As a new school year begins, some classrooms may use artificial intelligence tools to flag a struggling student, track attendance, or try to raise reading scores. But as school districts spend billions on these systems, many officials feel overwhelmed by the array of choices and are largely left to figure out what's safe and worth the investment on their own.
The U.S. education technology market, which includes computers, software, and digital content, generated nearly $48 billion in revenue in 2024 and is expected to reach more than $90 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. The AI in education segment alone accounted for about $2.5 billion last year and could exceed $15 billion by 2033.
"There's always an asymmetry between what the providers know and what the districts know," said Mark Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "And the question is, can we set up mechanisms for helping the districts understand what's going on and choosing better."
Districts test AI in classrooms, but caution is needed
Scott Langford, superintendent of Sumner County Schools in Tennessee, said his district decided to test AI to address plateauing middle school reading scores. The district wanted to know whether AI could give students immediate feedback and help teachers see, in real time, where students struggled during regular instruction.
"You have to identify what you need," Langford said. "The (AI edtech) market is so overwhelming for districts and for vendors. … Most of them don't really do much that drives any kind of change for students." Sumner first tried Coursemojo, an AI-powered literacy tool, in a brief pilot in a sixth-grade classroom before expanding it to half of its sixth-grade classes.
The Allentown School District in Pennsylvania uses a two-phase review process for AI programs that Superintendent Carol Birks said includes non-negotiables such as student safety and data security. Vendors must commit that user-generated data remains the district's exclusive property and that student data will not be used to train AI models.
"A significant challenge is that the onus of making these decisions is placed entirely back on the individual school district," Birks said. "Although Allentown has built strong internal capacity to handle these responsibilities, guidance from the state level on artificial intelligence vetting or protections would greatly assist school districts."
What vetting looks like in practice
In most cases, vendors must sign a data processing agreement, complete a security questionnaire, and pass legal, privacy and security reviews before a tool is approved. Some states already have laws for traditional education technology purchases, but many districts haven't laid out best practices for how to enter contracts or bid for certain AI tools.
Some AI use has drawn litigation. Students and parents in Arizona and Kansas filed federal lawsuits challenging school districts' use of Gaggle, a student-safety monitoring platform, saying it violated their constitutional rights. In Los Angeles, the superintendent resigned after the district paid $3 million for an AI chatbot from AllHere, which later filed for bankruptcy and whose founder was charged with fraud.
State education boards have begun filling some gaps. Pennsylvania's Department of Education guides schools to understand who controls data, examine third-party privacy practices, keep a human "in the loop" for grading and discipline, and assess whether the tool improves student performance. New York City Public Schools updated its privacy review to require AI vendors to disclose capabilities and prohibit using student data for model training. Chicago Public Schools released an AI Guidebook and in December began blocking unapproved third-party AI products from its network.
Janice Mak, associate director of curriculum and pedagogy at Arizona State University's Learning Engineering Institute, says districts should evaluate whether a tool is accessible, explainable, grounded in learning science, and solving a real educational need. She heard from a teacher piloting an AI tool who noticed English learners were being unfairly misread by the system - and the teacher used the moment to teach students about algorithmic bias.
The burden on already stretched districts
School districts are being asked to do too much on their own, said Sue Thotz, director of outreach for Common Sense Education at Common Sense Media. She pointed to a California data privacy agreement that lets districts use a searchable database of vendors who have already signed a blanket compliance agreement, reducing the need for districts to negotiate privacy terms from scratch.
"Placing the burden upon a district to make sure that every single vendor they're working with is in full compliance with their state and federal laws when it comes to privacy - that's a tall order for districts that are already stretched very, very thin," Thotz said.
Districts may also be sorting through an accumulation of a decade's worth of technology purchases, said Tracy Weeks, senior director of education policy and strategy at Instructure, maker of the Canvas learning management system. An Instructure report found districts had access to an average of 3,001 digital tools, while students and educators used only four of them on average. "What I think has happened is that we did a lot of digital hoarding," Weeks said.
Educators who need to understand AI's role in their school can explore an AI Learning Path for Teachers that provides practical, evidence-based guidance on classroom tools. For broader policy context, the article touches on issues covered in the AI for Education tag at Complete AI Training.
Why this matters for educators and administrators
If you work in a school, you are on the front line of a market where billions are spent and where most decisions land on your desk with little state or federal backup. The key takeaway: before adopting any AI tool, ask whether it meets a specific classroom need, whether student data is protected, and whether teachers themselves have tested it with live students before broader rollout. As one researcher put it, "Anything with AI is a risky click."
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