Dive Brief:
- The vast majority of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, want the government to clearly regulate the use of artificial intelligence and other new technology in K-12 schools, according to survey data from The Century Foundation.
- At least 80% of those surveyed said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about six issues related to AI and technology, including: students using AI to complete assignments without actually learning the material (85%), teachers being pressured to use AI tools without proven pedagogic benefits (81%), and schools not doing enough to prepare students for a world rapidly changing due to AI (80%).
- Separately, respondents cited non-tech-related concerns about whether students are learning at grade level in math and literacy (81% saw it as a “major problem” or “somewhat of a problem”), whether they’re in safe (80%) and well-funded (75%) environments, and whether the right to public education might be eliminated (72%).
Dive Insight:
The survey of more than 2,000 voters, conducted in May by Morning Consult, also found 86% of respondents were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the impact of social media, 84% about private companies collecting and profiting from student data, and 81% about students using cell phones in class.
“We’re seeing these cell phone bans and other concerns about technology popping up across the country,” said Julie Margetta Morgan, president of The Century Foundation and a co-author of the report. “We’ve also had parents writing into the school districts, asking them to implement tougher restrictions. We wanted to understand, ‘How deep do these concerns run? Is this pockets of families or much broader?’”
That’s important for superintendents and principals to know in an environment where state governments for the most part haven’t stepped in to “set rules of the road,” Morgan said. “The leaders of schools are having to do that. Understanding how that lands in their communities is important.”
And how that lands also seems similar across political parties, she said. “It’s a non-ideological set of concerns — which is something, when you talk about schools these days.”
When voters were asked whether they want teachers to handle school tech use issues on their own or if the government should set clear guardrails, 77% chose the latter, including 80% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats. Meanwhile, 49% of all respondents said in-class technology and AI use should be “kept to a minimum,” the report said.
“If the only people you’re hearing from on this are the companies themselves, that we know are marketing their products quite heavily to school districts, you might think you need to adopt a much more open and unreserved approach to technology in the classroom than what parents and other Americans are actually asking for,” Morgan said.
As such, districts and schools need to engage with parents on these questions and try to understand where they’re coming from, she said.
“Then, I think we need to see schools raising this to lawmakers, that families are asking for someone to step in and set some basic ground rules. That doesn’t just mean ground rules within the schools,” Morgan said. “But also ground rules for the companies themselves.”
In the current environment, superintendents are tasked with navigating agreements with the companies, “which can be pretty onerous,” she added.
“They have unclear terms, and unclear tradeoffs in terms of what the school gets, versus what they’re giving up in terms of student data,” Morgan said. “We can also be asking legislators at both the federal and state level to step in here and level the playing field between the companies and the school districts.”
