Dive Brief:
- The American Federation of Teachers and its New York branch, the United Federation of Teachers, announced Tuesday that Anthropic has signed onto an agreement related to its artificial intelligence software, aligned with the AI Safety and Privacy Standard for Schools. The legally binding agreement’s terms will apply to Anthropic's existing agreements with school districts.
- The agreement requires the AI company, which provides Claude for Teachers, to use student and educator information only for authorized educational purposes. Schools control how long data is kept and when it is deleted.
- It also requires AI products to include safeguards for schools and requires the company to provide schools and families with information on its products, what data is collected, where it falls short, and what protections are in place. It is effective Tuesday.
Dive Insight:
In September, AFT and UFT announced Microsoft had signed onto the AI safety and privacy agreement.
The AI Safety and Privacy Standard for Schools bars tech companies from using student and educator data to train AI models and from selling or using that data for advertising purposes. It also requires those companies to implement strong security protections and to design their tools to avoid harmful or manipulative experiences for students.
The unions’ agreement with Microsoft went into effect Nov. 1, and any school district nationwide that wants to add the AI safety and privacy standards to their new or current contracts with Microsoft can do so without being required to renew or renegotiate.
The Tuesday agreement with Anthropic formalizes that company’s own commitment to an agreement drafted by the unions in September.
AI can only “protect and enhance” teachers’ work “if teachers, students and school systems trust us,” Elizabeth Kelly, head of beneficial deployments at Anthropic, said in a Nov. 10 statement. “These agreements provide a foundation for that trust.”
Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, said in a statement that the agreement is "one step closer to an industry standard" now that Anthropic, a major player in the AI space, has joined.
“We said repeatedly that the guardrails for AI are just as important as any training we were doing for AI,” said Weingarten in the statement, adding that eventually the union hopes a standard will be "embedded in law."
“In the almost total absence of federal and state AI regulation, we want to make certain no teacher or parent ever has to choose between AI tools and the safety and privacy of their children," said Weingarten.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, said in a statement, "Ideally, the federal government would step in, but since it hasn’t, teachers unions are working to hold AI companies accountable."
The move comes as school systems nationwide have pushed back on the fast-growing technology.
In September, New York City — home to the nation's largest school system — announced that it was implementing the nation's “most expansive” AI moratorium for students.
The one-year pause prohibits student-facing AI tools for New York City Public Schools students in 2-K, a preschool program for 2-year-olds, through 8th grade during the 2026-27 school year. The temporary AI ban is expected to impact 600,000 students — or two-thirds of NYC’s public school enrollment.
The ban did not apply to teachers' use of AI.
That same month, Los Angeles Unified School District also announced it would restrict all students from using AI tools for the 2026-27 school year.
