AI in Education: Questions to Ask

Are you thinking about the use of AI in your role and/or in your district? Here are some possible questions that students, educators, and families can ask as schools and districts develop local policies and review, adopt, and reevaluate tools.

Questions for School Leaders

1. How will AI be incorporated into the classroom in a way that promotes critical thinking?
2. How is [school name] ensuring that all AI-generated content is subject to human verification?
3. Will AI be used to assign grades in any way? What are the policies around human verification of grades? Is there a process through which students may dispute a grade generated by AI?
4. Are there any processes—such as subjective grading, IEP writing, or hiring decisions—in which the use of AI will be prohibited?
5. Will AI detectors be used in any way to determine the presence of academic dishonesty? What training will teachers receive around the functionality and limitations of these tools? What options will students have to dispute false positive results?
6. How will digital literacy instruction for students evolve?
7. How are teachers being supported to vary assignment types, encourage original thought, and discourage reliance on AI-generated content?
8. What is the school’s policy on using AI-enabled surveillance tools? What safeguards are in place to ensure that these tools are not used for high-stakes decisions, like student discipline or educator evaluations?

Questions for School Board Members

1. What are the short- and long-term priorities of the school board when it comes to integrating AI safely and equitably into schools?
2. What policies are the school board considering to ensure that the benefits of AI tools don’t accrue to the most advantaged students, knowing that suburban, majority-white, low-poverty districts are most likely to provide AI training for educators?
3. How will the school board ensure that educators are adequately trained to implement AI tools in their educational environments in a safe and equitable way?
4. How will the school board ensure that student privacy and data protection remain a priority? Who is responsible for developing policies that guide data stewardship?
5. How will the school board ensure that responsible use guidelines align with best practices for use of AI in K–12 schools?
6. How will the school board ensure that students' civil rights are protected when AI is used in education settings?
7. What policies are in place to govern the use of AI-powered surveillance tools in schools? How will the school board ensure that these tools are only used when necessary and with clear prohibitions on using surveillance data for educator evaluations or student discipline?

Questions for District Leaders

1. What training, guidance, or support will the district provide or recommend for educators? Is there a plan for continued professional development as the field develops?
2. What guidance are you offering schools to evaluate the data privacy and security measures of education products they may purchase or contract from external vendors?
3. Who provides input into what AI systems [LEA Name] adopts? How can educational technology personnel, school leaders, educators, and families make their voices heard in that process?
4. How will parents and families be notified about the collection, processing, or utilization of student data by AI systems?
5. Who oversees data privacy and security at the district level? Has the district created a chief privacy officer position?
6. How will educational technology providers be held accountable for ensuring that AI tools are accessible to all students and staff?
7. What is the district’s plan for reviewing and reevaluating AI tools and best practices as the field develops? Who leads this effort?
8. What district policies exist regarding AI-driven surveillance? What protections are in place to prevent these tools from influencing hiring, promotion, or student discipline decisions?

Questions for Union Leaders

1. How will union representatives advocate to ensure that AI tools do not increase educator workload to allow their focus to remain on students?
2. What are the union’s plans for negotiating clauses in collective bargaining agreements that address the use of AI in the classroom?
3. How will the union ensure that AI tools are used equitably in a way that supports learning and differentiation for diverse learners?
4. What steps are the union taking to make sure that AI tools are used to support, not supplant, human-directed teaching in the classroom?
5. How is the union addressing the use of AI-powered surveillance technologies? What steps are the union taking to ensure prohibition of the use of such tools in educator evaluations or promotion decisions?

Questions adapted from the following resources:

• Louisiana Department of Education: Artificial Intelligence in Louisiana Schools
• North Carolina Department of Public Instruction: North Carolina Generative AI Implementation Recommendations and Considerations for PK-13 Public Schools
• Center for Reinventing Public Education: AI Is Coming to U.S. Classrooms, But Who Will Benefit?
• Council of the Great City Schools: K–12 Generative AI Readiness Checklist
• State Education Standard: State Education Policy and the New Artificial Intelligence
• Virginia Education Association: Artificial Intelligence in School: Five Questions Educators Should Be Asking
• National Education Association: Report of the NEA Task Force on Artificial Intelligence in Education