Exploring AI Use In Schools

2025 marked rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in schools, with as many as 84 percent of high school students utilizing generative AI tools for their schoolwork. In April 2025, Executive Order 14277 laid out mechanisms to encourage and foster AI literacy and competency. This order establishes a White House Task Force on AI Education, and encourages public-private partnerships between schools and technology companies. This has made the intersection of education and AI an increasingly valuable market for companies committed to providing resources and support for AI education among youth. 

Given concern among teachers around students’ use of AI to fabricate assignments, several companies have aimed to develop AI tools that supplement, rather than replace, critical thinking. Some have already made an entrance into public education; Magic School AI is one of the many companies that create AI-based tools for lesson planning, quizzes, study materials, and assignments. In an article covering Magic School AI’s use in a South Carolina school district, local ABC outlet WPDE highlights that, “[u]nlike ChatGPT, this program isn’t capable of doing any of a student’s actual work for them.” The company is one of many targeting education as a new market for AI. 

State-Level Regulation of AI in Education

At a national level today, AI is sparsely regulated. The White House has encouraged AI development and framed it as a growing pillar of the U.S economy. Institutional integration and governance at the state level, however, remains fragmented. Emerging state-level guidance on the implementation and usage of AI in education is underdeveloped, broad, and typically avoids regulatory language. While some states, including Oregon and California, have published guides, 21 states are remaining cautious about influencing AI usage in schools. 

North Carolina has proposed some of the most expansive AI-in-education regulation through Senate Bill 864, which would establish a comprehensive framework on the integration of AI in K–12 public schools including mandatory standards for student AI training, requirements for districts to adapt safe and ethical AI policies, and the establishment of online AI proficiency trainings for teachers. West Virginia, Idaho, and Washington have also proposed clear pathways for integration, while New York maintains a careful approach. New York has developed a system to guide decisions on AI usage in schools, which ranks actions as allowable, allowable with caution, and unallowable.

                                                                Source: MultiState

Arguments in Favor of AI Integration

Proponents of AI integration in education highlight that AI systems are capable of creating highly personalized learning structures that tailor specific lesson plans to individual students’ needs. Supporters emphasize that AI is not intended to circumvent human judgment, but can instead simplify how teachers adapt learning experiences to accommodate the evolving needs of students. Additionally, access to personalized support expands inclusivity for students with disabilities. This can include automated image descriptions, description generations, and improving social skills.

Supporters claim, in conjunction with human judgement, that AI can be a transformative tool for reducing administrative burden and educator burnout. If integrated into school districts, AI could create condensed data reports that highlight trends, improvements, and declines in schools’ effectiveness. In California, Think Education recently launched Raly Report, a program intended to streamline Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs). LCAPs are three-year strategic plans that require districts to process significant amounts of data and use that data to plan improvements according to eight district goals. Supporters of AI integration claim this intensive process that burdens administrators for weeks to months could be avoided with the use of programs like Raly Report. 

Arguments Against AI Integration

Some opponents of AI integration claim that students are becoming overly dependent on AI for completing assigned work. They argue that encouraging expanded use of AI in learning will make the educational system less productive and render degrees less valuable. In China, a study measured the impact of AI on 26,811 secondary school students’ learning over 30 months. While students’ homework scores and completion time were positively affected, about 80 percent of students underperformed when AI tools were not available. 

A June 2026 survey of 545 K–12 teachers in the U.S. suggests that many educators are also wary of AI’s impacts on students’ critical thinking abilities. 54% of teachers said AI is making it more difficult for their students to learn critical thinking skills, and 55% said students are using AI as a shortcut to do less work. 60% said AI is eroding the trust between students and teachers in the classroom.

Opponents of AI integration also raise ethical concerns around algorithmic bias present in AI systems. Researchers found that large language models like ChatGPT can have stereotypes and biases coded into them, based on the data the model is trained with. Especially if AI is used in grading to supplement or replace teacher input for certain assignments, critics argue, AI models could misinterpret or undervalue a student’s work based on stereotypes or other biases. They argue this could exacerbate inequalities in the classroom. 

Conclusion

AI is already becoming part of K–12 education, but policies governing its use remain inconsistent across states and school districts. Supporters argue that AI can personalize learning, improve accessibility, and reduce educators’ administrative burdens, while critics raise concerns about student dependence, algorithmic bias, privacy, and weakened critical-thinking skills. As adoption expands, the central policy challenge will be developing clear standards that preserve human oversight while allowing schools to benefit from emerging technologies.

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