The use of artificial intelligence continues to increase rapidly, but unevenly, across schools.
States and school districts have different policies governing AI use. In some cases, state policies simply say that districts must have their own guidelines at the local level that govern data privacy and other needs. In other cases, the state requirements are more prescriptive or mandate the creation of new academic standards that include AI.
Additionally, individual teachers’ and students’ modes of experimentation with the tech can vary from classroom to classroom. Some educators have immersed themselves in general-use AI platforms, such as ChatGPT or Claude—which typically have age restrictions for the safety of the student—while others are relying on AI tools and platforms designed specifically for schools.
The EdWeek Research Center’s recent surveys of administrators and teachers speak to the hodgepodge AI landscape and student experiences with the technology.
Seventy-three percent of educators say their district does not have a districtwide initiative focused on artificial intelligence. Just 27% say they do, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted of 140 district leaders, 89 school leaders, and 464 teachers between September and November 2025.
In a separate survey conducted in June through July of 2025 of 264 teachers, 61% said they use AI-driven tools in the classroom, 8% said they have not used AI but plan to start in the future, and 8% planned to start that school year.
Twenty-one percent said they have never used them and do not plan to start. Two percent said they used to use AI but stopped.
Victor Lee, an associate professor in the graduate school of education at Stanford University, said given the lack of guidance from policymakers and the perceived risks of using AI, some classroom educators’ wariness of bringing the tech to students is understandable.
“There’s still hesitation amongst teachers with using AI at a velocity, especially now with a larger tech backlash [happening in schools],” said Lee.
Why some students use general-purpose AI over ed-tech tools
Many school districts lack policies guiding which specific types of AI technologies students and teachers can use. As a result, educators and students are using general-purpose AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT over AI tech designed specifically for use in classrooms, said Matt Alonzo, a math and computer science teacher at Parkway North High School in St. Louis.
But general-purpose AI tools often come with age restrictions—strongly supported by many advocates and parents—that can limit students’ ability to use them, or prevent them from taking them up at all, Alonzo noted.
Without offering clear direction to teachers and students on what tools are allowed or off limits, schools are “really creating a barrier for students who don’t have access to use AI in the way that we would like our students to be using it,” said Alonzo.
Without “a policy, a focused AI integration process,” said Michael Martin, principal of Buckeye Central High School in Ohio, teachers will be using AI “in different ways and all at different levels of understanding,” which will cause a problem.
Martin’s school uses school-specific AI tools like MagicSchoolAI and Gemini, he told Education Week. Martin is aware that teachers take up AI tools outside of the school-endorsed platforms, but those are mainly used to aid educators in aspects of their work that aren’t directly tied to students.
For example, some teachers use ChatGPT or Claude to come up with ideas for classroom activities, and Martin has tapped Perplexity for research to support his role as a principal.
Valentine Torres, the business department chair and business dual-credit instructor at Hobart High School in Indiana, told Education Week that her students had previously been using HeyPi.com, a brainstorming AI-powered tool, but this school year, HeyPi.com put in place an age restriction.
Her school is piloting an AI policy, but it won’t be implemented until next school year. The policy describes the degree to which students should be allowed to use AI, with different levels based on how appropriate it is. Those standards extend from level zero, which calls for students to work independently of the technology and not use AI at all for assignments, to level four, which says students can use AI as a partner for a project.
Age restrictions on AI are, in many respects, a positive development, Torres said. They can push teachers to “make sure that they dig a little deeper into [a] tool before they introduce it to a high school student,” said Torres.
Ways schools can make AI more equitable
Concerns about uneven access to technology, of course, go back decades.
Torres recalls that she grew up during a time when there were clear divides between those who learned to use the internet as an academic resource and those who didn’t because it wasn’t something they were taught.
She wants to do her part to make sure she’s not allowing a new form of tech inequity to take hold. “I’m going to teach kids how to use these tech tools [like AI],” said Torres. What she doesn’t want is that “30 years from now, half of them are going to be behind on technology.”
Lee sees parallels between discussions schools and policymakers are having about equitable AI access to those that played out about high-speed internet or mobile devices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We think about AI as an “access point for everybody, but we also want to make sure that it’s done safely, responsibly,” he said.
In an effort to create an equitable learning environment, Torres doesn’t assign homework that requires students to use AI-driven technology outside of school.
Torres shares her class syllabus with parents and tells them which digital tools, including those that rely on AI, are being used for different lessons. That communication helps parents understand the intersection between the tech students are using at home and at school.
“It’s important to be transparent with parents,” she said. “When we’re transparent, we typically won’t get [a parent that doesn’t want their kid to use the tool].”
Martin says the most important questions about students’ interactions with AI center on whether they’re being encouraged to use it in academically rich ways.
“Every kid has access to [AI, but] do they have access to really high-quality AI literacy, high-quality instruction?” said Martin.
Lee advises educators to consider what they are trying to accomplish through AI—as they would any digital tool—and build guidance and specific lessons from there.
“What we want to think about is purposeful instructional use of any particular technology,” he said, and evidence that the teacher’s strategy for using it is “actually a good way to do it.”
