Overview
- Reporting this week shows teachers are using AI for lesson planning, tutoring, translation and personalized feedback as a classroom tool to reach historically underserved students.
- DonorsChoose data indicate more than a 200% rise in AI-related teacher requests since 2022–23 with about 86% aimed at helping students who have been underserved.
- Only a small share of teachers have formal AI training, with a Gallup poll finding roughly 18% have received instruction on how to use these tools in schools.
- Educators warn that AI has increased cheating and eroded trust, prompting some to return to in-class, pen-and-paper work rather than adopt surveillance software to catch misuse.
- Researchers and reporters note that generative AI carries recurring 'inference' computing costs and a growing data-center footprint—U.S. data centers used about 176 terawatt-hours in 2023—which raises hard questions about long-term budgets, procurement choices and local environmental impacts and is driving union calls for age-based limits and clearer guardrails.