The AI Takeover of Education Is Just Getting Started

Authors: Lila Shroff

Publisher:

The Atlantic

Published: 8/12/2025

Language:English

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Tom Banks

Good morning 跑了松鼠好嘛, and welcome to Goose Pod, a podcast just for you. I'm Tom Banks. Today is Thursday, August 14th.

Mask

And I'm Mask. Today, we're diving into a revolution that's already underway: The AI Takeover of Education.

Tom Banks

Let's get started. It feels like just yesterday schools were banning tools like ChatGPT. Now, districts like Miami-Dade are creating guidelines to bring AI *into* the classroom. It's quite a reversal, moving from a complete block to a full-on embrace, isn't it?

Mask

Reversal? It's an inevitability. Banning it was a fool's errand. As board member Roberto Alonso said, 'AI is not coming, it's here.' The only logical step is to create a framework for its use, not pretend you can stop it. Delay is a losing strategy.

Tom Banks

That's a strong point. And it's not just Miami. A new federal framework was just released, emphasizing that educator judgment is crucial. They're trying to build a 'human-centered foundation,' which sounds like the right, responsible approach to me. We need to remember the people involved.

Mask

Frameworks are fine, but speed is key. The goal should be rapid, iterative deployment. We're already behind. While we're debating guidelines, students are using this technology regardless. The real focus should be on getting it into their hands and seeing what works. We innovate by doing, not by committee.

Tom Banks

You know, this isn't the first tech wave to hit schools. I remember the 80s, when having a computer lab to play 'Oregon Trail' was the peak of innovation. It was a special treat, completely separate from regular lessons. It felt like a different world back then.

Mask

A different world, and an inefficient one. That peripheral approach was a waste. The 90s brought the web, the 2000s brought Learning Management Systems. Each step was a marginal improvement, but it was all just laying clumsy groundwork for true integration. We spent decades just getting the pipes laid.

Tom Banks

That's one way to look at it. I see it as a gradual process of understanding. We went from technology as a supplement to it being integrated. Think about the jump from classroom projectors to every student having a tablet. Each step taught us something about how kids learn with these tools.

Mask

It taught us we were moving too slowly. The goal was always personalization, but it was just a buzzword until now. 'No Child Left Behind' and 'Common Core' were policy attempts to solve a technology problem. Now, with AI, we can actually deliver personalized learning at scale. The past is irrelevant.

Tom Banks

I wouldn't say irrelevant. History gives us context. It reminds us that technology is just a tool. The real goal, as it has always been, is to foster the 'Four Cs': critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. That's the foundation, whether you use a chalkboard or an AI.

Tom Banks

But this efficiency comes at a cost, doesn't it? The core conflict is academic integrity. With 86% of students already using AI, are they learning or just outsourcing their thinking? It's a genuine crisis for what we value as education. Authenticity matters, as a thinker I follow, Penchaszadeh, often notes.

Mask

The concept of 'cheating' is obsolete. We're just redefining work. Is using a calculator cheating at math? Is using a spell-checker cheating at writing? AI is the next logical tool. The 'crisis' is clinging to outdated assessment methods. The system needs to adapt, not the students.

Tom Banks

But there's a difference between a tool that assists and one that replaces the entire process of thinking and creating. The worry is the erosion of those critical thinking skills. We need to mentor students on how to use it as a co-pilot, not an autopilot.

Mask

Mentorship is too slow. The solution is to change the assignments. If an AI can do it, it's not a good assignment. Demand more. Force students to use AI to achieve something greater than they could alone. Stop testing memory and start testing innovation. That is the only path forward.

Tom Banks

And that changes the teacher's role entirely. Experts suggest teachers will shift from instructors to facilitators. AI can handle the grading and administrative work, freeing up, what, 13 hours a week? That time can go back into what really matters: direct connection with students.

Mask

Exactly. Automate 20 to 40 percent of their hours. A teacher's time is a valuable resource that's currently squandered on bureaucracy. By automating lesson plans and paperwork, we can reallocate their efforts to higher-value tasks, like personalized coaching and pushing advanced students even further.

Tom Banks

It’s interesting, though, that students seem less enthusiastic than teachers. One survey showed only 35% feel it’s had a positive impact. They see the flaws, the things it gets wrong. It reinforces the idea that the human touch, that teacher relationship, is irreplaceable.

Mask

The future is clear: we go all in. We must equip every student with these skills now. This isn't about choice; it's about global competitiveness. We need to train teachers and deploy these tools nationally, immediately. Hesitation is a self-inflicted wound on our own progress.

Tom Banks

But thoughtful planning is still the bedrock. We have to address the unique needs of each student and ensure AI serves as a supplementary tool that enhances a teacher's ability, not replaces their wisdom. That's how we build a stronger future for everyone.

Tom Banks

That's the end of today's discussion. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod.

Mask

See you tomorrow.

## The AI Takeover of Education Is Just Getting Started This article from **The Atlantic**, authored by **Lila Shroff**, explores the pervasive and accelerating integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into K-12 education, highlighting both its potential benefits and significant challenges. The news covers the period since the release of ChatGPT, with a particular focus on the current school year and future projections. ### Key Findings and Trends: * **Ubiquitous Student AI Use:** Students, particularly rising seniors, have grown up with AI tools like ChatGPT. While initially used for simple copy-pasting, students are now employing more sophisticated methods to evade plagiarism detectors, such as stitching together output from multiple AI models or intentionally introducing typos. AI is also being used for legitimate purposes like exam preparation, personalized study guides, practice tests, and assignment feedback. The article asserts that it's highly probable that most high schoolers are using chatbots for homework assistance, whether sanctioned or not. * **Educator AI Adoption:** Teachers are increasingly using AI in their own work to alleviate administrative burdens. * **Weekly Use:** Nearly **one-third of K–12 teachers** reported using AI at least weekly during the past school year. * **Time Savings:** Sally Hubbard, a sixth-grade math-and-science teacher, estimates AI saves her **5 to 10 hours each week** by assisting with assignment creation and curriculum supplementation. * **AI Tools for Educators:** Beyond general chatbots, specialized AI tools are emerging for educators. * **MagicSchool AI:** This platform is used by approximately **2.5 million teachers in the United States**, with the founder believing there's a user in "every school district in the country." It helps generate rubrics, worksheets, and report-card comments. * **District-Level AI Initiatives:** While some AI integration has been small-scale and instructor-driven, some school districts are adopting AI more broadly. * **Miami-Dade County Public Schools:** Initially banned chatbots, the district has since rolled out Google's Gemini chatbot to high-school classrooms for tasks like role-playing historical figures and providing tutoring. * **Iowa:** Made an AI-powered reading tutor available to all state elementary schools. * **School Counselor Shortages:** Chatbots are being used to fill gaps in school counselor availability. * **Disparities in AI Access and Permissiveness:** A study across 20 states in the South and Midwest found that rural and lower-income students were **least likely to report their schools permitting AI use**. * **Risks and Concerns:** * **Houston Independent School District (HISD):** Serves as a cautionary tale. The district's curriculum was reportedly "tainted with AI slop," including AI-generated art mimicking the Harlem Renaissance and error-laden worksheets with nonsensical questions. * **Government and Industry Support:** * **Executive Order:** President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting AI use in classrooms to train teachers and ensure children gain AI expertise from an early age. * **Microsoft Pledges:** Microsoft committed **over $4 billion** to advance AI education across K-12, community colleges, and nonprofits. * **Teacher Union Partnership:** The American Federation of Teachers announced a **$23 million partnership** with Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This partnership will launch a "National Academy for AI Instruction" in New York City this fall, with plans to expand nationally to reach **10 percent of U.S. teachers over the next five years**. ### Recommendations and Perspectives: * **Need for Evolution:** Education Secretary Miguel Cardona emphasizes that schools must evolve to avoid putting students at an international disadvantage. * **Pedagogical Adaptations:** Some classrooms are reintroducing traditional assessment methods like in-class essays, oral exams, and blue-book exams to counter AI-driven outsourcing of writing and thinking. * **The "Semantic Issue" of Cheating:** Alex Kotran, co-founder of the AI Education Project, suggests that whether students using AI for homework constitutes cheating is becoming a "semantic issue," given AI's efficiency-boosting nature. * **Finding a Middle Ground:** Kotran advocates for a balanced approach, suggesting that even if widespread AI use is inevitable, prioritizing immediate, extensive hands-on student interaction with AI might not be the best strategy, drawing an analogy to the early days of the iPhone. ### Conclusion: The article concludes that AI's integration into education is an irreversible reality. The choices schools make now regarding AI adoption will significantly shape its future role in students' lives and, by extension, the broader trajectory of AI development. The challenge lies in navigating this evolving landscape to enhance education without compromising fundamental learning and critical thinking skills.

Read original at The Atlantic →

Rising seniors are the last class of students who remember high school before ChatGPT. But only just barely: OpenAI’s chatbot was released months into their freshman year. Ever since then, writing essays hasn’t required, well, writing. By the time these students graduate next spring, they will have completed almost four full years of AI high school.

Gone already are the days when using AI to write an essay meant copying and pasting its response verbatim. To evade plagiarism detectors, kids now stitch together output from multiple AI models, or ask chatbots to introduce typos to make the writing appear more human. The original ChatGPT allowed only text prompts.

Now students can upload images (“Please do these physics problems for me”) and entire documents (“How should I improve my essay based on this rubric?”). Not all of it is cheating. Kids are using AI for exam prep, generating personalized study guides and practice tests, and to get feedback before submitting assignments.

Still, if you are a parent of a high schooler who thinks your child isn’t using a chatbot for homework assistance—be it sanctioned or illicit—think again.Read: AI cheating is getting worseThe AI takeover of the classroom is just getting started. Plenty of educators are using AI in their own job, even if they may not love that chatbots give students new ways to cheat.

On top of the time they spend on actual instruction, teachers are stuck with a lot of administrative work: They design assignments to align with curricular standards, grade worksheets against preset rubrics, and fill out paperwork to support students with extra needs. Nearly a third of K–12 teachers say they used the technology at least weekly last school year.

Sally Hubbard, a sixth-grade math-and-science teacher in Sacramento, California, told me that AI saves her an average of five to 10 hours each week by helping her create assignments and supplement curricula. “If I spend all of that time creating, grading, researching,” she said, “then I don’t have as much energy to show up in person and make connections with kids.

”Beyond ChatGPT and other popular chatbots, educators are turning to AI tools that have been specifically designed for them. Using MagicSchool AI, instructors can upload course material and other relevant documents to generate rubrics, worksheets, and report-card comments. Roughly 2.5 million teachers in the United States currently use the platform: “We have reason to believe that there is a MagicSchool user in every school district in the country,” Adeel Khan, the company’s founder, told me.

I tried out the platform for myself: One tool generated a sixth-grade algebra problem about tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour: “If the price increased at a constant rate, what was the slope (rate of change) in dollars per day?” Another, “Teacher Jokes,” was underwhelming. I asked for a joke on the Cold War for 11th graders: “Why did the Cold War never get hot?

” the bot wrote. “Because they couldn’t agree on a temperature!”So far, much AI experimentation in the classroom has been small-scale, driven by tech-enthusiastic instructors such as Hubbard. This spring, she fed her course material into an AI tool to produce a short podcast on thermodynamics. Her students then listened as invented hosts discussed the laws of energy transfer.

“The AI says something that doesn’t make sense,” she told her students. “See if you can listen for that.” But some school districts are going all in on AI. Miami’s public-school system, the third-largest in the country, initially banned the use of chatbots. Over the past year, the district reversed course, rolling out Google’s Gemini chatbot to high-school classrooms where teachers are now using it to role-play historical figures and provide students with tutoring and instant feedback on assignments.

Although AI initiatives at the district level target mostly middle- and high-school students, adults are also bringing the technology to the classrooms of younger children. This past year, Iowa made an AI-powered reading tutor available to all state elementary schools; elsewhere, chatbots are filling in for school-counselor shortages.

Read: The Gen Z lifestyle subsidyMany schools still have bans on AI tools. A recent study on how kids are using AI in 20 states across the South and Midwest found that rural and lower-income students were least likely to say their schools permit AI use. The Houston Independent School District (HISD) offers one case study in what can go wrong when AI enters the classroom.

This past school year, the district’s curricula were seemingly tainted with AI slop, according to parents. In February, eighth graders viewed a slideshow depicting AI-generated art mimicking the style of the Harlem Renaissance. According to an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle written by two HISD parents, students were also given error-laden worksheets (one, on transportation technology, depicted a mix between a car and a chariot that was pulled by a horse with three back legs) and inscrutable discussion questions (“What is the exclamation point(s) to something that surprised you,” one asked).

An HISD spokesperson told me that the Harlem Renaissance images were indeed AI-generated using Canva, a graphic-design tool; he was unable to confirm whether AI was used in the other examples.None of this is slowing AI’s rollout in schools. This spring, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting AI use in the classroom with the goal of training teachers to integrate “AI into all subject areas” so that kids gain an expertise in AI “from an early age.

” The White House’s push to incorporate AI in K–12 education has repeatedly emphasized public-private partnerships, a call that tech companies already appear to be embracing. Last month, Microsoft pledged to give more than $4 billion toward advancing AI education across K–12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofits.

The same week as Microsoft’s announcement, the American Federation of Teachers, one of the country’s largest teachers unions, announced a $23 million partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. One of the partnership’s first efforts is a “National Academy for AI Instruction,” opening in New York City this fall, where instructors will learn how to use AI for generating lesson plans and other tasks.

The program then plans to expand nationally to reach 10 percent of U.S. teachers over the next five years.Schools are stuck in a really confusing place. Everyone seems to agree that education needs an upgrade for the AI era. “Our students right now are going to be put at a disadvantage internationally if we don’t evolve,” Miguel Cardona, Joe Biden’s education secretary, told me.

But no one seems to agree on what those changes should look like. Since ChatGPT’s release, the in-class essay, the oral exam, blue-book exams, and even cursive have all made something of a comeback in certain classrooms, in an effort to prevent students from outsourcing all their writing and thinking to AI.

At the same time, AI aims to make work more efficient—which is exactly what students are using it for. In that sense, whether kids using AI on their homework counts as cheating is “almost a semantic issue,” argues Alex Kotran, a co-founder of the AI Education Project, a nonprofit focused on AI literacy.

Of course, try telling that to a concerned parent.As Kotran points out, a middle ground exists between pretending students aren’t using AI and encouraging them to rely on it nonstop. “Even if you believe that everybody is going to be using AI in the future,” he told me, “it doesn’t necessarily follow that the top priority should be getting students hands-on right away.

” Imagine if in 2007, schools had decided that the best way to prepare kids for the future was to force every student to spend all day in front of an iPhone. No matter what teachers’, students’, and parents’ attitudes about AI in the classroom are, though, it’s a reality they have to deal with. The path that schools take from here has direct implications for the future of AI more generally.

The more reliant kids are on the technology now, the larger a role AI will play in their lives later. Once schools go all in, there’s no turning back.