P. Freeman Optional, Fairley High, Mitchell High, and Westwood High – have some of the most dire building repair needs in the district, according to The Daily Memphian, estimated to cost $61 million over the next decade. The AI company is committing to plumbing and HVAC upgrades, as well as construction of new technology classrooms.

But some board members expressed skepticism around the resolution with xAI, citing protests from residents living near the company’s data centers over air pollution and water usage concerns. The MSCS board voted 7-2 to enter a memorandum of understanding with xAI for the upcoming school year.

Vice Chair Stephanie Love opposed the measure, as did Keith Williams on behalf of his Whitehaven constituents.

“There is a mountain of resistance to this project,” Williams said. “If the community doesn’t want it, and the school system says, ‘We’ll support you doing these things to our school,’ then the school district is doing a disservice to the citizens that they serve in that community.”

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia, who sponsored the resolution, said the AI company is going to exist in Memphis whether the board “approves of their existence or not.”

“And if they want to invest in our children and our families, and their future workforce and their future leadership, I will not sleep tonight if I say no to that,” she said.

In a July 15 letter to the district, xAI Senior Manager Brent Mayo said the company will fully fund, in each school building, the repair or installation of:

Plumbing, lighting, and HVAC systems
Athletic facilities, including an outdoor track and indoor basketball court
Chemistry and technology labs
Outdoor landscaping

The company received approval for a donation exceeding $15,000, but it’s unclear how much the upgrades will cost in total. In his letter, Mayo said xAI will “assume all financial responsibility” associated with additional repairs.

Board member Natalie McKinney stressed that the agreement between MSCS and xAI needs to be “not a one-hit-wonder thing,” but “the beginning of a partnership.”

Bobby White, who represented xAI at Tuesday’s board meeting on behalf of the Greater Memphis Chamber, said the company has already shown its commitment to neighbors by building an $80 million wastewater recycle facility to address usage concerns.

And he said this project helps set up a pipeline for MSCS students who could one day work for xAI.

White recognized that the company has struggled with a “negative perception” from community members since the beginning. He said that’s why leaders waited until after they received permit approval from the Shelby County Health Department to announce the school projects.

“There is nothing the company is asking for from the community at this point,” White said. “It’s only looking to make an investment with its neighbors.”

MSCS is facing at least $1 billion in deferred maintenance costs across its school buildings. The board voted in June to establish a committee of appointed education and business leaders to help make decisions about school closures and upgrades.

Interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond originally said he wanted a report from that committee by Sept. 1. But the group will meet for the first time on Aug. 13, board member Sable Otey said Tuesday. And it still hasn’t filled designated student and teacher seats.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools to expand staff use of AI in pilot program, school board to consider draft policy

2025-06-11T11:00:00+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools is considering a policy on artificial intelligence that would guide the district as it experiments with AI tools for teachers and staff.

The policy — which the school board could vote on later this month — follows a yearlong pilot program in which 20 staff members used a district-approved AI tool to better understand its uses and challenges. Although the policy does not address specific acceptable student uses, it lists general guiding points for staff to ensure AI tools are appropriately used for teaching and learning.

“There’s still a lot to learn from a broader group of adult users before we’re putting students in an environment that maybe doesn’t match curriculum or what teachers are learning at the same time,” Ashley Cowger, the district’s chief systems officer, said. “We want to make sure that staff feel well equipped to determine what the boundaries are for use of AI in a classroom.”

The basic guidelines are one step into a complex AI landscape that IPS and other districts now navigate. While districts could use tools such as the chatbots ChatGPT and Google Gemini to cut down on time-consuming, administrative tasks, they must also balance concerns over online student privacy and inherent bias in the manmade tools.

Plus, IPS will launch a second phase of its pilot AI program this upcoming school year in which even more staff will use a generative AI tool — the chatbot Google Gemini. However, the district is not yet adopting a districtwide tool for staff.

“We are focused on playing the long game so that we’re not finding ourselves in a situation where we’re procuring a bunch of different systems and then those systems don’t meet our needs in a year or two,” Cowger told the school board in May.

The district did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat Indiana about the second phase of the pilot program and future rules for student use of AI tools by deadline.

AI could support lesson plans, create reports

The draft policy states that AI must be used to produce equitable outcomes while also adhering to applicable federal laws such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which mandates the privacy of student records.

Staff must only use AI tools approved by the district, which would license the appropriate AI products, according to the draft policy. An “AI Advisory Committee” of administrators, teachers, and technology and legal experts would also provide input on the districtwide use of AI.

It’s unclear when the advisory committee would be created.

Acceptable uses of AI listed in the draft policy include using it to:

Draft communications such as emails and newsletters
Create data summaries or reports
Support lesson planning
Automate “repetitive, low-risk tasks”

The acceptable uses were shaped by this past school year’s pilot, which concluded that using AI helps staff do more complex analytical tasks with less human brainpower and capacity, Cowger told the board.

“It also allowed us to simplify administrative tasks,” she said. “Our schools send out newsletters every week. We also do district communication regularly. We have tools like a generative AI tool that can help us at least craft a first draft that doesn’t require 100% of human brainpower all the time.”

The first phase of the pilot included teachers, administrators, and central office staff.

Google Gemini will cost $177 per user in the second phase of the pilot program for 2025-26, Cowger said. The second, broader phase could help the district figure out how far it would like to stretch its use of AI going into the 2026-27 school year.

Cowger said the district’s “responsible use agreements” for district-issued technology, such as laptops, will also need to be updated to “encompass the world of AI.”

And although the district negotiated a cheaper cost per user for Gemini in the second phase of the pilot, Cowger said officials will have to think about the future potential cost if AI use grows districtwide.

Using free versions of AI tools comes with the risk of sharing sensitive student information — such as a student’s personalized education plan — on the internet, Cowger said.

The district has also outlined a “roadmap” for professional learning for staff that will be used in the upcoming school year.

“From hearing feedback from the pilot group over the course of this year we heard a lot of what people want to know. People want to know how the tools actually work. They understand it’s not magic, but they also don’t need to know all of the science behind it,” Cowger said. “Something in the middle that they need to understand.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

AI in the classroom: Friend or foe to creativity?

2025-05-08T10:00:00+00:00

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There’s no way to ignore the rise of AI in schools.

Students are embracing it. Educators are battling it. Policymakers are trying to get ahead of it. There’s no turning back.

But are there some classes where AI just doesn’t belong?

Producers Annie He, a senior at John Dewey High School, and Roberto Bailey, a junior at Hunter College High School, explore how AI use among students is exploding and question its effect on creativity.

Writing teachers are especially worried. To combat these new, rapidly evolving tools, some teachers are resorting to old ones: pencil and paper.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Listen for new P.S. Weekly episodes Thursdays this spring.

Read the transcript below

Annie: If you were to describe AI in one word, what would it be?

Multiple Voices: Intimidating / useful / robots / robots / robots / bad / catastrophic / kind of helpful

Speaker 1: ingenuitive?

Roberto: Ingenued-?

Speaker 1: Is that a word?

Roberto: Is that a word?

Speaker 1: I’d say, innovative. Yeah, innovative.

Speaker 2: This is the crack cocaine of cheating, of plagiarism.

Annie: Well, okay, that wasn’t one word, but you get the point. Anyways, artificial intelligence is back at it yet again. I’m Annie He…

Roberto: and I’m Roberto Bailey,

Annie: and we’d like to welcome our listeners back to P.S. Weekly, the sound of the New York City school system.

Roberto: In January of this year, an online business news site K12 dive reported that between the 2022 to 2024 school years, the percentage of students use generative AI increased from 51% to 70% which is just a kind of crazy jump, if you think about it. I know, personally, I’ve seen this rise everywhere. What about you, Annie?

Annie: Well, well, I’ve definitely seen AI being used everywhere, like I’ve used AI too, you know, the popular ones like ChatGPT and even Grammarly. Actually, right now, I’m actually learning German, and prompting the bot to act as my virtual tutor has been really helpful as I struggle to learn the basics of the language. It points out the errors I may have made, and it tells me how I could improve myself on it. It’s either that or I just use it as a planner. It makes everything so much easier. What about you?

Roberto: Yeah, I’ve also used it before, and I’ve seen that some of my teachers have actually encouraged it, both for translation of maybe documents like primary sources in another language, or for kind of starting out the research process and getting your bearings, kind of like an interactive Wikipedia. I myself have also used it for studying, like, I’ll plug in my study guide and ask it to give me questions. And even, like non academic uses, I think those kind of exist. You know, I’ve used it to help pick out skin care products, for example. But yeah, I honestly think that AI has really started to take over. We talked to some students from my school, Hunter College, high school and Annie’s school, John Dewey High School, and they definitely felt pretty similar.

Student 1: I’d probably say like half of the students at my school use AI.

Student 2: I know my mom and a lot of other people in the workplace use it a lot, and I think it’s kind of become this resource for people who, especially my mother, doesn’t speak English, like, perfectly. That’s really useful in creating workplace kind of equality.

Student 3: There’s a lot of assignments that I’m, like, confused on, and then using AI like ChatGpt, it gives me a better understanding of a format of what I should write or what I should do.

Annie: But what we really wanted to look at is how AI is impacting creativity in classrooms. And I was first interested in doing a story about AI because of a friend of mine, she’s an artist, and the mock trial team at our school had requested artists to create a logo for their social media page, Instagram. And she took on this opportunity, and she’d stayed up all night working on it, putting up the finishing touches. And when she sent it off to them, Well, they didn’t even use it. Instead, they settled on an AI generated image.

Roberto: Oh my God, that’s really horrible. Annie

Annie: I know, right? She was heartbroken.

Annie: Today I’m here with

Seara: AJ Seara, ELA teacher at John Dewey high school in Brooklyn, New York.

Annie: Mr. Seara has been teaching English and creative writing for nearly seven years now, meaning he’s seen the advent of AI firsthand.

Annie: What do you like about teaching creative writing…

Seara: The freedom, it’s just it’s fun, like it’s channeling different things that school typically doesn’t allow you to do, or very focused on black and white in school, right and wrong. Analysis skills. I think creativity is something that is kind of pushed to the side during high school, and I think it’s a nice opportunity for kids to try to flex those muscles.

Annie: So do you remember what your first thoughts were when you heard of AI?

Seara: Uh oh! Those are my first thoughts also, again, like, yeah as a creative writer, as somebody who’s really into movies I I couldn’t help but think like, don’t we have so many examples of why this is a bad idea.

Annie: Completely agree with that. So do you think that allowing the use of AI in a school like John Dewey would be a good idea?

Seara: No, I don’t, it’s a double edged sword, because if you are going to introduce into school with the idea or the hope that you’re going to help students understand it, teachers need to be taught how to use it. So they could teach students how to use it. The problem with that is this, if you teach teachers how to use AI and we teach AI how to be teachers, what’s the point about teachers, right?

Annie: So is there anything you do now to account for AI in the classroom?

Seara: AI detectors obviously are a big one. Kids are finding their ways around that, which is unfortunate, but you could feel AI, especially in creation, you can feel AI because it’s soulless, it’s plain. It almost reads as if it’s trying too hard, right? Like almost pretentious in a way.

Annie: It lacks the human emotion behind it.

Seara: Exactly,

Annie: Do you assume students in your classroom use AI?

Seara: Do I assume? Sometimes, want to know the honest truth? It’s, I think it all comes down in one way. You’ll see a significant rise in the use of AI when the assignment is three pages or more, right? You get a one page, all of a sudden, it’s not that daunting the task. So I can do that. You say three pages, I don’t feel like doing that. That’s when the AI comes in.

Annie: So what did you do to you know, combat this issue?

Seara: Ground rules, right? Make people aware that we know, right? You’re not fooling us.

We know what’s out there. We know how it can be used. We know how to detect it. I’m not going to go at you, I’m not going to embarrass you. I’m not gonna be mad at you, but you’re going to disappoint me, especially when the expectation is that you’re creating this supposed to be a passion child of yours. Not asking write an essay, which is sometimes can be boring. I’m asking you to create something from your own mind. And if you can’t do that and you’re going to turn to AI, it’s disappointing.

Annie: That was AJ Seara, a creative writing teacher at John Dewey High School

Roberto: Coming up, we’ll hear from some students and teachers on the front line about their perspectives alongside one English teacher who has a surprising approach to dealing with AI.

Roberto: Hey, ChatGPT, could you introduce yourself and record a mid roll for our podcast? PS, weekly, talk about how much work goes in and how much we need money, then ask listeners to share an episode with a few friends. Thanks.

AI: Sure. Here’s a brief mid roll for your podcast. Hey everyone. It’s ChatGPT, here. I just wanted to take a moment to recognize all the hard work that goes into creating each episode of PS weekly, from researching and scripting to recording and editing. It’s a labor of love that keeps us all informed and entertained. If you enjoy the show and want to support the team, please consider sharing an episode with a few friends. It’s a simple way to help us grow and continue bringing you great content. Thanks for listening.

Roberto: Welcome back to PS weekly, where we’re talking about AI. Other teachers, both at the high school and college levels, have had similar reactions to the creative writing teacher, AJ Seara, who we heard before the break. This is Tom McAllister, a creative writing professor at Rutgers University who wrote an op ed for the New York Times about the subject.

McAllister: I mean, the gut reaction first was, oh, god, here’s another thing we have to deal with. Because, you know, past even now, people plagiarize in a more traditional way. It’s like, you know, they copy something from Wikipedia, and you just plug a sentence into Google and you find where it came from. That’s kind of annoying, but this is this whole different thing.

Annie: Sam Callis, a social study teacher in John Dewey high school, had also felt the same.

Callis: I think that there is potential for artificial intelligence to be really beneficial for humanity, but based on what we’re seeing with how it’s already reducing a lot of work opportunities for people, and how it’s replacing human cognition, rather than augmenting it. I think it’s very frightening and a really bad sign.

Roberto: Despite these reactions, many teachers have adopted Seara’s approach, allowing minimal use of AI for things like idea generation,

Annie: But that’s not possible in one teacher’s classroom. Michael Ortiz has taught English for a long time at the Heights school in Potomac, Maryland. He’s definitely taken a more extreme measure.

Ortiz: Yeah, so I’ve been exclusively using blue books in my classes.

Annie: I actually had to look up what blue book was, and it turns out blue book is an exam where students answer essays or short answer questions in a dedicated blue cover notebook, which were common before the age of the internet.

Ortiz: Now. Some people argue that there is no substitute for the take home five page typed paper. And I kind of disagree with that, essentially, because it’s a very valuable skill to learn to write under pressure. I guess the other thing I would say is, I’m a little bit of a purist on this. Is, I think that when you’re 17 years old and you’re looking at, like, I don’t know, a geometry problem or a Shakespeare sonnet, you know, which is what my, you know, my work is with you’ve got to avoid looking at that sonnet in a completely transactional way, like my job is to read this on it and get its main point and go and move on to something else. You know, that’s like the YouTube mindset, the shorts our attention spans are being formed, in some ways deformed by this kind of pretty superficial culture of screens and of AI in this regard, and people who are using AI at 15, 16,17, they get into a habit of it. They’re not going to be the kind of people who are reflective. They’re not going to be the kind of people who are patient with difficulty.

Annie: I wanted to go back to how you say you change your curriculums, you know, kind of combat the use of AI. Have you seen how other teachers’ curriculum may have changed to, you know, adjust to the use of AI?

Ortiz: Yes, actually, yeah. That’s a great question. One of my colleagues is a history professor, History teacher at the school, and what he does is he’ll, you know, take, take a course. He’ll be teaching a course in American history, 18th century, the founders, and he’ll put his question into AI, and then have on the test the AI’s answer, and then ask them to critique it. He’s less of a purist than I am. So he has the kids like, I look, I expect you to critique this. There are certain things that he sees that are missing, certain things that he doesn’t like. And that’s, that’s the whole idea of, like, actually, you know, you guys are students, you know this, reacting to something you’re, you know, with your own, your own self.

Annie: Like, looking ahead. What do you hope the future holds for the creative writing fields, especially the you know, the influence of AI and you know other, the other technological advances?

Ortizl: Well, I’ll be slightly pessimistic and say I’m not looking for any creative advances in literature due to the advent of AI. I’ll just say that right out. It’s, if it, to call it a tool, in the same way, that a pencil is a tool, is, there’s a point where it gets so different, it’s, it’s different kind of thing altogether. But in regard to the human craft of writing, especially imaginative literature, and I would also say the human craft, or it’s not really a craft, but it’s an art of education because do we just want to give everybody a bunch of skill sets. I mean, is that what we’re after? You know, we’re all kind of, we’re just widget making. We make people really skilled writers, and they are not going to attend to the quality of the life they live, the quality of any leisure that they have, their experience of beauty. Leisure is in fact the basis of culture.

Roberto: That was Michael Ortiz, an English teacher at the Heights School in Potomac, Maryland.

Annie: New York City schools have had an interesting relationship with generative AI. They actually banned ChatGPT and programs like it from schools in January 2023, but just a few months later, they lifted the ban. Only a few months after that, the chancellor was all in on AI and even launching an artificial intelligence Policy Lab to lead the city’s approach.

Roberto: And on a federal level, President Donald Trump is definitely embracing AI in the classroom. With his new executive order, he aimed to bring artificial intelligence technologies and tools to all schools, K through 12. There are even federal grants to pay for this new AI curriculum.

Annie: It seems like both New York City and the country have decided that AI is unavoidable, so now they’re leaning in and figuring out how to use this technology in schools. Only time will tell whether AI would truly take over our education, but I really hope it doesn’t, because like what Seara had said earlier, stripping students of their growing ability to create won’t end with sunshines and rainbows, because if we all lose the ability to think for ourselves, just where was society be headed?

Roberto: Yeah, I honestly think it’s kind of scary how normalized AI has become. We’ve seen firsthand how often students are using it, and while I definitely think it can be used effectively it still is a threat, especially if students become reliant on it. AI isn’t all bad, but we need to make sure that it’s supporting our creativity, not substituting it.

Annie: Exactly, actually funny thing, I asked ChatGPT for it’s opinion on this matter, and here’s what he told me, think of it like a musical instrument. You still need a musician, AI doesn’t create meaning. It helps shape what we already bring to the table.

Roberto: Surprisingly, I think ChatGpt is right about that.

Annie: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation, the Summerfield foundation and FJC

Roberto: Producers for this episode were me Roberto Bailey

Annie: And me Annie He with reporting help from Amy Zimmer at Chalkbeat.

Roberto: Our executive producer from the show is Ave Carrillo and executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw. Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay and our friends at Chalkbeat. Our engagement editor is Carolina Hidalgo.

Roberto: This episode was made using Hindenburg Pro, music is from Blue Dot sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of the episode was created by Erica Wong

Annie: And special thanks to our mentor, Sydney Harper. See you all next week on P.S. Weekly, the voice of the New York City school system.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

Newark students learn the basics of AI as they weigh its use in their future careers

2025-05-06T10:00:01+00:00

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On a recent Thursday morning, Michael Taubman asked his class of seniors at North Star Academy’s Washington Park High School: “What do you think AI’s role should be in your future career?”

“In school, like how we use AI as a tool and we don’t use it to cheat on our work … that’s how it should be, like an assistant,” said Amirah Falana, a 17-year-old interested in a career in real estate law.

Fernando Infante, an aspiring software developer, agreed that AI should be a tool to “provide suggestions” and inform the work.

“It’s like having AI as a partner rather than it doing the work,” said Infante during class.

Falana and Infante are students in Taubman’s class called The Summit, a yearlong program offered to 93 seniors this year and expanding to juniors next year that also includes a 10-week AI course developed by Taubman and Stanford University.

As part of the course, students use artificial intelligence tools – often viewed in a negative light due to privacy and other technical concerns – to explore their career interests and better understand how technology could shape the workforce. The class is also timely, as 92% of companies plan to invest in more AI over the next three years, according to a report by global consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

The lessons provide students with hands-on exercises to better understand how AI works and how they can use it in their daily lives. They are also designed so teachers across subject areas can include them as part of their courses and help high school students earn a Google Career Certificate for AI Essentials, which introduces AI and teaches the basics of using AI tools.

Students like Infante have used the AI and coding skills they learned in class to create their own apps while others have used them to create school surveys and spark new thoughts about their future careers. Taubman says the goal is to also give students agency over AI so they can embrace technological changes and remain competitive in the workfield.

“One of the key things for young people right now is to make sure they understand that this technology is not inevitable,” Taubman told Chalkbeat last month. “People made this, people are making decisions about it, and there are pros and cons like with everything people make and we should be talking about this.”

Stanford Digital Education fellow Michael Taubman helped create a program to teach high school students how AI works and how it could shape their futures.

Students need to know the basics of AI, experts say

As Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, graduate high school and enter a workforce where AI is new, many are wondering how the technology will be used and to what extent.

Nearly half of Gen Z students polled by The Walton Family Foundation and Gallup said they use AI weekly, according to the newly released survey exploring how youth view AI. (The Walton Family Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat. See our funders list here.) The same poll found that over 4 in 10 Gen Z students believe they will need to know AI in their future careers, and over half believe schools should be required to teach them how to use it.

This school year, Newark Public Schools students began using Khan Academy’s AI chatbot tutor called Khanmigo, which the district launched as a pilot program last year. Some Newark teachers reported that the tutoring tool was helpful in the classroom, but the district has not released data on whether it helped raise student performance and test scores. The district in 2024 also launched its multimillion project to install AI cameras across school buildings in an attempt to keep students safe.

But more than just using AI in school, students want to feel prepared to use it after graduating high school. Nearly 3 in 4 college students said their colleges or universities should be preparing them for AI in the workplace, according to a survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse’s Student Voice series.

Many of the challenges of using AI in education center on the type of learning approach used, accuracy, and building trust with the technology, said Nhon Ma, CEO of Numerade – an online learning assistant that uses AI and educators to help students learn STEM concepts. But that’s why it’s important to immerse students in AI to help them understand the ways it could be used and when to spot issues, Ma added.

“We want to prepare our youth for this competitive world stage, especially on the technological front so they can build their own competence and confidence in their future paths. That could potentially lead towards higher earnings for them too,” Ma said.

For Infante, the senior in Taubman’s class, AI has helped spark a love for computer science and deepened his understanding of coding. He used it to create an app that tracks personal milestones and goals and awards users with badges once they reach them. As an aspiring software developer, he feels he has an advantage over other students because he’s learning about AI in high school.

Taubman also says it’s especially important for students to understand how quickly the technology is advancing, especially for students like Infante looking towards a career in technology.

“I think it’s really important to help young people grapple with how this is new, but unlike other big new things, the pace is very fast, and the implications for career are almost immediate in a lot of cases,” Taubman added.

Washington Park High School seniors Amirah Falana, right, and Daniel Akinyele use an AI tool to explore how the technology could play a role in their future careers.

Students learn that human emotions are important as AI grows

It’s also important to remember the limitations of AI, Taubman said, noting that students need the basic understanding of how AI works in order to question it, identify any mistakes, and use it accordingly in their careers.

“I don’t want students to lose out on an internship or job because someone else knows how to use AI better than they do, but what I really want is for students to get the internship or the job because they’re skillful with AI,” Taubman said.

Through Taubman’s class, students are also identifying how AI increases the demand for skills that require human emotion, such as empathy and ethics.

Daniel Akinyele, a 17-year-old senior, said he was interested in a career in industrial and organizational psychology, which focuses on human behavior in the workplace.

During Taubman’s class, he used a custom AI tool on his laptop to explore different scenarios where he could use AI in his career. Many involved talking to someone about their feelings or listening to vocal cues that might indicate a person is sad or angry. Ultimately, psychology is a career about human connection and “that’s where I come into play,” Akinyele said.

“I’m human, so I would understand how people are feeling, like the emotion that AI doesn’t see in people’s faces, I would see it and understand it,” Akinyele added.

Falana, the aspiring real estate attorney, also used the custom AI tool to consider how much she should rely on AI when writing legal documents. Similar to writing essays in schools, Falana said professionals should use their original writing in their work but AI could serve as a launching pad.

“I feel like the legal field should definitely put regulations on AI use, like we shouldn’t be able to, draw up our entire case using AI,” Falana said.

During Taubman’s class, students also discussed fake images and videos created by AI. Infante, who wants to be a software developer, added that he plans to use AI regularly on the job but believes it should also be regulated to limit disinformation online.

Taubman says it’s important for students to have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to new technologies. He encourages students to think about how AI generates images, the larger questions around copyright infringement, and their training processes.

“We really want them to feel like they have agency in this world, both their capacity to use these systems,” Taubman said, “but also to ask these broader questions about how they were designed.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

9 tips on how to protect student privacy when using AI tools

2024-12-13T17:43:28+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Since the release of ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the number of AI tools has skyrocketed, and there are now many advocates for the potential changes AI can cause in education.

But districts have not been as fast in providing teachers with training. As a result, many are experimenting without any guidance, an approach that can pose serious risks to student privacy.

To learn about how teachers and other educators can protect student data and abide by the law when using AI tools, Chalkbeat consulted documents and interviewed specialists from school districts, nonprofits, and other groups. Here are nine suggestions from experts.

Consult with your school district about AI

Navigating the details about the privacy policies in each tool can be challenging for a teacher. Some districts list tools that they have vetted or with which they have contracts.

Give preference to these tools, if possible, and check if your district has any recommendations about how to use them. When a tool has a contract with a school or a district, they are supposed to protect students’ data and follow national and state law, but always check if your district has any recommendations on how to use the tool. Checking with your school’s IT or education technology department is also a good option.

It is also essential to investigate if your school or district has guidelines or policies for the general use of AI. These documents usually review privacy risks and ethical questions.

Check for reviews about AI platforms’ safety

Organizations like Common Sense Media and iKeepSafe review ed-tech tools and provide feedback on their safety.

Be careful when platforms say they comply with laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. According to the law, the school is ultimately responsible for children’s data and must be aware of any information it shares with a third party.

Study the AI platform’s privacy policy and terms

The privacy policy and the terms of use should provide some answers about how a company uses the data it collects from you. Make sure to read them carefully, and look for some of the following information:

What information does the platform collect?
How does the platform use the collected data? Is it used to determine which ads it will show you? Does it share data with any other company or platform?
For how long does it keep the collected data?
Is the data it collects used to train the AI model?

The list of questions that Common Sense Media uses for their privacy evaluations is available online.

You should avoid signing up for platforms that collect a broad volume of data or that are not clear in their policies. One potential red flag: vague claims about “retaining personal information for as long as necessary” and “sharing data with third parties to provide services.”

Bigger AI platforms can be safer

Big companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and others are under more scrutiny: NGOs, reporters, and politicians tend to investigate their privacy policies more frequently. They also have bigger teams and resources that allow them to invest heavily in compliance with privacy regulations. For these reasons, they tend to have better safeguards than small companies or start-ups.

You still have to be careful. Most of these platforms are not explicitly intended for educational purposes, making them less likely to create specific policies regarding student or teacher data.

Use the tools as an assistant, not a replacement

Even though these tools provide better results when you input more information, try to use them for tasks that don’t require much information about your students.

AI tools can help provide suggestions on how to ask questions about a book, set up document templates, like an Individualized Educational Program plan or a behavioral assessment, or create assessment rubrics.

But even tasks that can seem mundane can increase risks. For example, providing the tool with a list of students and their grades on a specific assignment and asking it to organize it in alphabetical order could represent a violation of student privacy.

Turn on maximum privacy settings for AI platforms

Some tools allow you to adjust your privacy settings. Look online for tutorials on the best private settings for the tool that you are using and how to activate them. ChatGPT, for example, allows users to stop it from using your data to train AI models.

Doing this does not necessarily make AI tools completely safe or compliant with student privacy regulations.

Never input personal information to AI platforms

Even if you take all the steps above, do not input student information. Information that is restricted can include:

Personal information: a student’s name, Social Security number, education ID, names of parents or other relatives, address and phone number, location of birth, or any other information that can be used to identify a student.
Academic records: reports about absences, grades, and student behaviors in the school, student work, and teachers’ feedback on and assessments of student work.

This may be harder than it sounds.

If teachers upload student work to a platform to get help with grading, for example, they should remove all identification, including the student’s name, and replace it with an alias or random number that can’t be traced back to the student. It’s also wise to ensure the students haven’t included any personal information, like their place of birth, where they live or personal details about their families, friends, religious or political inclination, sexual orientation, and club affiliations.

One exception is for platforms approved by the school or the district and holding contracts with them.

Be transparent with others about using AI

Communicate with your school supervisors, principal, parents, and students about when and how you use AI in your work. That way, everyone can ask questions and bring up concerns you may not know about.

It is also a good way to model behavior for students. For example, if teachers ask students to disclose when they use AI to complete assignments, being transparent with them in turn about how teachers use AI might foster a better classroom environment.

If uncertain, ask AI platforms to delete information

In some states, the law says platforms must delete users’ information if they request it. And some companies will delete it even if you aren’t in one of these states.

Deleting the data may be challenging and not solve all of the problems caused by misusing AI. Some companies may take a long time to respond to deletion requests or find loopholes in order to avoid deleting it.

The tips listed above come from the Commonsense Guardrails for Using Advanced Technology in Schools, published by the American Federation of Teachers; the Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning report by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology; and the List of Questions about Privacy used by Common Sense Media to carry out its privacy evaluations.

Additional help came from Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and global privacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center; Brandon Wilmart, director of educational technology at Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma; and Anjali Nambiar, education research manager at Learning Collider.

Wellington Soares is Chalkbeat’s national education reporting intern based in New York City. Contact Wellington at wsoares@chalkbeat.org.

AI tools and student data: Teachers can endanger kids’ privacy without robust training

2024-12-13T17:43:08+00:00

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High school teacher Armando Martinez is a big enthusiast of using artificial intelligence to help him teach.

For his English and media literacy classes at a charter school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he frequently uses ChatGPT to help brainstorm new ideas for lesson plans and to create little poems or music lyrics about the topics he’s discussing.

But more importantly, there are many tasks for which he intentionally does not use AI. These include creating Individualized Education Programs and grading student work. One of the main reasons he doesn’t lean on AI for these purposes is to protect student privacy. He knows he has to be careful.

“I don’t put any student information into it, I just use it to perform mundane tasks,” Martinez said. “As teachers, our biggest resources are time and energy. And we never have enough of them. For me, AI is a tool to streamline some processes.”

As AI companies have proliferated, many have offered services like AI-powered tutors for students, and AI chatbots and platforms that serve as teaching assistants. But many of them do not sufficiently protect students’ personal data.

Depending on what data teachers provide to the model, they may run afoul of student privacy laws. Without guidance from their districts or elsewhere, teachers who experiment with AI could lack crucial understanding of these platforms’ privacy risks, and expose personal student information in ways that could have repercussions for years.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Unified School District rolled out Ed, an AI-powered assistant for students, which was quickly discontinued after the company responsible for its development went into financial trouble. The abrupt shutdown of the system left parents and advocates without answers as to what was done with the student data held by the platform.

These challenges aren’t wholly new. In recent years, teachers have been investigated for accidentally sharing students’ grades on social media, and even fired for sharing students’ information via email.

“Many of the risks posed by AI are similar to the ones other ed-tech tools already presented, but on a much larger scale,” said Calli Schroeder, Senior Counsel and Global Privacy Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

At the same time, many school districts appear to have been slow to prepare teachers for the new learning environment. According to an Education Week survey of 1,135 educators conducted in September and October, 58% of educators had received no training on AI. A previous edition of the survey conducted last spring showed that only 29% had been through some training.

The risks vary a lot depending both on the platform and how teachers use it. The most common AI platforms are created by big technology companies and were not designed specifically for the use in education. These include ChatGPT from OpenAI and Google’s Gemini.

Other tools, created specifically for educational purposes like MagicSchool or Khanmigo by Khan Academy, have more safeguards in place, yet still depend heavily on teachers being cautious about what information they input.

But in many cases, both types of AI platforms incorporate the information users provide in their models. This means that when a different user accesses the platform, they might retrieve that piece of information and share it, according to Schroeder.

Before entering any information into a platform, it is important to know if it will use the data to target ads to students or share data with third parties, and even how long the platform will keep student data, said Anjali Nambiar, an education research manager at Learning Collider whose research into student privacy and AI has been published by MIT’s RAISE Initiative.

9 tips on how to protect student privacy when using AI tools

Then there’s the chance that giving AI platforms personally identifiable attendance, grades, or even work from students can lead to discrimination against them in adult life, such as when they look for jobs.

And private information uploaded to these platforms like parents’ names or Social Security numbers can spur identity theft.

In short, Nambiar said, “Having this information out there can harm students going forward.”

Despite these unsettling scenarios, there are approaches school districts can use — and are using — to safeguard student privacy.

Educators use AI safely to improve student relationships

A review of AI ed-tech tools by the investment fund Reach Capital found over 280 platforms, with AI tutors and teacher assistants the two most common types.

The adoption of AI by teachers has not moved as fast as the proliferation of these tools, but it has consistently grown. In a survey of 1,020 teachers conducted by the nonprofit RAND Corporation in the fall of 2023, 18% of teachers reported to use AI for teaching. Among those who use AI, 53% said they use chatbots like ChatGPT at least once a week, and another 16% said they used AI grading tools with the same frequency.

Some platforms that are designed specifically for education include mechanisms to reduce privacy risks.

Khanmigo and MagicSchool, for example, show multiple messages alerting teachers to not disclose students’ personal data. They also try to identify any sensitive information that teachers load into the platform and delete that information.

“We have an agreement that no student or teacher data is used to train their model,” said Kristen DiCerbo, Khan Academy’s chief learning officer. “We also anonymize all the information that is sent to their model.”

Various federal and other laws protect student data like students’ names and family information, as well as attendance and behavioral records, disabilities, and disciplinary history. However, the relevant statutes can vary from state to state. Some states are discussing bills to regulate AI.

Congress passed the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, in 1974. Calls to update FERPA date back many years, and concerns about AI have reinforced them.

Schools are ultimately responsible for student data, according to the law. FERPA determines a series of conditions for schools to disclose students’ information for third parties like contractors or technology vendors, including that they should be “under the direct control of the agency or institution with respect to the use and maintenance of education records.”

Experienced, tech-savvy teachers sometimes know the law well enough to use AI tools without breaking it. But understanding the potential risks is a very complex issue that teachers shouldn’t be expected to navigate by themselves, according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“Ensuring the ethical and successful integration of AI in education is vital but cannot become the responsibility of only a few teachers,” Weingarten said in a statement.

The union’s Commonsense Guardrails for Using Advanced Technology in Schools states that it is fundamental that school and district technology departments take the lead in vetting the tools that educators can use.

It is very simple to sign up for an account to use ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot with a personal email. And even platforms focused on education allow teachers to sign up for an account without any prior authorization.

“I feel like this just falls into one of those weird gaps in people’s knowledge where they think, for some reason … that ChatGPT doesn’t really count as outside technology”, said Schroeder, from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Even though “AI can be very helpful,” Schroeder said, “school districts need to be more explicit and address this topic to inform teachers.”

Balancing the need to comply with laws and safeguard student data with preserving educators' autonomy and curiosity about AI has been a big challenge for schools. But the education technology department in Moore Public Schools just outside Oklahoma City is up for it.

One pillar of its work is providing teachers and school administrators with training to understand the risks and responsibilities involved in using these platforms, said Brandon Wilmarth, the district’s director of educational technology.

Right after the release of ChatGPT, as the AI frenzy started, one of the first such sessions it held was about how principals could use the language model to help them write behavioral reports.

“We very openly said: You must omit any personally identifiable information,” Wilmarth recalled. “You can write down students’ behaviors, but do not include their real names.”

After using the tool, principals would transfer the AI response to the districts’ template for these documents. In the process, they would review the quality of the output and make any necessary adjustments. The AI assistance made this process faster and provided helpful insight for principals.

“We found that a lot of times, the AI analysis of the cases was really spot on,” Wilmarth said. “A lot of principals struggle with their subjective relationships with students. So whenever they would enter the facts, just the facts, it was nice to have something to bounce that back in a very objective way.”

Since then, training sessions have become more common in the district. Many professional development sessions are devoted to exploring the potential, limitations, and risks of using AI.

Moore Public Schools also gives teachers easy access to information on which AI platforms are vetted as safe for use. It also has a process that allows teachers to submit requests to have the district vet new software before they start using it.

“Everyone is pretty aware that you don’t sign up for an account with your Moore Schools email unless it’s an approved tool and that you never get students to sign up for anything that hasn’t been approved,” Wilmarth said.

Wellington Soares is Chalkbeat’s national education reporting intern based in New York City. Contact Wellington at wsoares@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers, students test out AI in Colorado classrooms

2024-11-20T22:14:34+00:00

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In room 126 at Denver’s South High School, students in a Spanish language arts class got suggestions for improving their short essays from an artificial intelligence app called Magic School: “You could elaborate on your examples,” the app advised one student.

Upstairs, in AP Computer Science, a student shared the fix she made after feeding the Java code she’d written for a bookstore inventory system into the same AI app.

Later that October day, students in an after-school club at Aurora West College Preparatory Academy pitched hypothetical products in presentations augmented with AI images and text.

For A’mariae, a ninth grader who envisioned a high-tech shoe that could be transformed from sandals to sneakers to boots with clip-on attachments, there was one problem. The trendy blue shoe the AI app had conjured on his laptop screen had a Nike swoosh on the side, a trademarked logo that would be off-limits for his brand.

A'mariae, a ninth-grader at Aurora West College Preparatory Academy, discovered that the AI app he used to create his shoe brand used the trademarked Nike swoosh.

These scenes illustrate how Colorado teachers and students are beginning to use artificial intelligence in the classroom — and navigate its limitations. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, the use of generative AI in schools in the state and across the country has become increasingly common. New York City’s schools chief championed the use of AI before he left the post in October, and districts in New Jersey and Indiana are piloting AI tools.

Generative AI analyzes huge amounts of data to generate text, images, videos, and other kinds of content.

For the moment, many teachers, and students are approaching AI more as a toe-dipping exercise than a plunge into the deep end. Not only does it take time to test and learn the apps, they don’t always work as intended. In addition, some districts are still figuring out what guardrails need to be in place to protect student privacy.

Still, the sense of excitement about AI in education is real, with a flood of products on the market and a complementary stream of AI conferences, training, and webinars available to K-12 educators. Currently, eight districts in Colorado, ranging from Adams 12 to Estes Park to Durango, are participating in a yearlong project to build AI literacy offered through the Colorado Education Initiative, which has taken a leading role in ushering the state’s schools into the AI age.

Karen Quanbeck, vice president of statewide partnerships for the organization, ticked off some of the ways AI can help teachers: quickly adapting passages for students at different reading levels, providing personalized tutoring after school hours, and allowing students to have a conversation with a computer facsimile of a historical figure.

“My goodness, just the potential for what this could do, for closing learning gaps, for really helping us rethink how learning experiences look because the ‘stand-and-deliver’ model is not always effective,” said Quanback.

Jeff Buck, the AP Computer Science teacher at South and a 26-year veteran of Denver Public Schools, recently joined a different yearlong AI training program for educators. He’s also taking a series of AI trainings offered by his district.

“This is what keeps me going. I can learn something new and interesting, right? And kids are kind of interested, and so we’re learning together, and I think that’s really fun,” he said.

But the learning curve, he said with a laugh, is “also a massive time sink.”

AI can be a time-saver but accuracy is ‘not 100%’

Once teachers master the apps, AI can be a time-saver, helping draft lesson plans and tests, taking a first pass at grading essays, or writing and translating parent newsletters. The cost of the apps varies, with basic versions often available for free.

Moisés Sánchez Bermúdez, the South High School teacher whose students used Magic School to get writing feedback, said he’s generally been impressed with app’s suggestions. Even its critiques of student poetry were decent.

“It was not 100% but it’s getting there,” he said.

Teachers participating in the "School Teams AI Collaborative" shared their hopes and worries about AI at a recent kick-off event in Denver. The Collaborative is an ongoing training for teachers from around the country.

By using the app to give students — sometimes up to 35 in the classroom — immediate feedback on their first drafts, Sánchez Bermúdez has more time to work with students individually.

“It gives them meaningful work to do while I go one by one,” he said.

But not everyone likes getting pointers from a chatbot.

“I don’t really like using AI for the feedback. I’d rather have a real person,” said Juliana Gutierrez, a junior in Spanish Language Arts 3. “If you don’t understand something, you can ask [the teacher] to explain it in another way, or in more of a personal way.”

One floor up, Buck recalled how he’d given his students the option to ask Magic School to review their Java code.

The response was “tepid,” he said. “Not everybody is necessarily seeing the value right now.”

While most students chose to ask Buck or classmates for feedback, a few students used Magic School. One of them was Mimi Genter, a senior who’d written code for organizing book store inventory.

Mimi Genter, a junior at Denver's South High School, points to computer code she asked the Magic School app to give her feedback on.

The app returned a neatly organized list of the things she’d done correctly, signified by green checkmarks. It also flagged a typo in her code, suggested an additional feature she could add, and closed by saying, “Keep up the excellent work. You’re really grasping these object-oriented programming concepts.”

Genter said it was only the second time she’d used Magic School but appreciated that it was an efficient fine-tooth comb of sorts — instantly spotting a capital “L” that should have been lower-case.

Helping students understand the AI landscape

As educators incorporate AI tools into their lessons, many are looking not only to make lessons enriching, but to build students’ fluency in a technology that’s here to stay.

They want students to understand how to craft prompts that return worthwhile information, to use AI tools to deepen learning without crossing the line to cheating, and to recognize the inherent weaknesses of artificial intelligence.

Talley Nichols, who teaches high school history at Crested Butte Community School in western Colorado, sent out permission slips last spring asking parents if their children could use ChatGPT in class. She was pleasantly surprised by the response.

“I was worried about parental pushback, but I didn’t get any,” she said. “In fact, I got a couple of parents who were like, ‘Thank you for doing this. This is important. They need to learn how to use this.’”

Nichols said her students like using AI to generate project or topic ideas: “It’s really good at giving you lists of ideas, and then you can take that and run with it.”

Teachers from around the country shared their hopes and worries about AI on sticky notes during an October kick-off event in Denver for a program called "School Teams AI Collaborative."

But she’s proceeding with caution. When her students did research projects last spring on key figures from European cultural movements like the Renaissance, she had them print out the responses they got from ChatGPT, evaluate the quality of the responses, and then seek out other non-AI sources for further research. And when Nichols’ students turn in final essays or projects that incorporate AI, they have to turn in notes, rough drafts, and edits to prove they’ve done the work every step of the way.

“If there’s something that they could just go home and create on ChatGPT, I don’t make that a homework assignment,” said Nichols. “We do that in class.”

Educators are also helping students think critically about the racial and gender bias inherent in AI.

Students in Aurora West College Preparatory Academy’s weekly after-school club, “AI Studio” quickly discovered that predisposition as they experimented with AI this fall in preparation for their marketing presentations. When A’mariae asked the tool to produce images of doctors, it showed two older white men and one white woman. When he asked for an image of “three white teenagers,” he got a picture of three happy white teenagers.

Next, he said, “I searched three black teenagers and it showed, like a mug shot.”

Asked how to deal with racist and sexist results, one of the other three boys in the club said, “You have to train your AI.”

It’s exactly the message Antonio Vigil, Aurora’s director of innovative classroom technology and the club’s advisor, has been emphasizing all semester. He wants students to understand that they have to continually vet AI responses for accuracy, precision, and bias – and revise them accordingly.

He said, “You have to be the human in the loop.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools receives $25K grant from Gates Foundation as it expands AI tutor chatbot

2024-11-15T11:00:01+00:00

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Newark Public Schools is planning the next phase of Khanmigo, an artificial intelligence tutoring tool piloted at First Avenue School last year that’s gained support from teachers, district leaders said.

Last month, the Newark school board approved a $25,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the expansion of Khanmigo. The grant will also help enhance the district’s STEAM program and add new tools such as 3D printers, according to Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director.

Last school year, the district was among the first in the country to test Khanmigo, an AI program developed by online learning giant Khan Academy that is designed for classrooms and acts as a tutor to students and an assistant for teachers.

The new grant comes after philanthropist Bill Gates visited First Avenue in May with Superintendent Roger León and toured classrooms using Khanmigo. Gates, who is also the co-founder of Microsoft, is in support of developing AI technology. (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. Learn more about our funding here.)

“All together, these resources are intended to enrich the overall learning experience and promote innovation throughout the school,” Brubaker added.

After the pandemic, city leaders sounded the alarm about the need to provide more support to improve student achievement. This spring, student scores in math and English language arts standardized tests went up by 2 percentage points for the second year in a row but remained behind pre-pandemic levels signaling students’ slow academic progress post-COVID. District leaders also developed plans in science and English language arts that focus on new approaches to learning to boost student achievement.

The district said students who used Khanmigo during its pilot phase in the 2023-24 school year showed improvements in their math scores. Among North Ward schools, First Avenue School had the second-highest math proficiency rate in spring 2024 state test scores. Overall, 17.7% of district students who took the standardized test in the spring passed the math portion – a bump from 2023 math scores when 15% of district students passed.

But it’s unclear how much of Khanmigo’s tutoring in classrooms impacted that rate. The Newark school board in March approved a data-sharing agreement with Khan Academy to study whether the tool was effective in North Ward schools, but the district has not released that data.

The tutoring tool, powered by ChatGPT technology, was launched at First Avenue last year for grades 5-8 and was primarily used to support students in math, reading, and writing. This school year, Khanmigo is being used in 13 other kindergarten through eighth grade North Ward schools including Abington Avenue, Elliot Street, Luis Muñoz Marin, and Sussex Avenue, Brubaker said. Khanmigo also expanded to grades 3-8 this school year, according to Superintendent Roger León in August.

The district did not say if the next phase of Khanmigo would include expanding it to more schools across the city or grade levels.

The Khanmigo program is still in its pilot phase but is designed to guide students as they progress through lessons and ask questions like a human tutor would, according to Khan Academy. It can also assist teachers with tasks such as planning lessons, tailoring instruction, creating texts and images, and providing recommendations on what students could work on next.

Newark is one of 53 school districts across the country to pilot the tool, which is accessed through Khan Academy’s website rather than a separate app. North Ward students have access to Khanmigo at no cost to the district, Brubaker said. The price for school districts to use Khanmigo starts at $35 per student for the school year with discounts for schools and districts that have a high number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.

In Newark schools where Khanmigo is used, “teachers appreciate its ability to provide real-time data on student progress,” Brubaker said.

Data on student progress is “one of several tools” the district is using to tailor instruction, “enabling teachers to form small groups and address specific learning needs with Khanmigo’s support,” Brubaker added. Teachers may use Khanmigo to draft ideas for lessons, but ultimately, “the author is responsible for the quality of the writing and the accuracy of the information,” he added.

Students also enjoyed interacting with Khanmigo by using it to work through exercises on the platform, Brubaker said. The district’s “building thinking classrooms” approach emphasizes “problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking in a structured learning environment,” which is also supported by Khanmigo, according to Brubaker.

The tool also enables students to work through challenges before approaching the teacher, a process that encourages students “to self-correct, engage with the problem, reflect on their understanding, and build on their confidence,” Brubaker said.

“Khanmigo served as a valuable tool that helped us expand on the best practices we already had in place,” Brubaker said.

At the state level, Gov. Phil Murphy has called to create an “artificial intelligence moonshot” in New Jersey. This week, the state’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force released a report on AI innovations in New Jersey and recommended ways to expand the technology in education and literacy. The recommendations suggest expanding exposure to AI tools and resources to students, parents, and educators and supporting educators to integrate AI in classrooms. In June, the state’s department of education launched a set of resources that ranged from online training videos and articles aimed at helping educators understand, implement, and manage artificial intelligence in schools.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Some NYC teachers experiment with AI-powered tools, while Education Department develops guidelines

2024-10-18T20:08:26+00:00

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A year ago, James Randle, a high school social studies teacher in Queens, started exploring how artificial intelligence could help make his work more efficient.

He experimented with one AI-powered program that surprised him with its ability to render basic lesson plans. Then Randle discovered an essay grader that used artificial intelligence to determine how well student papers adhered to a rubric — a tool he found useful for conducting first passes on essays.

“I was blown away by what it could possibly do,” said Randle, who has taught at the Academy of American Studies for 24 years.

Randle isn’t alone in seeing potential for AI-powered tools to make waves in the education sector. In recent years, a rash of new AI technologies have cropped up, with a spate of companies marketing their tools toward school districts. And across the country, nearly 20% of K-12 teachers reported using AI in their instruction last school year, according to one report.

The explosion of school-oriented AI technology has sparked serious concerns among skeptics — with critics raising questions over how AI companies handle sensitive student data and whether such tools can be trusted in education settings after cases of bias and inaccuracy.

In New York City, the public school system has taken nascent steps toward embracing the new technology. Despite some early reservations, former schools Chancellor David Banks became an AI cheerleader by the end of his tenure at the helm of the nation’s largest school system, touting its ability to “revolutionize” schools in a speech last month and devoting his final day as chancellor to a convening of an AI advisory council.

Despite enthusiasm from some of the city’s top education leaders, teachers are still waiting for the Education Department to issue more concrete guidance or plans for how and when AI should be used in schools. And in the meantime, educators are taking matters into their own hands, with Randle and others wading through the barrage of new companies promising to streamline time-consuming aspects of their jobs.

Randle said he “fell into a rabbit hole” of different AI-powered tools last year — struck by just how many were geared toward educators.

“Every time I kept turning around, there were more and more opportunities for teachers,” he said. “It was like a train rush.”

In AI, some educators see potential. Others see danger.

Two years ago, generative AI exploded into the public eye with the release of ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by the tech company OpenAI that stunned users with its ability to generate cogent and lifelike writing.

ChatGPT sparked a wave of concerns in schools across the nation — earning a ban on school devices and networks in New York City — amid broad fears that students would use the tool to cheat on assignments.

But the city has since reversed that ban, and some educators have warmed to the notion that generative AI could be a valuable tool for students and teachers alike.

Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department, said the DOE was “currently developing guidelines for educators that are in alignment with the city’s Office of Technology Innovation.”

“Generative AI is constantly evolving,” she said in a statement. “As we prepare our students to be on the cutting edge of this technology, we are encouraging safe and responsible experimentation in the classroom and continuing to gather feedback and insights from industry leaders through our AI Advisory Council.”

Edward Castro, the family leadership coordinator for the city’s Consortium, International, and Outward Bound schools, said his district has partnered with the PlayLab, a tech company that develops AI-powered tools for educators. He’s found their tools particularly helpful when it comes to translating materials for families whose first language isn’t English.

“We wanted to make sure that we explained to educators that this is not a toy or a cheating vessel,” he said. “It’s a tool to help streamline and automate routine tasks, and to support our kids, especially our kids for whom English is not their first language.”

Generative AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, operate by analyzing large swaths of data, then predicting what text would likely follow a user’s prompt. But critics are quick to note that those responses don’t necessarily adhere to logical reasoning and aren’t guaranteed to be accurate, with reported instances where the tools have produced incorrect and biased responses.

Because of these deficiencies, Benjamin Riley, the founder of Cognitive Resonance, an organization that provides consulting on generative AI systems, is concerned that some school districts have looked to generative AI as a way of providing students with personalized tutors, or for teachers to speed up the grading process.

“It takes me all of two minutes with any of the existing tools that are out there to demonstrate just how unreliable they are with what we humans would consider the truth,” Riley said.

His organization has raised alarm over the ways in which generative AI technologies fall short in classroom settings — noting that such tools may not correctly understand what sequence of lessons will effectively build knowledge in students, might propose content based on misconceptions about how students learn, and could potentially spread misinformation or perpetuate cultural biases.

Riley added he understands why educators might look to AI-powered tools to ease the burden of grading, but he noted such tools tend to focus primarily on grammar and structure.

“Since they’re not thinking devices, there’s no capability for them to imagine what was going on in the mind of the student,” he said. “What I’m really worried about is that it won’t be wrong, but it will just be steering students toward a norm that what really matters is getting the surface features of your essay right, rather than grappling with the ideas.”

Randle, who has been using the AI-powered CoGrader to help markup student papers based on a grading rubric, said at times the tool will grade students more harshly than he would. He always checks to ensure that papers are graded correctly and to adjust the AI’s scoring.

But the tool has saved him hours on grading and allowed him to spend more time giving personalized comments, he said. So far, Randle has been paying for access to CoGrader and other AI tools he’s using as an individual, with no schoolwide contract.

Cora Neville, the principal of Highbridge Middle School in the DREAM charter network, said schools in her charter network have also been using AI-powered tools to help with grading and lesson planning. Before, grading student constructive responses could take four or more hours.

Using AI-powered tools from PlayLab sped that process up to about an hour, Neville said.

Can AI companies be trusted with student data?

With the arrival of AI, some educators remain wary over whether tech companies can appropriately handle sensitive student data.

For example, in a set of “guardrails” released over the summer, the American Federation of Teachers emphasized that safety and privacy should be maximized any time such tools are used in school settings.

Those concerns boiled over in California earlier this year, after the Los Angeles Unified School District attempted to roll out its own custom-built chatbot. But the tool, which relied on a large pool of student data, was later paused after the company that produced it collapsed amid concerns that the chatbot mishandled sensitive student data.

Castro said that he’s taken concerns over how AI companies handle student data seriously.

“Making sure that things are fair, unbiased, and that privacy is protected is paramount,” he said of his district’s approach to using AI. “Anything I put in is public-facing.”

Neville said she’s seen AI-powered tools marketed toward certain aspects of the school system that involve confidential student data — like those that offer to generate individualized education programs, which outline mandated services and support for students with disabilities.

“That information, for one, is confidential. But you also want to know your students intimately and deeply,” she said. “I would hate for someone to say, ‘Alright, I’m going to use these prompts, I’m going to throw this information into it, and it’s going to write the IEP for me.’”

“I don’t want to lose sight of the intimacy of really getting to know your students,” Neville added.

Despite drawbacks, some hope AI can reduce teacher burnout

Though imperfect, Randle hopes that AI tools can help stem some of the losses of early career teachers, who have left the field in increasing numbers since the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020. It’s a use he believes could be particularly meaningful, as teacher turnover hit unusual highs both nationally and in New York City during the pandemic.

“With any resource that teachers are using, someone may have things they don’t approve of,” Randle said. “But every teacher is going to look over everything that they are going to put in front of kids, and everything they’re going to ask kids to engage with.”

In addition to saving hours on grading, he sees generative AI as a useful tool for new teachers who are still learning to construct lesson plans.

Randle was initially stunned by the ability of Khanmigo, an AI-powered teaching assistant, to generate templates for different lesson plans. Though it didn’t create worksheets and other materials that a teacher might need, he noted it offered the building blocks of a comprehensive lesson.

More recently, he has been using MagicSchool, another AI-powered tool, that Randle said can create even more comprehensive lesson plans — replete with presentation slides, quizzes, worksheets, and even songs or jokes that educators can sprinkle into lessons.

“It’s a great place to get some good ideas and brainstorm,” he said, adding that for new teachers in particular, “it’s hugely helpful to have a system in place and not have to start from scratch.”

Neville, too, sees potential for AI to help younger teachers. But she added it isn’t all upside — as the streamlined process could make it more difficult to learn.

“It takes that learning experience away from the teacher,” she said. “When I came up, there was no AI generator. So not only did you have to be a skilled teacher, you also had to know the content well.

“You really have to be tactful with how much you rely on the system,” Neville said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Newark gets federal COVID funding extension for asbestos, lead remediation during AI camera project

2024-09-23T10:00:00+00:00

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A multimillion dollar project to install AI cameras in Newark Public Schools is delayed due to extensive lead stabilization and asbestos abatement that needs to be completed on the city’s aging schools, Chalkbeat has learned.

The district had planned to upgrade its surveillance systems by the start of the school year using federal American Rescue Plan funds, which are set to expire Sept. 30. But the project to install roughly 7,000 AI cameras across all schools is being delayed so the remediation work can be completed as the project progresses, according to a request for a federal extension obtained by Chalkbeat. District leaders also cited delays with vendors who required certified and qualified staff to complete the work and issues in getting buildings empty.

Newark’s school buildings are among the oldest in the state and many have been crumbling for decades. State officials have been slow to address the needs but in 2019, gave Newark $3.9 million to cover asbestos removal from school buildings, the same year data showed elevated levels of lead were found in seven district schools.

When asbestos fibers are inhaled, they could get trapped in the lungs and over time, cause scarring and inflammation that affect breathing and may lead to cancer, the National Cancer Institute says. Similarly, exposure to lead can result in problems such as anemia, kidney and brain damage, and learning disabilities and developmental problems in children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite cleanup over the years, many district buildings continue to require asbestos abatement, lead stabilization, and structural upgrades among other needs.

Newark Public Schools did not respond to questions about asbestos and lead remediation in schools.

The U.S Department of Education has encouraged school districts to spend their COVID relief funds before the deadline this fall but has allowed districts to request an additional 14 months to close out and finalize construction projects, programs, or other work funded by American Rescue Plan dollars, the final and largest of three relief packages approved by Congress. Districts have to explain why they need the extra time and requests to extend funds must be tied to existing contracts for school projects or purchases.

The work to install Newark’s cameras and connect the required cabling districtwide is projected to cost $17.5 million with funding coming from $2.3 million in local funds and the rest through American Rescue Plan dollars, according to the district. Newark has said it needs to update its outdated surveillance system to make schools safer and allow for 24/7 monitoring following two shootings outside schools that left three students injured last school year.

Like many districts, Newark school officials have had to rethink their needs as they face the end of the one-time funding. They no longer require plexiglass shields and masks used at the height of the pandemic but other needs remain.

But it’s too early to gauge the impacts of school districts’ use of relief funds, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs for the Bruman Group, a Washington law firm focused on education.

“School districts are reluctant to spend the money on short-term items because they know they won’t last, and it’s hard for them to spend the money on things like staffing, because when the money runs out, then you have to let that person go,” Martin said.

In total, Newark received $287 million in federal COVID relief funds, less than a quarter of Newark’s $1.5 billion budget this school year. That money was distributed through three relief packages meant to help districts reopen schools and recover from the pandemic. Half of the district’s American Rescue Plan dollars was slated for facilities projects to update its aging buildings, a problem about which school officials have been sounding the alarm for years.

During the pandemic, district leaders were concerned about updating Newark’s ventilation systems in schools to prevent the spread of COVID in classrooms. Although those concerns aren’t as prevalent, Martin says school districts are still focusing on improvements to their buildings to mitigate the long-term effects of the pandemic. In one district, officials used federal funds to fix leaky roofs where mold was growing, a factor that could have exacerbated asthma among students, Martin said. Another school district used COVID funds to renovate its bathrooms after noticing an uptick in students smashing mirrors and fighting in bathrooms post-pandemic, Martin said.

In Newark, district leaders are also faced with helping nearly 40,000 students recover from the negative effects of the pandemic. New Jersey’s youth has faced an unprecedented mental health crisis, a trend on par with students nationally as many struggle with anxiety and depression at levels higher than those pre-pandemic. Last school year, district state test scores went up by 2 percentage points in math and English language arts while only 19% of third graders passed the English assessment, the lowest of any grade in the city for a second year in a row. The challenges point to the ongoing need to help students recover academically from pandemic-era learning disruptions.

“If you just cared about the future of the district, you might say these facilities are going to be around for a long time,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “But if you care about the future of the kids that suffered during the pandemic, they’re going to walk out the door with permanent impacts that will never get addressed.”

Newark’s request to extend the funds for its AI camera project was approved in July, allowing the district to cash out almost $17 million by March 2026, roughly 9% of Newark’s $182 million in American Rescue Plan funding. Of that money, roughly $13 million is being used to pay for two vendors to install the AI cameras and respective cabling work, according to purchase orders included in Newark’s request to the state. Another $4 million is tied to expenses for school upgrades, paint jobs, and new furniture that were on back order or delayed due to environmental issues “beyond the district’s control,” according to Newark’s June application to the state.

“How does this decision fit into this bigger agenda to get kids back on track after the pandemic? Because they fell a lot in the pandemic,” said Roza, about the school district’s use of federal COVID relief funds.

The district has used previous COVID relief funds to help pay for items such as air conditioners, Smart Boards, internet access, mental health programs, and professional development for teachers among other things. It also helped expand summer and tutoring programs, which Superintendent Roger León has previously said were the district’s “saving grace” in helping students move forward academically.

According to a national survey by the School Superintendents Association, adding instructional time and addressing mental health needs were the top two priorities for districts across the country followed by purchasing technology and providing students with internet access. The fourth and most common priority was investing in high-dosage tutoring and professional development followed by renovating school facilities to improve learning, air quality, and overall conditions of learning.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

AI’s new role in NYC schools? Chancellor Banks teases personalized learning and college counseling

2024-09-17T21:12:51+00:00

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After ChatGPT exploded in popularity, New York City’s public school system quickly pushed back on the powerful chatbot, arguing it couldn’t help students build critical thinking skills and often spouts misinformation.

Nearly two years later, during his annual “State of Our Schools” speech on Tuesday, schools Chancellor David Banks completed his about-face on artificial intelligence. The school system should get ready to inject the technology into nearly every aspect of its operations, from teaching and learning to transportation and enrollment, he said.

The schools chief laid out an expansive vision that includes customized college advising, instant assessments of student work, personalized instruction, and even replacing annual standardized tests.

“AI can revolutionize how we function as a school system,” Banks told the audience of administrators, elected officials, and union leaders at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Queens as he outlined his plans for the nation’s largest school system.

Still, Banks acknowledged that the Education Department has no concrete plans, timelines, or cost estimates for those AI projects. The goal is to signal to AI companies that the school system is interested in their technology and wants to hear ideas, he said, adding that officials are convening an advisory council next month to help brainstorm.

Aside from his embrace of AI, the most significant announcement from Banks on Tuesday was a plan to open a new high school in southeast Queens next fall, called HBCU Early College Prep, that will have strong ties to historically Black colleges and universities.

Banks’ annual speech otherwise stuck to promoting initiatives that he has been building since taking office in 2022. He noted that his signature literacy curriculum mandate is rolling out to all elementary schools this fall. He vowed to continue investing in FutureReadyNYC, an initiative in 135 high schools that gives students access to coursework geared toward specific industries and paid internships.

And he noted the city is adding to its library of curriculums focused on underrepresented groups called “Hidden Voices.” The city recently launched materials devoted to people with disabilities, and Banks said the department will offer lessons focused on the Latino community soon.

Though Mayor Eric Adams attended the speech, he did not offer any remarks — a break from the previous year. Adams and several senior members of his administration have been engulfed by multiple federal investigations. Earlier this month, federal agents searched homes or seized electronic devices from Banks, his two brothers, and his romantic partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

Asked about Adams’ lack of a speaking role during the event, Banks declined to comment.

Here are three takeaways from the chancellor’s speech:

Banks thinks AI will become pervasive in the city’s schools

Banks sketched out a few ways he thinks the technology can significantly change the way schools operate. He said the systems could “give teachers a daily, accurate, and comprehensive picture of a child’s progress” based on homework assignments, exams, and other student work.

AI tools could also offer “personalized learning plans for every child” alongside extra instruction based on those plans. The idea, Banks said, is to make it easier for teachers to reach students at a range of academic levels who are all in the same classroom. Still, some previous efforts to promote personalized learning, including by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, have fallen short of their lofty ambitions.

The technology could also provide students with more comprehensive college and career counseling, Banks suggested, drawing on information like employment outcomes at different schools. An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about whether there are any real-world examples of the technology being used in the ways Banks described.

Asked about the technology’s limitations, such as offering incorrect answers to basic math problems, Banks acknowledged it is “not fully baked yet,” but “I wouldn’t be overly concerned about some of the early missteps.”

The schools chief also sought to calm fears about the technology.

“AI will never be able to replace the personal connection that a teacher provides,” he said. “We’re not displacing human beings.”

A new high school is coming to Queens

On the heels of opening two new Bard Early College campuses in Brooklyn and the Bronx, officials said they’re planning to open a third “accelerated” high school this fall in Queens — HBCU Early College Prep.

Officials have previously said opening new campuses is part of a bid to keep families in the city’s public schools, which have seen enrollment drop 9% over the past five years.

The campus will partner with Delaware State University, a historically Black college, and will give students a chance to earn an associate degree before leaving high school.

“They’re also going to be immersed in the history and culture of multiple HBCUs across the country through college visits, the opportunity to study abroad, and research opportunities,” Banks said, adding that there will be “synchronous instruction from professors, alumni, mentors and more.”

Education Department officials said the school will be screened and will give priority to Queens residents.

Spinning up schools that serve specific student populations is in Banks’ wheelhouse. Before becoming chancellor, he helped establish Eagle Academy, a network of public schools geared toward serving young men of color. At the conclusion of his speech on Tuesday, Banks led the crowd in a recitation of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, a daily practice at Eagle.

Tweaks to career-focused learning efforts

City officials are making some tweaks to its FutureReadyNYC initiative, which gives students access to career-connected learning opportunities. Participating schools will be able to add new “industry focus areas” in social work and decarbonization.

That builds on existing tracks in business, education, technology, and health care.

Banks touted a previously announced plan to launch a new high school, Northwell School of Health Sciences, that is designed to prepare students for careers in the health care industry. The school is supported with nearly $25 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which Banks said is the single largest grant the school system has ever received. (Chalkbeat receives funding from Bloomberg.)

The chancellor also announced that Mount Sinai Health System will help support the city’s career education efforts.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools’ $17.5 million AI camera project delayed until the end of the school year

2024-09-06T17:19:30+00:00

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The installation of a new artificially intelligent surveillance system meant to make Newark schools safer has been delayed and won’t be completed until the end of the school year, the district said.

Newark Public Schools had planned to install over 7,000 cameras equipped with AI capabilities — one for every five students — by Aug. 31, before the start of the school year. The district did not provide details about the reasons for the delay but sources close to the project said it was due to challenges in connecting required cabling and wiring through Newark’s aging school buildings.

Newark’s multimillion dollar AI camera project is largely funded by federal COVID relief money through the American Rescue Plan — funding that was set to expire on Sept. 30. The Newark school district received a federal extension to use the funds past the September deadline following project delays, according to Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, in an email to Chalkbeat.

The work to install cameras and connect the required cabling districtwide is projected to cost $17.5 million, according to Brubaker. The installation work will take place outside school hours, Brubaker added.

Millennium Communications Group Inc., based in East Hanover, N.J., is responsible for completing the cabling work required to connect and activate cameras to district servers. Millennium declined to comment “because of the sensitive nature of our work,” according to an email to Chalkbeat Newark. The company said it is “not authorized to comment on active projects” and referred all questions to the district.

The work to install over 7,000 cameras in Newark’s school buildings, some of the oldest in the state dating back to the early 1900s, is a massive infrastructure project for the district, where many schools need asbestos removal among other structural upgrades.

In May, the Newark school board first approved a contract up to $12 million for Turn-Key Technologies Inc., based in Sayreville, N.J., to install the AI surveillance system across all schools. The board also approved a separate contract up to $10 million for Millennium to complete the cabling work required to connect and activate cameras to district servers. In 2021, the district allocated $2.4 million in federal COVID money for security cameras, which Superintendent Roger León has said are meant to make schools safer.

But security experts warn that systems with AI capabilities could result in an invasion of privacy or could potentially misidentify items or students if proper safeguards or policies are not in place.

Millennium is a fiber optics and technology company that has encouraged school districts to use American Rescue Plan dollars on security, surveillance, and network infrastructure. Millennium, which beat out two other vendors for the bid, is also an authorized reseller on the New Jersey School Board Association’s Technology & Cybersecurity contract through its partnership with Carahsoft, a government IT solutions company, and the school board association. The contract allows Millennium to supply school districts and member charter schools throughout New Jersey with cybersecurity solutions.

The district’s new surveillance system is an upgrade from its previous cameras. The new setup will use Avigilon cameras, a type of system compatible with Motorola radios used by district school security guards. The integration also expands Newark’s security capabilities by designating personnel to access camera footage, allowing the district to search through footage, hone in on specific incidents, and detect unusual activities throughout the school day.

That system will work with the district’s HALO sensors that can detect vape, gun sounds, and abnormal noise in areas where there are no cameras such as bathrooms, according to Newark’s request for proposals.

Wilson said in May that city police officials would not have access to the system, which includes cameras inside and outside of school buildings and other district locations.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark expands AI in schools, continues tutoring, construction plans, Superintendent Roger León says

2024-08-15T21:24:59+00:00

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When Newark Public Schools opens its doors to roughly 40,000 students next month, the district will expand the use of an AI program in schools and implement solutions to ongoing facilities needs, Superintendent Roger León said in a wide-ranging interview this week.

In a conversation with WBGO 88.3 FM host Michael Hill and Chalkbeat Newark this week, León provided insight into the district’s 10-year strategy, known as “The Next Decade: 2020-30,” which aims to tackle learning loss, implement new curriculum, scale up tutoring efforts, address emerging issues such as building needs, and add more student services, among other goals.

In the 2024-25 school year – year five of the plan – school leaders will use artificial intelligence to inform teaching and learning, use remaining COVID relief dollars to support academic recovery efforts, and expand tutoring efforts. León also addressed the district’s plans to improve its aging school buildings and the possibility of asking Newark voters to approve a construction bond referendum to support those projects.

“We’re looking at strategies during year five that are essential towards really transforming the school district in the fashion that we strongly believe is consistent with some of the aspects of what distinguished the school district several decades ago,” said León during the interview, which was recorded Tuesday and scheduled to stream on WBGO’s website at 8 p.m. Thursday and then again on 88.3 FM on Sunday, Aug. 25, at 11 p.m.

This year, the district is managing a $1.5 billion budget and must confront a number of pressing needs such as improving school buildings, raising attendance rates, supporting the district’s most vulnerable students, and grappling with the impacts of racial harassment and diversity issues. It is also furthering AI technology to support teachers in the classroom and keep students safe, León said.

Here are takeaways from the interview:

Newark builds on new curriculum, AI programs

This school year, Khanmigo, an AI chatbot designed to act as a tutor for students and an assistant for teachers, will launch in 14 schools in Newark’s North Ward and expand to grades 3-8, according to Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director. The AI program, developed by online learning giant Khan Academy, was piloted at First Avenue Elementary school in the North Ward in grades 5-8 last year. The program is designed for classrooms and accessed through Khan Academy’s website.

The district will use Khanmigo to help teachers “make intentional academic decisions” and “influence the academic program,” León said. Khan Academy is also helping the district analyze state testing data to determine the impact of Khanmigo on student growth and achievement.

Through Khanmigo, students take assessments, with teachers using the results to identify students with similar academic needs and provide targeted instruction, León explained. The district is also using Khanmigo to support tutoring efforts by allowing students to pose questions about lessons they learned in the classrooms, León said, and in turn, informing professional development sessions for teachers, who “are at the heart” of AI work.

The program is also being used to expose students to coursework in different grades, said León, pointing to a third grader who completed math work at a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade level.

At the end of last school year, the district also announced new free training on Khanmigo’s features for teachers that will help educators create lessons, recommend assignments, and provide refreshers on different topics.

“It’s difficult to teach any child but ultimately, if there are groups of children that are having the same difficulties, making them a team and addressing their needs and having them help each other becomes one strategy,” Leòn added on Tuesday.

This year, León said the district is “being very aggressive and intentional” in introducing new math and literacy initiatives.

Last fall, the district developed a strategy to tackle students’ difficulties in writing and English language arts and plans to introduce new approaches to teaching phonics, implement explicit writing strategies, and support teachers’ knowledge of an evidence-based reading approach known as the science of reading this upcoming school year.

COVID relief dollars used on long-term items, programs

In addition to using Khanmigo to support tutoring efforts, León also said COVID relief dollars helped scale up the tutoring program districtwide.

In 2018, the district received more than $287 million from three federal relief packages to help schools respond to the pandemic, reopen classrooms, and support students’ emotional and academic recovery. The district focused those funds on three areas: facilities, technology, and teaching and learning, León said on Tuesday.

In the classroom, those funds allowed the district to expand its summer program, Saturday school, and tutoring efforts, which it plans to continue this school year, León said. COVID relief dollars helped “offset” the cost of tutoring, León added, but now, the district must fully pay for tutoring as those funds are set to expire by October.

“We’ll concentrate those dollars on areas of English Language Arts and math so that every child starting on the first day of school could actually receive tutoring services in those two content areas,” León added.

León also said the district was “strategic” in utilizing COVID dollars to pay for services or items that would provide long-term benefits. The district purchased new books and Chromebooks for students, items that will “last beyond the October 2024 deadline,” León added. The funds were not used to pay for additional teachers, León said, since the district could then incur the costs of paying for their salaries.

COVID dollars were also used to partly fund a $12 million project to install more than 7,700 AI cameras districtwide, a plan approved by board members in May.

“So our strategy was to try to use these dollars because we know we’re never going to see them again,” León said.

District might ask Newark voters to approve construction funding

Addressing the needs of Newark’s old school buildings is another challenge, said León, who raised the prospect of a bond referendum to pay for needed improvements.

COVID dollars helped fund improvements to the district’s aging school buildings, such as the installation of contactless water fountains – a $5 million project that began in 2022 with a plan to place over 800 fountains in schools – León said Tuesday. Less than 200 contactless fountains remain to be installed, León added.

But according to a needs assessment completed this year, just over $2.5 billion is needed to fix all Newark schools. In New Jersey, the state’s Schools Development Authority must pay for construction projects in Newark and 30 other high-poverty districts.

This year, the state promised to replace 13 school buildings built before 1920, but the district has identified 33 buildings that need replacing, León said. The SDA has said it cannot begin its projects without funding from the legislature, which provides the Authority with funds on a “pay as you go” basis.

“So, if the state of New Jersey does not act, and if we do not utilize the court system to help us in that action, what are we left to do?” León said Tuesday. “The only thing that we’re left to do is ask the citizens of Newark if, in fact, they would vote in favor of a referendum.”

Under New Jersey law, a ballot question is required for any school district to issue new bonds for construction projects to improve existing facilities or to build new facilities. Once voters sign off, a bond referendum authorizes bonds to be sold to raise funds for school projects and the bond debt is paid off using taxpayer funds over several years. To issue a construction bond, the district can raise local taxes, but Newark voters would need to approve any changes resulting in a more than 2% increase in property taxes, according to a new state law.

León said Newark voters may not see a bond referendum question in April’s school board election, but district officials are in the process of “assessing” that possibility and the amount they would ask voters to approve. He also said the district would have to ensure state and local officials are aware of Newark’s facilities needs “because they could assist us in advocating with the governor and state legislature” for more funding to cover construction projects.

Regardless of the bond, León wants community input to prioritize school construction projects in Newark. He plans to host a series of community meetings this school year to determine what 13 schools should be replaced through the state’s promise and allow residents to weigh in on a bond referendum, “if in fact, securing a bond is what we would need to do,” León said.

“Ultimately it will be the residents who either give it a thumbs up or thumbs down,” León said. “And so we’ll spend months, if that’s what we eventually do, to allow the community to weigh in, to be strategic in what we do every time.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey unveils resources for educators using AI in schools as state aims to pioneer innovations

2024-06-20T16:49:35+00:00

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As part of Gov. Phil Murphy’s call to create an “artificial intelligence moonshot” in New Jersey, the state’s department of education unveiled a set of resources last week aimed at helping educators understand, implement, and manage artificial intelligence in schools, state education officials said.

The resources range from articles about teaching and learning on artificial intelligence to a webinar that explains the history of the technology and how it is used in education. The materials do not outline strict regulations on how to use AI in education but they are New Jersey’s first guidance for school districts to “responsibly and effectively” integrate AI-powered technology in the classroom, and incorporate tools to facilitate administrative tasks in schools, according to a state department of education press release.

But as the technology gains popularity, education experts continue to note that safety and privacy concerns should remain a top priority as AI expands in schools. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, says states should consider protections for AI in classrooms that take into consideration educators and parents.

“We know that school districts can’t just say privacy matters,” Weingarten said. “There has to be a tech translator, there have to be parent information sessions, and there has to be classroom guidance.”

The state’s new artificial intelligence resources come as Newark Public Schools takes steps to incorporate more AI in classrooms and surveillance systems.

Last month, the school board approved a $12 million project to install more than 7,000 AI cameras districtwide this summer. District leaders said the high-tech surveillance system is meant to make schools safer, but security experts warned that such capabilities could result in an invasion of privacy or could potentially misidentify items or students.

The district is also considering the expansion of Khanmigo, an AI program designed for the classroom and meant to tutor students and assist teachers. So far, there is little research on whether tools like Khanmigo are effective but experts have also said school districts should consider the learning goals for their students.

New Jersey’s resources do not set parameters for student privacy but the department of education created an artificial intelligence webpage that provides an overview of AI and its systems, terms, and concepts, and guidance tailored for school leaders and teachers. The page will be updated regularly to keep up with the “fast-paced” changes to AI, the state said.

The state also released a webinar that introduces the fundamentals of AI technology and explains how the technology can support and enhance teaching and learning and provide personalized feedback to students depending on the type of technology. AI systems that use machine learning, such as facial recognition software or email spam filters, employ algorithms to make decisions based on data, while systems like chatbots use deep learning to identify complex patterns and relationships in data, the webinar explained.

The state’s webinar also prompts school districts to think about how new technology can support student learning and suggests that districts should review policies as AI evolves and integrates into learning. It also encourages school leaders to think through guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI and discuss how the new tools are best implemented.

AFT President Weingarten says “there is tremendous potential for AI use in schools” but school districts and their tech departments should review programs and materials before allowing students access to them. She also warned that with any new technology, the safety and privacy of students should be protected.

AFT released its own set of AI guard rails on Tuesday that focus on educators and provide resources for teachers as they grapple with the new integration of AI in schools. The report lists six core values that focus on maximizing safety and privacy, empowering educators to make decisions on AI, and advancing fairness and equity of the technology among other values.

Through its Innovation Fund, AFT is also providing over $200,000 to 11 school districts across the country to find solutions to incorporate, understand, and regulate AI with input from educators. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City, Cranston Teachers Alliance in Rhode Island, Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association in Florida, and other union locals will work with their school districts to create AI summits to understand and establish guidelines, provide hands-on training for educators, and establish workshops, panels, and community events.

“I’m not saying that there’s not a way to do it, but who’s responsible for data privacy, who’s responsible for student protection?” Weingarten said.

The state department’s office of innovation plans to meet with educators to obtain feedback, learn how AI is being used in classrooms, and discover existing needs to inform new guidance, resources, and professional development, according to the state’s press release. The department is also part of the Teach AI initiative, a consortium of state departments of education and international organizations that work to create guidelines for AI policy and resources.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Indiana schools embrace AI, but seek to ‘keep humans in the loop’

2024-06-17T19:45:11+00:00

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The Indiana Department of Education’s first formal foray into artificial intelligence led to thousands of students working with AI tutors and learning from lesson plans created by AI.

A total of 112 schools across all grade levels in 36 districts participated in the department’s nearly $2 million AI pilot program grant, which allowed each district to purchase an AI platform that could plan lessons, differentiate content for students depending on their abilities, as well as offer tutoring and feedback to students.

The goal of the grant was to “leverage AI for the good,” said Secretary of Education Katie Jenner, as schools in Indiana and nationwide grapple with how AI can be used ethically in the classroom amid concerns about academic integrity.

“Any policy has to keep humans in the loop,” said Diana Smith, the department’s director of digital learning at the June State Board of Education meeting. “AI is only going to be successful if teachers are the ones making decisions about how to implement it in the classroom.”

The pilot was funded through a one-time $1.8 million allocation in federal pandemic relief, but some districts have elected to continue funding the platforms via the department’s Digital Learning Grant. Each district received on average around $50,000.

The most common use for the AI platforms was time-saving purposes like lesson planning, according to a survey of teachers in the pilot program that drew 625 responses. Teachers also used AI for lesson differentiation, as well as student tutoring and feedback.

Around 53% of teachers in the survey rated the impact of AI on their students as positive.

However, teachers also reported issues with the usability of the platforms, the content across subject areas, and how well they could pick up students speaking.

Student safety was also a concern for the department. To participate in the program, the education-focused platforms had to protect student data and be safe for children to use, Smith said.

Jenner said it was important to draw a distinction between widely available generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, and the education-focused platforms that were part of the pilot program. The latter won’t give political or inappropriate answers, for example, she said.

Khanmigo, Khan Academy’s AI platform, was the most commonly used platform, with 20 of the 36 participating districts using it.

Districts also used Amira, Edia, Schooljoy, and others.

“We have to make sure it’s a safe environment,” Jenner said. “That’s what has given our teachers more comfort in letting the educator AI platform provide some of the tutoring, guidance, and feedback without being right there.”

The presentation highlighted how a handful of schools used their AI platforms:

At Newcastle High School, students learned how to prompt an AI tutor for feedback on their writing, including improving verb choices and sentence structure.
In Monroe Jr./Sr. High School, students received immediate feedback on their math work via the AI tutor.
Hobart schools used an AI platform for chemistry students to provide automatic differentiation.
In Perry schools, a third grade English learner student used assistance from the AI platform to participate in the class lesson.

Hobart schools also participated in Khanmigo’s AI pilot, according to a September newsletter from the Indiana Department of Education. In this program, the AI tool served as a “teacher assistant,” said Superintendent Peggy Buffington, writing exit ticket questions, learning objectives, and rubrics. Students used it to chat with literary characters and navigate the college admissions process.

Teachers with Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL) also expect AI to have an impact on education.

At Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, teacher Manuel Torres uses diffit.me to change the reading level of an advanced text to allow students of all levels to participate. The website can also generate different types of questions and open-ended discussion prompts.

“This is great because it allows you to simplify the English instead of just translating it to the student’s language,” Torres said in an email.

A final report on the pilot program will be presented this summer. A full list of schools that participated in the pilot is available here.

The department is currently inviting alternative education programs to apply for grant funding to provide their students with an AI tutor.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools considers new AI tutor chatbot for districtwide use after pilot testing

2024-05-13T10:00:00+00:00

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Newark Public Schools wants to see a districtwide expansion of an artificial intelligence tutoring tool after it was piloted at First Avenue School last year, as the district searches for ways to help students catch up from pandemic learning loss.

The district was among the first in the country to test the chatbot called Khanmigo, an AI program developed by online learning giant Khan Academy that is designed for classrooms and acts as a tutor for students and an assistant for teachers. The Newark Board of Education in March approved a data-sharing agreement with Khan Academy to study whether the tool was effective “in the North Ward schools,” according to the agreement. In an email to Chalkbeat Newark on Thursday from Superintendent Roger León, district officials confirmed they are looking to expand the use of the program districtwide.

Khanmigo is still in its pilot phase but is designed to guide students as they progress through lessons and ask questions like a human tutor would, according to Khan Academy spokesperson Barb Kunz. It can also assist teachers with tasks such as planning lessons, tailoring instruction, creating texts and images, and providing recommendations on what students could work on next.

Khanmigo was launched last year in grades 5-8 and used in core content areas, which are typically math, reading, writing, and science, according to the district. The district is monitoring its implementation but has not said how Khanmigo is used in classrooms, what students and teachers think about the tool, or why there is a need for it in Newark. During March’s school board meeting, León said the agreement with Khan Academy is “all too very important work and everyone across the country is trying to figure out how to move the program.”

“The strategy here is not to do it in any one school only,” León added. “This is a program that we are piloting and then it will flourish.”

So far, there has been little research on whether such tools are effective in helping students regain lost ground. Experts also say districts should be clear about their goals in using AI tools like Khanmigo and learn from teachers and students as they use new platforms.

How does Khanmigo work?

Khanmigo, powered by ChatGPT technology, includes features meant to help students work through math and science problems, analyze text, chat with historical figures, navigate college admissions, and revise essays, among other features. It is also designed to help teachers create instructions for assignments and review student performance.

As part of the district’s data-sharing agreement with Khan Academy, researchers will analyze state testing data to determine how using Khan Academy is associated with student growth and achievement. The initial pilot testing for the tool ended in June 2023 and was offered at no cost to the district, Newark Public Schools officials said last week.

Newark is one of 53 school districts across the country to pilot the tool, which is accessed through Khan Academy’s website rather than a separate app. First Avenue Students can access Khanmigo to get hints for solving challenging math problems or explain concepts they find confusing across all subjects. The chatbot can also guide students in exploring topics they’re interested in or exploring new ones.

But one thing it can’t do is give students the answers, according to Khan Academy’s website.

This isn’t the first time Newark has considered a new classroom tool to improve student learning. Over 40 educational platforms are being used by the district, according to a January committee report. An infusion of COVID relief dollars into Newark schools became the district’s “saving grace” in expanding summer programs and tutoring initiatives in 2023, León said last year.

After the pandemic, city, district, and community leaders sounded the alarm about the need to provide more support to improve student achievement. Student performance in math and English language arts on spring state test scores in 2023 went up by 2 percentage points from the prior year, highlighting slow academic recovery after the pandemic. That required more than 10,000 public school students to attend summer school in 2023 – double the number from the year before. District leaders also developed plans in science and English language arts that focus on new approaches to learning to boost student achievement.

Next school year’s budget includes a $6.8 million increase in tutoring efforts previously covered by American Rescue Plan funds, but few details have been shared about the district’s plan to potentially pay for the Khanmigo program districtwide. The price for school districts to use Khanmigo starts at $35 per student for the school year. There are also discounts for schools and districts with a high number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Other districts that piloted the tool are also looking to expand the program by using grants or other funding sources. Palm Beach County Schools in Florida is receiving up to $2 million from the Stiles-Nicholson Foundation for the use of the platform through June 2025.

Last Friday, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates visited First Avenue School to see the implementation of Khanmigo in classrooms. In 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed $12 million to Khan Academy to support the continued development of the organization in grades 3-12 math. (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. Learn more about our funding here.)

Experts say more research is needed to evaluate AI in education

Computer programs powered by artificial intelligence have been around in recent decades but applications such as Khanmigo, which learn from students engaging with it, are new and growing quickly as technology develops, said Amanda Neitzel, a director at ProvenTutoring, an initiative at John Hopkins University that helps schools choose evidence-based tutoring programs.

Kunz says Khanmigo is “still very much in the early days of AI” and Khan Academy is helping K-12 school district partners “understand, explore, and use these tools.”

So far, there have been errors in how Khanmigo solves basic math problems, which Kunz said they have since fixed. Teachers and students across pilot districts have also said the tool occasionally offers too much help and was too available, especially when students were taking assessments such as quizzes and course challenges, Kunz said.

Khan Academy changed the prompts to better align with a “socratic tutor,” a tutoring approach that involves a dialogue between teacher and students, and made Khanmigo unavailable when students complete assessments on the site, Kunz added.

Teachers are also requesting more coaching on the differences between Khanmigo’s “student mode,” which guides students through lessons and problems, and “teacher mode,” which is designed to help educators plan lessons and collaborate on solutions.

But Neitzel warns that research on the efficacy of tutoring programs such as Khanmigo in the classroom is needed as they gain popularity among school districts.

“It is important to do those research studies that look broadly across certain student groups because schools have limited resources,” said Neitzel, who is also an assistant research scientist at John Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education. “They need to choose something that has the best shot of helping the most students.”

Feedback important to evaluate, improve new platforms

The effectiveness of AI tools such as Khanmigo depends on their design and implementation and other factors such as teacher feedback, training, and understanding the social emotional effect on students play a role in improving technology, said Alan Reid, a researcher at John Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education.

Reid studies educational technology products and reviews their efficacy in classroom instruction. He says AI products could yield positive learning outcomes by providing personalized attention and learning to students, but does not believe tools such as Khanmigo could replace human instruction completely. He sees educators using new platforms to supplement classroom work but wouldn’t be surprised if a teacher’s role shifts as technology evolves.

“That’s just by the nature of having so many digital programs and products and apps and screens and things that don’t lean on the instructor’s expertise as much as just the instructor becoming more of a guide and a facilitator through these products,” Reid added.

Kunz, the spokesperson for Khan Academy, said “in an ideal world every student would have a human tutor” but the hope is that Khanmigo will be able to provide an AI alternative “that can be scaled so that anyone, anywhere can get help when they need it.”

School districts need to think about different tutoring models and intervention strategies that provide critical support for mastering foundational skills, said Jennifer Krajewski, director of Outreach and Engagement at ProvenTutoring.

Khanmigo could be a useful tool to provide on-demand help with homework, Krajewski said, but could also supplement more robust intervention strategies during the school day depending on what students need and what the school district wants to target.

“I think school districts need to understand that distinction,” Krajewski said, “and start with what are their most pressing needs.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public School awards $12M contract for new AI camera system aimed at keeping schools safe

2024-05-03T21:58:13+00:00

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More than 7,000 cameras equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities will be installed in Newark schools, under a $12 million contract approved Thursday by the Newark Board of Education.

District officials say the high-tech surveillance system is meant to make schools safer, but security experts warn that systems with such capabilities could result in an invasion of privacy or could potentially misidentify items or students.

Turn-Key Technologies Inc., based in Sayreville, N.J., will install the cameras and their required servers and storage across schools this summer as part of a two-year contract. Approving the contract was “time-sensitive,” said Valerie Wilson, Newark’s school business administrator, as district officials want the 7,700 cameras – roughly one for every five students – in place by Aug. 31, before the start of the new school year.

The project will be funded in part by federal COVID relief dollars, specifically, American Rescue Plan dollars that expire at the end of September, in conjunction with local funds and grants, Wilson added.

Board member Vereliz Santana said the project was “comprehensive and ambitious” and asked for routine updates as installation begins in June. Other members raised questions about how the system would work to detect vaping.

“It’s a large bid, as you can see from the funds that are being allocated, but we want to make effective use of our federal funding,” said Wilson during Thursday’s meeting.

The new system comes as city leaders and advocates call for measures to reduce violence among youth in Newark.

The city will begin enforcing a youth curfew on Friday. The rule is in response to an increase in youth violence, said Mayor Ras Baraka last week, which includes two shooting incidents this school year. In November, a 15-year-old Central High School student was shot during a drive-by and in March, another two students were shot outside West Side High School.

Turn-Key’s new system will expand the district’s surveillance capabilities, going beyond its current camera system to detect weapons and track people and cars across schools by using license plate and facial recognition. Last year, Newark schools said new technology was needed because its current security set-up is “outdated, inefficient,” pointing to no remote access, storage, and other limitations.

In May 2023, the district said it expected to install cameras by the end of that year after requesting bids from surveillance technology companies in September 2023. But the installation was delayed for almost a year after bidders did not meet the New Jersey Alarm or Locksmith License requirement, prompting the district to revise its project specifications and request bids for a second time in April 2024, Wilson said.

In addition to upgrading the district’s surveillance technology, the new setup will use an Avigilon surveillance system, a type of framework that allows Newark to expand its systems as security needs change or develop, said Jermaine Wilson, a senior research engineer at IPVM, a security and surveillance research group.

That system will work with HALO sensors that can detect vape, gun sounds, and abnormal noise in areas where there are no cameras such as bathrooms, according to the district’s request for proposal.

“I want to be very clear to everybody that in no way shape or form will this result in an invasion of privacy of anyone’s students, staff, or otherwise,” Wilson said. “Cameras and devices will not and cannot be placed in areas that are not approved and authorized.”

The contract was approved by all school board members except Crystal Williams who abstained from voting. During the Thursday meeting, board member Josephine Garcia said vaping in schools is an issue the district has “been battling and sounding the alarm on for quite some time.” She requested clarification on the type of vape sensors that will be used in schools, an explanation that would be given during the board’s private operations committee meeting this month due to security concerns, Wilson said.

“So as we talk about our safety and security initiatives, we want to ensure that we do not provide all of our information in the public domain,” Wilson added.

Superintendent Roger León said the district is in conversation with the city’s Office of Emergency Management “about a number of things” that are set to take place this coming school year. He would share more information with the public “once those initiatives are in effect,” León added.

Wilson also said city police officials would not have access to the system, which includes cameras inside and outside of school buildings and other district locations.

The district has spent millions to increase security over the years. The school district installed metal detectors to scan students for contraband and weapons and added six new patrol cars for school safety officers. It also provided its security guards with training on bag scanners, active shooter response, and the district’s drug and alcohol policy. Newark plans to hire more security guards and update its software to track school incidents.

Thursday’s contract was approved during May’s reorganization meeting where Haynes, Santana, Helena Vinhas, and Kanileah Anderson were sworn in after winning this year’s school board election. Hasani Council was chosen as board president, along with Santana and Allison James-Frison as co-vice presidents.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Can artificial intelligence help teachers improve? A network of NYC schools wants to find out.

2024-01-02T20:28:53+00:00

A network of small public high schools in New York City is exploring whether artificial intelligence can change the way teachers receive feedback about their classroom instruction.

Urban Assembly, a network of 21 schools, is working with the American Institutes of Research to develop an AI-powered tool that can help instructional coaches analyze videos of teachers delivering lessons and offer feedback, according to network leaders.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming the classroom experience for many New York City students, who say chatbots like ChatGPT can help them understand difficult topics and speed up their research. But the technology has also sparked fierce pushback from some educators and officials worried about its potential to encourage cheating and spread misinformation and bias.

After initially banning ChatGPT on school devices over concerns about academic dishonesty, New York City’s Education Department pledged to teach students to use the technology responsibly, and plans to open an institute to study its applications in schools.

The use of AI in teacher coaching brings up similar questions. Proponents say it could save lots of time for instructional coaches and expand access to feedback that improves the quality of teaching. But some teachers said they still had questions about how accurately the technology can capture subtle classroom interactions, how useful its data will be, and whether it will be skewed by biases.

Judy Cappuccio, a math teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Downtown Brooklyn, said she’s “open” to the idea of assistance from the AI tool, but has a “healthy amount of skepticism.”

“I would like to see it in action. It would take me some verification at first to trust it,” she said.

Several schools in Urban Assembly’s network are already part of a pilot where educators record themselves teaching and analyze the videos in detail with instructional coaches to improve their practice — a practice Urban Assembly CEO David Adams likened to athletes reviewing game tape.

The problem, Adams said, is that it can take the instructional coaches hours to review a single video, limiting the scale of the program. That means teachers aren’t getting enough feedback, and they’re getting it less often than they should be, he said.

That’s where the new AI-powered tool comes in. At the end of a two-year rollout, project leaders from the American Institutes of Research hope it will be able to measure things like how often students and the teacher are talking, laughing, and yelling, according to a proposal researchers submitted to Urban Assembly.

The tool will initially roll out to the 21 schools in the Urban Assembly network, though Adams hopes to eventually expand its use. It will cost around $500,000 to develop, test, and implement over two years, according to the network.

The tool will also be able to use “natural language processing,” a branch of AI that seeks to understand the meaning of language, to evaluate how “positive,” “respectful,” or “insulting” the teacher’s language is.

Some of the details captured by the AI tool might seem small, but they can offer clues about the climate of a classroom that teachers can learn from, Adams said.

When kids and teachers are laughing together, for example, it can be a sign that they’re “in the same emotional space” and students are better equipped to absorb the lesson, Adams said.

Capturing and documenting those moments on video can help teachers “replicate and grow” them, added Kiri Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, one of the schools planning to pilot the new tool.

The tool won’t replace the instructional coaches, but will save them time by pointing them to relevant sections of the video, producing audio transcripts, and quickly gathering data that would take humans hours to compile, Adams said.

Ultimately, the tool could enlarge the program and allow more teachers to benefit, Adams argued.

The tool won’t be used in an evaluative capacity and won’t be tied to performance reviews conducted by the school principal, he added. The program is meant to be supportive and highlight what teachers do well, not just where they need to improve, Adams said.

Project leaders propose using the tool to help schools expand an existing teacher feedback program called CLASS, which taps instructional coaches to evaluate educators on metrics ranging from academic content to their relationships with students, based on video recordings of their classroom lessons.

Using videos rather than live observations can give a more honest glimpse of the classroom, and gives teachers the chance to see themselves in action, proponents said.

Teachers interested in AI proposal but have questions

Liza Backman, a science teacher and instructional coach at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in downtown Brooklyn, said she could see the benefits of having the type of data the AI tool can quickly gather at her fingertips.

“I think it’s a tally that would be interesting,” she said.

Still, she cautioned, those data points are only useful if there’s an instructional coach to help make sense of what they mean within the context of the class.

“Some of the lessons, there would be no laughter because we were talking about a very serious topic,” she noted.

Backman also raised questions about what kinds of school environments would be featured in the videos used to train the AI, and whether any biases could be baked in as a result.

“If you feed it videos from primarily white schools, versus primarily Black and brown schools, how will it navigate names?” she asked.

Adams said the tool in development for Urban Assembly schools would be trained at other Urban Assembly schools with similar demographics.

There are other potential downsides.

The AI-powered tool may miss out on meaningful moments from a classroom video that don’t fit cleanly into one of the categories it’s meant to track — moments an instructional coach would’ve caught if they’d been watching, said Soares, the principal of Urban Assembly Institute.

But that’s a worthwhile tradeoff if she can expand the number of teachers participating in the program, she said.

“Yes, we might miss out on some of those moments,” she said. “But more people will get more things.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

How 4 NYC high school students say AI-powered tools are changing their education

2023-12-14T12:45:05+00:00

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Kangxi Yang, a junior at Staten Island Technical High School, was surprised last year when her Advanced Placement Computer Science teacher encouraged her to use ChatGPT — an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that some educators fear offers students a powerful agent for cheating and plagiarism.

Her school had warned students against relying on ChatGPT and other AI tools to complete their writing assignments, but Yang’s teacher showed them how to use the chatbot to debug their code, allowing them to quickly diagnose and correct their errors.

“You can ask the AI tool to explain what is wrong with your code, so that you’re also learning from it,” she said. “It was a really good tool for that class.”

New York City school officials have grappled this year with how to respond to the new technology, and ensure that it does less harm than good.

In January, New York City schools blocked ChatGPT on school devices and networks, citing “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content.” But a few months later, the city reversed course, with schools Chancellor David Banks proclaiming the city’s schools were “determined to embrace its potential.”

Today, just over a year after the tech group OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the public, some students at New York City high schools report widespread use of AI-powered chatbots among their peers. The same patterns appear elsewhere, too: In one national survey from July, 44% of teenagers said they were likely to use AI-powered tools to complete their schoolwork for them, even though a majority considered it cheating.

While some in the city have used the tools as tutors to help break down difficult concepts and work through challenging assignments, others have looked to them as a shortcut for easy answers. And though some tutoring companies have seized on the opportunities afforded by AI, experts warn the virtual tools can at times provide incorrect information or perpetuate societal biases.

Here’s how four high school students say AI-powered tools have changed the way students engage with their schoolwork:

An added resource at home

At Staten Island Tech, Yang hasn’t encountered many teachers who are strictly against using AI-powered tools.

Earlier this year, when her English class read “The Scarlet Letter,” a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, students were assigned a group project analyzing the book. Part of the assignment included designing a letter “A,” which the main character of the novel is forced to wear on her clothes.

Kangxi Yang, a junior at Staten Island Technical High School.

For groups who weren’t confident in their artistic abilities, Yang’s teacher noted students could use images generated by AI based on their prompts.

Yang hasn’t personally seen many students at her school use AI tools to cheat on assignments, though one of her peers did submit an AI-generated application to her underwater-robotics team.

At home, Yang has used Bard, an AI-powered chatbot developed by Google specifically as a learning tool for teenagers, to gain new insights into her coursework. It includes safety features aimed at preventing access to unsafe content for younger users.

“For A.P. U.S. History, I have to do daily textbook readings, and a lot of the concepts I’m not sure about,” Yang said. “I search up certain terms to help me understand what they mean, or just to help me understand the materials better.”

AI tools have been a useful resource at home, Yang said, but they shouldn’t become more prevalent in the classroom.

“There’s a reason why a teacher is right in front of you,” she said.

AI spotlights anxieties about grades

Emily Munoz, a senior at Truman High School in the Bronx, said that at her school, fear hangs over the discussion of AI-powered tools. (Munoz is currently a Student Voices fellow at Chalkbeat).

“People are scared to talk about it,” she said. “Even teachers, they’ll get AI checkers to see if you’re using it in your essays.”

Those checkers are “not always accurate,” she said.

Emily Munoz, a senior at Truman High School in the Bronx.

Munoz said she understands why her teachers are concerned. Some students at her school have looked at ChatGPT and other tools as an easy way to get their essays written quickly — a use that diminishes originality and harms their ability to learn, Munoz said.

At the same time, she worries some students have been falsely accused of using AI tools.

The problem stems not from the ease of access to the tools, but from the extreme focus on grades and academic success, Munoz said. If her peers didn’t feel so much pressure to score well on assignments and instead emphasized simply learning, they might be less likely to turn to tools like ChatGPT, she added.

“Even before AI, people would sometimes take other people’s essays,” Munoz said. “Or people would just search online, and they’d find something there and take it.

“AI is just bringing these issues to the table,” she said.

Ease of AI shows need for curriculum change

Benjamin Weiss, a junior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn.

Benjamin Weiss, a junior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, said that he’s “very annoyed” with the way students are taught, and that student use of AI shows what’s wrong with the curriculum.

The emphasis on standardized testing at his school has meant a lot of assignments are geared toward exam preparation — work that Weiss said can be easily solved by AI-powered chatbots.

“All of it is kind of like: We read the textbook, we memorize the textbook, we answer test questions,” he said.

Some history assignments, for example, have asked him to regurgitate facts without calling for his own interpretation and analysis, he added. While many of his peers have welcomed the use of the tools, Weiss believes they spotlight inherent flaws in the educational system.

If more of his schoolwork involved project-based learning and assignments that helped foster critical thinking, Weiss said, students would be less inclined to use AI.

“For the most part, it’s really a convenience thing,” he said. “It’s just so easy to use these tools.”

Peers have gloated that using ChatGPT on homework means they “can work smarter, not harder,” according to Weiss.

Some teachers have been open to students using AI-powered tools in a limited capacity, but others have adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward them, Weiss said. From speaking to administrators, he knows his school is considering how the tools can be further incorporated into classrooms, and how it can better adapt to the new technology.

Weiss hopes AI will spur an open dialogue at schools across the city.

“This is just a great time to revisit the conversation about how we want to teach students,” he said. “What’s the optimal solution for students and also for teachers who don’t want to punish students and who want to teach with more creativity?”

AI poses ethical questions in class

Enkhdari Gereltogtokh, a junior at United Nations International School in Manhattan.

At United Nations International School, a private school in Manhattan, 11th grader Enkhdari Gereltogtokh has had to contend with the ethics of artificial intelligence in several ways.

In her English class this year, Gereltogtokh read “Klara and the Sun,” a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro that is narrated by a robot developed to serve as an “artificial friend” to a teenage girl.

“It’s very interesting in how it thinks about the juxtapositions of artificial versus natural,” she said of the book.

That theme has persisted in her own interactions with AI-powered tools. When her English teacher encouraged students to see how ChatGPT’s literary analysis compared with their own, Gereltogtokh noticed clear distinctions between how humans and AI understand writing.

She asked it to analyze a passage from the book that described the narrator processing overwhelming emotions.

“ChatGPT said, ‘Since she’s curled into a ball, this represents her wallowing in grief,’” she said. “It’s very surface level. It’s not the level of depth I would get from asking a person.”

Meanwhile, in her Theory of Knowledge class — a part of the International Baccalaureate program — students debated what constituted true artificial intelligence, considering how human influences could program biases and stereotypes into the tools.

Despite the flaws of tools like ChatGPT, Gereltogtokh said many students “use it all the time,” sometimes plugging in essay prompts and memorizing arguments ahead of in-class writing assignments, or even searching for answers to questions as their teachers are posing them in class.

Last year, she added, a group of 11th graders were caught using AI-powered tools to generate essays on “The Great Gatsby,” a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, after each of them wrote about “Alfonso.”

“There’s no character named Alfonso in ‘The Great Gatsby,’” Gereltogtokh said.

Though she sees the value of using AI-powered tools as personalized tutors, she fears those who rely on them too heavily risk losing their own critical thinking skills.

“When you use it too much, I can’t really tell what are your genuine thoughts and feelings, and what you just took from a chatbot,” she said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

How researchers see AI helping university admissions officers comb through college essays

2023-12-08T17:00:00+00:00

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Every year, university admissions officers read and sort through tens of thousands of essays. It’s a long, arduous process.

Now, some researchers say an artificial intelligence tool may be able to help admissions officers sort through essays and recognize prospective students who might previously have gone unrecognized.

The application is a long way off from actually being used in the admissions process, but the group that includes researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder say it has the ability to pull out key traits of students, such as leadership qualities or the ability to persevere.

The possible use of AI in admissions, however, raises questions about how universities would responsibly use it, especially because college admissions officers have said essays might carry more weight in the wake of the Supreme Court decision eliminating the use of race-based admissions.

Sidney D’Mello, a CU Boulder professor in the Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Computer Science who helped develop the system, said he and fellow researchers want to emphasize the responsible use of AI, including calling for transparency in how admissions decisions would be made.

“We’re certainly very, very firm on the fact that it’s really what we call human-centered AI,” he said, “where the human is really the one making the decisions” and the AI acts as a tool.

To develop the AI tool, D’Mello and researchers from the University of Pennsylvania used more than 300,000 anonymous, 150-word essays submitted to colleges in 2008 and 2009. Those essays focused on extracurricular activities and work experiences.

A group of admissions officers then read those essays and scored them based on seven characteristics. The researchers trained the AI system based on how admissions officers evaluated those characteristics within the essays.

The AI platform was able to identify those characteristics in new essays and assign qualities to applicants across different student backgrounds, including whether students demonstrated teamwork or intrinsic motivation.

D’Mello said the model also showed it has potential to avoid bias by being designed not to show a preference for any particular racial, gender, or socioeconomic background.

“This is really kind of blending what computers do best — they can find patterns in large volumes of data — with what humans do best and that’s finding the best in each other,” D’Mello said. “This is the core of how we’ve been trying to approach this.”

Many universities across the country are evaluating their admissions processes after the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision banning race-based admissions. They want to ensure they build diverse classes while still complying with the law.

U.S. Department of Education guidelines encourage colleges to use materials such as essays to get a fuller picture of who students are, the communities they come from, and any adversity — including discrimination — they might have dealt with.

At the same time, Melissa Clinedinst, director of research initiatives and partnership with the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said schools still rank essays lower than a student’s grades for college admissions or test scores. Colorado has made test scores optional for students for students applying to public universities.

Clinedist said colleges are trying harder than ever to find ways to improve their admissions processes. She could see how AI systems might appeal to school officials who have to sort through thousands to tens of thousands of essays with only limited staff to do so.

AJ Alvero, a computational sociologist at the University of Florida who focuses on language, ethnicity, culture, and education, and who wasn’t involved in the study, but reviewed it at the request of Chalkbeat, said the researchers do a great job keeping the ethical issues of bias at the forefront of their study.

Getting to a point where universities could use AI systems might be a long way away, he said.

“A technical concern here could be, if and when universities adopt these tools, are they considering how student language is changing?” he said.

He also said universities would need to put accountability measures in place if there are errors and have staff on hand, such as a computer scientist, to handle any potential problems.

Alvero said schools would also benefit students by allowing more transparency in the application process. Transparency could also give researchers a better look at how to evaluate bias within school decisions and how to train the AI systems.

D’Mello and his fellow researchers hope to continue to develop the AI, including small testing in cooperation with universities.

“We really want to take a measure twice, cut once approach when it comes to high-stakes things such as this,” he said.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

In the AI age, it’s time to change how we teach and grade writing

2023-08-04T23:24:30+00:00

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Many adults fear that, at some point, the skills they have spent years mastering may suddenly become obsolete.

My father, an art teacher and darkroom aficionado, railed against digital photography in the early 2000s as the downfall of an art form he held (and still holds) dear. He retired before the transformation of his darkroom into a classroom computer lab and many years before the revival of film photography from Gen Z kids seeking authenticity in the smartphone age.

Matthew Fulford

In 19th-century England, Luddites similarly protested textile machinery by famously smashing the expensive devices. Their outcry captured the imagination of many who feared that we were becoming, as the Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle put it, “mechanical in head and heart.”

As someone who loves to write almost as much as I enjoy teaching students how to do so effectively, the arrival of Chat GPT in my Denver classroom last semester has placed me in a similar predicament. Within a few weeks, everything I knew about writing, plagiarism, student accountability, and grading was tested.

I made a number of mistakes in a short time, and I realized that if we continue to treat the use of AI as plagiarism, we’re all doomed to fail. Instead, we need to question the fundamentals of how we teach writing in high school and examine what we’re grading when we read student writing.

“What’s the point of writing anymore if we now have browser extensions to do it for us? I mean, why am I even teaching this?” I asked my tech-worker friend when I was at my lowest. “Writing as we know it is dead!”

“Not exactly,” he said, explaining that because AI relies on human-created content to generate answers, it, therefore, depends on the creativity of humans to improve. Otherwise, it would be a closed system that continued to get dumber over time. Moreover, he predicted that as AI content becomes ubiquitous, human creativity would be essential for work to stand out in the future.

“Still,” he acknowledged, “it’s going to change writing a lot.”

Midway through grading student research papers in May, I began to realize what he had meant. I began clumsily pasting suspicious sections of various essays into Chat GPT and asking, “Did you write this?” I’m embarrassed at the number of random false positives this method generated and the awkward conversations I needlessly had with students.

“Yes, I wrote that,” the AI would respond.

“Are you sure?” I pressed further.

“Apologies for the confusion, I cannot confirm that I wrote it.”

After several days of the slowest grading of my life, a colleague introduced me to a browser extension that would confirm patterns in the writing that seemed to be AI-generated. Sure, students could edit the writing to avoid detection, but that seemed quite extreme and time-consuming. I was later surprised to learn from students that some of them would, indeed, spend far longer than it actually takes to write an essay editing AI-generated content.

I found myself spending so much time looking for cheating that I missed the most important aspect of my grading: the ideas that students were actually coming up with.

It was reassuring when an essay I was grading received a thumbs up and “A Human Wrote This!” message. But what is a teacher supposed to do when a browser extension says that an essay appears to be “87% human”? Plagiarism often comes with stiff penalties, and I was nervous about responding too strictly to such uncertainties. This dynamic is also playing out in higher education, and none of the professors I reached out to had answers yet.

This past spring, I found myself spending so much time looking for cheating that I missed the most important aspect of my grading: the ideas that students were actually coming up with. As I shifted my focus, I realized that centering the student’s ideas also proved to be the best AI detector of all. Because AI writing is often pretty terrible.

I began grading some of the best AI-generated essays as though they were human, and I realized that they were rarely proficient anyway. A lot of their issues were obvious, such as the research essay on the history of the American West that intermittently (and critically) confused which “West” it was writing about — the Cold War West or the Western frontier.

There are also some practical ways I intend to alter these projects next year. For example, typing into one document ensures that all writing is timestamped. Separately grading the research process, outlines, and rough drafts all help to encourage students to do the thinking themselves. The inner Luddite in me is also excited to return occasionally to handwritten essays.

Most of all, though, I’m eager to emphasize creativity in research and writing. Classroom writing should never be about the regurgitation of other people’s ideas to aid memorization, and I’m fairly certain that this is one skill that AI will truly make obsolete anyway. So rather than asking students to “Compare and contrast how two authors explore the history of the American West,” I might instead ask them to “use primary sources you have found during your own research to tell the story of a real person in the West, including their challenges and life experiences.” Certainly, AI could do this, but results are certain to be duller than those that tap into students’ natural curiosity and creativity.

This tumultuous semester clarified that using AI in writing is fundamentally different from other forms of plagiarism; it’s so new that the line between using it as a research and writing aid and using it to cheat has not yet been established. I’m optimistic that we can teach students to use it as a tool while they simultaneously do the most valuable creative thinking themselves.

In recent years, my dad has emerged from the darkroom to embrace digital photography as an art form with its own creative potential. And I’d like to think that if Thomas Carlyle was alive today, he would have agreed with me that it’s the creativity of our thinking that separates us from machines; AI in its current form merely develops an illusion of creativity.

Matthew Fulford is a high school history teacher in Denver, Colorado. His passion is teaching historical research and writing. He is the 2023 Colorado History Teacher of the Year.

Artificial intelligence could come to Newark public schools. What does that mean for student privacy and safety?

2023-05-23T10:00:00+00:00

The item tucked in a Newark Board of Education committee report was brief, just a few sentences that could have far-reaching implications for the district’s 35,000 students: Replace an outdated security camera system with a “next-generation surveillance platform.”

The new system would include more than 7,000 cameras districtwide — roughly one for every five students — equipped with artificial intelligence to recognize people and objects such as cars and guns, sensors to detect chemicals in vape pens, and remote access to live feeds for authorized staff.

The plan, to be funded in part by federal COVID relief dollars, drew little response at the school board’s monthly business meeting in March. The proposed system would vastly expand the district’s surveillance capabilities, going beyond traditional systems currently used in most districts.

Community advocates and security experts are raising alarms, saying such a system could violate student and staff privacy, lead to overpolicing of students, and not actually protect campuses.

Giovanna Castaneda, a youth organizer at Make The Road NJ, says keeping students safe means more than hiring security guards, installing metal detectors, or buying security cameras. She fears these tools could also be a way of “fueling the system of policing” in schools.

“Cameras can easily just be another way of watching students and punishing them,” Castaneda said.

The push to keep students safe has grown in the wake of a rise in school shootings year after year and high-profile tragedies, like those in Uvalde, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee. While many school districts across the country have ramped up security, new surveillance technologies that are far more complex than traditional cameras are emerging in districts like Newark, experts say.

Artificial intelligence cameras with facial recognition systems, cloud-based systems to manage and store information, and student social media monitoring software are among the tools that experts are seeing districts choose.

But some of these new technologies often come with little to no state or local oversight, critics warn. Without that scrutiny, they say, these tools could be misused, not as effective, or put student privacy at risk.

In Newark Public Schools, that committee summary report said the new camera system is needed because the district’s current security set-up is “outdated, inefficient,” pointing to no remote access, storage, and other limitations.

The report, written by the district’s office of information technology, spells out features officials are looking for: live feeds, higher-quality images, the ability to be programmed to record at certain times of the day, and the potential to track school buses.

Additionally, the system should work with security cameras and sensors to react to the sounds of a gun, glass breaking, and human screaming.

Although the district says it has not started its process to solicit a vendor for the new camera system, the goal is to “enhance security” and the plan is to receive bids before the start of next school year, according to acting communications director Nancy Deering. Officials plan to complete the installation by the end of 2023, Deering said.

In 2021, the district allocated $2.4 million in federal COVID money for security cameras, but Deering said it will not have a final budget for this security overhaul until it chooses a vendor. Officials plan to pick the “most suitable and most cost-effective solution,” Deering added.

But the lack of a firm plan and budget, experts warn, could leave the district vulnerable to aggressive marketing strategies that describe complex security tools and technology as an essential part of keeping students safe at a time when school shootings are a top concern for educators.

“I’ve done a lot of work on stories about school districts because they are one of the largest markets for security products in the United States,” said Conor Healy, director of government research at IPVM, a security and surveillance research group. “Schools tend to make very poor decisions when it comes to the security technology they buy.”

In 2020, the Baldwin County School District in Alabama spent $1 million on thermal cameras that the Food and Drug Administration later said were not authorized under the federal government, according to an IPVM and a CBS affiliate investigation. Similarly in 2022, the Daily Beast reported that more than 200 school districts nationwide purchased thermal scanners and cameras promoted as a way to detect fevers, but which would regularly fail.

Districts bolster security in the name of student safety

Newark is one of many districts nationwide seeking to boost security in the wake of mass shootings. New York City purchased door-locking systems to control who has access to school buildings. Districts like Chicago spent $73.3 million to add and upgrade security cameras and in Memphis, the district is slated to spend up to $6.3 million to bolster security.

And Newark Public Schools has already been increasing security for several years. The school district installed metal detectors to scan students for contraband and weapons and added six new patrol cars for school safety officers. It also provided its security guards with training including on bag scanners, active shooter response, and the drug and alcohol policy. Newark plans to hire more security guards and update its software to track school incidents.

At the state level, Gov. Phil Murphy approved multiple efforts to keep children in schools safe, including $6.5 million in federal COVID relief funds to have school districts digitize school building maps and make them available to first responders in emergency situations. The maps will include aerial views of school buildings, floor plans, and utility shut-offs among other information.

Murphy also approved legislation in August 2022 to require boards of education in each school district to develop and adopt a policy to establish a threat assessment team tasked with identifying students who might be a threat to school safety.

Newark’s plan to overhaul its camera system would be a more ambitious step to monitor students, staff, and those visiting schools.

John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union, says he is comfortable with adding thousands of cameras in district schools as long as they are kept out of classrooms and teacher’s lounges. In the past, he’s received complaints about cameras being inoperable at specific schools or during certain parts of the day, a problem when students or staff claim that they were injured in hallways or staircases.

“As long as they can maintain a service agreement and keep them operable, we have no issue with them,” Abeigon said.

Privacy and policing concerns grow as new technologies are implemented

While surveillance and security companies sell new tools by promising to promote safety and giving administrators a greater ability to monitor students, experts say officials should carefully weigh the sales pitch against student needs.

Companies such as Verkada and Rhombus market security tools that will “help manage school security” and “create safer schools.” These companies market artificial intelligence capabilities in their surveillance systems that can send real-time alerts to law enforcement agencies and track faces in school buildings.

Similar to facial recognition on phones, security cameras that use artificial intelligence can monitor and keep a log of faces. But these cameras could potentially misidentify items or students and monitor them in ways that could infringe on their privacy, said Dillon Riesman, a Skadden fellow at the ACLU-NJ who specializes in advocacy for civil rights and technology.

Security experts also warn that facial recognition features might not work as well on darker skin tones, posing an extra challenge for students of color who risk being misidentified. That could present a particular concern in a district such as Newark, where nearly 90% of students identify as Hispanic or Black, say policy experts at the American Civil Liberties Union New Jersey.

“These new technologies cost schools millions of dollars for systems and functionality and tools that the school might not need,” Riesman added, “or worse, might actively harm students.”

According to Deering, the Newark Public Schools spokesperson, artificial intelligence offers capabilities that the outdated camera system is not capable of, and says the district’s goal in acquiring these capabilities “is to enhance security, not penalize students.”

Experts also warn of privacy concerns due to hacking, since information is stored in cloud-like platforms. Verkada, for example, uses a cloud-based management system and has had its cameras hacked. Several workers were also accused of accessing the company’s facial recognition system to take and post photos of women at the company, according to CBS News and VICE. In response to the reporting, Verkada fired three employees who abused the company’s monitoring system and updated its systems following the hacking incident.

Verkada declined to comment on their previous hacking incident and employee misuse of facial recognition.

The company has also been accused of dubious marketing practices. It sold technology to public schools throughout North Jersey by recruiting a Bergen County superintendent to help connect the companies’ sales representatives to school employees, who would be offered incentives in exchange for sales meetings, according to VICE.

No legislative oversight over security cameras in schools

Under New Jersey law, school officials can install cameras to keep watch of areas “that could be monitored or patrolled by a person.” There are no strict rules on where they can be placed, but cameras are generally not allowed in bathrooms or locker rooms.

State law also says the best practice is for schools to provide notice of surveillance areas by placing signs near security cameras but it’s unclear if the practice is enforced.

In Newark, which has 3,000 classrooms across the district, Deering said officials cannot disclose where cameras will be placed for security purposes, but they are installed outside school buildings or near entrances.

The state provides districts with funding for school security projects and upgrades, but few guidelines on how to use the funds, according to ACLU-NJ.

During the 2020-2021 regular state legislative session, a bill to include security cameras in certain special education classrooms was introduced but ultimately died. During the 2022-2023 regular session, state Sen. Nia Gill introduced a bill to restrict the use of facial recognition technology and other “biometric recognition” by governmental entities but it failed to move forward.

Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz and Senate education committee chair Vin Gopal did not comment on school surveillance technology regulations.

Joe Johnson, policy counsel at the ACLU-NJ, says the lack of state oversight over security and surveillance companies is a problem.

“It is left up to the school districts and sometimes that’s beneficial,” Johnson said. “But other times, students that live in one part of the state have a different experience, whether better or worse, than other students across the state.”

Advocates stress the importance of community engagement

As districts invest taxpayer dollars into these tools and systems, advocates say it’s important to include the community in discussions. In addition, bringing awareness about the implementation of new surveillance technologies could promote trust and better understanding for parents.

District spokesperson Deering said notice about Newark Public Schools’ plan to replace its outdated camera system would be provided to the community “at the appropriate time.”

Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said community oversight on how these technologies are implemented is important for school communities. Johnson, the policy counsel at ACLU-NJ, said school districts should work on getting “the information in front of parents and students” before new tools are implemented.

“Those conversations lead to a stronger school district because the local community can weigh in on what it is that the students need,” Johnson said.

Castaneda, the youth organizer, believes there needs to be a larger conversation on how funds are used to promote safe school environments. Those dollars could be better spent to tackle the causes that lead to students carrying guns, drugs, or engaging in violence, she said.

“It’s about getting to know the student and knowing where they come from, what they ate, what their family life is like, and getting at the root of the issue,” Castaneda added.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Student use of artificial intelligence software stirs discussion in Michigan school districts

2023-04-27T22:48:45+00:00

The Detroit Public Schools Community District is updating its technology use policies to address concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence tools on student learning.

An early draft of the revised language says that the use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing software tools “without the express permission/consent of a teacher is considered to undermine the learning and problem-solving skills that are essential to a student’s academic success and that the staff is tasked to develop in each student.”

Unauthorized student use of such tools is a “form of plagiarism,” according to the draft language, which appears in the staff technology use policy but applies to students.

Newly powerful artificial intelligence software has generated a wave of publicity in recent months, for creating a photorealistic illustration of Pope Francis in a puffy white coat, for example, or composing fake pop songs purportedly by Drake and The Weeknd.

It has also stirred debate among school officials and educators about the impact, and risks, in the classroom. One tool — ChatGPT — can write essays and solve mathematical equations based on a user’s prompts, and across Michigan, educators are looking at the potential for misuse.

“It’s really relevant to what’s happening to the district,” DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said of the policy at a school board committee meeting Wednesday. “There’s a lot of conversation about tools that students now have access to that are sort of changing the landscape of writing and essays and classroom assignments.”

The DPSCD policy draft language doesn’t ban the use of programs like ChatGPT outright. Rather, it says that students can use these tools to conduct research, analyze data, translate texts in different languages, and correct grammatical mistakes, as long as they have teacher permission.

Ausha Mia, a senior at Detroit’s Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, said she hasn’t used or learned about ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence tools, but she would favor the district setting restrictions on how students use that technology.

She considers plagiarism to be the No. 1 problem at MLK, with some of her teachers deducting points from every student’s grades if other students are found to have cheated on an assignment. In other cases, they’ve just thrown away students’ papers.

MLK robotics teacher Carrie Russell said that her students have not caught on to ChatGPT, but that “it’s only a matter of time” before they do. Many are already savvy with other AI-powered apps such as Photomath and WolframAlpha, Russell said.

Meanwhile, districts in New York City and Los Angeles have gone further, blocking student access to ChatGPT on district computers and networks, while other districts continue to weigh the pros and cons of the technology.

In Michigan, educators are considering how artificial intelligence tools might be used to enhance teaching. In the Hemlock School District, three school administrators recently published a book titled “43 Ways to Be Less Lame as an Educator” about improving teaching with the assistance of ChatGPT. Hemlock Superintendent Don Killingbeck said the district is already planning to share tips and tools regarding artificial intelligence with its educators in a district professional development session this fall.

Dearborn Public Schools is “still evaluating the benefits, risks and implications of AI software such as ChatGPT,” said district spokesperson David Mustonen, adding that the issue has been “a topic of discussion at several meetings involving our principals, instructional leaders and information technology staff.”

Tom Lietz, an associate director with the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, is optimistic about how AI can be used in the classroom. Commonplace learning tools, he said, such as Khan Academy are already incorporating AI software into their study guides.

“What’s really exciting about AI tools is the possibility for AI to provide real opportunities for student support,” Lietz said. “I think the big fear is, this is either going to replace teachers, or it’s going to make cheating rampant. And I think both of those are understandable concerns. But as time has proved, teachers and people are smarter and can adapt to it.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How ChatGPT made my lessons more engaging

2023-02-16T12:00:00+00:00

Much of the education narrative around ChatGPT has focused on the potential downsides of the AI tool (think Skynet from “The Terminator”). But as a high school teacher who has experimented with the sophisticated word predictor app in my economics, U.S. History, and speech and debate classes, I’ve found that ChatGPT provides opportunities to engage the students in class activities. Here’s how I’ve harnessed a tool that is here to stay (no matter how many school districts try to block it).

Spencer Burrows

I welcomed our first “speaker,” ChatGPT.

Our student learning is anchored around Harkness discussions, an educational approach in which students discuss class readings, course material, and other texts. Students learn how to prepare for a discussion, have difficult conversations, understand different perspectives, and meaningfully participate. While many students grasp the notion of voicing their ideas, teaching them to build upon another student’s point is more difficult.

In Economics, we spent one class analyzing the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. To prepare, I asked ChatGPT what caused the bubble, and here was the response:

“The dot-com bubble was caused by a combination of factors, including:

Irrational exuberance: Investors were overly optimistic about the potential of internet-based companies, leading to a huge influx of investment capital.
Overvaluation of tech startups: Startups with no revenue or profits were valued at extremely high prices, leading to a bubble.
Lack of regulation: The SEC failed to adjust its regulations to the new realities of the internet and the stock market.
Hype around internet technology: There was a lot of hype around the potential of the internet, which fueled the bubble.
These factors combined to create the Dot-com Bubble, which burst in 2000-2001 causing many internet-based companies to fail, leading to a significant loss of investment capital.”

In class, I asked the students to respond to or build upon the ChatGPT answer in 2-4 sentences. Next, the students considered what facts or context would make the ChatGPT response more accurate or complete. Then, the students created three Harkness questions based on the ChatGPT response: a clarifying question, a curiosity question, and a probing question.

Student questions included: How could the government help prevent a future dot-com bubble? What are the measurements that determine whether the stock price of a company matches its value? How would an investor utilize bubbles to increase the value of their investment before leaving when the going is good?

Finally, I input the student questions into ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses live on the board, and asked the students to build upon the app’s response in a live discussion.

After going back and forth with ChatGPT, the class reflected on how the AI tool produced its content. We discussed, for example, whether the word predictor technology focused on certain keywords to produce generalized information regarding a financial crisis, most of which could be generalized to any financial crisis, including the 1929 stock market crash. Through this exercise, students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I asked teens to fact-check ChatGPT’s answers.

Right now in my U.S. History class, we are studying Reconstruction. During a recent lesson, I asked ChatGPT, “What is Radical Reconstruction?” The app replied:

“‘Radical Reconstruction’ refers to the period of American history from 1867 to 1877 in which the federal government, under the leadership of the Republican Party, actively sought to rebuild the Southern states that had seceded during the Civil War and to provide civil rights and political representation for the newly freed slaves. This period was marked by the passage of several important pieces of legislation, including the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which granted citizenship and voting rights to African Americans. The period was also marked by conflict and violence, as white Southerners resisted the changes and the federal government’s efforts to enforce them.”

Students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I then asked the students, working in pairs, to critically analyze the ChatGPT response. What is accurate about this response? What is inaccurate? What facts or context could be added to the response to make it more complete?

Working in pairs, some students observed that though the start and end dates were accurate, the response was very vague and could benefit from referencing notable people, quotes, amendments, and laws. Other students noted that because Radical Reconstruction was more of a movement rather than an event, it is difficult to establish the exact dates. Many online sources report that it ended in 1872 rather than 1877. Why is there a discrepancy regarding the exact dates? That prompted a discussion around historical accuracy, historiography, and how we choose to report and sequence events. Further, some students noted the 15th Amendment only applied to African American men.

This lesson reinforced that one must always view online content with a critical eye. One of the most important skills to teach students today is how to discern which online sources are credible, and which are not.

I had students debate the app.

In Speech and Debate, one of the hardest skills to teach students is to think on their feet and deliver rebuttals. In Parliamentary debate, students are given a topic and a short time to conduct quick research before the debate begins. This format requires participants to construct arguments on the spot and respond immediately to their opponents.

To practice for the upcoming debate tournament, I fed sample debate resolutions to ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses, and had the students respond in real time.

To begin, I gave ChatGPT the resolution, “Should 16-year-olds have the right to vote?” Students were quick to identify weaknesses in the app’s argument, and they delivered their rebuttals. For example, one of my students argued that 16-year-olds should not be able to vote because their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed (a keen observation from a fellow 16-year-old). Other students argued that 18 is an arbitrary age that confers the maturity of an adult (if not yet the ability to purchase alcohol) — so why not 16?

Students reflected that using ChatGPT in debate prep was valuable because the app was able to launch the debate, outline arguments, provide a foundation of the issue, and retrieve useful points that the students could later adapt and refine.

AI isn’t going anywhere, which means it’s up to us, educators, to find creative ways to engage with it in our classrooms. We are still smarter than the machines, for now!

Spencer Burrows is a history teacher and the 11th grade dean at Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, California. He is a Teach Plus and Coro Lead LA alumnus. Burrows serves as education adjunct faculty at National University and on the Board of Directors of TEACH Public Schools in South Los Angeles.

New York City schools blocked ChatGPT. Here’s what other large districts are doing

2023-01-06T22:54:06+00:00

School districts in Los Angeles and Baltimore have joined New York City in blocking access to ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, as other districts evaluate the benefits and risks that accompany the new technology.

The program has spurred vibrant debate among educators in recent weeks, who have looked to the new technology with both fear and excitement over its potential impact on schools.

For some, the chatbot’s ability to generate complex and measured responses to academic prompts makes it a frighteningly powerful agent for cheating and plagiarism. Concerns earned ChatGPT a ban on all devices and networks in the nation’s largest school district.

New York City schools cited “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content,” adding that “the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, [but] does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”

Districts in Chicago and Philadelphia have not moved to block the program, spokespeople said.

The program, created by OpenAI, allows users to enter prompts and then generates responses using machine learning. That has some fearing it could offer students an easy out when faced with, for example, a high school English essay prompt.

Still, others have labeled the initial outcry alarmist and looked to the chatbot as an enticing new tool for teachers and schools. That potential has sparked some interest in Cobb County, Georgia.

“Like most technological tools, ChatGPT can support student learning, when used effectively,” a spokesperson for the local school district said. “In the hands of a high-qualified Cobb County teacher, it could be a valuable tool to supplement a student’s understanding of academic content and could help students develop critical thinking skills.”

With schools around the country beginning to evaluate ChatGPT, here’s where some of the nation’s largest school districts stand:

Los Angeles Unified School District in California

Last month, the district preemptively blocked access to ChatGPT on all networks and devices to “protect academic honesty, while a risk/benefit assessment is conducted.”

“In the meantime, we will continue to provide robust and relevant training and instruction in digital citizenship and computer science education for all school communities,” a district spokesperson said.

Chicago Public Schools in Illinois

ChatGPT is not blocked on school networks and remains under district review for potential risks to students.

In a statement, a spokesperson said Chicago Public Schools was “committed to providing students with a rigorous and engaging educational experience that incorporates technological advances. This includes tools that help students explore budding career pathways.”

School District of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania

ChatGPT is not blocked by the school district, a spokesperson said.

Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland

In a statement, a spokesperson said “Baltimore County Public Schools has not created or changed policy as a result of ChatGPT, but we did block the site on student devices and browsers earlier in the school year.”

Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland

A spokesperson for the school district said ChatGPT is not currently blocked, but added it is under review.

Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky

Access to ChatGPT is not restricted at Jefferson County Public Schools, but the district said it is “constantly reviewing all websites, chatbots and other technologies to determine their value to student learning.”

“We make every effort to stay informed about emerging technologies and how they might impact our students’ learning, positively or negatively,” a spokesperson said. “To date, we have not had any concerns expressed to us about ChatGPT.”

Orange County Public Schools in Florida

The district has not made any policy changes regarding ChatGPT, but said staff “regularly monitors district devices for unauthorized programs or usage and responds accordingly.”

Northside Independent School District in Texas

The district has not taken any steps to block ChatGPT, but said it “continually evaluates numerous websites for instructional merit and has a web filter and other tools in place that can help address those that contain any content deemed harmful or disruptive to the instructional process.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org .

How teachers can harness ChatGPT for good

2023-01-06T19:15:00+00:00

They say that it will kill the college essay. Some people think it’s a threat to education itself.

I don’t. I’m excited.

This potential school-slayer is ChatGPT, a new Artificial Intelligence interface that displays remarkable prowess. It can write novel poetry, compare literary characters, and evaluate arguments. Google has a similar program, not public yet, that’s apparently even better.

AI has arrived, and I’m watching educators wrestle with the ramifications of this revolution.

It has me thinking back to my childhood. Whenever I got fidgety, my mom would give me a calculator to play with. No rules, no directions — just me, a handful of buttons, and the chance to explore. It was heaven.

Ben Talsma

Back then, elementary teachers were in agreement: calculators were cheating. Kids needed to know their math facts, for goodness’ sake, and if they just asked the calculator all the time, they’d never learn.

But I did learn them and learned them well. I looked for patterns, made predictions, and constructed my own understanding. When I learned math in class, I had deep prior knowledge. I was always the best mathematician in my class, won statewide math competitions, and use math voraciously in my work and life today.

It all started with a piece of technology — the same tool that millions of teachers felt was cheating.

That feeling was perfectly normal. Every time a transformative technology comes along, we’re skeptical. Socrates worried that widespread literacy would make our species degenerate and forgetful. Spell check was considered cheating for years because people “ought” to know how to spell without assistance.

It’s human nature: When technology renders previously important skills obsolete, we feel offended.

ChatGPT inspires a similar fear in many educators, I know. So many students lack foundational writing skills, and teachers spend their time trying to fill those gaps — and to make writing joyful, too. I see how this program could seem to undermine those objectives, offering students a way around assignments meant to help them develop as writers and thinkers.

And yet.

I’m convinced that if we let our concerns — however legitimate — overtake our thinking on this topic, we ignore the history of technology and the possibilities offered by AI. Humanity benefits when we allow people to use whatever we can to learn. And students benefit from experimenting with technology in school settings and being able to discuss its use with their teachers. Banning something just increases the likelihood that students will use it in ways that don’t help them learn.

As a learning specialist, my job involves working with teachers and technology, so I’ve already seen many put ChatGPT to use, from kindergarten through high school. AI can help teachers model the concepts they want students to understand. This works for all sorts of things, from comparing and contrasting different characters to telling the difference between complete and incomplete sentences. Teachers can, in a matter of minutes, create dozens of examples for students to rate, rank, sort, or comment on.

This is a wonderful, inquiry-oriented way to explore ideas. As humans, we learn so much from observing and interacting with examples, and now teachers have an almost infinite supply of them readily available.

We must also prepare students for the world they’ll inherit. In the next few years, it will become increasingly important for humans to edit AI-generated work. Right now, I’m seeing teachers provide students with samples of AI-generated work, then working with them to improve it. This is an engaging way to open up deep conversations about writing.

ChatGPT often makes factual errors; having students fact-check ChatGPT’s writing is a wonderful way to improve information literacy. A fifth-grade teacher I’m working with recently provided small groups of students with AI-generated content and reported that they loved working to try to prove the articles wrong.

I’ve also seen teachers using ChatGPT to provide a first round of feedback on students’ work. Teachers can simply ask students to input their work into ChatGPT and ask it to provide feedback for improvement — the results are surprisingly good. Don’t believe me? Check out its analysis of this article. When teachers let AI provide preliminary feedback, it takes something off their plates and allows them to engage in higher-level conversations later in the process.

There is still value in having students learn to compose their own five-paragraph essays — just as there is value in teaching students their multiplication facts, even when they will always have access to a calculator.

But AI can allow students to do things that they previously couldn’t. Making use of AI might feel scary or strange; useful innovations always do. By understanding the power and possibility of AI, however, we can help students use their powers for good.

Oh, one last thing: ChatGPT can draft lesson plans. That alone ought to pique your curiosity.

Ben Talsma is a Learning Solution Specialist for Van Andel Institute for Education, a Michigan-based education nonprofit dedicated to creating classrooms where curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking thrive.

NYC education department blocks ChatGPT on school devices, networks

2023-01-03T23:32:44+00:00

New York City students and teachers can no longer access ChatGPT — the new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that generates stunningly cogent and lifelike writing — on education department devices or internet networks, agency officials confirmed Tuesday.

The education department blocked access to the program, citing “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content,” a spokesperson said. The move from the nation’s largest school system could have ripple effects as districts and schools across the country grapple with how to respond to the arrival of the dynamic new technology.

The chatbot’s ability to churn out pitch perfect essay responses to prompts spanning a wide range of subjects has sparked fears among some schools and educators that their writing assignments could soon become obsolete — and that the program could encourage cheating and plagiarism.

“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” said education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”

Individual schools can still request access to the site if they’re planning to study the technology behind the chatbot, a department spokesperson said.

The program, created by the organization OpenAI, uses machine learning to come up with its own custom-made responses to specific prompts. It can pull and compile historical facts, write in specific styles, and make convincing logical arguments — all with nearly perfect grammar (unless a user gives a prompt to add grammatical errors).

That’s posing some thorny questions for educators who rely on independent writing assignments to build and assess students’ understanding and critical thinking skills.

One high school English teacher argued in The Atlantic that the chatbot spells the “end of high school English.”

The program still has limitations, sometimes coming up with inaccurate conclusions or even including offensive language.

It’s unclear if or how many other districts are banning the program. Several other large school districts did not immediately respond to Chalkbeat’s inquiries about how they’re handling ChatGPT. But the decision from the nation’s largest school system could well influence how other districts act.

The education department’s ban will only cut off access to the chatbot in some settings. Students can still get on the site on non-education department devices or internet networks.

Adam Stevens, a longtime New York City history teacher who started his career at Paul Robeson High School in Brooklyn and now teaches at Brooklyn Tech, believes that blocking the program is counterproductive. He compared the fears now swirling around ChatGPT to those that emerged around Google.

“People said the same thing about Google 15 or 20 years ago when students could ‘find answers online,’” he said.

The program could even prove useful in some cases, Stevens added, generating a “baseline” response to an essay prompt that the class could analyze together and figure out how to improve upon.

Stevens argued that the best way to discourage students from using ChatGPT and building up their critical writing skills is by “assigning them work that is inviting them to explore things worth knowing,” and moving away from teaching formulaic writing based on strict rubrics.

“We’ve trained a whole generation of kids to pursue rubric points and not knowledge,” he added, “and of course, if what matters is the point at the end of the semester, then ChatGPT is a threat.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.