Teachers' Union Reverses Course on AI, Calls for Classroom Restrictions
The American Federation of Teachers is pushing to limit student use of artificial intelligence in schools, reversing its openness to the technology less than a year ago. AFT President Randi Weingarten called Wednesday for wide-scale rollbacks of digital technology in classrooms, restrictions on student-facing AI tools, and stronger research and teacher training on safety and privacy issues.
"Intentional or not, all this tech has been a huge experiment on kids, and experiments can go wrong," Weingarten said at a briefing at the National Press Club.
The union represents 1.8 million teachers. AI will be an issue in virtually every contract negotiation this year, Weingarten said.
What AFT Wants Banned
The union is calling for schools to ban:
- All screen use under grade 3, including online tests, without a "compelling reason" such as supports for students with disabilities
- All student-facing AI tools, such as digital tutors, in elementary school
- Companion chatbots and any AI program that simulates human relationships for students under 16
At least 38 states have already restricted or banned mobile phones in schools. Teachers in those states report students are more engaged, with hallways and lunchrooms bustling with conversation instead of students focused on screens, Weingarten said.
For secondary students, the union wants AI-based tools used only under teacher supervision and calls for wide-scale teacher training on AI issues.
Teachers' Concerns
Sari Beth Rosenberg, a history teacher at the High School for Environmental Studies in New York City, said she worries students will skip developing critical-thinking skills if they rely on AI to do the work.
"If you're relying on AI to do that, you're never going to have it," she said. "And then you're not going to be prepared for a world where AI is replacing any job that's a template."
Leah Van Dassor, president of the St. Paul teachers' union, an AFT affiliate, recently negotiated AI language into her contract. "Sure, if AI is going to make my job faster and easier, awesome-but only as long as people are still making the deep decisions that need to be made through their critical thinking," she said.
The AI Industry's Role
Last summer, AI firms including Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI partnered with AFT to create a five-year, $23 million National Academy for AI Instruction to train teachers. So far, the companies have kept their promises not to influence the curriculum, Weingarten said.
However, they have been slower to adopt the Academy's safety, privacy, and data security standards because doing so would require changing their products, she added.
The new AFT plan explicitly calls for the federal government to develop AI safety research and teacher training independent from AI developers. "I am not calling for a ban on AI or a bonfire of Chromebooks," Weingarten said. "I am calling for the tech industry to not have this overwhelming influence that basically stops legislatures from doing what they need to do."
Broader Demands
AFT also called on the federal government to strengthen intellectual property rights in AI contexts and impose a tax on major technology companies to fund efforts addressing AI-related job disruption.
Weingarten linked tech companies' dominance to wealth inequality. "Artificial intelligence is accelerating the steepest upward transfer of wealth in modern history," she said. "Tech kingpins and corporations can afford to pay a fair tech tax; workers, communities and the Earth can't afford for them not to."
The union situated its AI prescriptions within a larger education plan calling for increased public funding, curriculum redesign focused on foundational literacy and numeracy, and greater emphasis on civic engagement and student well-being.
Teachers concerned about AI's effects on students and the environment should understand both the risks and potential benefits. Consider exploring AI for Teachers Courses to build your own understanding of how to guide students through responsible AI use.
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