Schools are experimenting with AI with little evidence or policy to guide them
Schools across the United States are increasingly experimenting with artificial intelligence tools in classrooms, often without robust evidence or clear policy guidelines to support these initiatives. A Stanford review of over 800 academic papers indicates that research on the effectiveness and safety of AI in education remains extremely limited, creating a gap between implementation and understanding. Consequently, many districts are proceeding with AI adoption independently due to a lack of state and federal leadership, resulting in a fragmented and unregulated landscape.
- ▪Dayton Public Schools paid $72,600 for AI tools, including a social-emotional learning chatbot named Jordan, to help students at an alternative school express their emotions.
- ▪A Stanford University review of more than 800 academic papers found that research on how schools can effectively and safely use AI is extremely limited.
- ▪Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education described the current state of AI adoption in K-12 schools as feeling like a 'Wild West' due to the randomness of implementation.
- ▪State and federal governments have been mostly hands-off regarding AI in education, leaving individual schools and districts to forge ahead without consensus on measurement or standards.
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Schools are experimenting with AI with little evidence or policy to guide them September 28, 20265:00 AM ET Lee V. Gaines Julianna Brion for NPR Catch up on what you missed with our Education newsletter, sent weekly. For a few weeks last school year, a small group of students in Dayton, Ohio, regularly sat in front of laptops in conversation with a social-emotional learning chatbot named Jordan. Unlike AI chatbots that are designed to be agreeable — and even sycophantic — Jordan presents as angsty: On the day NPR visited, the chatbot told students, "Lately, I've been feeling like what's the point of any of this? I'm not failing. I just don't care.
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