Families and students need guidance on AI

OPINION:

Delaware families and policymakers are wrestling with the same issue troubling Americans nationwide: how to handle artificial intelligence.

In 2024, lawmakers in the Blue Hen State created a committee to study AI. Good thing, because parents and teachers badly need guidance on this issue.

Yet AI technology has advanced rapidly over the past two years, so the committee should prioritize drafting recommendations for K-12 schools.

To date, state officials have set only “voluntary” guardrails around AI use in elementary and secondary schools, according to the Delaware-based Caesar Rodney Institute. In May, legislators considered a proposal to create a pilot program that would allow 12 schools to use AI technology.

Still, the final report on the activities would not be due until 2029, and this year’s freshman class will be seniors by then. These students will be gone before lawmakers act on the report’s findings. Instead, lawmakers should focus on helping students in school today.

Besides, given the pace of change in AI technology, this proposal is too little, too late.

Fortunately, legislative models already exist that lawmakers can apply to allow the use of AI in schools, protect student data and prohibit nonacademic AI activities in classrooms.

Heritage Foundation research explains that lawmakers need not explicitly ban or allow the use of AI in schools. For school officials who allow AI in classrooms, however, educators should adopt training programs for teachers and students. These programs should help teachers and students draft prompts and questions for generative AI bots; create media using AI, such as audio, video and pictures; edit student writing; detect biases in AI results; evaluate different AI bots to decide which are the most effective; and protect student privacy.

Local school boards should adopt policies stating that students may use AI for schoolwork only when specifically allowed by teachers.

The U.S. Department of Education is urging state and local authorities to develop solutions. “Research and experience have demonstrated that technology is a valuable instructional tool when it supports strong pedagogy and effective teaching practices,” writes Kirsten Baesler, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. “The U.S. Department of Education believes these decisions [about education technology] are best made by states and local communities.”

Policymakers should move quickly. Even if self-reported student usage numbers are slightly inflated, the share of students using AI remains remarkable.

Education officials in large school systems such as New York City and Los Angeles are attempting to prohibit the use of AI for this school year. With so many students already using bots, however, a ban on AI will be difficult to enforce.

Instead of prohibiting AI, policymakers should draw on existing research to select appropriate educational applications of the technology. For example, lawmakers should block the use of companion bots that simulate personal interactions and develop relationships with users.

Instead, educators can give students access to generative bots that use data to summarize complex information. Teachers can benefit from AI programs that help organize lesson plans. When teachers assign students to use AI, students should report how they used the technology.

Parents should have the choice to opt out of these assignments and have students complete the work using other methods.

State policymakers must focus on boosting student outcomes as technology evolves. Federal officials agree. Ms. Baesler writes: “The question should not be whether teachers and students use technology. The question should be whether the technology we ask teachers and students to use improves learning and students’ academic outcomes.”

As Delaware’s AI committee drafts recommendations, officials should focus on student success. Those on both sides of the political aisle — and on either side of AI debates — can agree on this.

Then, parents and teachers can share best practices and offer solutions to help students across all 50 states.

• Jonathan Butcher is acting director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy and its Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy.